REC and END costs in 6e vs prior

[Joe Walsh]

I've done some searching but haven't been able to find the answer as to why the costs of REC and END went down in 6e.  It's easy to see why former primary characteristics were decreased in cost, but I can't figure out why these former secondary characteristics would have been decreased in cost. Anyone have the inside scoop from back when 6e was in the planning/design stage?

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Mostly I think it was a philosophical design decision, by people who wanted to deemphasize END use in games.

[Grailknight]

1 hour ago, GM Joe said:

I've done some searching but haven't been able to find the answer as to why the costs of REC and END went down in 6e.  It's easy to see why former primary characteristics were decreased in cost, but I can't figure out why these former secondary characteristics would have been decreased in cost. Anyone have the inside scoop from back when 6e was in the planning/design stage?

 

 

It's simple. Because you don't get them for free anymore.

 

Pre 6th: A Brick with 65 STR, 33 CON and 15 BODY has a starting 20 REC,  66 END and 65 STUN.

 

In 6th: Those same starting Characteristics will still leave you staring at 4 REC, 20 END and 20 STUN.

 

STR has the same price in 6th because it's still gives an attack. BODY lost it's bonus to STUN but is still useful. But CON went from "must purchase as much as I can justify" to "I'll purchase as little as I can to avoid being Stunned by typical attacks".

 

The reduction in the previously Figured Characteristics was done to keep pricing closer between editions. A direct translation of any character from 5th to 6th will be more expensive but the gap would be even greater without the price changes. 

[Joe Walsh]

That makes sense; I wasn't thinking it through from that end. Thank you!

[Hugh Neilson]

There was also discussion around the fact that no one ever bought up REC and END, rather than buying reduced END. Similarly, no one bought up STUN and REC - they just bought more defenses. They were overpriced, so their price was reduced. To mitigate that, at least to some extent, they were made "defensive characteristics" so adjustment powers would only have half as much impact.

[Joe Walsh]

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

There was also discussion around the fact that no one ever bought up REC and END, rather than buying reduced END. Similarly, no one bought up STUN and REC - they just bought more defenses. They were overpriced, so their price was reduced. To mitigate that, at least to some extent, they were made "defensive characteristics" so adjustment powers would only have half as much impact.

 

Interesting! All of that was certainly the case for us -- not many points were spent in the characteristics section below SPD.

 

And there's no reason that couldn't have been done when they were figured characteristics. Someone must have tried backporting it. 🤔

 

All we ever did was try out STR costing 1.5 or 2 cp. As I recall, 2 cp/1 STR worked fine in heroic campaigns, but that was too much for what we wanted out of supers and no one liked the messiness of the 1.5 per cost, despite having COM and END with a .5 cost.

 

I'm surprised we never considered attacking the costs from the other side, in the figured characteristics.

 

[Hugh Neilson]

Some of the cost reduction thinking stemmed from trying to balance the STR, CON and DEX costs. DEX was the sleeper as, pre-6e, you could not just buy OCV and DCV, but anyone who ever tried to build an expert combatant with modest DEX and skill levels figured it out pretty quickly.

 

At some point, I believe Steve Long just said "if we get Primary and Figured to balance out right, why bother keeping the link?"  Good question.  If "CON no figured + Figured" = "CON with Figured", why have two ways the build the exact same thing?

 

I think we ended up with 1 point STR working better, and "5 points for 1 DC" makes higher-cost STR unpalatable at best. 

 

CON is a character tax. You need enough to avoid being stunned by average hits.

 

DEX - my initial thought was that 2 points was overpriced, but I have come to believe DEX is priced right, while PRE and INT are underpriced.

 

BOD is another character tax - buy enough to not need a new character every few sessions.

 

I think DEX, INT and PRE should have been assessed en bloc, likely dragging EGO in as well and reviewing skill levels. My view?

 

Price DEX, INT and PRE at 2 points.  For 5 points, you can buy +1 with all skill and characteristic rolls based on one stat (not perception).  For 5 points, you can  buy +1 with all perception rolls, +5 Lighting Reflexes or +1d6 PRE attacks.  These are each based on a -1 limitation to +5 of the characteristic.  Scale the costs down if they are more limited, right down to "+1 with 1 skill" = the cost of improving the skill.

+1 with only one roll based on that stat at a time should be reduced to 3 points.  +1 with only one roll (including +1 to a single skill) drops to 1 point.  You can have +1 to all rolls in a tight group for 4 points, and +1 to any one roll at a time in a tight group for 2 points.

 

Wait, where did PRE DEF go?  Well, that becomes the exclusive domain of EGO, which stays 1 point.  PRE DEF gets priced at half a point.  The rest of EGO (EGO rolls and resistance to mental powers) is the other half.

