The HERO System

[drnuncheon]

I didn't see Stat/5 as too granular for characteristic rolls; I just thought we should divide all stats by five to get to the real stats underlying the actual game mechanics.

That's pretty much what Fuzion did.

J

 

[mmadsen]

Oh, so you want to play Fuzion, then?

Actually, no. I think that one change was a good one though. For the most part, I feel that Fuzion simplified the aspects of Hero that benefited from their complexity (powers, with multiplication and division for advantages and limitations), and kept much of the complexity that didn't help (numerous stats).

As was also pointed out, HERO isn't alone in this regard (e.g., d20), so I don't know it needs to be singled out.

It's a minor flaw in d20; it's a much bigger flaw in Hero.

For sake of discussion, what system(s) do you think does what HERO does but does it with numbers you find more streamlined? TriStat? M&M? GURPS? the aforementioned Fuzion?

I don't think any system retains Hero's "good" complexity and discards its "bad" complexity. I was hoping fifth edition would move in that direction, but it obviously didn't.

Of the games you mentioned, I'm least familiar with M&M -- and, perhaps for that reason, I see the most promise there.

 

[hong]

Of the games you mentioned, I'm least familiar with M&M -- and, perhaps for that reason, I see the most promise there.

The trick with M&M is to eat the red ones last.


Hong "but, of course, you knew this already" Ooi

 

[buzz]

So if i get this right... using your chosen example of DND magic items, in DND you use the cost structure to get a value and thenyou also have to use a final judgement/comparison test, and thats whats wrong with DND design.

I'm not claiming anything's wrong with D&D. I'm a drooling D&D fanboy. I'm just countering your assertion that HERO's toolkit nature doesn't provide any mroe guidance than D&D/d20. I think that it does, because you're not reverse-engineering everything; you've got a system that is designed to build things from scratch. D&D, even at it's most detailed (of which magic item creation is probably the best example), relies more on eyeballing things, becasue the inner workings are much more hidden.

FWIW, for me, just skip directly to the final judgement and comparison, based on your campaign, story, characters etc. the numbers are so often wrong as to be more of a distraction than a boon. (Thats for both systems.)

That's cool. Again, things boil down to preference.

Really... see i own star hero and champions genre books for 5e and i really do not recall any "in depth" cost changes running around. As matter of fact, those genre books seemed to do not a lot with the system costs at all, beyond provide a number of character templates and prefigured gear using basically the normal rules.

See the magic system creation chapter in Fantasy HERO.

Well all i can say is, i have not mentioned comparing characters across genres. I don't do cross genre campaigns.

Then I'm not really sure what your argument is. If you want to put the same limitation on HERO that you have in D&D --i.e., restriction to a single genre/setting with codified rules and guidelines-- I don't see how points in HERO are any less of a valuable metric than levels are in D&D.

Sure, you can argue that, blind, I have no idea how two 350pt HERO PCs compare to each other. You haven't told me what genre we're talking about, or what active point limitations are in effect, and so on. Now, if you asked me whether two standard Champions Universe 350pt PCs were balanced against each other, I'd say odds are yes. As with D&D, there's a context and structure there for me to make a judgement. The points mean something.

OTOH, the argument you're making now is like asking me if all FUDGE characters are balanced with each other. Seeing as FUDGE can be used for anything from Watership Down to Dragonball Z, it's a nonsensical question without any context.

Ergo, why I brought up comparisons between different d20 games. It puts you in the same boat.

45 pts does not have the same meaning, Nor does 350 pts, because of the lack of context and structured chargen.

The lack of context and structured chargen is the *point* of HERO. You seem to be arguing more against generic RPGs than you are point-based RPGs.

Against 20 pt defenses...

Firebolt: 9d6 EB (45 pts) gets something like 11 stun thru conservative average per hit. Thats a reasonably effective power.

Fireball: 4 1/2 d6 Area Of Effect 2" radius (46 ap) will average little if anything thru... most of the time doing nothing, but doing it to more people.

This isn't a complex hero build power, or some oddball crooked up "players would never imagine that" type of thing.

both 45 pts, or close.

There's only a discrepancy here if you're talking about a campaign that consists of nothing but NPCs with 20+ point defenses who always attack one at a time. IRL, campaigns tend not to work that way. The powers balance out due to the trade-off between damage and area of effect.

