D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium [Archive] - HERO Games Discussion Boards

Crypt

Nov 22nd, '07, 05:52 AM

~ALL OUT WAR~

D&D VS HERO FANTASY VS PALLADIUM

ITS A FREE FOR ALL NO HOLDS BARRED WAR BETWEEN D&D, HERO FANTASY GAMES, & PALLADIUM FANTASY...... WHO WINS? AND WHY?(please state reasons)

May the best game win!

You'd better compare FH to good games (Rolemaster 2, HARP, Hârnmaster, Ars Magica, Chivalry & Sorcery 4 , etc....) instead of ugly ones (D&D and Palladium are amongst the worst...so this is an easy win for FH.)

D&D white box & AD&D 1st were mythical.
but, face it, D&D is simply a very bad rpg system. D&D3 adds skills and a bit more homogeneity than previous editions but it also keeps stupid rules (eg: your bonus to hit increases with levels but your defense value stay the same. But in fact hit points are the real defense value which increases with levels. This means that healing potions heals your dodge/parry capacity and you automaticaly dodge/parry when you sleep. Feats are fixes to a deficient system and this actually leads to a munchkinized boardgame without inner consistency. D&D4 seems to be even more boardgame oriented.)

If you're looking for an "old-school" FRP, you'd better play Tunnels & Trolls, Mythweaver (which is free) or the like.

But if you want an "old-school" D&D-clone FRP, have a look to Castles & Crusades. C&C has the same inner stupid rules as any editions of D&D but without the feats/boardgame issue of D&D3+. C&C is not a good system, just a light coffee break version of the old D&D.

....but if you really want a good FRP there are a lot of possibilities => Fantasy Hero, Rolemaster Classic, HARP, Hârnmaster and several others.

IMHO, to compare D&D/Palladium and Fantasy Hero leads nowhere.

incrdbil

Nov 22nd, '07, 08:04 AM

shadowcat1313

Nov 22nd, '07, 09:01 AM

I would rather go back to the old 3 book Arduin set than use palladium, or even first edition rolemaster. at least old Arduin was more coherent.

Blue Jogger

Nov 22nd, '07, 10:30 AM

voodoo54

Nov 22nd, '07, 10:35 AM

Round one: hilarity breaks out as everyone looks at Palladium Fantasy "Umm, you aren't actually expecting to fight are you?".

Palladium Fantasy is sent to the 6 and under Karate class, where it receives a vicious beating.

Seriously, palladium is a bad copy of old D&D, and D&D is not much of an RPG anymore--more of a detailed skirmish level wargame with badly made pre-fab constructs for character creation. With poor defense, damage, and magic resolution systems.

Fantasy Hero is a gourmet meal. D&D is McDonalds. Palladium Fantasy is a out of date, recalled due to E Coli propblems TV dinner that was in a freezer that had a power loss and dethawed everythign a week ago, that was then overcooked in an over with the plastic cover melted to the food.

That's the best definition of D&D and Palladium I've ever read!

Vestnik

Nov 22nd, '07, 10:41 AM

Runequest, baby.

The Main Man

Nov 22nd, '07, 10:45 AM

Ok, I'll pull out my 1d4 Megadamage pistol from Palladium.

I think I win, as long as I don't fumble, that would be... messy.

1 point of megadamage = 100 points of damage (even though mega is suppose to mean one million).

To be fair, though, Palladium FRPG is not a Mega-Damage system but you raise an excellent point.

Heck, if a D&D character takes more than 50 damage in a single attack they die instantly!

Blue Jogger

Nov 22nd, '07, 11:06 AM

You're right, that's from Palladium RIFTS and that's about as fair as pulling some of the weapons from Star Hero and claiming Fantasy Hero is flawed because of it. However, since RIFTS all about crossovers, it's not completely without merit.

However, I guess it depends on what one would do to "win" . :D

Zeropoint

Nov 22nd, '07, 12:12 PM

There's no contest! 5ER is MUCH bigger than the other two books!

Spence

Nov 22nd, '07, 01:23 PM

Fantasy Hero is a gourmet meal. D&D is McDonalds. Palladium Fantasy is a out of date, recalled due to E Coli propblems TV dinner that was in a freezer that had a power loss and dethawed everythign a week ago, that was then overcooked in an over with the plastic cover melted to the food.

:rofl:

tkdguy

Nov 22nd, '07, 11:36 PM

For customizing characters and campaign worlds, FH wins hands down. You can do high fantasy, low fantasy, and everything in between.

For an impromptu game and getting non-gamers to play, I give the edge to D&D. Keep in mind I play the older versions (Basic, 1E, 2E) rather than the current edition.

I never played Palladium. One of my firends has a bunch of the books. I remember being unimpressed by the fantasy game.

Markdoc

Nov 23rd, '07, 03:38 AM

I never played Palladium. One of my firends has a bunch of the books. I remember being unimpressed by the fantasy game.

Actually we played it a bit. Compared to AD&D which came out not long before, it wasn't a bad game at all for the early 80's. When I look at it today, I think it's not a bad game - for the early 80's.

cheers, Mark

Hyper-Man

Nov 23rd, '07, 05:18 AM

... Fantasy Hero is a gourmet meal....

Does that make Steve Long the Alton Brown (http://www.altonbrown.com/) of RPG's?
:D

Susano

Nov 23rd, '07, 05:57 AM

Chivalry and Sorcery.

Heimdallsgothi

Nov 23rd, '07, 06:01 AM

Well it depends on what criteria youd use to determine the winner

By sheer number of books sold..
Dnd by far

If you add the "rules systems youre *required* to have a passing familiarity with"
DnD again

Shall we mention retail space?
Most of my local is mini/wargame space
D20 takes up over 60% of the book shelf
Hero is tossed in the corner with palladium, mechwarrior and some startrek game

To be fair I did see a copy of PA Hero on the new books rack, behind 4 rows of D20 et al...