 

Drifting further, STR is also still a pain when we look at Hand Attack and Martial Arts DCs.  An MA DC is +5 STR, only for combat effects for a group of HTH attacks (whether MA or non-MA), 0 END.  5 x 1.5 = 7.5, so that’s about a -3/4 limitation to get down to 4 points.  Just losing Lifting would normally be -1/4 (so 4 points).  Only MA or non-MA seems reasonably priced at either a further -1/4, or -1/2.  If we keep -1/2, an MA DC is a bit more pricy, but shorthanding it to 4 points seems OK.  But I think most Martial Artists rarely use STR for non-MA purposes, so -1/4 feels more appropriate and an MA DC becomes -1/2 = 5 points.

 

 

Now, what about “direct damage only”, which is a Hand Attack?  That has to be less pricy, right?  Maybe another -1/2, which would make the limitation -1 and Hand Attack costs 2.5 points per +1d6.

 

 

However, that still leaves things like Deadly Blow and Weaponmaster.  Maybe we need a concept of "DC adders".  Deadly Blow and Weaponmaster suggest that "only to increase damage" is a -1/2 limitation on a skill level.  I think it is higher - OCV and DCV are worth at least half of the value of a skill level.  So, if we started with the premise that +1 DC for any one attack at a time is 10 points (2 skill levels with All Combat, damage only (-1)), we could move to HTH only (either a -1/2 limitation, so 20/2.5 = 8 or 2 8 point skill levels only to add damage = 8).

 

Working down from there, maybe "only for martial maneuvers" or "only for non-martial maneuvers" are -1/2 limitations (tacked on to HTH only).  That drops me down to 20/3 = 6.67 per +1 DC with all martial arts maneuvers, or all non-martial maneuvers.  I'm also at 8 for all ranged maneuvers, or 6 2/3 if they can only be with martial or non-martial maneuvers. 

 

These cost no END.  Since the base at +1 DC costs 10 points, they should cost 1 END, so STR bundles these in at half END (+2 DC at 20/3.25, still over 6 points).  The math is pushing to the conclusion that STR is also underpriced, isn't it?  It does not feel like a full 2 points, though - STR with no damage a -2 limitation, and STR that only enhances damage at -1/2?  Maybe 2 points is not out of the realm of possibility.  Break our mindset of Active Points and let the Brick spend 100 points on +50 STR and perhaps we'd be OK.

[SCUBA Hero]

31 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

At some point, I believe Steve Long just said "if we get Primary and Figured to balance out right, why bother keeping the link?"  Good question.  If "CON no figured + Figured" = "CON with Figured", why have two ways the build the exact same thing?

 

I have an answer to that question (actually, I've had it since soon after 6E was released):  While Steve, you, all of SETAC, and I have those formulas memorized and can tell at a glance where the old Figureds 'should' be, a new player doesn't have that.  New player - "Okay, I'll make a Brick so 60 STR for a 12d6N attack... hmmm, where should PD/ED/REC/END/STUN be?" 6E made it more difficult for a new player/GM to answer that question.  Same with DEX and OCV/DEC, but to a lesser extent.

 

Completley minor quibble here (I *like* being able to buy CV separate from DEX) but pre-6E you could technically buy DEX, Only For [OCV, DCV, or OCV and DCV].  I've never seen it, and without an official Limitation value the debate on the correct value would be hurricane-strength, and it gets klunky with Aids and Drains... but it was RAW-legal.

 

Side note:  I think the authors forgot the severing of DEX and CV, at least for a while, in 6E characters.  Kinetik's Dizzying Spin DEX Drain?  Sure, it makes the opponent slower to react each Phase, but doesn't do a thing to OCV/DCV like it would have in 5E and earlier.

 

Also, thanks for all the behind-the-curtain thinking in your post! 👍

[Hugh Neilson]

So you expect that 12 PD Brick to fare well in combat?  He's maybe a bit more agile than the average guy - let's give him an 11 DEX.  That should be fine in combat, right?  [The opposite of the non-combat rogue type having the best CVs in the group.]  You didn't tell us his CON, so I'm not sure what STUN, END and REC he ends up with, but I generally saw reduced END on STR, not increased CON or increased END and REC, to handle END issues.

 

I think what was really needed was guidance on how to assess appropriate values for the secondary stats.

 

If you tried to assess an appropriate limitation for "only OCV" or "only DCV", the huge discount on DEX became apparent. It was really a 2 point stat (no one ever let Speed round down). Skill rolls, OCV, DCV and initiative is a lot for a 2 point stat.  Try buying combat skill levels, skill levels and lightning reflexes instead!

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

There was also discussion around the fact that no one ever bought up REC and END, rather than buying reduced END.

 

This is false, of course, but it probably was largely true with the small group that discussed this.  To the extent it was true, it only reflected that it was cheaper and easier to simply buy up CON in most cases, so you didn't need to buy up either stat except for certain concept builds (the regular guy mentalist who had lots of END and healed quicker, etc).  Buying END was always cheaper than buying reduced END Cost.

 

But there is a very unfortunate and pervasive attitude among at least a few people who post here regularly that we should ignore END, not track it, don't bother with it.  In my opinion that's a huge mistake because END Cost is one of the distinctives of the Hero system, it makes the game stand apart by having a mechanic and concept that almost no other game system even bothers with and which brings a level of detail and believability to the game that is lacking in other more simplistic systems.