So in D20 a problem is that you need experience to design stuff, but HERO is not good for inexperienced Gms anyway.

With HERO, the very act of chargen and playing the game is learning how to design with the system. With D&D, there's extra effort involved (IMO); you need to pry open the black box and figure out how it works. With HERO, *you* are the one who built the box in the first place.

This does not make HERO "better" than D&D/d20. It just makes it a toolkit. Each approach has its appeal. IOW, sometimes you want to pop open a Terminal window and get at the command line; sometimes, you want to point and click and get immediate results.

 

[mmadsen]

I agree that many Hero resources are presented in a "crunchy" manner. This doesn't mean there isn't good source material there, and many of the campaign sourcebooks are excellent.

In fact, Aaron Allston's Strikeforce is one of the best campaign sourcebooks ever.

 

[Rackhir]

First, it doesn't sound like the gamemaster was telling him how to run his character; the gamemaster was adjudicating the rules, by the book.

Second, although an experienced gamemaster could have designed a better Spidey clone, I think it is fair to blame the system -- not completely, but to a very large extent -- because that same gamemaster wouldn't have had those problems running another system.

Your arguments seem to come down to nitpicking. Yes, you can blame the system instead of the DM or the player. IF you ignore the fact that the DM created a very bad character and the player didn't understand the system well enough to work within the rules or take advantage of what he could actually do vs what he thought the character should be able to do.

Are there other systems where the problem might not have arisen in the same situation, sure. However it's just as likely that the DM would have still done a piss poor job of creating the character and denied him doing anything that didn't fit in with the DM's conception of what the character was and could do.

Incompetence and stupidity have a way of screwing things up irregardless of the situation.

The question you are asking is "Is there a system with a mechanic that could have fixed this situation". And your response seems to be that if there is, then Champions is a horrible system.

A much better and more reasonable question to ask is

"Is there a method where the character could have done what he wanted in Champions" - The answer to this is clearly and unarguably YES.

To me that means that the fault lies with the creator of the character and to a lesser extent the player. However, he was handed a character that did almost nothing that he was expecting to be able to do. Second, he was a newbie player. Holding a newbie to the strict letter of rules he doesn't understand for a character he didn't create is simply obnoxious behavior. So again I think we can blame the DM for that.

I think you've successfully argued for a system where players can easily think up new uses for old powers, on the fly -- and then use them.

Here you are not only nitpicking, but ignoring most of my arguments and their context to come up with a conclusion that is the anthesis of what I was arguing. You are even ignoring the fact that I stated specifically HOW to do in Champions, exactly what you are complaining Champions doesn't do.

Are you simply trolling for flames?

 

[Henry]

Hello. Just hearing some voices being raised, thought I'd check in and see if everything's OK. It's nice to see the earlier problems are being smoothed out with one another.

Carry on, all.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

I'm not claiming anything's wrong with D&D. I'm a drooling D&D fanboy. I'm just countering your assertion that HERO's toolkit nature doesn't provide any mroe guidance than D&D/d20. I think that it does, because you're not reverse-engineering everything; you've got a system that is designed to build things from scratch. D&D, even at it's most detailed (of which magic item creation is probably the best example), relies more on eyeballing things, becasue the inner workings are much more hidden.

They are not "more hideen". There is not some secret formula running around that WOTC keeps squirrelled away. Things are effect-defined and comparison-valued and playtested. Its all up front. The closest to formulas and secret inner workings are the spell level benchmarks and what not which are indeed "hidden" in the DMg section on, get this, making custom spells.

See the magic system creation chapter in Fantasy HERO.

So, the fantasy hero genre book is the one that starts with the point costs? Not the other genre books?

I stopped buying after Star HEro, which means i got the champions one, one of the martial arts ones and star hero. I had indeed hoped for just what you claimed... good in depth info about adjusting the costs and such to meet the genre and game... and it was lacking...

I did find out tho, for instance, that the ability to improve your combat CV by up to +2 by spending actions to raise it and only when fighting with certain individuals COSTS (24 pts: combat array) 33% more than just buying the dexterity (18 pts) and reaping the benefits of the Cv and the dex and other things it brings without the need for losing actions or having a specific partner. (This also, printed specifically in the books and confirmed by Long.)

