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Use of the Hero System's Older Editions


Virtuoso

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Hello, all.

 

I'm curious about something, so I thought I'd throw out a general question for the boards.

 

Since shortly after I first encountered the Hero System, it's been my go-to system for pretty much every game I run, and over the years, I've bought a LOT of Hero books -- to the point of tracking down the editions that were out before that first encounter and building a collection that takes up 12+ linear feet on my bookshelves.

 

Though I've used material from all the game's editions, I've stuck with the 4th edition ruleset for actual play, converting material to that edition as needed.  System-wise, I've imported a few tweaks in the form of house rules, but that's about it.  I don't have a problem with any of the other editions, so don't think I'm turning my nose up at them or anything.  4th edition just seems to me the best balance between mechanical development and simplicity.

 

I'm wondering how many other people are using an older version of the rules.  Is just about everybody "latest and greatest," or is there a significant "old school" crowd?

 

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Without consciously doing so, I probably use a mixture of rules.  There are things I dont care about - like whether I am requiring people to have the right skills to do particular things and there are rules that have changed without me realising - I have not run a 6th edition game yet - so I am probably, in my head, thinking of a mostly 5th edition game with slight bits of 4th edition in there by mistake and big patches where I am ignoring the rules of whatever edition...

 

When it comes down to it, as long as you and the players are on the same page, nothing else matters.  

 

 

Doc

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I'm pretty much in the same boat as Vondy above. I import more bits from Fourth Edition than from Sixth into my Fifth Edition games, but not because of any serious issues I have with Sixth Edition. Like you I just bought huge amounts of material for both Fourth and Fifth, and using write-ups for one with the other is very easy, easier than adapting them to Sixth.

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Most of what I've encountered as a player has been 5th Edition -- with re-use of 4th Edition add-on material to support it in a pinch. 

 

6th seems to be the pariah in the gaming community.  I speculate that this is largely because it's hard to get in hardcopy format, doesn't have the same array of add-on material, and the two, combined, add up to 'difficult and expensive to switch to'. 

 

I recently did a very intense comparison between 5th and 6th editions to determine if a jump from 5th to 6th would make sense for my current group -- complete with a 15 page summary write-up on characteristic, skill, power, and other rule deltas between them.  Let me just say that with exception of the change from hexes to meters, I see a LOT 'duh, why didn't they do that sooner?!' changes in 6th ... and am actively trying to move the group in that direction.  The hexes to meters thing is really fine (and works well, mechanically) to be fair, it's just a pain for us because we use miniatures ... meaning it added (more simple) math.

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I like a lot of aspects of 6th edition, but in terms of the source material and feel, I think Hero peaked at 4th edition.  I run 6th for two reasons: there's a lot of good in it and not much change in actual play, and because I write Hero supplements and want to put out the most recent edition.

 

People shouldn't let the cost put them off of 6th though, you can pick up a Champions Complete pretty cheap.

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I like a lot of aspects of 6th edition, but in terms of the source material and feel, I think Hero peaked at 4th edition.  I run 6th for two reasons: there's a lot of good in it and not much change in actual play, and because I write Hero supplements and want to put out the most recent edition.

 

People shouldn't let the cost put them off of 6th though, you can pick up a Champions Complete pretty cheap.

At a group level it ceases to be 'cheap' when you factor in every player purchasing it.  6x the cost of CC adds up fairly quickly.

 

That said, I'd rather spend money on CC (and already did) instead of, say, an evening at the movies with popcorn, drinks, and the like.  When put in that context on a per-person basis, I tend to agree that it's cheap. :)

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At a group level it ceases to be 'cheap' when you factor in every player purchasing it.  6x the cost of CC adds up fairly quickly.

Honestly this is why my groups share two or three hard copies at the table. One for 2 or 3 people isn't bad at all!

 

Honestly, using 4th edition and back isn't a bad thing. In fact, I still use the vehicle movement from 4E. I run 6E because it seems to work well for me with the improvements on many powers, but don't sweat using 4E or even 3E!!!

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As someone with limited experience in 5e, and most experience with 6e/CC, I see a lot of people refer to using a lot of 4e rules, and I was wondering what specifically people preferred about 4e as opposed to 5e/6e. I've seen a couple "Upgrading from Hero 4e to 5e" pages around, but it's difficult to reverse engineer the changes or even see what the good and bad of 4e were, since they're written with the assumption that you know 4e and don't know much about 5e, So what are the main 4e rules that people still like to include in their later-edition games?

