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Message: <blockquote data-quote="buzz" data-source="post: 1491258" data-attributes="member: 6777">When I say "a difference between subjective and arbitrary," I'm not trying to assign either adjective to the systems being discussed. I'm trying to say something about how you're using the word "subjective." The tone of your post implied (to me) that by saying point costs in HERO are "subjective", you're saying that they're "arbitrary." I.e., that the designers just assigned point values willy-nilly, and the costs of individual powers have no relation to each other.AFAIK, this isn't the case. And by mentioning how long the system has been around, I'm simply trying to point out that, even if there was a lot of arbitraryness when Champions was first designed in 1981 (since it basically created the point-buy concept), the various designers who have worked on the system in last 20+ years have tweaked and polished the system to try and fix any perceived "bugs". Ergo, in the settingless "baseline" of HERO, the point costs are generally in balance with each other. Work continues, of course...Once you put a HERO construct in the context of a setting, of course, the point value becomes more subjective, as you have aptly pointed out.First off, I would politely ask you to tone down the snarkiness.Secondly, no, I am not saying that using your "reason, experience, and judgement" to assign a spell level in D&D is arbitrary. It is, as you stated originally, subjective. My point about the comparison to HERO is that, IME, it takes a lot of "reason, experience, and judgement" to design for D&D/d20. It takes not only a thorough knowledge of the system, but also extensive *experience* with the system and exposure to products (i.e., examples) that use the system. I.e., designing for D&D takes *research*.E.g., I can't just follow the fairly complicated rules for assigning costs to a magic item. I have do that, *as well as* compare my new item to similar items and see how the costs compare. It's entirely possible to design an item by the book that is either too expensive or too cheap when finally compared to like items. And as for spells, the system of design is basically "look at other spells and make a judgement call."What I like about HERO is that I'm not left with just the judgement call. Within or without the context of a setting, I can look at powers and evaluate them based on points, *in addition to* how they will be used. And, in general, I think that the points in HERO are balanced pretty well.IOW, with d20, I feel more like the designers give me a machine in a sealed black box that I need to reverse-engineer. With HERO, it feels more like they're giving me a bunch of parts and some blueprints.I'm not just saying older is better, as I have explained above. And to address another point, there tends to be just as much (if not more) quibbling about the accuracy of spell levels in D&D. E.g., 3.0 harm or haste. We just went through a major revision and people are still arguing about which spells are under/overpowered.Right. And the genre books publshed for HERO talk about this in depth. The end goal usually being an adjustment of costs for a given genre so that, you guessed it, the point values indeed mean something relative to context.Not saying that at all. I will say, though, that the unbalanced stuff I see is more experienced players trying to get away with something than it is newbies. Newbies tend to make balanced stuff because they don't know any better. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />You'll need one to make an accurate spell level assignation, though.Yes, IMHO. The number is backed up by a system and is not, as you seem to be asserting, wholly meaningless. I mean, I know that a 10th level character is more powerful than a 7th level one, in general, even if circumstances of setting make this less clear-cut. It's a baseline.I'd argue that the odds are pretty good.Well, technically, Brick 2 is 5 pts more effective. 205 > 200. He's got an Extra Limb and other guy doesn't.I'm not sure I can address this, as IDHMBIFOM, and I don't know how you're arriving at these point costs. I'm also not sure how you can make a point-for-point comparison if you're possibly altering how figured characteristics are handled for one PC and not the others.(Granted, that may be your point, but I don't see how it really supports what you're saying. I'm not claiming that HERO is perfect; I'm claiming that it simply gives you more pertinent data to work with. Which is really nice *if you like that sort of thing.*)You're welcome to feel this way. As usual, I think that arguments like these ("HERO is too crunchy," which is basically your argument) eventually boil down to taste, and nothing more.Still, I think you're adding a level of arbitraryness to make your argument that I don't think really happens IRL. IME, a GM, as with any system, will set some ground rules, e.g., "Power X is not allowed in this setting," or "its cost has been adjusted for this setting to Y points per 1d6." I don't think any GM worth playing with is going to adjust the rules on a per-character basis.Sure, a 150pt PC with access to magic or superpowers might in no way be balanced with a 150pt PC in a real-world military campaign... but I don't think HERO (or any other point-buy RPG) makes this claim. Comparing 10th level D&D and d20M PCs would be equally silly (as would comparing 10th level Midnight PCs with 10th level Living Greyhawk PCs).Which may be your point. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Ultimately, balance in any RPG is in the hands of the GM. However, I still don't think that you've made a good case that point values in HERO are wholly worthless. "45pts" means something in HERO the same way that "5th level" means something in D&D. The difference is that HERO *shows you how they arrived at the 45 pts.* It's an added level of detail, that, IMO, gives a player or GM more to work with when assesing the value of a given construct in their campaign. The bricks you've posted above are themselves examples of this.Granted, this level of detial may not be for everybody. And that's okay.I'm not sure who you're talking to here, as I did not tout HERO as being for inexperienced GMs (neither does Hero Games, really). I do, however, think that the HERO "toolkit" provides an excellent foundation for building things from scratch and, IMHO, serves this purpose better than d20. Granted, this is not d20's purpose, so it's sort of apples and oranges.</blockquote>

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