I can look at the gamer board at my local shop
last saturday
12 D20 variants
5 minis
2 ccg
1 supers.. palladium version

Under the players seeking games
Hero got a mention twice as alternate systems ppl are willing to play

as for me
RM2/RMSS is my preferred system, still trying to make sense of hero

Shaft

Nov 23rd, '07, 06:34 AM

Round one: hilarity breaks out as everyone looks at Palladium Fantasy "Umm, you aren't actually expecting to fight are you?"...
Palladium Fantasy is a out of date, recalled due to E Coli problems TV dinner that was in a freezer that had a power loss and de-thawed everything a week ago, that was then overcooked in an over with the plastic cover melted to the food.

Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. :D

I gotta agree- the Palladium/Rifts/Heroes Unlimited system is in dire need of a revision.

Their sourcebooks have good ideas though (well, I'm talking Rifts, Beyond the Supernatural and Heroes Unlimited here- I'm less familiar with their Fantasy stuff). I've converted many concepts for use in my various HERO games, so give them credit for that. In fact, I susepct that it's the quality of their ideas that blinds the die-hard Palladium fans to the shotcomings of the mechanics.

Oh, and "Mega"Damage is less broken if you just convert it to SDC x10 instead of SDC x 100. It's still broken, but it's less broken... :D

Susano

Nov 23rd, '07, 06:36 AM

Palladium Mystic China is crammed with neat ideas. But the layout is terrible.

CTaylor

Nov 23rd, '07, 12:09 PM

Palladium is a pretty poor system with fantastic support material. GURPS is a better system but still inferior to FH, with good support material although less useful for other GMs than Palladium.

runescience

Nov 23rd, '07, 12:23 PM

In ascending order from most dispised to most blessed.

dnd 3.5 is a curse. It's so mottled in its classes, and skill systems that it is really only worth playing by people who's parents are also their siblings.

World of darkness games. a step above dnd 3.5, and thats not saying much.

dnd regular sets produced thru out the early 80's. the one with the wax crayons and the blue geomorphs.

dnd 3.0 was a step in the right direction.

ad&d second edition with the options books... skill trash. ugh. insufferable.

I would have played Paladium if I could afford the books back in the day. It was a really colorful version of ADND 2nd edition. They rivaled. Eachother. DND white box I never could get my hands on as I was late for the trip.

Gurps. all versions.

Dragonquest or something like that something put out by spi? I cant remember, theres is a picture of a guy holding a dragons head. It was enjoyable I played it at

DND hard cover, the one with efrit city of brass on the back.

Tunnels and troll was very good for home grown campaigning. Runequest.

Hero 5th edition with fantasy hero 5th edition Sorry I dont like it as much as the older versions... too complicated.

The fantasy trip. yes, dont laff. its very good, flexible and simple.

And finally, the top 2. Hero 3rd and 4th edition with regen etc using FH from circa 1990... second edition FH?

Shaft

Nov 23rd, '07, 12:26 PM

Palladium Mystic China is crammed with neat ideas. But the layout is terrible.

Yeah. It's inspired, but the inspired ideas were never proofread. It's like somebody just took the text directly from the back of the napkins that they wrote on when they had the ideas and nothing else was at hand.

CTaylor

Nov 23rd, '07, 04:16 PM

I liked The Fantasy Trip and Tunnels and Trolls, that was a blast.

And yeah, Dragonquest was pretty solid as a system, too bad it died out without being followed up. It had a prototype xp system like hero: you bought skills and stats with xps.

AmadanNaBriona

Nov 23rd, '07, 06:17 PM

These happen to be the only 3 systems I've actually played Fantasy games of in the last 5-10 years, and my opinion is as follows...

D&D3+ is a mediocre attempt at a current era RPG, but is playable, if far to easily gamed and way, way too mauled by immense available quantity of unbalanced options. Monte Cook brought a lot of his HERO experience along and it shows.

Palladium was the bar-none hands down worst gaming experience of my life. Part of it was the horrible group of players my roommate played with, but.. my gods does that system stink. It was a lousy half arsed D&D rip off system when I bought the original Mechanoid Invasion at Dundracon back in the late 70's or early 80's, and I was flabbergasted to learn that the intervening decades did almost NOTHING to make the system any less suck-tastic.

I wasn't super impressed with the original playtest edition of FH, but 1st edition solved the glaring problems (which is, after all, why you send out playtest editions :D ), and it's been my all time favorite system ever since. I can make it do ANYTHING. I've used it to set games in various authors' settings (Newhon/Lanhkmar, Draegeria, & Barsoom, to name a few) and can easily tweak the ground rules and magic system to get just exactly the feel I want.

They're not combatants...they're the weapons.
If they were swords, Palladium would be the one you bought at a thrift store as part of a wall hanging involving a pair of swords and a shield all wired to a hunk of wood that you took apart to have a sword. It's sword shaped and probably better than nothing....but just barely.

D&D is a fancy movie replica bought from a catalog for $60 that claims to be "Battle ready". It works, but it's more flash than function and I wouldn't want to push it hard or it'll probably break.

FH is a hunk of high quality steel, a forge, anvil, hammers, and a big pile of coal. If you know what you're doing you can build something that'll be so far above the other two they're incomparable. If you let someone else forge it for you, what you get depends on their skill, but if they actually know how to use the tools they'll PROBABLY turn out something that'll beat either of the other two, tho likely it won't be as pretty.

csyphrett

Nov 23rd, '07, 06:23 PM

I've always liked Palladium better than hero even if it has some flaws. I admit I haven't played DND in like 15 years so I don't know how it is today compared to what it was. Hero is okay but its not my favorite.

CES

Shakram

Nov 23rd, '07, 07:22 PM

So ugh guys.... What about in a actual battle between 3 adventuring partys, which party puts the smack down on the others? WHY?

Susano

Nov 23rd, '07, 07:59 PM

The fantasy trip. yes, dont laff. its very good, flexible and simple.

There was a lot of good material in TFT.

tkdguy

Nov 24th, '07, 01:30 AM

Does that make Steve Long the Alton Brown (http://www.altonbrown.com/) of RPG's?
:D
If Steve Long is Alton Brown, who's Bobby Flay? :confused:

Curufea

Nov 24th, '07, 03:43 AM

I hadn't realised Palladium had a fantasy genre RPG until I saw it mentioned here.
It sounds like it should be a punchline to something...

mayapuppies

Nov 24th, '07, 09:20 AM

I hadn't realised Palladium had a fantasy genre RPG until I saw it mentioned here.
It sounds like it should be a punchline to something...
I believe the Fantasy game was their first release, prior to TMNT, the various Robotech books, Ninja's and Superspies, Recon and then finally Rifts.