[Joe Walsh]

On 3/13/2022 at 9:40 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

Some of the cost reduction thinking stemmed from trying to balance the STR, CON and DEX costs. DEX was the sleeper as, pre-6e, you could not just buy OCV and DCV, but anyone who ever tried to build an expert combatant with modest DEX and skill levels figured it out pretty quickly.

 

At some point, I believe Steve Long just said "if we get Primary and Figured to balance out right, why bother keeping the link?"  Good question.  If "CON no figured + Figured" = "CON with Figured", why have two ways the build the exact same thing?

 

And that's not a bad way to go about it, if making things more logical while breaking with the past as little as necessary was the goal.

 

On 3/13/2022 at 9:40 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

I think we ended up with 1 point STR working better, and "5 points for 1 DC" makes higher-cost STR unpalatable at best. 

 

CON is a character tax. You need enough to avoid being stunned by average hits.

 

DEX - my initial thought was that 2 points was overpriced, but I have come to believe DEX is priced right, while PRE and INT are underpriced.

 

BOD is another character tax - buy enough to not need a new character every few sessions.

 

I think DEX, INT and PRE should have been assessed en bloc, likely dragging EGO in as well and reviewing skill levels. My view?

 

Price DEX, INT and PRE at 2 points.  For 5 points, you can buy +1 with all skill and characteristic rolls based on one stat (not perception).  For 5 points, you can  buy +1 with all perception rolls, +5 Lighting Reflexes or +1d6 PRE attacks.  These are each based on a -1 limitation to +5 of the characteristic.  Scale the costs down if they are more limited, right down to "+1 with 1 skill" = the cost of improving the skill.

+1 with only one roll based on that stat at a time should be reduced to 3 points.  +1 with only one roll (including +1 to a single skill) drops to 1 point.  You can have +1 to all rolls in a tight group for 4 points, and +1 to any one roll at a time in a tight group for 2 points.

 

Wait, where did PRE DEF go?  Well, that becomes the exclusive domain of EGO, which stays 1 point.  PRE DEF gets priced at half a point.  The rest of EGO (EGO rolls and resistance to mental powers) is the other half.

 

Drifting further, STR is also still a pain when we look at Hand Attack and Martial Arts DCs.  An MA DC is +5 STR, only for combat effects for a group of HTH attacks (whether MA or non-MA), 0 END.  5 x 1.5 = 7.5, so that’s about a -3/4 limitation to get down to 4 points.  Just losing Lifting would normally be -1/4 (so 4 points).  Only MA or non-MA seems reasonably priced at either a further -1/4, or -1/2.  If we keep -1/2, an MA DC is a bit more pricy, but shorthanding it to 4 points seems OK.  But I think most Martial Artists rarely use STR for non-MA purposes, so -1/4 feels more appropriate and an MA DC becomes -1/2 = 5 points.

 

 

Now, what about “direct damage only”, which is a Hand Attack?  That has to be less pricy, right?  Maybe another -1/2, which would make the limitation -1 and Hand Attack costs 2.5 points per +1d6.

 

 

However, that still leaves things like Deadly Blow and Weaponmaster.  Maybe we need a concept of "DC adders".  Deadly Blow and Weaponmaster suggest that "only to increase damage" is a -1/2 limitation on a skill level.  I think it is higher - OCV and DCV are worth at least half of the value of a skill level.  So, if we started with the premise that +1 DC for any one attack at a time is 10 points (2 skill levels with All Combat, damage only (-1)), we could move to HTH only (either a -1/2 limitation, so 20/2.5 = 8 or 2 8 point skill levels only to add damage = 8).

 

Working down from there, maybe "only for martial maneuvers" or "only for non-martial maneuvers" are -1/2 limitations (tacked on to HTH only).  That drops me down to 20/3 = 6.67 per +1 DC with all martial arts maneuvers, or all non-martial maneuvers.  I'm also at 8 for all ranged maneuvers, or 6 2/3 if they can only be with martial or non-martial maneuvers. 

 

These cost no END.  Since the base at +1 DC costs 10 points, they should cost 1 END, so STR bundles these in at half END (+2 DC at 20/3.25, still over 6 points).  The math is pushing to the conclusion that STR is also underpriced, isn't it?  It does not feel like a full 2 points, though - STR with no damage a -2 limitation, and STR that only enhances damage at -1/2?  Maybe 2 points is not out of the realm of possibility.  Break our mindset of Active Points and let the Brick spend 100 points on +50 STR and perhaps we'd be OK.

 

Wow, that's a fantastic walk-through of the issues facing the game's Characteristic costs!

 

Pre-6e, I wanted to add 1 to the cost per point of many of the Primary Characteristics (STR, DEX, CON, and INT, IIRC). What stopped me was not wanting to make such a big break with the published material. 

 

It seems everyone involved with the game's development over the years recognizes these cost issues to one extent or another, but chose not to address them fully. I appreciate their avoiding breaking too much with the existing material, instead always erring on the side of compatibility with prior versions.

