Biggest whine about HERO

[Fox1]

Mine isn't the normal one about EC, END, skill break due to Characterist/9, or any of those.

 

Mine is that 5e is full of suggested rule exceptions. Just jammed packed with them. Examples: no modifier for pulling punches, UMA's statement that you can consider MD and Block extensions of each other, etc.

 

This doesn't count the actual rules with an Optional Header (Hit Location, etc.)

 

 

Sadly there's no list and so there's no good way to tell people up front what optional rules and decisions you have in use. Most of them are buried in the text.

 

Whine.

 

Ok, you're turn. No debate, just the single most whine thing about HERO.

 

If I get enough maybe I'll do a poll of the options.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Not enough players.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

With a good roll, a normal schmoe with an AK-47 assault rifle can hurt a hero with defenses equivalent to a main battle tank; i.e., the Stun Lottery.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

With a good roll' date=' a normal schmoe with an AK-47 assault rifle can hurt a hero with defenses equivalent to a main battle tank; i.e., the Stun Lottery. [/quote']

 

Seconded.

[aylwin13]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Not enough players.

Too true.

 

::sigh::

[devlin1]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Not enough points.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Originally:

Great machine shop... no sports car.

 

(i.e. All system/mechanics... no real game.)

 

Currently:

Backward system design. Complexity required for playability, rather than simplicity for playability and complexity for depth/granularity ONLY IF DESIRED.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Originally:

Great machine shop... no sports car.

 

(i.e. All system/mechanics... no real game.)

 

Currently:

Backward system design. Complexity required for playability, rather than simplicity for playability and complexity for depth/granularity ONLY IF DESIRED.

 

Heh. Yeah, sometimes I look at the original Champions book, then compare it to the monster of 5th in the stores and wonder "Is this really necessary?"

[MitchellS]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Originally:

Great machine shop... no sports car.

 

(i.e. All system/mechanics... no real game.)

 

Currently:

Backward system design. Complexity required for playability, rather than simplicity for playability and complexity for depth/granularity ONLY IF DESIRED.

I'd rep you for that if I could!

[Blue]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

With a good roll' date=' a normal schmoe with an AK-47 assault rifle can hurt a hero with defenses equivalent to a main battle tank; i.e., the Stun Lottery. [/quote']

For as much as I've seen that complaint, I've never, ever, had it happen in any edition, all the way back to first.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

I don't like all the exceptions either. I especially don't like what I hear has been added for 5ER. FAQs are great for getting the impressions of the game designers, but that doesn't mean every ruling even they would make while GMing should become cardinal law! We don't need piles and piles of complications; we need the opposite!!!

 

Not enough points.

Isn't that a gripe about your GM, not your system?

[Mentor]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

For as much as I've seen that complaint' date=' I've never, ever, had it happen in any edition, all the way back to first.[/quote']

Oddly enough, I did it to Trebuchet's PC so he has scar tissue to rub on that one. A Spetznatz guard with an AK-74 who required a 3 to hit the superquick Z'lf got a lucky hit and a luck STUN Modifier. Those of us who play PCs with SPDs lower than Z'if's 9 don't actually claim we sympathize with her losing a phase to recover and still acting before all the rest of the SPD 3 Mooks as well as the rest of the team, but it did happen in our campaign.

[lemming]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

For as much as I've seen that complaint' date=' I've never, ever, had it happen in any edition, all the way back to first.[/quote']

Really? Used to happen all the time in our games. I remember three games in a row one night, we get to the combat.

One of the heros with a 6d6 KA (3 different characters) and each one rolled 30 body and a x5 for Stun. The odds of that just had us floored, though the combats went pretty quick...

[prestidigitator]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

With a good roll' date=' a normal schmoe with an AK-47 assault rifle can hurt a hero with defenses equivalent to a main battle tank; i.e., the Stun Lottery. [/quote']

Not, "hurt." Do some Stun. There is a difference. The tank doesn't have a brain that can get rattled (no Stun Characteristic) by a hard hit that doesn't penetrate its armor.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Not' date=' "hurt." Do some Stun. There is a difference. The tank doesn't have a brain that can get rattled (no Stun Characteristic) by a hard hit that doesn't penetrate its armor.[/quote']I would argue that to a character who would take zero BODY on a perfect roll from a 4d6 RKA antitank missile a 7.62 mm low powered assault rifle round does not constitute a "hard hit" by any stretch of the imagination.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Oddly enough' date=' I did it to Trebuchet's PC so he has scar tissue to rub on that one. A Spetznatz guard with an AK-74 who required a 3 to hit the superquick Z'lf got a lucky hit and a luck STUN Modifier. Those of us who play PCs with SPDs lower than Z'if's 9 don't actually claim we sympathize with her losing a phase to recover and still acting before all the rest of the SPD 3 Mooks as well as the rest of the team, but it did happen in our campaign. [/quote']It all seems to balance out in play. Cyberknight has taken hits on his powered armor without it even mussing his hair that would have turned Zl'f into a greasy red smear. And she still holds the team record for most BODY lost in a battle; 13 out of her 12 BODY.