Sketchpad

Nov 24th, '07, 10:09 AM

I would say that the Palladium & D&D set would battle, with D&D coming out on top because it has a bit more flexibility. When Hero and D&D battle, I would say it turns into a draw ... between Hero's extreme flexibility and D&D's scads of stuff, they'd be battling for quite some time :)

jtelson

Nov 24th, '07, 11:36 AM

If Steve Long is Alton Brown, who's Bobby Flay? :confused:

Kevin Siembieda, but then I have a keen dislike for both Palladium and Flay.

ParagonAlpha

Nov 26th, '07, 08:40 AM

Palladium - All players nad GM's should be required to read this before playing any other RPG. It is an example of what NOT to do. Even though the Paladium system was created by a fellow Michigander, I want to slap the taste out of anyone who buys the crap.

D&D 3.5 - Regardless of opinions this is an excellent system to introduce people to roleplaying. It is simple, easy and very bland. Great for getting the girlfriend into your hobby. The pretty pictures and slick layout area bonus for this. But the whole thing falls apart when supplements are published. White Wolf started this ugly trend of "Supplemental Powergaming" a process where each supplement published increases the power of the game. Prestige Classes are a neat idea. Five million Prestige Classes are stupid. Five million Prestige Classes that grant the abilities of other classes without the balance are par for 3.5 D&D.

Hero - Okay. Complex System. Complex Character creation. Slow combat. Those are the three bad things. But they are more than surpassed by a truely universal game system, the ability to do anything your mind can think of. I mean one set of rules that let you play (and cross-genre) Fantasy, Superheroes, Spies, Modern Military, Post Apocalypse, Science Fiction, Science Fantasy, Horror, Western, and anything else your mind thinks of is awesome. Hero is not for the faint of heart. But once a person learns the system everything else is teh stoopid.

Princedarkstorm

Nov 26th, '07, 11:32 AM

Well,I am fan of both the HERO SYSTEM and the PALLDIUM but I dislike the D 20!!!!!

AmadanNaBriona

Nov 26th, '07, 02:11 PM

After consideration, I present this thought...

My final opinion on the Palladium system can be summed up thusly.
Sometime back in the early 80's someone should have hit Kevin Siembieda with a taser, chained him up in a cavern somewhere, and given him a steady supply of food, drink, intoxicants, women, paper and crayons and let him create ideas all day long.
And every time he tries to stop creating and starts thinking about mechanics, they need to dump red ants on him.

As an Oracle of RPG's, he's had some GREAT ideas.
as a game designer........ :help:

NuSoardGraphite

Nov 26th, '07, 11:00 PM

Maethalion

Nov 27th, '07, 10:36 AM

Personally, I am a fan of all 3 game systems. Having played Palladium first, then DnD 3.X, then Fantasy Hero, I admit my view might biased.

I'll say that Palladium would go down first. While the gameplay is quick to pick up, there are some severely unbalanced rules (such as paired weapons) that make it unstable for any lengthy story telling. That and the campaign world they present sucks. ugh.

Then, I'd say that Fantasy Hero would go down. Why? Well, I love the flexibility of Fantasy Hero rules, but every 'talent' in the FH book is a copy of a DnD Feat or Class Ability. I'm sorry, but the only thing I kept thinking as I went through the FH book was "Oh great, DnD Hero. I paid how much to play DnD with a more complex rule system?" Sure, HERO can describe any sort of fantasy Genre you want - take Tuala Morn for example - but any self-generated content takes an IMMENSE amount of EFFORT and TIME from the GM. Almost an INSANE amount of time.

And if you want to use your own monsters or magic system? You're SOL. Good luck finding any resources that don't use the 'standard' magic system. How do you mediate between mages and other PCs who can pick up weaons more powerful than the standard heroic 60-point cap? (and they don't have to pay character points for) It's a lot more headache than it's worth.

DnD (3.X) would win in my opinion. If only for it's basic play-style and long-standing history of doing-it-right. Sure, there are lots of idiotic things in DnD - right down to the random treasure tables, random encounters, and the basic idea of Duneoneering itself. I think the rules do provide a backbone upon which you can hang lots of different campaign settings. For instance, I'm running a hugely successful year-long Arthurian/Norse/Celtic campaign - where the only time the rules come in is during combat and combat only happens once every three or four games. Yes - I'm running a DnD game where combat happens at most 1/3 of the gaming sessions. Shock and Horror! but when combat does happen, everyone jumps in and it's over QUICKLY (unlike most HERO combats...) enough to help motivate the plot.

I don't think that the fight between DnD and FH would be easy. Maybe not even a sure win for DnD 3.X. But I do think that DnD would eventually win, especially with what I hear about DnD 4.0.

Those are my thoughts!

-S!

CTaylor

Nov 27th, '07, 12:53 PM

How do you mediate between mages and other PCs who can pick up weaons more powerful than the standard heroic 60-point cap? (and they don't have to pay character points for) It's a lot more headache than it's worth.

No more than in D20. It's just that D20 has no real balance system, you just guess at it and shrug.

Lord Fyre

Nov 27th, '07, 01:33 PM

I don't think that the fight between DnD and FH would be easy. Maybe not even a sure win for DnD 3.X. But I do think that DnD would eventually win, especially with what I hear about DnD 4.0.

I don't know about that. Dungeons & Dragons IV may actually work in Fantasy Hero's favor! ;)

Maethalion

Nov 27th, '07, 01:57 PM

I don't know about that. Dungeons & Dragons IV may actually work in Fantasy Hero's favor! ;)

I doubt that... unless of course Fantasy Hero Revised (hypothetically) comes out with HERO "talent" conversions of the new DnD IV Feats/Abilities. :hush:

I mean seriously, you have to pay a ridiculously high number of points for "animal friendship" (I think it's 20). For the same cost I could buy 25 strength (NCM). That's just silly :idjit:. d20 gives the same class ability for free for those archetyped characters - natural, like it should be.

Curufea

Nov 27th, '07, 07:19 PM

natural, like it should be.