 

But at the same time, I sometimes have wondered what would have happened if during the big consolidation of 4e (or even with 6e) these issues had been more fully addressed. Would doing so have killed HERO as the existing base rebelled en masse? There's a good argument for that, given the reaction (including my reaction) to the changes that were introduced in 6e.

 

Ah, well, it is what it is. I appreciate the big walk-through! I hadn't considered Deadly Blow or Weaponmaster, tbh.

 

[SCUBA Hero]

6 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

So you expect that 12 PD Brick to fare well in combat?  He's maybe a bit more agile than the average guy - let's give him an 11 DEX.  That should be fine in combat, right?  [The opposite of the non-combat rogue type having the best CVs in the group.]  You didn't tell us his CON, so I'm not sure what STUN, END and REC he ends up with, but I generally saw reduced END on STR, not increased CON or increased END and REC, to handle END issues.

 

A 12 PD Brick?  No, I don't expect that.  Grabbing a couple of Bricks from the BBB and 5E:  Obsidian (BBB) buys up PD, ED, and SPD; REC, END, and STUN are at base levels.  Taurus (5Er) buys up REC as well.  So 1/2 or 1/3 of Figureds were left at base levels.

 

6 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I think what was really needed was guidance on how to assess appropriate values for the secondary stats.

 

Agreed!

[Hugh Neilson]

16 hours ago, SCUBA Hero said:

 

A 12 PD Brick?  No, I don't expect that.  Grabbing a couple of Bricks from the BBB and 5E:  Obsidian (BBB) buys up PD, ED, and SPD; REC, END, and STUN are at base levels.  Taurus (5Er) buys up REC as well.  So 1/2 or 1/3 of Figureds were left at base levels.

 

 

Agreed!

 

If Figured provided good guidance for half or a third of Figured, I submit that they did not provide good guidance. From 1e, we built characters based on the example characters in the book, not any specific build guidance.

 

In fact, I have wondered in the past how different builds would have been if the sample characters had centered around 10 DEX (base level) instead of setting "average Super" at 20 - 23 DEX.  Imagine if every character had their DEX reduced by 9 or 10, and SPD by 2.  We would have:

 

 - Really slow Bricks with 8 DEX (maybe even 5), 3 (even 2) base CV and 2 SPD;

 - Typical Supers with 11 - 14 DEX, 4 - 5 CV and 3 SPD;

 - Above average Supers with 17 - 18 DEX, 6 CV and 4 SPD;

 - Really fast Supers with 20  -23 DEX, 7 - 8 CV and 5 - 6 SPD

 

And room for some REALLY agile/speedy Supers exceeding even those stellar levels.

 

We'd also save about 40 points on the typical pre-6e Super (30 from 10 DEX and 10 from 1 SPD).  END, STUN and REC would last longer with more frequent PS 12 recoveries, which would save more points. Those extra points could go into starting characters with broader abilities, who feel more "super", without some of the point bloat experienced over the years.  Instead, we have "I'm pretty pokey for a Super - only a bit over the normal characteristic maximum".

 

We'd have cops and agents who can accurately target Supers who are not unusually agile/fast, trained military who look skilled when compared to Supers and agents who could hit Supers. That feels a lot more comic booky. Those Agents could also get by with 6 - 8 DC Blasters that, while they can hit, are no real threat to high defense Bricks.  Again, that feels a lot more comic booky.

[Grailknight]

10 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

If Figured provided good guidance for half or a third of Figured, I submit that they did not provide good guidance. From 1e, we built characters based on the example characters in the book, not any specific build guidance.

 

In fact, I have wondered in the past how different builds would have been if the sample characters had centered around 10 DEX (base level) instead of setting "average Super" at 20 - 23 DEX.  Imagine if every character had their DEX reduced by 9 or 10, and SPD by 2.  We would have:

 

 - Really slow Bricks with 8 DEX (maybe even 5), 3 (even 2) base CV and 2 SPD;

 - Typical Supers with 11 - 14 DEX, 4 - 5 CV and 3 SPD;

 - Above average Supers with 17 - 18 DEX, 6 CV and 4 SPD;

 - Really fast Supers with 20  -23 DEX, 7 - 8 CV and 5 - 6 SPD

 

And room for some REALLY agile/speedy Supers exceeding even those stellar levels.

 

We'd also save about 40 points on the typical pre-6e Super (30 from 10 DEX and 10 from 1 SPD).  END, STUN and REC would last longer with more frequent PS 12 recoveries, which would save more points. Those extra points could go into starting characters with broader abilities, who feel more "super", without some of the point bloat experienced over the years.  Instead, we have "I'm pretty pokey for a Super - only a bit over the normal characteristic maximum".

 

We'd have cops and agents who can accurately target Supers who are not unusually agile/fast, trained military who look skilled when compared to Supers and agents who could hit Supers. That feels a lot more comic booky. Those Agents could also get by with 6 - 8 DC Blasters that, while they can hit, are no real threat to high defense Bricks.  Again, that feels a lot more comic booky.