This, the vacuum space thingy, etc did not lend me to think the subsequent genre books would have turned the corner so drastically.

Then I'm not really sure what your argument is. If you want to put the same limitation on HERO that you have in D&D --i.e., restriction to a single genre/setting with codified rules and guidelines-- I don't see how points in HERO are any less of a valuable metric than levels are in D&D.

I have no problem with restricting it to a genre. Say the champions style avengers campaign. In such a campaign, would you be willing to bet money two 350 pt characters were balanced?

Sure, you can argue that, blind, I have no idea how two 350pt HERO PCs compare to each other. You haven't told me what genre we're talking about, or what active point limitations are in effect, and so on. Now, if you asked me whether two standard Champions Universe 350pt PCs were balanced against each other, I'd say odds are yes. As with D&D, there's a context and structure there for me to make a judgement. The points mean something.

I gotta say, this is flumoxing.

I have seen numerous posts on the hero boards where someone asks about balancing characters and how to do it and almost to a man everyone when asked about using total points basically said that wont work. Long lists of comparisons of CVs, AP limits, Dexes, stun values, con stun benchmarks, various rules of X etc were given time and time again and no one said... "just go by total real points and odds are you are probably gonna be OK."

It appears they all could learn something from you. They are really overcomplicating things if indeed, as you say, total points will handle it.

OTOH, the argument you're making now is like asking me if all FUDGE characters are balanced with each other. Seeing as FUDGE can be used for anything from Watership Down to Dragonball Z, it's a nonsensical question without any context.

Nope.

Ergo, why I brought up comparisons between different d20 games. It puts you in the same boat.

I am happy with sticking to a single genre.

The lack of context and structured chargen is the *point* of HERO. You seem to be arguing more against generic RPGs than you are point-based RPGs.

nope.

There's only a discrepancy here if you're talking about a campaign that consists of nothing but NPCs with 20+ point defenses who always attack one at a time. IRL, campaigns tend not to work that way. The powers balance out due to the trade-off between damage and area of effect.

Wow... it just happens? The powers just balances themselves?

Sure, thats the party line... the area makes up for it...

I dont think so. but then, i do the math...

See, whereas you think the powers will balance in an averngers style champions game, i did say that right? I think it might, or it might not.

I think it depends on how many of the adversaries are "agent level" guys with really low defenses that come in close clusters... after all a 2" radius AOE is only 3 hexes diameter... about 18' across.

But then we run into, of course, the fact that guys packed in that closely can be hit by spreading the EB... against say three guys in that size i can drop my EB to 6d6 and get an attack roll against all three... or i could throw the 4 1/2 d6 Eb. if i assume these villains have defenses half as good as the heroes... say 10 total, then the aoe gets about 7 stun thru per person (not enough to knock them out and not enough to even con stun a normal guy) but the 6d6 is gonna average about 11 thru.

Even if you assume i miss with one of the three attack rolls, thats still getting as much damage thru. (and 11 would con stun a "normal" though likely not an agent type.)

So, how often would you expect these avengers style PCs to be going against these weaker adversaries where noticeable stun goes thru on 4 1/2 d6 vs how often they will be meeting supers level guys with defenses in the 15-20 range? How often would the DCVs of these weaker bad guys be high enough to make spreading for three to hit rolls doing 6d6 be a worse choice than dropping the 4 1/2 d6 aoe in? Just give me a ballpark range?

See, based on the numbers, doing the math, it looks like this super group would need to have MOST of its adversaries in the fights they play against in the weak level defenses of 10 tops , and as many of the "unarmored normal guy" with EDs of 2-5 as they meet of supers with EDs of 15-20 to have these two attacks come off as "balanced".

Thats not like any 350 champions level game i have ever seen.
Its definitely not an avengers style game.

If a player brought me a character for champions with a 9d6 firebolt as his attack power, i would tell him... thats low but serviceable. If thats what you want, it can work, but realize you wont be the heavy hitter." and in most scenarios he would be doing damage.

EDIT: For instance, even with campaign attack norms of 10-12d6, if this was his attack power, it would be good enough for him to balance out with say a higher OCV than normal... he does less per hit, but rarely misses and takes difficult shots with ease. He might find it possible to use it to hit small targets like held items and knock them from villains hands. This is a viable attack power even if a little below average DCs and APs for such a game.