Having previously established what "natural" is of course :)

incrdbil

Nov 27th, '07, 09:21 PM

I mean seriously, you have to pay a ridiculously high number of points for "animal friendship" (I think it's 20). For the same cost I could buy 25 strength (NCM).

Only if it was within the limits set by the GM, of course. And the animal friendship, based on how it exactly works, may cost less. Anyway, in D&d, you aren't getting rhe ability 'for free'--it simply represents what you gain for that particualt level, while other classes gain something. And there's nothing natural about gaining an ability you never studied because your sword just skewered some unrelated creature.

mayapuppies

Nov 28th, '07, 07:12 AM

And of course there's still the fact that in my campaigns that Animal Friendship would be 10 points cheaper than that 25 Strength.

HERO System is teh :king:

Old Man

Nov 28th, '07, 11:45 AM

So ugh guys.... What about in a actual battle between 3 adventuring partys, which party puts the smack down on the others? WHY?

Tough call. The FH party would by far be the most flexible. There is little they could not do, especially if they get to use VPPs. On top of that they could also be the most outright powerful in-game given that the system doesn't hold them back with restrictive class definitions and level restrictions.

On the other hand, the Palladium/D&D party doesn't take STUN, probably can't be killed in one hit, and the Palladium party could probably cheat as well.

incrdbil

Nov 28th, '07, 07:28 PM

On the other hand, the Palladium/D&D party doesn't take STUN, probably can't be killed in one hit, and the Palladium party could probably cheat as well.

The D&D group moves, what, once per ten seconds? The FH group mulches them.

Enforcer84

Nov 28th, '07, 08:13 PM

I doubt that... unless of course Fantasy Hero Revised (hypothetically) comes out with HERO "talent" conversions of the new DnD IV Feats/Abilities. :hush:

I mean seriously, you have to pay a ridiculously high number of points for "animal friendship" (I think it's 20). For the same cost I could buy 25 strength (NCM). That's just silly :idjit:. d20 gives the same class ability for free for those archetyped characters - natural, like it should be.
Why not? D&D 3rd copied HERO's talents in the first place. And nothing is free in HERO that's the point.

Enforcer84

Nov 28th, '07, 08:16 PM

As to my Opinion. FH is awesome. But when I think playing in a fantasy game I think D&D.
Palladium is what I give to people I don't like.

The Main Man

Nov 28th, '07, 09:34 PM

I agree about the "idea-man" position regarding Kevin Siembieda.

Another problem with Rifts though is that sometimes the setting gets too caught up in the mechanics themselves.

Let's just say I have changed a few things around since adapting it to HERO.

BNakagawa

Nov 29th, '07, 08:58 PM

Round one: hilarity breaks out as everyone looks at Palladium Fantasy "Umm, you aren't actually expecting to fight are you?".

Palladium Fantasy is sent to the 6 and under Karate class, where it receives a vicious beating.

Seriously, palladium is a bad copy of old D&D, and D&D is not much of an RPG anymore--more of a detailed skirmish level wargame with badly made pre-fab constructs for character creation. With poor defense, damage, and magic resolution systems.

Fantasy Hero is a gourmet meal. D&D is McDonalds. Palladium Fantasy is a out of date, recalled due to E Coli problems TV dinner that was in a freezer that had a power loss and de-thawed everything a week ago, that was then overcooked in an oven with the plastic cover melted to the food.

More like FH is the ingredients for a gourmet meal. In fact, the ingredients for nearly any kind of gourmet meal. D&D I liken to a low-grade delivery pizza. Your depiction of Palladium Fantasy is pretty accurate.

You need to invest some effort and creativity in order to make FH shine. D&D delivers a mediocre game right to your doorstep with almost no effort. Palladium, well, it's technically a game.

tkdguy

Nov 29th, '07, 10:02 PM

Markdoc

Dec 1st, '07, 03:13 AM

Then, I'd say that Fantasy Hero would go down. Why? Well, I love the flexibility of Fantasy Hero rules, but every 'talent' in the FH book is a copy of a DnD Feat or Class Ability.

Heh heh heh. This reminds me of all those guys who go "Warhammer? They're totally ripping Blizzard off!" It's a little hard to see that Fanatsy Hero talents as "copies" of DnD feats and class abilities when many of them have existed longer than DnD has had feats. Monte Cook specifically mentioned Hero as one of the influences on the generation of feats for DnD. Now, it does go both ways - FH does rip off some DnD feats and some of them in a dreadfully clumsy way.

And if you want to use your own monsters or magic system? You're SOL. Good luck finding any resources that don't use the 'standard' magic system. How do you mediate between mages and other PCs who can pick up weaons more powerful than the standard heroic 60-point cap? (and they don't have to pay character points for) It's a lot more headache than it's worth.

Really? I've been running a game that's apparently impossible to actually run for years. Who knew?

Now it is true that DnD has far more suport material and I actually like some of their current settings: but even when I GM'ed DnD I homebrewed all my stuff. Doing it in Hero is a little more effort, but it's not that different.

DnD (3.X) would win in my opinion. If only for it's basic play-style and long-standing history of doing-it-right. Sure, there are lots of idiotic things in DnD - right down to the random treasure tables, random encounters, and the basic idea of Duneoneering itself. I think the rules do provide a backbone upon which you can hang lots of different campaign settings. For instance, I'm running a hugely successful year-long Arthurian/Norse/Celtic campaign - where the only time the rules come in is during combat and combat only happens once every three or four games. Yes - I'm running a DnD game where combat happens at most 1/3 of the gaming sessions. Shock and Horror! but when combat does happen, everyone jumps in and it's over QUICKLY (unlike most HERO combats...) enough to help motivate the plot.

I don't think that the fight between DnD and FH would be easy. Maybe not even a sure win for DnD 3.X. But I do think that DnD would eventually win, especially with what I hear about DnD 4.0.

Those are my thoughts!

-S!

Well in terms of sales, DnD certainly wins. I've nothing against it - I'm off to play DnD in about 3 hours myself. But we're only 5th/6th level currently and we're already hitting the wall where fights take longer than in my FH game where the players have been playing for far longer and so are presumably more "experienced".

