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Hero System 5th Edition


jimofpeace

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Hello, everyone.

I just bought the Hero System 5th Edition and am looking forward to running a Champions campaign.  Is anybody still using Fifth Edition?  I will probably be coming here asking for a lot of help, so hopefully some of you are experienced with this older system.  Thank you for any help you can give me in the future.

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5th edition is a good choice, especially if you are already comfortable with the 4th edition. In my view, 5E is like "Advanced 4E". Same game, but presented in a way more suited to advanced, experienced users of the system.

 

My biggest problem with 5E is that it sets players on a character design path I don't care for; it legitimizes--through its many, many examples--the "overspecify everything" approach to building powers for your characters. This has a tendency to make the game look, feel, and play far more complicated than it really is (or needs to be). You'll discover what I mean when you see power builds offered up by forum members in response to your power design questions.

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5 hours ago, jimofpeace said:

Darn, I already bought a few copies of the original 5th edition.  Will I still be able to run a campaign with the original edition or is there just too many mistakes in it?

 

The original 5th edition is perfectly serviceable. You shouldn't have any issues using it.

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24 minutes ago, zslane said:

 

The original edition is perfectly serviceable. You shouldn't have any issues using it.

 

Right.  In the older editions they has Detective Work for 5 Points, which later editions turned into two 3 points skills Criminology and Deduction.  Acrobatics was a 10 points skill that became three 3 points skills Acrobatics, Breakfall, and Climbing.

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2 hours ago, Cassandra said:

 

Right.  In the older editions they has Detective Work for 5 Points, which later editions turned into two 3 points skills Criminology and Deduction.  Acrobatics was a 10 points skill that became three 3 points skills Acrobatics, Breakfall, and Climbing.

 

Er, that was 3rd edition and earlier. Those were split up for 4e, which the OP is coming from, and which I think is what zslane meant by "original edition".

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My favorite edition is, and always has been, 4th edition. I feel the 5th edition adds a few welcome elements, but its dense presentation makes the system difficult to digest and get into. 6th edition continues in this misguided direction, with its needless deconstruction of numerous core elements, and I was extremely disappointed when I read it. For me, the ideal "edition" is 4E with bits from 5E cherry-picked (things like megascale and standard effect).

 

However, books like Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete do an admirable job of making the system digestible again. Moreover, 6E's disposal of some of the game's most long-standing, traditional game elements won't hinder newcomers who have nothing to unlearn. Beware though that if you and your group do become highly accustomed to 5E and later decide to try 6E, you'll find many of the changes in 6E rather jarring.

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Over the last 6 months of digesting Champions Complete and discussion on these lovely forums, I've come to the conclusion that I probably prefer "3e" overall (i.e. pre-unification). And that includes the non-Champions books like Danger International and Robot Warriors. My play history is roughly spilt between 3e and 4e (about 5 years of each). I'm one who avoided bothering with 5e because of the bloat - as far as I could see a few minor rules got added, starting points got an un-needed increase and page count blew out without that much being added. What I had worked fine, so no thanks that time around. When I became aware of 6e, the size of the books required stopped me even checking out the changes. Wasn't interested.

 

Champions Complete literally fell into my lap and got me looking again. Very impressed with it - it's pretty much what should have happened with 5e... back to one modest sized volume. But possibly all that happened between FUZION and CC was needed to end up at that destination.

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jimofpeace, just in case it hasn't been made clear to you, there's very nearly no difference between Fifth Edition and Fifth Edition, Revised in terms of rules and game mechanics. Essentially Revised just further clarified various issues and provided more examples and options. A small handful of details were modified between them, but you'll have no trouble using material written for one with anything written for the other.

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1 minute ago, Lord Liaden said:

jimofpeace, just in case it hasn't been made clear to you, there's very nearly no difference between Fifth Edition and Fifth Edition, Revised in terms of rules and game mechanics. Essentially Revised just further clarified various issues and provided more examples and options. A small handful of details were modified between them, but you'll have no trouble using material written for one with anything written for the other.

Shew, what a relief!  Thanks for the heads-up, my friend.  This is a great forum.  I am very honored to be here and to get to talk to all of you regarding learning this system and running a campaign.  Thank you, all, for your support and help.  :)

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30 minutes ago, jimofpeace said:

Shew, what a relief!  Thanks for the heads-up, my friend.  This is a great forum.  I am very honored to be here and to get to talk to all of you regarding learning this system and running a campaign.  Thank you, all, for your support and help.  :)

 

To add a little more detail to Lord Liaden's post...  5e was essentially a FAQ update to 4e. 5er was an official update incorporating all of Steve Long's 5e FAQ answers from the forum. Likewise, 6e was an attempt to adress all the complaints against 5e/5er including lack of color.

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