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As someone with limited experience in 5e, and most experience with 6e/CC, I see a lot of people refer to using a lot of 4e rules, and I was wondering what specifically people preferred about 4e as opposed to 5e/6e. I've seen a couple "Upgrading from Hero 4e to 5e" pages around, but it's difficult to reverse engineer the changes or even see what the good and bad of 4e were, since they're written with the assumption that you know 4e and don't know much about 5e, So what are the main 4e rules that people still like to include in their later-edition games?

 

I have typically used the 4e / Fusion style regeneration. This is because regeneration was taken out of 5e as a separate power and required stupid-fiddly healing builds to replicate.Though, honestly, the 6e version is almost identical to the 4e version.  I also prefer the supersonic flight power from Fusion to 5e Megascale wonkiness. I also use several sense costs from 4e because, while 5e rebuilt and re-costed them all as detects, the new costs often exceed their actual utility (despite being logical). In my opinion, HRRP is not worth 12 points. I found the shape-shift rebuild in 5th akin to the sense rebuilds in that, while it did clear up some of the ambiguity in the 4e rules, it also rendered the power extremely fiddly and seemed bent on re-costing it so that "full on" shape-shifting abilities would cost as much as a 60-70AP attack. And, then there was the decision to remove certain flat-cost talents and re-insert them broken down as powers (e.g., instant change). In a super-hero game, instant change as a cheap flat-cost talent was genre appropriate, IMO.  On the other hand, I find 6e Barrier superior to the old FW mechanics.

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4E Regeneration was one of the things I kept for my 5E games, too, although I agree 6E essentially returned it to the earlier version.

 

I like the 4E method of running Adjustment Powers, where Characteristics, Powers etc. that have been boosted above their starting levels don't fade any further once they reach their starting levels, even if something had caused them to be lower than starting level before that, e.g. a Drain, having taken STUN or BODY damage, etc. I find that really simplifies bookkeeping, and makes it easier to model various types of "healing" or "charging up."

 

In some supers games I kept the 4E Haymaker Maneuver, which did x1.5 the base Damage of an attack without a top Damage Class cap. For players who want to be able to smash tanks, rip open bank vaults, and the like, I find it one of the easier changes to give them that level of damaging power without massively rewriting their PCs, all the published NPCs they're supposed to be competitive with, or the default published stats for vehicles and the environment.

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4E Regeneration was one of the things I kept for my 5E games, too, although I agree 6E essentially returned it to the earlier version.

 

I like the 4E method of running Adjustment Powers, where Characteristics, Powers etc. that have been boosted above their starting levels don't fade any further once they reach their starting levels, even if something had caused them to be lower than starting level before that, e.g. a Drain, having taken STUN or BODY damage, etc. I find that really simplifies bookkeeping, and makes it easier to model various types of "healing" or "charging up."

 

In some supers games I kept the 4E Haymaker Maneuver, which did x1.5 the base Damage of an attack without a top Damage Class cap. For players who want to be able to smash tanks, rip open bank vaults, and the like, I find it one of the easier changes to give them that level of damaging power without massively rewriting their PCs, all the published NPCs they're supposed to be competitive with, or the default published stats for vehicles and the environment.

 

4e Haymaker is happy-making.

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Huh.  While I've encountered players who never moved 4th, that group doesn't seem very well represented on this discussion board.  The vibe I'm getting (from an admittedly limited sample) is that a lot of people here haven't switched to 6th but have just stuck with 5th, and that, whatever the virtues of 6th edition, it doesn't really seem to have caught on.  Would you folks say that's true of the bulk of the Hero community?  Just wondering....  (The people I've dealt with have only really played the 2nd-4th editions.)

 

As I mentioned, I've purchased all the new stuff -- and swiped source material from all over the place -- but the version of the system I work from is 4th, just because it works for me and my players.  (I couldn't agree more, Doc Democracy.)  Sure, there are tweaks (like the block mechanic you mentioned, Ninja-Bear), but overall, that version seems the best fit.  (Incidentally, one thing I've imported is the Striking Appearance mechanic, but I use it as an effect of Comeliness, which I have costing 1 CP per point.  I have a simple Comeliness table similar to the Strength table where every 5 points of COM above 10 have +1d6/+1 effect, with every 3 points adding half a d6, as with Strength and damage.  Simple, and the only thing that changes on the character sheet is the doubling of the cost of Comeliness.)