 

I both agree and disagree. Where this boat was missed was the change to 6th.

 

Your parameters are off by one category though.

 

-The Really slow Bricks would have DEX of 13-17.

 

-Typical Supers would be DEX 18-21.

 

-Quicker types would hit DEX 23-27 and Speedsters and such would be higher.

 

The reason I differ is because of one factor: Skill Rolls. Supers need the higher base DEX to be better than  any Normal naturally. (You could change the 9+ Characteristic/5 basis but then that skews the 3d6 mechanic. Chaos ensues.)

 

Typical Supers need to be in that 13 or less roll range for DEX based Skills because Hero is actually played not scripted. In genre, Heroes tripping or failing to catch a falling item or missing a jump is done for dramatic purposes . At 11 or 12 or less, this would occur nearly 1/3 of the time. Yes, you can mitigate this with bonuses to the base Skill but in the end, Supers should be better than a Normal.

 

But that doesn't mean that the gap should be as great as it is in the published material. The biggest failing of 6th was not going through and adjusting all the established NPC writeups to reflect the loss of Figured Characteristics( admittedly this would have been a big pile of work, but 6th was sorta announced with 5th  cruising along, another month or two may have been a better option but I don't know the behind the scenes story.). In particular DEX could have come down a notch across the board but the OCV and DCV values should have been evaluated on a case by case basis.  Because the easy way was taken, 95% or more of the 6th NPC's have CV's equivalent to DEX/3.

 

Basically the migration to 6th was incomplete. Figured  Characteristics were dropped but all the example writeups  were done as if they were still in place. It made moving from 5th easier in some ways but failed to set parameters for the new paradigm. Yes, a big part of the philosophy of 6th was to be more permissive, but for newcomers  the lack of structure was a greater barrier than an aid. (It's even a problem for veterans, hence this thread.)  

 

I'm not ignoring SPD here but that escalation was actually started with the change to END Costs in 4th. Before that SPD of 6 or higher had prohibitive issues with END use and REC. 

[Hugh Neilson]

14 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

I both agree and disagree. Where this boat was missed was the change to 6th.

 

Your parameters are off by one category though.

 

-The Really slow Bricks would have DEX of 13-17.

 

-Typical Supers would be DEX 18-21.

 

-Quicker types would hit DEX 23-27 and Speedsters and such would be higher.

 

The reason I differ is because of one factor: Skill Rolls. Supers need the higher base DEX to be better than  any Normal naturally. (You could change the 9+ Characteristic/5 basis but then that skews the 3d6 mechanic. Chaos ensues.)

 

Why do Supers need to have better DEX rolls if DEX has nothing to do with their power suite?  A "really slow" Brick is not logically twice as agile as an average person (whether we use 8 or 10 as "average").

 

I am fine with an 8-10 STR Super.  INT or EGO of 8 - 10?  Sure. BOD of 8-10?  Why not? CON?  Better have enough to resist Stunning.  Supers get a lot of strenuous exercise, so I can accept that they have higher CON across the board. PRE?  Well, you need something to defend against PRE attacks, anyway. Putting on a spandex suit and running off to fight crime probably requires some chutzpah, so whether we define that self-confidence as PRE or EGO to defend against typical PRE attacks, most Supers likely have some. So why is a "no more agile than the average dude" Super inconceivable?

 

Now, most Supers would still be 10 - 13 (aligning with the current 20 - 23), and given the preponderance of 23 in the current model, I would expect a lot of 13 (a bit better than the average guy), but "a bit better than the average guy" is not a "SLOW" anything.

 

14 hours ago, Grailknight said:

But that doesn't mean that the gap should be as great as it is in the published material. The biggest failing of 6th was not going through and adjusting all the established NPC writeups to reflect the loss of Figured Characteristics( admittedly this would have been a big pile of work, but 6th was sorta announced with 5th  cruising along, another month or two may have been a better option but I don't know the behind the scenes story.). In particular DEX could have come down a notch across the board but the OCV and DCV values should have been evaluated on a case by case basis.  Because the easy way was taken, 95% or more of the 6th NPC's have CV's equivalent to DEX/3.

 

Basically the migration to 6th was incomplete. Figured  Characteristics were dropped but all the example writeups  were done as if they were still in place. It made moving from 5th easier in some ways but failed to set parameters for the new paradigm. Yes, a big part of the philosophy of 6th was to be more permissive, but for newcomers  the lack of structure was a greater barrier than an aid. (It's even a problem for veterans, hence this thread.)  

 

I'm not ignoring SPD here but that escalation was actually started with the change to END Costs in 4th. Before that SPD of 6 or higher had prohibitive issues with END use and REC. 

 

Definitely.  What was the point of de-linking OCV and DCV, and removing DEX from both, to just make everyone 23 DEX, 8 OCV and 8 DCV?  DEX ranges could have become much more like INT and STR ranges - unless the hero is notable for agility, average DEX is fine.