As to the fight it out aspect, I know several GM's that have chosen to switch from DnD to Hero and even one or two who switched back - but only briefly, and then returned to Hero. I don't know of any GMs who have chosen to switch from Hero to DnD.

cheers, Mark

tkdguy

Dec 1st, '07, 03:31 AM

Years ago, I did a nonmagical fantasy. No problem in FH; lots of work in D&D, no matter which edition.

Hey why isn't GURPS Fantasy included in this brouhaha?

Markdoc

Dec 1st, '07, 04:32 AM

Years ago, I did a nonmagical fantasy. No problem in FH; lots of work in D&D, no matter which edition.

Hey why isn't GURPS Fantasy included in this brouhaha?

Because nobody actually plays GURPS fantasy :D

cheers, Mark

Captain Obvious

Dec 1st, '07, 07:43 AM

People play GURPS? I thought it was a line of sourcebooks.:confused:

*ducks and runs*:sneaky:

CTaylor

Dec 1st, '07, 10:37 AM

This didn't specify if it was unarmed combat or not. If it is, D20 just grinds to a halt trying to figure out how on earth to fight without weapons and surrenders.

Blue Jogger

Dec 1st, '07, 05:19 PM

This didn't specify if it was unarmed combat or not. If it is, D20 just grinds to a halt trying to figure out how on earth to fight without weapons and surrenders.

And by surrendering, do you mean it takes enough subduing damage that its surrenders? Or can it surrender volunteeraly?

Hugh Neilson

Dec 2nd, '07, 09:07 AM

And by surrendering, do you mean it takes enough subduing damage that its surrenders? Or can it surrender volunteeraly?

Back to the "which edition" question. 2e removed the ability to force dragons (and only dragons) to surrender with subdual damage. 3e removed most of the differentiation between unarmed and armed attacks.

mayapuppies

Dec 2nd, '07, 10:07 AM

Except for grappling

Hugh Neilson

Dec 2nd, '07, 11:26 AM

Except for grappling

Just like Hero has separate Grab maneuvers, effects and means of escape, yes.

Oh, and just as they are commonly subject to errors (how often does the need to roll to hit again to inflict damage while maintaining a hold get forgotten by experienced Hero players?).

atlascott

Dec 2nd, '07, 05:52 PM

incrdbil

Dec 2nd, '07, 06:44 PM

1st Edition AD&D wins.

d20/3rd Ed/2.5 Ed. stinks. The main problem is that their character progression/prestige class concept is terribly broken. We will see what 4th Ed has to offer.

i'm sort of bemused by that. You're accepting all the lovely stuff that came in Unearthed Arcana as non-broken? Or how multoi-classer's were gods, while single or dual classeed types were hopeless underperforming meat shields? i mean..still, hit points, levels, and a magic system made up of 'well, I guess this spell fits at that level'.

Fantasy HERO is pretty terrible. It's really not a fair fight. The other game systems are actual systems and compelte games.

So is tic-tac-toe, and D&D is almostas straight-jacketed as that game.

With FH, you, the gamer, have to design, playtest, and implement the entire game using the HERO system metarules, including designing and implementing an entire magic system, and balance it against other forms of damage dealing.

Unless you grab a setting. If you make a unique setting with a unique magic system for D&D, you have to do the same. if you say, 'no, just use whats in the book'..I point you to the FH books.

HERO system cannot do a decent, traditional, D&D/ Arduin/Warhammer FRP magic system.

It can, but why go out and make a bad system when you can make a good one?

That said, I look forward to buying the new FH to see if they learned their lession or if it is more of the same.

FH is flexible enough that I'll say, bluntly, if you can't use its rules to adequately bring forth the setting you aim at out of it, the fault is very likely with the GM.

steamteck

Dec 3rd, '07, 05:41 AM

1st Edition AD&D wins.

d20/3rd Ed/2.5 Ed. stinks. The main problem is that their character progression/prestige class concept is terribly broken. We will see what 4th Ed has to offer.

Fantasy HERO is pretty terrible. It's really not a fair fight. The other game systems are actual systems and compelte games. With FH, you, the gamer, have to design, playtest, and implement the entire game using the HERO system metarules, including designing and implementing an entire magic system, and balance it against other forms of damage dealing. Last-gen FH stuff is basically junk--broken bits stitched together in a Frankenstein mish-mash whose apologists justify by calling it a 'toolkit.' The success and proliferation of simpler games proves conclusively that a do it yourself and ruin your campaign as you constantly tweak and change the rules type toolkit is NOT what plays want.

HERO system cannot do a decent, traditional, D&D/ Arduin/Warhammer FRP magic system. It's either too powerful, too weak, and a huge pain in the behind.

That said, I look forward to buying the new FH to see if they learned their lession or if it is more of the same.

You do that because if the "fix" it they will have lost me. Fantasy Hero is the only one of these I could stand to run. I might have a midlife crisis and what to return to the silliness of my youth and play D&D sometime but I doubt it. HERO products provide you the tools to make the world YOU want. I what to run my vision these days not someone else's. I what a system that you can duplicate fiction and books not only itself and it unique self created genre. That being said, If you just what a plop it down and play with little trouble, D&D was always the way to go. Wild fun nights back in college. We were all homicidal munchins back then but we had fun, its just not for me anymore. For me the basic mechanics and the toolkit IS what I want. Fantasy HERO is crushed D&D by the numbers but it shouldn't try to be D&D when its base wants something completely different. So to me D&D is the best commercial success but Fantasy HERO is what's best for me and Palladium has got some good ideas but is as unplayable as it gets.

CTaylor

Dec 3rd, '07, 08:30 AM

just like Hero has separate Grab maneuvers, effects and means of escape, yes.

No, not even remotely like that. D20's grappling rules are unspeakably complex to the point no on I have even heard of has even used it. There's no comparison.

And Fantasy Hero works great, just like Champions and any other genre that hero has put out. If your complaint is "in order to make my own universe I have to build everything from scratch" that's true about D20 as well. If you don't want to use one of the prebuilt systems for D&D, you have to make your own spell system, your own spells, your own setting, your own dungeons, your own monsters, etc.

Or, like Fantasy Hero, you can use published materials as is. There's really no difference, your choice is only easier for D20 because there's 2348197 books out there.

