New To Hero: Character Advancement

[awall]

Playing City of Heroes online has made me consider running a heroes game. A while back I picked up the Sidekick, Champion, powers, and gadgets books at someones recommendation. Hero's take on things kinda stunned me and my campaign never really got off the ground. Now I am willing to take a 2nd look at things and after glancing through the rules again I kinda missed something. I didn't see the section on Character Advancement. Did I miss something or would someone please point me to where (page number) it can be found?

Thanks for your help.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Playing City of Heroes online has made me consider running a heroes game. A while back I picked up the Sidekick, Champion, powers, and gadgets books at someones recommendation. Hero's take on things kinda stunned me and my campaign never really got off the ground. Now I am willing to take a 2nd look at things and after glancing through the rules again I kinda missed something. I didn't see the section on Character Advancement. Did I miss something or would someone please point me to where (page number) it can be found?

Thanks for your help.

I don't have SIDEKICK, but I suspect you can find what you're looking for by going to the index and looking up "Experience." Advancement in HERO isn't a matter of levels and such, but merely a matter of earning experience points (XP) and spending them (as Character Points) to improve/purchase Skills, Powers, Characteristics, etc.

[Reneshat]

I'm not sure about page numbers, but you just award a few points (generally between 2 and 5) after each mission.

[StGrimblefig]

It is on page 81 in Sidekick (near the bottom of the left column), and yes, it is easy to miss. It takes up less than half of one column on the page, including the table.

[Killer Shrike]

Its a standard point based progression.

Each point of XP = 1 Character Point to spend on an ability. What it's spent on is between the Player & GM and is relative to the character.


Thus if you had a session where you awarded 3 XP to a character, they could spend that 3 pts on a new skill, 3 pts of STR, 1 pt of DEX, 3 STUN, or anything else 3 points can purchase.

Whether some period of training or development is required is up to the GM.

[Rapier]

Whether some period of training or development is required is up to the GM.

Yeah, I just had a character come back from hiatus. He was off running around the wilderness learning to use his new shapeshift power. His player was running another somebody with a little bit of TK.

[awall]

It is on page 81 in Sidekick (near the bottom of the left column), and yes, it is easy to miss. It takes up less than half of one column on the page, including the table.

Thanks. I always hate asking for something that I know should be in the book because I looks like I am too lazy to look for it. It's nice to know that it's there. I was fearing there wasn't a system setup to handle Advancement, and an RPG without advancement of anykind is a system I don't want to play.
Thanks for your help. Now I can get started.

Awall

[Steve Long]

Good luck with your campaign, Awall! You've already found one of the best resources around -- these boards. If you have any questions, feel free to post 'em here to get all kinds of great advice from fellow players and GMs. And you're always welcome to e-mail 'em to me at SteveL@herogames.com if you prefer.

[Skouser]

I've just started playing Hero, but the XP rate we receive from our GM is only 1 per gaming session.

Is that pretty low? It seems like it to me.

In other games I've played D20, Rolemaster, Gurps, it seemed you could do more with your development points.

[GreyGuardian]

no 1 point per session is fine depending on how long your sessions are and how often you meet and how much of a challenge you over came.

I tend to give out 1 point per session then bump it up if people did an exceptionally good job at roleplaying their character, used solid tactics and strategy and were very challenged by an encounter, etc. Or if I know there are a limited number of sessions in the campaign and want to emphasize character growth or some such. regulating how those points get spent can be fairly important to make sure you have characters that are more than 1 dimensional combat machines. I've also given out contacts as rewards, or specific skill familiarities, etc.

[Skouser]

alas...seems like a flat rate of just 1 per.

I do like HERO, but I must say, the development point aspect of it (at this rate anyways) is pretty lame. However, the character seems to be more potent at the start...so perhaps that's the balance?

[Zeropoint]

Don't be too quick to dismiss a single point. One point will get you a point of STR or two points of COM, or a new familiarity. Two points will increase a skill. Three will get you a point of DEX, or a single-attack combat skill level.

However, the character seems to be more potent at the start...so perhaps that's the balance?

That's a big part of it. A level one D&D character pretty much sucks, especially if it's a magic-user. A starting HERO character (depending on genre and point level) might be able to ignore bullets and punch through a reinforced concrete wall.

Also realize that the rate of character advancement is not set by the system, but by the individual GM, so it will vary from game to game.

Zeropoint

[Skouser]

Yeah, I guess it can vary from game to game.

I'm pretty generous with the Rolemaster group that I GM, so it's kind of the opposite situation for this HERO campaign where I just run a character.

Problem is...there are some very basic skills that I had to pass over in order to make this guy potent enough to survive any combat encounters.

Can't swim, can't climb, can't do a lot of basic stuff. That's the rub I guess. I suppose I could have built the character with more skills, but then sucked during combat...
I guess I'm still too much of a newbie to be able to find the right balance. In the meantime I'll have to keep rolling -8 or under to keep breathing/walking etc. ;-) I hope to have accumulated enough points for that stuff in another year or so...

[Zeropoint]

Are you playing Fantasy HERO? Or some other genre? Also, have you put your character through any combat in the game yet? It's possible that your GM is making the encounters too hard--if you have to ignore non-combat skills completely just to survive, then I'd say that game isn't balanced quite right.

As far as swimming goes, you get 2" of swimming for free, so unless you sold it back, your character can swim just fine already.

Zeropoint

[Skouser]

Yeah, we are playing Fantasy Hero.
We were allowed to start with 75 points and 75 points in disadvantages.

So far have been doing quite well in combat...I developed an Archer and also took penalty skills so that called shots are more easily successful. (I mitigated the -8 against head/vitals shots by developing the penalty skill to +5, so now just a minus 3 to aim for the head or vitals.) Came in handy when shooting at some trolls gonads recently. The 2x Killing damage makes a huge difference.

But the character limitations on other stuff due to a minimum array of skills is starting to rear it's head.

Kind of coming to the conclusion that my character will be unbalanced this way for a quite a long time, as at this rate of XP development it will be a long time before I can round out the character correctly.