 

However, Hero has always prized backward compatibility.  This may have acted to its detriment - try playing 2e D&D with a 4e adventure or source book.  "New editions" in most systems mean "if you want to use new source material, you will need to buy the new edition".  Hero did not adopt that built-in marketing tool that really began with 3e D&D.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Definitely.  What was the point of de-linking OCV and DCV, and removing DEX from both, to just make everyone 23 DEX, 8 OCV and 8 DCV?  DEX ranges could have become much more like INT and STR ranges - unless the hero is notable for agility, average DEX is fine.

 

Most of the stats we came to assume were used were based on figured characteristics.  Everyone wanted a good OCV and DCV, so 18 became the effective minimum for DEX on every character, no matter how unreasonable it was.  Everyone had a huge CON to stop being stunned, but also to pump up REC, ED, END, and STN.

 

When I built characters I would deliberately focus on concepts rather than Goodman's tips on Super Efficiency.  Its not that its bad to do so, it just felt wrong for every character to have at least 11 Ego because that gave you 4 ECV.  All those breakpoints and cost crunching made the character builds really similar even when it made no sense.  Rebuilding every NPC to make more sense and have more variety would be a great project but I agree it would take a while and was just easier to copy over the previous editions.

 

That said... I really like the idea of figured characteristics, as a concept.  I like the thought that having a higher CON made you have higher STN.  I liked the  idea that REC was based on something else.  It just creates all these mathematical patterns and minimum efficiencies that make character creation a bit too much a pattern.  And some of them just didn't make any sense.

 

The two changes I did not like and still do not are deleting Comeliness and moving Body down to a secondary characteristic.  I regularly used Body rolls in heroic games for stuff like system shock from poisons and the like.  And all the arguments for getting rid of COM are the same for getting rid of any "replacement" like Striking Appearance.  What was needed was more ways to make COM work and be an interesting stat, not ditching it entirely.

[Grailknight]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Why do Supers need to have better DEX rolls if DEX has nothing to do with their power suite?  A "really slow" Brick is not logically twice as agile as an average person (whether we use 8 or 10 as "average").

 

I am fine with an 8-10 STR Super.  INT or EGO of 8 - 10?  Sure. BOD of 8-10?  Why not? CON?  Better have enough to resist Stunning.  Supers get a lot of strenuous exercise, so I can accept that they have higher CON across the board. PRE?  Well, you need something to defend against PRE attacks, anyway. Putting on a spandex suit and running off to fight crime probably requires some chutzpah, so whether we define that self-confidence as PRE or EGO to defend against typical PRE attacks, most Supers likely have some. So why is a "no more agile than the average dude" Super inconceivable?

 

Now, most Supers would still be 10 - 13 (aligning with the current 20 - 23), and given the preponderance of 23 in the current model, I would expect a lot of 13 (a bit better than the average guy), but "a bit better than the average guy" is not a "SLOW" anything.

 

I'd say this was a philosophical difference but it's not reflected in genre either. Supers as a group just are better than any Normal at physical acts. They're not worlds apart. Most of them are in the 13-18 range in STR and DEX along with elite soldiers, super spies and professional athletes. The exceptions tend to be represented as such in the source material and they are constantly training to reach a higher standard. There is less variation in the mental characteristics. But remember this is an action genre. NPC's are there to be expert consultants or celebrity models and actors.

 

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

Definitely.  What was the point of de-linking OCV and DCV, and removing DEX from both, to just make everyone 23 DEX, 8 OCV and 8 DCV?  DEX ranges could have become much more like INT and STR ranges - unless the hero is notable for agility, average DEX is fine.

 

However, Hero has always prized backward compatibility.  This may have acted to its detriment - try playing 2e D&D with a 4e adventure or source book.  "New editions" in most systems mean "if you want to use new source material, you will need to buy the new edition".  Hero did not adopt that built-in marketing tool that really began with 3e D&D.

 

 

But it wouldn't have compromised backward compatibility in the slightest to make those changes. It would have just meant more changes to the writeups without any change to the rules. This was done for expedience in production alone. GM's and players still had to take the time to adopt their characters between editions to make the switch.

[SCUBA Hero]

On 3/15/2022 at 9:39 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

If Figured provided good guidance for half or a third of Figured, I submit that they did not provide good guidance. From 1e, we built characters based on the example characters in the book, not any specific build guidance

 

You make a good point. 👍  I'm amending my previous claim:

 

Figureds provide good guidance for STUN, END, and REC.  DEX provides good guidance for OCV and DCV.  Not so much for PD, ED, and SPD.

 

As evidence, look at the five 6E Champions characters (only changes from base Figureds are listed, as +/- pips [not CPs]).

 

STUN: Defender +6, Kinetic +1, Sapphire +6, Witchcraft +6

 

END: Defender -10, Kinetic +4, Sapphire +14, Witchcraft -1

 

REC: Defender +1, Ironclad +2, Witchcraft +2

 

OCV: Ironclad +1

 

DCV: Witchcraft +1

 

And while I applaud Ironclad having more than base OCV (he’s a skilled combatant), why not *decrease* DCV?  His combat MO is to suck up damage, not avoid getting hit.