If he brought me the same guy with the 4 1/2 d6 aoe as his attack power, i would tell him "in this game, that wont work. You will be mostly fighting supers, with some agents now and again, but most of the guys you will be wanting to shoot at will have defenses of 10-20 and that power just wont be useful often enough to warrant that value."

What would you tell these two guys?

How many times would your avengers guys out of say 10 "combats you play out fully" would go against "guys with def less than 5", guys with defenses less than 10" etc in order to balance these two powers?

What circumstances would occur frequently enough to allow the AOE guy to see his AOE as better than the spread EB guys?

Do we have hoardes of average joe speedsters every other week?

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

Your arguments seem to come down to nitpicking. Yes, you can blame the system instead of the DM or the player. IF you ignore the fact that the DM created a very bad character and the player didn't understand the system well enough to work within the rules or take advantage of what he could actually do vs what he thought the character should be able to do.

Actually, it seems like the point is much simpler than that...
the default in HERo is that what you want to be able to do is either FREE (maneuvers and such) or it is bought with very little room in between.

Super-heroes are often not that limited. They frequently come up with creative uses on the fly that may never be used again.

To require IN DESIGN of characters who want to have that ability to either
a. use VPPs (thats cool for newbie intro games... hand them a VPP!!)
b. detail every power usage
c. or now, in FRED, buy up the use power skill and HOPE this Gm is nice in his entirely subjective interpretation of how much can be done.

is seeming wrong..

Now, as a for example... in Mutants and Masterminds...

every hero can, without a VPP, without buying a skill and such, without thinking of every power combo imaginable, spend extra effort (in pre\actice a hero point) to add a power/extra or feat or stunt that makes sense for a short time (in some cases maybe an hour.)

Webs wants to web-in-the-eyes? He says extra effort, spends a hero point to avoid the downsides, and sploosh, he makes a dazzle attack against the bad guy. roll to hit, enemy makes reflex save to avoid, or he is blinded.

its quite simple and very much gets the "just like in the comics" feel. BTW. i often got comments of "wow, just like in the comics" when my guys were doing mnm characters after our hero games folded. Interestingly, in well over a decade, almost two, of HERo Gming, i never ever heard anyone exhult during hero chargen "wow, just like in the comics."

I have seen other D20 games which use the action dice or hero points mechanic to allow "use a feat you do not have for a scene" as well.

Are there other systems where the problem might not have arisen in the same situation, sure. However it's just as likely that the DM would have still done a piss poor job of creating the character and denied him doing anything that didn't fit in with the DM's conception of what the character was and could do.

There is a difference between the Gm not going beyond the rules and him just screwing up.

Incompetence and stupidity have a way of screwing things up irregardless of the situation.

Which does not mean the system was good or right.

Honestly, the example he gave seems to be a mediocre GM who WAS playing by the rules. Did he provide a well rounded character? nope.
Did he provide a character that goodly imitates spidey? nope.
But was his refusal to allow off the cuff powers that were not prefigured wrong or an abuse of the system? nope.
is it a characteristic of HERo, back then if not now, that its common and routine for powers not paid for to be allopwed off the cuff? nope.

The question you are asking is "Is there a system with a mechanic that could have fixed this situation". And your response seems to be that if there is, then Champions is a horrible system.

or possibly not one well suited for the hurley burly world of supers. i mean, it is possible that there are some genres hero doesn't do perfectly, isn't it?

A much better and more reasonable question to ask is
"Is there a method where the character could have done what he wanted in Champions" - The answer to this is clearly and unarguably YES.

I would add... "reasonably"

I mean just because given a 100 slot long multipower i CAN do spidey, doesn't mean that this is a good thing, especially if common PCs wont be able to pull that off in chargen.

I mean, sure, he could have handed the player a char sheet with VPP 200 pts cosmic power web powers... but that would not be any more playable.

I think perhaps, had the game had a mechanic similar to MnMs, where say a limited number of "off the cuff" powers could be described by the newbie player and quickly handled in play (the MnM would simply be a dazzle at the same level as the web, in HERo maybe a flash vs sight of similar ap poof done) then he would have walked away wanting to play the system.

What the Gm showed him was with HERo its about the points. Its about the chargen.

Had the game provided a reasonable mechanic in the to allow you to adapt on the fly off the cuff, he would have walked away with a sense of it being about the playing, not the building, about the choices and not the points, about the do and not the buy.

