Champions, Star and Fantasy hero

[Kzinbane]

I suspect this has been hashed over long ago, but in a bit of looking about I have not seen it covered. Do the champions (Super) Hero, Fantasy and Star hero systems all work interchangeably? In other words if I were to use the Fantasy Grimore and Star Hero tool kit could I port things directly into Champions without issue with needing to re-figure disadvantage costs, powers costs, etc?

[Steve Long]

Since this isn't really a rules question per se, I've moved it to "Discussion" so other fans can chime in.

 

Absolutely. All our products use the HERO System rules from the 5th Edition core rulebook, and that makes them pretty much totally interchangeable. You could easily use FHG spells in a Champions game if you wanted, and so on. All the costs for Powers, Skills, and so on are identical from book to book. Some books may introduce new Advantages or Limitations or what have you, but the costs of things don't change.

[Lord Liaden]

While all the various HERO System games use the same ruleset, those rules have a certain degree of mix-and-match modularity that make for a few differences between "heroic" games (e.g. Star and Fantasy HERO) and "superheroic" games (Champions). For the most part these would be rules that you would either apply while running the game or not, such as Knockdown vs. Knockback, or Hit Locations, but which don't change how a weapon or spell is built.

 

Most weapons in heroic games are built with Strength Minima which superheroic games rarely use, and that does affect their real cost. Also, Normal Characteristic Maxima doubles the cost for Characteristics over 20, which may make the character sheets for some characters more expensive in heroic games than superheroic ones.

 

These are minor exceptions, though. Otherwise the game mechanics, costs of Skills and Powers, the way Vehicles are built, and most other rules are exactly the same. You could port over all the spells in the Fantasy HERO Grimoire or the starships and equipment in The Spacer's Toolkit to a Champions game with virtually no changes whatsoever.

[Kzinbane]

Excellent

 

I thought so. The confusion is in the names I guess. Instead of saying "Hero spacers toolkit" the title is Star Hero which (to me) implies some differences as does the "Fantasy" designator as compared to standard "Hero" or Champions.

Anyhow glad for the answers. I thinks me Super Heroes are going to encounter some nanobots soon... Bwah ha ha ha!

[Killer Shrike]

Well, aside from some of the differences btwn Heroic and Superheroic play such as Lord Liaden mentions, there are also some flavor differences which you might want to account for when taking Power Constructs and the like across genres.

 

Fortunately most of the flavor has no impact on the Power Constructs, but some Power Constructs are written to better model the intended flavor and would be written up slightly differently if the intended flavor were other than what it was when the original Construct was modeled.

 

Meaning that yes, things are like 99% percent compatible between genres because they all use the HERO System, but some elements are implemented in a fashion that is flavored to be more appropriate to the genre in which they were intended to be used. So, you might want to eyeball things and tweak as you think necessary