Want to use 5th edition what are the must have rules to grab from 6th edition?

[dean day]

Hey guys,

I am just starting to prepare a new superhero campaign and despite owning seemingly dozens of superhero games, none quite do what I want, so I am going to run 5th edition hero. I do have 6th but some of the stuff was a dealbreaker for me (specifically losing the connection between primary and figured characteristics which i love!) I am probably most comfortable with 5th edition, but I wanted to know what is easy to grab from 6th edition that you would recommend for a supers game? I am open to anything big or small which you think can be easily added to 5th, if its just more detail, or new powers, advantages, limitations, skills, etc. I know that the disadvanatge system got renamed, is there anything I can port over there as well?

 

Any feedback would be great.

[fdw3773]

For me, using the Unified Power mechanic in character design to replace Elemental Control was a great help and made things simpler. 🙂

[Christopher R Taylor]

I recommend the Transform rebuild, the Area Effect rebuild, the addition of range to Drain, the cheaper Armor Piercing cost, DOT advantage, and yeah the Unified Power mechanic.

[DShomshak]

Area Effect rebuild was the first thing I thought of, too. Giving AoE fixed ranges of area for particular Advantage values is just so much more convenient than calculating areas based on Active Points, except don't include the AoE Advantage in the calculation...

 

Dean Shomshak

[Grailknight]

The others have covered most of my suggestions.  Only thing I see missing is Damage Negation.

[HeroGM]

Just put back in the Figured Characteristics...

[Christopher R Taylor]

Maybe reflection, but I have not played much Hero since 6th came out so I cannot say how well it plays out in the game or if its really useful.

[Opal]

5th edition worked pretty well as it was.

 

So did 4th.

 

Don't see the need.

 

I suspect giving up EC for Unified would hurt characters who had any common limitations on their ECs, relative to other frameworks and bricks... points did still matter in 5th...

[Hugh Neilson]

Depends on whether you use them much, but the change to VPP control costs (1/2 maximum AP in the slots) was a marked improvement to the framework, IMO.

 

 

[Jhamin]

5th and 6th are 95% the same.

The biggest differences are the removal of figured characteristics and elemental controls being replaced by unified power.  Don't get me wrong, those are big differences, but they only matter at character creation.  (I've come to really appreciate the lack of figured characteristics, but mileage varies)

 

Beyond that there are a ton of small changes spread over the system.  Different costs for various things, different ways of calculating various things (usually simplifying them), and so on.  I don't know that I would complicate things by stealing bits and pieces.

 

I play 6e roughly 2/month and have been for about 4 years.  I played 4e and 5e for decades before and loved them both.  I really do think 6e is the best version but if you don't want to deal with all the fiddly little changes (which I really get!) then just play 5e and be done.

 

Once you start mixing and matching editions you lose the "muscle memory" for the system and may as well have just gone full 6e and be done with it.  Or as HeroGM suggested, play 6 and just use 5e stats with corresponding figured characteristics and costs.

[BNakagawa]

Jettison Barrier, use Force Wall. Much more balanced.

 

Also dump Find Weakness. It was always an orphan mechanic that didn't make a lot of sense as built.

[dean day]

26 minutes ago, BNakagawa said:

Jettison Barrier, use Force Wall. Much more balanced.

 

Also dump Find Weakness. It was always an orphan mechanic that didn't make a lot of sense as built.

I always liked Find Weakness, it always screamed the Inhuman character Karnak to me.

[Joe Walsh]

I went down this path with 4e recently, looking into what to include from 5e and 6e. In the end, I decided to not only not import anything, but to also strip away most of the house rules I've built up over the years and just run 4e RAW aside from using 1/2d6 for the STUN multiplier (which I've been doing since the early 80s). If anything comes up in actual play that can't be solved with a simple spot rule or table ruling, I can look into importing something from 5e or 6e, or just make something up like we used to do.

 

And it's been working well so far. No complaints, no issues. And no need to reference a document filled with rules changes! Just open the book and read.

 

(I did incorporate the errata into the text with handwritten notes and pasted-in printouts).

[IndianaJoe3]

You should definitely use the 6e rules for killing attacks, because the STUN Lotto sucks.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think 6th edition is a good idea to use because its most current and it helps new players stay up with what Hero is doing now (and gives you more new content that doesn't require changes), but people should play what they like and enjoy.