8 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Why do Supers need to have better DEX rolls if DEX has nothing to do with their power suite?  A "really slow" Brick is not logically twice as agile as an average person (whether we use 8 or 10 as "average").

 

I am fine with an 8-10 STR Super.  INT or EGO of 8 - 10?  Sure. BOD of 8-10?  Why not? CON?  Better have enough to resist Stunning.  Supers get a lot of strenuous exercise, so I can accept that they have higher CON across the board. PRE?  Well, you need something to defend against PRE attacks, anyway. Putting on a spandex suit and running off to fight crime probably requires some chutzpah, so whether we define that self-confidence as PRE or EGO to defend against typical PRE attacks, most Supers likely have some. So why is a "no more agile than the average dude" Super inconceivable?

 

I like this concept!  The Thing has high OCV (DCV somewhat, but not as much, as his MO is to absorb damage, not avoid it) because he's a skilled combatant, not because he's super-agile.  Walk across a balance beam?  Not so much...

[Utensil]

I remember Champions 3 where they had a random hero generator starting with page 8.

 

Page 9 stated

If during any first roll you get an "As Previously Rolled" result, you should reroll; take the new result and assume that your character rolled the new Power twice. Rolling a Power twice increases the cost and effectiveness of that Power. If you get "As Previously Rolled" again, assume you've rolled the new Power three times. Each Power listing contains the effects of rolling that Power multiple times.

 

I was creating some characters for fun and in chart it kept getting result of 10 and when when done I got an outrageous amount of +REC and +CON (pages 15 &17). That Character ended up with 40 CON and 50 Recovery. He was a Brick with 60 STR. Never once did I have to buy reduced endurance and was my favorite characters (and frustration to many GMs). He get knocked down and out only to comeback with a single recovery.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I liked that Random Hero Generator stuff.  It could be very wild and create some odd stuff but that was part of the fun.

[Hugh Neilson]

8 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

The two changes I did not like and still do not are deleting Comeliness and moving Body down to a secondary characteristic.  I regularly used Body rolls in heroic games for stuff like system shock from poisons and the like.  And all the arguments for getting rid of COM are the same for getting rid of any "replacement" like Striking Appearance.  What was needed was more ways to make COM work and be an interesting stat, not ditching it entirely.

 

So big lardy guys are better able to resist system shock than a tiny, but hardy and nimble, individual?  BOD has never been more than "hit points" as written. Giving it some of CONs function is not necessary.

 

What sold me on removal of COM was the simple question - what does COM do that would be unique, rather than modify what another characterisic (PRE) already does?  Prior to that, I was a defender of COM as a stat, but I have never seen a persuasive mechanical application of COM that did not simply modify PRE-based abilities in some way.

 

7 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

I'd say this was a philosophical difference but it's not reflected in genre either. Supers as a group just are better than any Normal at physical acts. They're not worlds apart. Most of them are in the 13-18 range in STR and DEX along with elite soldiers, super spies and professional athletes. The exceptions tend to be represented as such in the source material and they are constantly training to reach a higher standard. There is less variation in the mental characteristics. But remember this is an action genre. NPC's are there to be expert consultants or celebrity models and actors.

 

 

But it wouldn't have compromised backward compatibility in the slightest to make those changes. It would have just meant more changes to the writeups without any change to the rules. This was done for expedience in production alone. GM's and players still had to take the time to adopt their characters between editions to make the switch.

 

But how many Champions Supers have a 13 - 18 DEX? At present, very few - below 17 is pretty much unheard of.  Now, how many have DEX at least in the "legendary" range, say 23 - 26, and what proportion of those have any mention of their amazing agility in their w/u?.

 

How many have less than a 23 DEX and would drop below 13 if we dropped all Super DEX by 10?  Pretty few, IMO, and those would be "the exceptions". Drop DEX by 10, CV by 3 and SPD by 2 would have been an easy change across the board, which would have been a decent starting point, after which outliers (and "he should have better OCV but not so much DCV" or vice versa could then be addressed).

 

Part of that backwards compatibility would have been changing the norms so prior published characters would no longer fit well.  Much like d20 games republish every class and race when a new edition comes out, the old villains would have needed new writeups, not just "run as was".

 

1 hour ago, SCUBA Hero said:

 

DEX provides good guidance for OCV and DCV. 

****************************************************

And while I applaud Ironclad having more than base OCV (he’s a skilled combatant), why not *decrease* DCV?  His combat MO is to suck up damage, not avoid getting hit.

 

I like this concept!  The Thing has high OCV (DCV somewhat, but not as much, as his MO is to absorb damage, not avoid it) because he's a skilled combatant, not because he's super-agile.  Walk across a balance beam?  Not so much...

One of these things is not like the other   Excellent OCV, decent DCV and human average DEX would be fine.  I'd give him 13-15 DEX - I think he is a bit better than the average individual - but I might give Colossus a 10 - 12.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

What sold me on removal of COM was the simple question - what does COM do that would be unique, rather than modify what another characterisic (PRE) already does?

