City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

[TheMightyDan]

Hey all--long time no post. ;D I was wondering if anyone's crunched the numbers on getting a CoH-to-HERO conversion for all of the hero powers in CoH? If there is any info out there and someone could share, that'd be super. Thanks!

 

 

 

---Me

[Barton]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

COH is doing a pencil and paper RPG game, I have signed up for it at GenCon. I will be interested in how they do it, and of course I will post my impressions after GenCon.

[TheMightyDan]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

Yeah thanks Barton---I'm looking forward to that too. I was wondering if any of the crazy Herophiles/CoH players out there have converted any of the powers to the HERO system specifically. Anyone?

[fredrik_nilsson]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

COH is doing a pencil and paper RPG game' date=' I have signed up for it at GenCon. I will be interested in how they do it, and of course I will post my impressions after GenCon.[/quote']

Considering who will make the game, much of the conversion could already have been done. At least someone, must have converted Armageddeon, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Witchcraft or Buffy.

 

I haven't seen an adaption of CoH the Computer Game, and I just started looking at the game yesterday (so I haven't got much to add directly).

 

Is there a specific thing you're searching for? If you describe it, I can try to help you.

[TheMightyDan]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

I guess I wan't looking for only a specific power or powerset that's been converted, just a handy chart of a conversion of all powersets and powers. I'm just too lazy/busy to do it myself. I suppose I could look for a conversion of the system once the P&P game comes out.

[Jhamin]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

From what I've seen of city of Heroes, most characters are pretty archtype driven. You have various ways of hitting for damage, avoiding damage, and moving around. These are so simple to write up in hero (Energy blast, armor/forcefield/Resistant PD/Damage reduction, Flight/leaping/running) that there really isn't much of a need for a x=y conversion.

The leveling concept doen't appear in Hero at all, which makes a conversion even harder.

 

To go off on a tangent, I think that the hero community is fairly wary of x=y conversions for most games. Hero's basic mechanic is to reason from effect. You look at what someone can do then figure out how to simulate that using Hero.

 

So while there have been D&D/D20 to hero conversions, SAS to Hero conversions, and so on there haven't been many others that are widely accepted.

[TheMightyDan]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

Again, I was requesting it because I was sure that someone in the Hero System community had converted some of the CoH powers into Hero powers, complete with stats and all. I thought I'd ask to save myself the toil of doing it. I don't have a lot of time on my hands, so I thought I'd put the call out there. Thanks for all of the replies, though!

[redner]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

FYI: I'm a noob. Anyway, here's my conversion for the Blaster (Assault Rifle) power set. Note, I didn't apply any values to each power. I'm just showing you how I would convert them. I'm open to suggestions. The lethality of each power really depends on how much character points you are willing to allocated for them based on a GM-given quantity. Also, I didn't apply Focus since in CoH the "focuses" are really special effects. Finally, I didn't apply Framework. I want to keep it simple until I could figure out how to use it.

 

BURST

Energy Blast (Physical), Decreased Stun

plus

Drain PD, Linked

 

SLUG

Energy Blast (Physical), Does Knockback

 

BUCKSHOT

Energy Blast (Physical), Does Knockback, Area of Effect (Cone); Range Limitations (Reduced by Range)

 

M30 GRENADE

Energy Blast (Physical), Does Knockback, Area of Effect (Radius)

 

BEANBAG

Energy Blast (Physical), Extra Time (1 Turn)

 

SNIPER RIFLE

Killing Attack (Range, Physical), Range Advantages (Line of Sight), Does Knockback; Extra Time (Extra Phase)

 

FLAMETHROWER

Killing Attack (Range, Fire), Area of Effect (Cone), Duration Advantages(Continuous), Uncontrolled (removable with water or sand); Range Limitations(Reduced by Range)

 

IGNITE

Killing Attack (Range, Fire), Area of Effect (Radius), Duration Advantages(Continuous), Uncontrolled (removable with water or sand); Range Limitations(Reduced by Range)

 

FULL AUTO

Killing Attack (Range, Physical)

 

[gojira]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

I play CoH and I have a basic adaptaion of my Tanker (SS/Invul). It's not exact (not a simulation) but it sort of gets the feel across. I'll post it over the weekend sometime...

[OctoberRaven]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

The CoH RPG game was supposed to be out ages ago I believe.

 

You'd think they'd have had AEG do it, as they made the CCG.

 

Anyways, back on track, it shouldn't be too hard to convert most of the ATs to Hero System. Some are obvious (Most Tankers and Brutes = Bricks, Masterminds are Summon specialists, the Khledians have multiform, Stalkers have invisibilty), some would require some thought.