Curufea

Dec 3rd, '07, 02:23 PM

Still, if I were to introduce gaming to people who've never tried it out, I'd use the old "red book" Basic D&D. It's simple enough for non-gamers to understand. Then we can move on to the more complex stuff once they get the hang of it.

Nah - I prefer starting folks off with simpler things like Amber or FUDGE or one of the indie games. They have the huge advantage over D&D of "no tables" - you don't need to look stuff up. Great way to ease someone into to roleplaying.

The Main Man

Dec 3rd, '07, 02:47 PM

CTaylor

Dec 3rd, '07, 06:16 PM

I think D20 and D&D in general is built for power gamers. It's not in the initial rules but as they put out specialty books and prestige classes and so on, it gets ridiculous. The Psionics rules in AD&D started all of it, and now it's a tradition. You can be Bob the fighter and be basic, but Joe the prestige classed fighter with the special fighters handbook will be worth ten of you. And if Joe knows all of the rules well and can take advantage of each little nested and interactive feat and special maneuver, he'll be twenty of you.

The Main Man

Dec 3rd, '07, 06:21 PM

Now there's something that I have never read about: D&D's psionics.

How do they work in the first place?

Susano

Dec 3rd, '07, 06:29 PM

Now there's something that I have never read about: D&D's psionics.

How do they work in the first place?

Do you have Mind Bar? No? Let me see your character sheet.

Curufea

Dec 3rd, '07, 07:28 PM

I think the basics can be summed up with -
Psionics are trumps.

They are very rare, and no one has defences against them.

atlascott

Dec 3rd, '07, 07:59 PM

"Unless you grab a setting. If you make a unique setting with a unique magic system for D&D, you have to do the same. if you say, 'no, just use whats in the book'..I point you to the FH books."

Okay, but have you READ the FH settings? Incomplete, unbalanced, hastily cobbled together--in a word, pathetic, when you compare them to, say, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc. I was excited by the prospect of FH settings. I bought both FH settings. Read them, and realized they were utter non-starters.

D&D has a magic system in place, and all the mechanics for the entire game in place. I am not crazy about some of the mechanics, but there really is no comparing them.

It looks like FH hardcover isnt a new edition--just a reprint of the soft cover. WHY is that enticing?

I love HERO for supers. Hands down the best. For sword and sorcery, its a trainwreck.

Susano

Dec 3rd, '07, 08:09 PM

"Unless you grab a setting. If you make a unique setting with a unique magic system for D&D, you have to do the same. if you say, 'no, just use whats in the book'..I point you to the FH books."

Okay, but have you READ the FH settings? Incomplete, unbalanced, hastily cobbled together--in a word, pathetic, when you compare them to, say, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc. I was excited by the prospect of FH settings. I bought both FH settings. Read them, and realized they were utter non-starters.

The problem is, Forgotten Realms was someone's game world. Dragonlance was built by a group of people (and wasn't it novels first?). With Hero, the decision is made to create a setting and then put it out as a book. There is no time to play it, iron out the kinks, and give it time to develop and establish a flavor for the setting. In addition, Turakian Age is meant to be D&D for Hero (it has all the tropes). I do think the Valdorian Age is a better setting, with a far more interesting set of mechanics behind it. However, the best setting would be Tuala Morn, which is unlike any D&D setting I know of and is also very unlike either TA or VA.

Hugh Neilson

Dec 3rd, '07, 08:24 PM

just like Hero has separate Grab maneuvers, effects and means of escape, yes.

No, not even remotely like that. D20's grappling rules are unspeakably complex to the point no on I have even heard of has even used it. There's no comparison.

Well, now you've "heard of someone". Roll a touch based AC check (Hero requires a roll to hit). Roll opposed grapple checks (Hero has opposed STR effect rolls). Doesn't seem that complex to me.

Or are you thinking of pre-3e editions?

atlascott

Dec 3rd, '07, 08:55 PM

"You're accepting all the lovely stuff that came in Unearthed Arcana as non-broken? "

Unearthed Arcana shoulda remained buried.

Markdoc

Dec 4th, '07, 02:10 AM

Well, now you've "heard of someone". Roll a touch based AC check (Hero requires a roll to hit). Roll opposed grapple checks (Hero has opposed STR effect rolls). Doesn't seem that complex to me.

Or are you thinking of pre-3e editions?

Yes, I suspect he is. These days it's not that hard. The 1st/2nd ed. grappling rules however were not only needlessly complex, but severely broken as well. However I used them, both as a GM (only rarely) and as a player (frequently). My character Angror Ironfist got his name for his predilection for using the unarmed combat rules to take down humanoid foes far more powerful than he was: people he could never have beaten in a straight fight, he could KO - and then coup de grace :D

cheers, Mark

CTaylor

Dec 4th, '07, 08:35 AM

3rd edition is still really complex it's not a three step system by any means, I suspect you guys are missing a few rules.

Markdoc

Dec 4th, '07, 09:21 AM

3rd edition is still really complex it's not a three step system by any means, I suspect you guys are missing a few rules.

The thing about DnD is that it has a relatively low bar to entry. It's easy to make a playable character.

Of course someone who knows the arcane and twisty lore of Feats and PrCs can make a character who will beat that vanilla character like a tin drum (as my wife acidly comments), but that's not obvious from the start, and depending on your group, may never be an issue.

DnD is like a mirror image of Hero system. It's actually more complex but most of that complexity is under the surface in the murky form of the mass of "extras" and their interaction. With Hero, the complexity is right up there in your face at the Chargen stage: once you get through that by contrast with DnD, actual use of the rules in play and design are pretty simple. Right now, we have three spellcasters in our DnD party and just keeping track of spells and spell effects is a pain: I'm pretty damn familiar with the rules, but I had to buy an extra PHB because we're always fighting over the GM's one to look stuff up during the game.

cheers, Mark

CTaylor

Dec 4th, '07, 01:14 PM

Yeah that's a pretty good way to put it: D20 looks easy but has so many layers of complexity and difficulty that makes it incredibly tough to know and run it all. I pity DMs heh

teh bunneh

Dec 4th, '07, 01:54 PM

Right now, we have three spellcasters in our DnD party and just keeping track of spells and spell effects is a pain: I'm pretty damn familiar with the rules, but I had to buy an extra PHB because we're always fighting over the GM's one to look stuff up during the game.