HERO5 has begun to move that way with the vague and unspecific POWER SKILL.
However, IMO, as hard and precise as HERO is, I find those who played it a lot tended to avoid the vague and unspecific parts in favor of the hard and defined.

 

[Rackhir]

Actually, it seems like the point is much simpler than that...
the default in HERo is that what you want to be able to do is either FREE (maneuvers and such) or it is bought with very little room in between.

Super-heroes are often not that limited. They frequently come up with creative uses on the fly that may never be used again.

To require IN DESIGN of characters who want to have that ability to either
a. use VPPs (thats cool for newbie intro games... hand them a VPP!!)
b. detail every power usage
c. or now, in FRED, buy up the use power skill and HOPE this Gm is nice in his entirely subjective interpretation of how much can be done.

is seeming wrong.
Now, as a for example... in Mutants and Masterminds...

every hero can, without a VPP, without buying a skill and such, without thinking of every power combo imaginable, spend extra effort (in pre\actice a hero point) to add a power/extra or feat or stunt that makes sense for a short time (in some cases maybe an hour.)

Webs wants to web-in-the-eyes? He says extra effort, spends a hero point to avoid the downsides, and sploosh, he makes a dazzle attack against the bad guy. roll to hit, enemy makes reflex save to avoid, or he is blinded.

its quite simple and very much gets the "just like in the comics" feel. BTW. i often got comments of "wow, just like in the comics" when my guys were doing mnm characters after our hero games folded. Interestingly, in well over a decade, almost two, of HERo Gming, i never ever heard anyone exhult during hero chargen "wow, just like in the comics."

I have seen other D20 games which use the action dice or hero points mechanic to allow "use a feat you do not have for a scene" as well.

Champions does reward good character design, but can you tell me of a system where bad character designs are effective? Every system has little tricks and techniques for improving characters that aren't immediately obvious.

You keep repeating "detail every power usage" as if it is some impossiblity. Nearly all character concepts have limits to them. No rational person can make a decent argument for "web" powers enabling you to travel FTL. For a spider man character it's not terribly difficult to come up with a multipower that has pretty much anything you are likely to think of in play.

Keep in mind that a lot of the "New power uses" you get in comics are simply plot devices that the author thought would look cool/solve the plot problem for this issue. RPGs can't permit an unlimited flexibility in that way, because there is such a thing as balance issues. Iron Man doesn't have to worry about skewing everything if he suddenly has the DeusExMachina gadget that exactly solves this issue's plot problem. DMs do.

As for the VPPs. They are only necessary if you demand ABSOLUTE flexibility. Are they suitable for newbies, no not really. However the MM system you describe is equally useless to someone who doesn't know the system or the powers, WITHOUT assistance. A little bit of help from the DM or players would handle the problems of using the VPP, just like you'd have to do for a newbie in MM.

I'll admit it would be nice to have a little bit more flexibilty in the use of your powers to cover some of those odd little situations that might arise. However, I've played champions for a long time (about 20yrs) and I have found that if you don't have a DM who keeps the game system in a straightjacket, it is not a problem. That is what the DM is for, providing judgement, otherwise you might as well be playing a computer game with indestructable doors.

There is a difference between the Gm not going beyond the rules and him just screwing up.

Which does not mean the system was good or right.

Honestly, the example he gave seems to be a mediocre GM who WAS playing by the rules. Did he provide a well rounded character? nope.
Did he provide a character that goodly imitates spidey? nope.
But was his refusal to allow off the cuff powers that were not prefigured wrong or an abuse of the system? nope.
is it a characteristic of HERo, back then if not now, that its common and routine for powers not paid for to be allopwed off the cuff? nope.

So your argument seems to be that no matter how poorly the characters are built or the campaign run. If another system run by a competent DM and using a well designed character, will accomplish what was desired then it is the fault of the system in the first example?

A certain amount of flexibility is neccessary for a well run campaign. No system ever covers all the situations and possibilities that arise. If the DM can't provide flexibility then the game is going to suck, no matter the virtues or vices of the system.

or possibly not one well suited for the hurley burly world of supers.

You are the first person I've ever seen to argue that HERO system is not suited to running Superheroes. I admire you for being able to type that with a straight face.