[Lamrok]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

I would argue that to a character who would take zero BODY on a perfect roll from a 4d6 RKA antitank missile a 7.62 mm low powered assault rifle round does not constitute a "hard hit" by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Unless you hit them exactly in the funny bone.

[lemming]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

It all seems to balance out in play. Cyberknight has taken hits on his powered armor without it even mussing his hair that would have turned Zl'f into a greasy red smear. And she still holds the team record for most BODY lost in a battle; 13 out of her 12 BODY.

Amateur

[lemming]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Unless you hit them exactly in the funny bone.

I think a hit to the funny bone does a check on Profanity skills or Disadvantages...

[prestidigitator]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

I would argue that to a character who would take zero BODY on a perfect roll from a 4d6 RKA antitank missile a 7.62 mm low powered assault rifle round does not constitute a "hard hit" by any stretch of the imagination.

The missile is going to do an average of over 35 Stun. The rifle is very rarely going to do so much. To a character with 25 rPD/rED (in order to take 0 Body from the max roll by the missile), probably a high Con, and some additional normal PD/ED, the rifle is pretty laughable. The missile may well Stun him almost half the time, though, which I consider fair.

 

I agree that an attacker who fires that rifle using a lot of CSLs for damage can be a lot more dangerous, but that may be a different issue.

[TheEmerged]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

#1> Front-loaded complexity. This is a feature, not a flaw, in my opinion. I'd rather take a week to build a character than waste 10 minutes looking up what a spell does during actual gameplay myself. But for the people used to banging out a character in under a minute, this is an issue.

 

#2> No Good Licenses. Not that great licenses have helped some companies, but HERO appears to not even want to compete here sometimes. I mean, the only one I've ever heard were some noises about a Witchcraft license during the Cybergames era. A T&A comic is the best they can do?

 

#3> Too Many House Rules. I get this one most from the d20 crowd, ironically enough ("Pot? Kettle. Kettle? Pot.") The complaint is that just about every little pocket of HERO fandom runs by its own set of rules, making character portability difficult. Again, from where I type this is a feature not a flaw -- I happen to LIKE the idea that the system's openness means people can run very different campaign styles with the same system.

 

#4> The Math. I know I should pity people on this, but I can't. It's junior-high math at most, people.

 

#5> The scalability problems in lower-point campaigns. This one I have to actually grant people; in hindsight, maybe skills should have been built on 5+(Cha/5) and the NCM set at 25-30 instead of 20. Someday I hope to actually test that standard...

 

#6> The lack of absolutes. I know one person locally whose main argument for why he hates HERO is that it doesn't easily handle absolutes -- a spell that always hits, a defense that absolutely protects or causes an automatic miss, and so forth. Personally I think he's just being contrary, though...

[Fox1]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

#3> Too Many House Rules[/b]. I get this one most from the d20 crowd' date=' ironically enough ("Pot? Kettle. Kettle? Pot.") The complaint is that just about every little pocket of HERO fandom runs by its own set of rules, making character portability difficult. Again, from where I type this is a feature not a flaw -- I happen to LIKE the idea that the system's openness means people can run very different campaign styles with the same system.[/quote']

 

I can see where they are coming from although in IMO they are missing the target in naming it. In D20 you may have tons of house rules, but it's highly likely that you can plug in published adventures and drag characters from campaign to campaign without much if any fuss.

 

No so with HERO.

 

As but one example, I have no desire to make public my Marvel character build despite the huge amount of time I sunk into making they, the research the went into them, and perhaps most importantly the vast amount of playtest using them.

 

Why (besides the fact I don't think anyone would be interested that is)?

 

Because they were built to fit into may campaigns with their average values, running under my house rules, in a setting where everything is built to my own conditions and needs.

 

They simply won't work for anyone else. For example, every character Hero Games has published in 5e is useless to me because they aren't construction with my campaign concepts in mind.

 

House rules are part of that, but only a part. The rest is the from the ground up construction method of HERO. It's great for tailored campaigns. Not so hot for sharing.

 

Note that I don't consider this to be a real problem. I do think however the feature exists.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

Amateur

Oh' date=' I know. In a game I played in many years ago one of the players had a Wolverine clone with low defenses and fast Regeneration. Over the course of one epic battle, the PC took over 160 points of BODY and lived. The player griped about it a bit afterwords, but we pointed out to her that 160 BODY through defenses would have killed every other member of the team [i']combined![/i]

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

I would argue that to a character who would take zero BODY on a perfect roll from a 4d6 RKA antitank missile a 7.62 mm low powered assault rifle round does not constitute a "hard hit" by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Golden BBs happen in real life, too....

[Fox1]

Re: Biggest whine about HERO

 

I've found two ways to control the stun lotto.

 

1. Use hit locations. Reduces the problem significantly by altering the probabilities. No other hit location rules need to be used (although I do).

 

2. Fix the Stun Multiple at 3. Even if you're using Hit locations, this is good for AEs/EXs.

 

Problem solved