[Scott Ruggels]

On 7/14/2022 at 7:30 AM, IndianaJoe3 said:

You should definitely use the 6e rules for killing attacks, because the STUN Lotto sucks.

No it doesn’t! I would buy the stun multiplier up! 

5 works.  It also has I think the most non superhero support materials.  

[Hugh Neilson]

16 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

No it doesn’t! I would buy the stun multiplier up! 

5 works.  It also has I think the most non superhero support materials.  

 

The math of the Stun Lotto has always made the KA more effective in driving STUN past defenses than a normal attack in (most) Supers games.  In games where the "defense to DC" ratio is lower, the older Stun Multiple works fine, so the issue did not show up in most Fantasy and similar games.  I believe that's why the hit location multiples were not adjusted.  Of course, they also multiply normal attack damage. IIRC, the breakpoint was around 2 defenses per DC when I did some deeper analysis.

 

It's also less obvious where most attacks are KAs, as you don't see the contrast as often.

 

Scott, I think you play mainly Heroic games, so the issue probably never hit your games.

 

This was observed in the old Ultimate Supermage, IIRC, which described a "60 AP max, no other restrictions" attack game where the attack that most often proved unbalancing (instant takeouts, etc.) was a simple 4d6 RKA.

 

 

[Ndreare]

On 7/13/2022 at 11:17 AM, Grailknight said:

The others have covered most of my suggestions.  Only thing I see missing is Damage Negation.

I do not know why, but for some reason Damage Negation seems to slow things down whenever it comes up in my games.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Its yet another level of calculation and I'm not convinced its balanced properly yet so I cannot recommend it to people.

[Jhamin]

3 hours ago, Ndreare said:

I do not know why, but for some reason Damage Negation seems to slow things down whenever it comes up in my games.

 

My thought is that it works against damage classes rather than amounts of damage.  Most defenses block a fixed amount of damage, or reduce damage a fixed percentage.  Damage Negation works against what was up until it's creation an abstract "behind the scenes" concept (Damage Classes)

 

It seems like it works better to just remove the appropriate amount of dice from the attack before rolling damage, but it's weird to me that the attacker knows how much damage is being negated before the roll.  Players usually work out someone's PD after they punch them a few times & weigh how much they seem to care.  I normally don't tell them how much stun gets through on a roll.

 

If you remove the damage after the roll, how much damage do you negate?  Do you take an average amount out?  Specific dice?  Which ones?

 

I feel like Damage Negation IS a good idea that has a place in the system, but we need some "best practices" around what was effectively a new kind of defense and how to make it run smoothly in game.  The fact that there are questions makes me shy away from using it, which means I never get practice in figuring it out

[Grailknight]

Always remove the dice rolled before the roll. If you truly dislike that, then roll  the number of dice negated secretly and reduce the roll by that amount.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

It seems like it works better to just remove the appropriate amount of dice from the attack before rolling damage, but it's weird to me that the attacker knows how much damage is being negated before the roll.

 

Yeah, I never liked that as a GM.  The solution is to roll the missing dice yourself and subtract that from the total but again: added complexity.  To me Damage Negation seems like an answer to a question nobody was asking or needed answered.

[Hugh Neilson]

8 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Yeah, I never liked that as a GM.  The solution is to roll the missing dice yourself and subtract that from the total but again: added complexity.  To me Damage Negation seems like an answer to a question nobody was asking or needed answered.

 

I think "why can't a Super be immune to conventional attacks without defenses too high for the campaign" or "how can we have Supers has some risk of taking BOD from normal attacks that aren't one-hit KOs" were being asked, and deserved an answer for campaigns where these were desired.

[dmjalund]

Remember that Damage Negation kind of had Knockback Resistance built in, where normal defences don't

[BNakagawa]

The Stun Multiple was always a problem, but it became a bigger problem when they unwisely reduced the cost of the +1 Stun Multiple from +1/2 to +1/4. At that point, the most ludicrously broken power in the game became the 1 pip KA with +48 Stun Multiple (or +44 and Area Effect or Affects Desolid or whatever)

 

Sure, sure, the GM is within their rights to veto the build, but again, it puts the onus on the GM who has the largest workload already. The system shouldn't punish GMs who aren't as system savvy as their players.