 

Anyway, thanks for the responses, all!

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but I am not planning to play Golf 2.0

 

 

"My golf clubs are high-quality tensile carbon steel!"

 

"My golf clubs are titanium!"

 

"My golf clubs are titanium, with sweat-absorbent cotton!"

 

Whatever it is, there's always a latest edition. :P

 

Note: I am neither a golfer, nor a materials engineer.

 

 

I thought Golf 2.0 was called Frisbee Golf. ;)

 

HM

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I play Franken'hero.  To me the real differences between the editions are really minor.  The biggest being the figured characteristics and either version is fine by me.  

 

In the end I use the bits I enjoy the most that my players are having fun with.  

For example in a supers game I still use the stun lotto for KA's (1D6-1) ....

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I play 6ed, with a few tweaks here & there; I like that version best mechanically.

 

Huh.  While I've encountered players who never moved 4th, that group doesn't seem very well represented on this discussion board.  The vibe I'm getting (from an admittedly limited sample) is that a lot of people here haven't switched to 6th but have just stuck with 5th, and that, whatever the virtues of 6th edition, it doesn't really seem to have caught on.  Would you folks say that's true of the bulk of the Hero community?  Just wondering....  (The people I've dealt with have only really played the 2nd-4th editions.)

It's true that 6ed never caught on commercially, for a number of reasons that have been hashed out ad infinitum and don't need to be revisited here. AFAICT the boards here seem to be fairly evenly split between 5ed & 6ed, with a significant minority still playing 4ed or earlier. How representative is that of the offline Hero community? Hard to say.

 

I will say that while I don't go to a lot of national conventions, 90% of the Hero games run at local cons here are 6ed; granted I'm running most of those, so that may not be a representative sample. Anecdotally, most of the ex-Hero gamers I talk to stopped playing when 4ed died, and never picked up 5ed/6ed because they were put off by the size of the textbooks and the sense that it had become too focused on crunch and less on having fun. (Whether that perception is accurate or not has also been beaten to death in numerous threads.)

 

All that said, I use a lot of stuff from earlier editions in my 6ed games.

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At a group level it ceases to be 'cheap' when you factor in every player purchasing it.  6x the cost of CC adds up fairly quickly.

6x the cost of a Player's Handbook for D&D adds up pretty fast too. Oh, did you want stats for your horse, familiar or summoned monsters? Guess you need a Monster Book as well.

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6x the cost of a Player's Handbook for D&D adds up pretty fast too. Oh, did you want stats for your horse, familiar or summoned monsters? Guess you need a Monster Book as well.

I assumed Surrealone was comparing that to the cost of continuing to use 5ed, given that they already all have those books.

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I kind of feel that cost is pretty much a straw man argument. Since the dawn of RPGs, players I've played with have always purchased whatever passed for the "player's book" for every new edition that came out of their chosen game. It is about the only thing that passes for a recurring cost for players of our hobby, and it is not very high. $30 or so every several years is nothing. The cost of play, even if keeping up to date with the core player's volume, is cheaper than just about any other kind of entertainment there is.

 

From a rules/mechanics point of view, I feel that the 4th edition with select elements cribbed from 5th constitutes the best overall version of the system. From a presentation point of view, I feel that the 4th edition BBB did it best, and then presentation went off the rails after that, making the system appear too daunting to the uninitiated. Streamlined mechanics were undermined by rulebooks that tried to fill every bit of free space with official build components or examples. It became information overload and too much hand-holding, IMO. I think for most veteran players, their house-ruled version of 4th (or 5th) is so good that there is rarely any compelling reason to "upgrade". Especially to 6th which has little to no supplemental ready-to-play material available.

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Although I haven't really had the opportunity to run a game with it yet, I would definitely use 6th Edition.  I have previously ran both 4th and 5th and own stuff as far back as 2nd Edition.  I think 6th is easily the best edition, especially with the material from the Advanced Player's Guides added in.  However, there are a few things from 5th Edition that I have kept and I have a sprinkling of house rules.

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