 

Bob Greenwade wrote an extensive treatment on how to use COM in the game and have it have a real impact in interesting ways.  Now, instead, we have Striking Appearance, which does what PRE does, but in a more obvious and direct manner.  Comeliness was a role playing stat that worked well as it was, there was no reason to jettison it.  If you didn't care to bother with it, it was easy to ignore.  Instead it was deleted because people couldn't bother to read what Bob posted in the "lets discuss what to do with 6th edition" and personally didn't care for the stat.

[Hugh Neilson]

22 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Bob Greenwade wrote an extensive treatment on how to use COM in the game and have it have a real impact in interesting ways.  Now, instead, we have Striking Appearance, which does what PRE does, but in a more obvious and direct manner.  Comeliness was a role playing stat that worked well as it was, there was no reason to jettison it.  If you didn't care to bother with it, it was easy to ignore.  Instead it was deleted because people couldn't bother to read what Bob posted in the "lets discuss what to do with 6th edition" and personally didn't care for the stat.

 

I can say with 99% confidence that it was deleted because no one, Bob included, provided a mechanical reason fro COM to exist as a characteristic that did something no other existing characteristic already did.  Neither "change for the sake of change" nor "retain for the sake of nostalgia" should govern these decisions, in my view.

 

21 hours ago, Massive Metakine said:

Because bricks make poor ballerinas is no excuse to rob them & everyone of the CV & SPD they had, have & will have!

-2 SPD, -3 CV; where do you get these numbers? Cause a really slow brick should have  a SPD of 2?

6th edition is decoupled, so do feel free to eliminate some gymnastic abilities, it don't mean everyone's got too much combat ability, there "Keeping up with the Jones" what they need to buy in CV & SPD is what it was. Feel free to sell back some DCV.

 

 

Because I see no compelling reason that a "really slow Brick" should be at the peak of human agility and dexterity.  It does not seem unreasonable, at least to me, that a "really slow Brick" be around normal human average, just as a "not overly brilliant or strong-willed" character might have normal human range INT and EGO. This also makes it a lot more viable for Conan to run with the Savage Avengers, as I think of it. Cross-genre portability becomes far more viable.

 

3 CV simply came from positing this theory long before 6e decoupled figured characteristics as simply lowering DEX and SPD across the board.

 

It will not happen.  That ship sailed with the first 1e sample characters, before anyone really settled in on what "normal human" stat ranges were in Hero, and we prize backwards compatibility more than enough to not effectively require re-statting every past published Super.

 

21 hours ago, Massive Metakine said:

"Part of that backwards compatibility would have been changing the norms so prior published characters would no longer fit well. Much like d20 games republish every class and race when a new edition comes out, the old villains would have needed new writeups, not just "run as was"."

 

Everyone written up is a new writeup, requiring 6th edition rules & character sheets. 6th edition has got it's changes, will always have the changes required of it. Any changes or revisions will have to be extensive enough for another edition, very different from 6th edition. I don't really recommend a 6.5 with a major revision. We can save it for the next version were, surprise, surprise, figured characteristics will be reintroduced along with even more Brutonium which wasn't available for 6th edition.

 

Many received a new writeup.  Few required it. Some of the point costs changed, but pretty much every character upgraded to 6e kept the same DEX, SPD, EGO, CVs and Figured that they had in 5e.  And that's fine - not invalidating decades of favorite characters in a heartbeat is a convincing reason to keep the benchmarks unchanged, even if they had taken a bit more advantage of decoupling to add a bit more variety (like some characters getting a bit more OCV and a bit less DCV, or vice versa)..

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I can say with 99% confidence that it was deleted because no one, Bob included, provided a mechanical reason fro COM to exist as a characteristic that did something no other existing characteristic already did.

 

Like I said nobody read it.  I can say this confidently because he did provide several pages of how to do just what you want, yet say he did not.  In any case, as a role playing stat it doesn't need the same mechanical justification as, say, STR.  But maybe that's a concept that isn't easy to grab because it cannot be crunched like numbers.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 3/12/2022 at 3:39 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

There was also discussion around the fact that no one ever bought up REC and END, rather than buying reduced END. Similarly, no one bought up STUN and REC - they just bought more defenses. They were overpriced, so their price was reduced. To mitigate that, at least to some extent, they were made "defensive characteristics" so adjustment powers would only have half as much impact.

 

As I think on this, in 5e, I could either put half END on my 12 DC blast for 15 points, or buy +7.5 REC (I know, no halfsies, work with me for a minute).

 

If I had a 5 SPD (standard Super), reduced END saved me 15 END per turn.  I would recover 7.5 with the REC. Pretty clear which was the better buy.

 

Now, I save 15 END or recover an extra 15 END.  In a straight shoot 'em up, the Rec is likely better, as I also recover STUN.  But the value of REC compared to reduced END declines as SPD rises (and the value of REC over defenses declines as average SPD rises and I take more attacks per PS12.

 

I have not heard of players over-purchasing REC, so I don't think we have destabilized the game.