Hah! Yeah. When we were playing 3.5, I played the party's wizard. Not a super high-powered game; I think we started at about 6th level and ended around 12th. My wizard had... I dunno, maybe 15-20 spells per level in his spellbook, so maybe 120 spells total. But when it was time to memorize spells? I never changed my list; I just kept the same spells every time. I'd end up with 4 fireballs and 2 lightning bolts, every single time. The GM asked me once, "You've got all these spells. I keep giving you evil wizards' spellbooks for treasure, why doesn't your character ever memorize any of them?"

The answer was simple: Because I didn't want to have to learn new game rules every time I changed my spell list (or spend 10 minutes of combat time looking up the rules for every spell I wanted to cast).

After a while, he stopped bothering writing down what was in the evil wizards' spellbooks, since he knew I couldn't be bothered. :D

Maur

Dec 4th, '07, 02:04 PM

Most of the D&D parties I've been in, the wizard tended to keep a certain list of what he memorized daily and just augmented that by creating scrolls of the other useful utilitarian spells that he wasn't sure if he'd need or not. So, we had an artillery spellcaster with just a few tricks with a ton of utility spells ready, just in case :)

Sorcerers are even more of a walking artillery caster due to their reduced spell repertoire and therefore the scrolls they can make are limited to the same repertoire.

incrdbil

Dec 4th, '07, 07:11 PM

Okay, but have you READ the FH settings? Incomplete, unbalanced, hastily cobbled together--in a word, pathetic, when you compare them to, say, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc. I was excited by the prospect of FH settings. I bought both FH settings. Read them, and realized they were utter non-starters.

Thats your opinion. I did liek the Forgotten Realsm setting, and my next FH campaign may be that. As for Dragon Lance, Ravenloft, the extra-planar setting, and many others, well I thought those were horrible stinkers U'd never want to GM or play in. to each there own.

D&D has a magic system in place, and all the mechanics for the entire game in place. I am not crazy about some of the mechanics, but there really is no comparing them.

Yes--D&D sets, mechanicaly, hoo the game will be, how the world hands out its magic. If you want anythign slightly different, good luck, enjoy the guesswork. Its rules are comparable to something..

.... a straightjacket.

It looks like FH hardcover isnt a new edition--just a reprint of the soft cover. WHY is that enticing?

Some people like hardcovers. Why are pocket sized versiosn of the SRd selling? Because someone will buy it.

Inu

Dec 4th, '07, 07:46 PM

3rd edition is still really complex it's not a three step system by any means, I suspect you guys are missing a few rules.
Hero's grappling system isn't 3-step either. Most of the complexity comes with the 'okay, you've grabbed them, now what? Are you trying to pin them, damage them or disarm them?' In that regard, d&D works much the same way as Hero. And, of course, the 'consequences of grappling'. In Hero, you lose a bunch of DCV, and take a penalty to OCV. In D&D, you lose your dex bonus to AC (which means you can be sneak attacked -- never wrestle a rogue).

As for D&D being 'broken', and able to be gamed -- fans of Hero really should not be able to make this accusation with a straight face. :D If you can balance Hero (since as we all know, the points don't balance themselves), you can balance D&D.

And if you do believe the points balance themselves, let's see whether the internet stops working when I mention 'Deadly Blow' and 'Cost of STR'.

Bygoneyrs

Dec 4th, '07, 08:53 PM

Wow I missed this debate early on....geeeehhhh

Ok I have been playing D&D now for 32+ years, thus for the last 25+ years I have DM'd my own Home grown campaign of my own making. As to game mechanics I just loved AD&D, and still think that was by far the best of their systems YET!!! over time I switched first to v2.0 and then later to v2.5. I resisted going to 3.0, but later went to 3.5. Now since D$D is about to go to v4.0, I just freaking give up and refuse to rebuy it all over again and relarn all this crap. At 43 I have had it and refuse to reinvent the wheel again.

Now I have had and played Champions since v2 came out, and about 1-1.5 yrs ago my oldest son started to pick up my old gaming books and liked and learned to play Champions. So I said I would buy him the current latest version of Champions v5 Revised and started buying everything. At this point I own almost
all there is out there for v5. I am quite amazed at all of it and view it as a great resource library to build from.

So I have started to relearn the Hero System again, and have to redesign my game mechanics for my worlds. Plus I want to redesign and update my campaign and add or expand on the realm that I call Jhorgule.

Penn

incrdbil

Dec 4th, '07, 09:26 PM

As for D&D being 'broken', and able to be gamed -- fans of Hero really should not be able to make this accusation with a straight face. :D If you can balance Hero (since as we all know, the points don't balance themselves), you can balance D&D.

Sure. But unliek D&d, HERO actually is made to help you balance it.

Inu

Dec 4th, '07, 09:35 PM

Sure. But unliek D&d, HERO actually is made to help you balance it.
By mucking with the system, sure. Which requires fairly intricate knowledge of the system. Youc an much with D&D, too. In both systems, the best way to balance them is to say 'no' to any build that's too powerful. This is equally possible in both D&D and Hero. It's just a skill you learn more readily in Hero, because it's more necessary. Whether that's an advantage for Hero or D&D is up for debate, and unlikely to be solved here.

teh bunneh

Dec 5th, '07, 10:46 AM

By mucking with the system, sure. Which requires fairly intricate knowledge of the system. Youc an much with D&D, too. In both systems, the best way to balance them is to say 'no' to any build that's too powerful. This is equally possible in both D&D and Hero. It's just a skill you learn more readily in Hero, because it's more necessary. Whether that's an advantage for Hero or D&D is up for debate, and unlikely to be solved here.

Well... yes and no. D&D is much easier to topple by changing relatively minor points. Or to put it another way, if you aren't playing exactly by-the-book D&D then the whole house of cards comes down.

To take an example I am intimately familiar with... When 3.0 first came out, I ran a game for my group. But I've never been a "play it just like it is in the book" kinda guy, so I gave them one ground rule: No wizards. Magic had been outlawed decades ago, and all wizards (plus their spellbooks and dang-near every magic item) had been thrown in the fire generations past.

Pretty minor change, or so I thought. But it upset the very delicate balance of the rules system. Challenge ratings were no longer an accurate assessment of a monster's toughness, so I had to use weaker monsters. Weaker monsters gave the heroes fewer XPs, so character progression slowed to a crawl. And when they finally did encounter wizards who really knew magic? I ended up having to create my own spellcasting system from scratch. It was like a row of dominos; one minor change and the whole thing ceased to work properly.

(And keep in mind that this was right after the game came out, before all the wierd supplements and their unbalanced Prestige Classes were introduced -- thank god I didn't have to deal with that mess!).

At the time at least, there were no rules or suggestions for how to run a magic-lite game (this may have changed; I dunno), so I had to wing it. It took us nearly a year to figure out what was wrong, and by then we were ready to abandon the system/game completely. Heck, I don't know if there even is a fix for what I wanted to do.

Straight out of the box? D&D is only capable of D&D. That's perfection fine if that's what you want to play. But if you want to run a customized setting, you might as well invent your own rules system for the amount of work you have to do. Hero is capable of much, much more, with considerably less work involved.

CTaylor

Dec 5th, '07, 03:28 PM

D20 is not designed for balance, it's designed for playability. If there's imbalance, you guess and make a judgement call. There's no system for what spell goes to what level, how to limit a feat or how many prerequisites it should have. It's just a matter of making it up on the fly. That can work, or not work - and if you look at the history of D&D, not work is the more common as times goes on.

Hero is designed for balance, you have point values assigned to everything, it can be gamed, but not as easily and material put out for it is completely up in the air. It's what you say it is, there's no standard, no benchmarks.

There's really no comparison. Doesn't make D20 bad, it makes D20 unpredictable and you have to be some kind of long-bearded scholar in the source material to have a chance to be ahead of everything.

casualplayer

Dec 5th, '07, 06:30 PM

Competing characters? Well, D&D and Palladium characters have a lot of BODY however D&D armor doesn't prevent any damage, just makes them tougher to hit. Or maybe they have scads and scads of points of Ablative Combat Luck. D&D characters seem to have convinced the GM to let them buy Takes No STUN, like they were Automatons. D&D and Palladium characters seem to have sold down their SPDs to 1 for some strange reason, but D&Ders have this Triggered attack if you try to break melee with them. Spell use seems to be effortless, maybe bought through Charges with no END Cost. Also odd, D&D weapons don't seem to do any STUN damage at all. Palladium weapons can but only do BODY once the STUN is depleted. D&D characters all have glowing letters above their heads identifying what class(es) they are, handy for picking targets.

Just pulling out of thin air, a starting FH character (150 pt) would be a 7th level D&D character or a 5th level Palladium one. Could have some fun and have everyone play Trolls in which case the FH character is a mediocre Troll, the D&D player is a 3rd level Troll and the Palladium player is still 5th level. Oh noes, who wins now?

I've had fun with all three. Can't beat Fantasy HERO's mechanics, Palladium's setting and genre art and D&D's influence, so why try?

Thia Halmades

Dec 9th, '07, 11:14 AM

So ugh guys.... What about in a actual battle between 3 adventuring partys, which party puts the smack down on the others? WHY?

Hmm. Well, I've played all three systems, and a whole bunch of other systems. I don't know that the question can really be answered. Not because I'm coppin' and saying "It's a matter of opinion," because, gee whiz, what other criteria would you use? But more because there are levels of detail, and look & feel among the three systems that people take away and say that the game resonates with them.

For me, as has been well documented here (and in an article series I need to get back too) I went from d20 to HERO, and before d20 I was mucking about with Palladium (although let's be clear, that was a good 12 - 15 years ago, possibly longer). So my journey has been one of personal development; ultimately I realized that to be content with my game system, it had to be either as simple, or as complex as I wanted to make it.

HERO's core rules are elegantly simple; yes, power construction takes some time to learn, but you don't need to learn it. You just sort of eventually do. The core rules are very basic. Swing, hit, abort is the big wrinkle and outside of that, you're pretty much dealing with the same principles in all of the other RPGs. And to be honest, the abort rule is pretty fantastic.

Most importantly, the rules are shockingly consistent, both internally and across games and genres with 5th Ed Rev. I can't really compare d20, since I don't (as has been noted by others) consider it a dedicated RPG; it's a dedicated Skirmish game that uses roleplaying elements to move you from fight to fight. With a lock-step growth system and a "best combo" power design, it's impossible to not power-game it, even if power-gaming isn't your thing, basic math dictates what you need to do to be successful playing a specific role in the party.

Palladium doesn't really bear mentioning, as Incrdbl pointed out on page one; it can't really put up a fight here. HERO, however, is built to be the game you want it to be. Pure, skill based role playing? Fine. Hardcore epic fantasy? Okie doke. Screaming high fantasy with incredible races and floating castles and heaven knows what else? We have rules to build all that, too. So the big thing with HERO is that it lacks a certain sense of definition, because with enough work it can be anything to anyone.

d20 has a look and feel that people try very hard to mimic; for me, it's the magic system. I always liked it and I went to the trouble of rebuilding large chunks of it (a project I stopped for HERO: Combat Evolved but planned on picking back up at some point).

But the questions you've asked can't really be answered. You're on the HERO board. OF COURSE 99% of us are going to say HERO. We're here, aren't we? I mean, this is a HERO board. You're going to get HEROcentric answers, and those not HERO based will likely mention an alternate system (Runequest, Harn, Ars Magicka, etc.).

What GROUP would win?! How can I answer that without appropriate power levels, class construction, rules type, and so on? If I use the HERO rules I'll have a very different fight than if I use the d20 rules or the Palladium rules. The three aren't compatible. What does 250 points of HERO look like in Palladium, considering among other things that the system itself is grossly unbalanced, something that Siembieda considers a FEATURE and not a BUG for reasons I've never comprehended.

All of that now having been said, your first question is answered fairly simply: HERO is the most balanced system available, pound for pound, and for that reason alone I play it exclusively now. I don't enjoy the skirmish game design of d20. I think it's great, and for certain people the shiny paper and high production value are viewed as the same thing as "a good game," and I hate to say that it just ain't so. I can't imagine what my beloved 5ER would weigh in glossy 8x10 with full color images.

I hope that answers your question, without being too raving fanboyish.