 

The real fun would be working in the passive AT powers. Ironically I see the Blaster ability being MORE useful in Hero System.

[gojira]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

Here's some thoughts on converting a CoH character to Hero. I'm going for flavor and playability here. I'm not trying to mimic every power. The GM and the player can agree to hand wave, or change to some other effect, some of the more subtle powers like Gauntlet. I think an exact RPG simulation of a computer RPG with out the computer would be too painful to play.

 

Some conversions:

City of Heroes ---> HERO System

Defense ---> CV, DCV

Resists ---> Physical Defense, Energy Defense, Mental Defense, etc.

Lethal attacks ---> Killing Attacks

Energy ---> Energy SFX Energy Blast

Accuracy Enhancement ---> CV, Skill levels

To-Hit Buff ---> CV, Skill levels.

 

City of Heroes Tanker: Jonny Super

 

Powers: Invulnerability

 

Resist Physical Damage – In City of Heroes, this provides a small amount of resistance to Smashing and Lethal Damage. We'll go with 5 points of Physical Defense (PD) and 3 points of resistant defense (rPD), which costs a total of 10 character points. This costs no endurance to use.

 

Temporary Invulnerability – Provides a lot of resistance to Smashing and Lethal Damage. I'm going to go with Force Field at 10 points PD and 10 points ED, which costs 20 character points. This power draws 2 point of endurance per phase it is active.

 

Dull Pain – Increases hit points and regeneration for about two minutes. This is a toughy because there are both several ways to go and also some system related gotchas that might not work well for this power. I'm going to go with +10 Body and + 15 Stun, bought with the Limitation Costs Endurance. This doesn't work mechanically like the CoH version, but I think it's the best way to simulate it with out getting overly-complex, or breaking the rules.

 

Resist Elements – Fire/Cold Resistance. + 5 ED.

 

Unyielding – Resistance (toggle) to all status effects (except mental). Has a Defense Debuff. I'm going with -6" of Knockback resistance, and +10 CON, Only to Resist Stun (basically No Figured Characteristics). Both powers with the Lim Costs Endurance. Not sure what to do about the Defense Debuff. Maybe -1 to -3 to DCV as a Side Effect.

 

Resist Energies – Provides Energy and Negative Energy resistance. I'm going to go with straight +5 Energy Defense and +3 resistant Energy Defense, just like Resist Physical Damage. The cost is the same as for Resist Physical Damage. I'll talk in a bit about how I handle Negative Energy.

 

Invincibility – Provides a bonus to all defenses, and a constant Taunt to all enemies with-in a short radius. I'll talk about Taut in a moment, but I'll stat Invincibility up like this: Force Field +10 to both Physical Defense and Energy Defense, plus 5 points of Power Defense (“all defenses”), plus 5 points of Flash Defense (“all defenses”), plus 5 points of Lack of Weakness, plus 5 extra points of Presence. The extra Presence makes sense to me: being invincible is pretty darn impressive, and it' also helps Taunt. All powers Costs Endurance.

 

Tough Hide – Provides a small bonus to all defenses. This time, because I want the defenses to be very tough indeed, I'm going to go with all resistant defense: 6 points of each for Physical and Energy Defense, resistant, plus 3 points each Power Defense, Flash Defense and Lack of Weakness. As bought these cost no endurance to use. Total 29 character points.

 

 

There's a lot less here than I thought. I have some other notes, but they're pretty disorganized. I'll try to work on this later.

[gojira]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

Almost forgot. I did some very basic conversions of CoH controllers a while ago. They aren't great but they might inspire some ideas.

 

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50308&highlight=contoller

[Zorak1003]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

So far, I've only based City of Heroes characters on Champions characters, not the other way around. The mechanics are SO fundamentally different, a hard and fast "this = that" conversion seems almost meaningless.

[AgentX]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

I love City of Heroes. I only wish you could build your powers better there, to make them more like Hero. Maybe Hero should look into coming out with a Champions Online.

[McCoy]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

Worked a little bit on inspirations earlier today.

 

Think I've worked up a mechanism for sometimes you get them in combat, usually you don't.

 

As for the inspirations themselves, Luck and Insight are levels to DCV and OCV respectively; Respite and Catch a Breath Aid to STUN and END, respectively, only to starting value.

 

Awaken wakes you back up when you've been knocked out. Guess that could be a massive STUN aid with the limitation it cannot take you above 1 STUN 0 END.

 

Sturdy gets kind of expensive. Extra defenses, Aid defenses, or 25% damage reduction, physical and energy.

 

Enrage also expensive, Aid all attacks +25%. Might run into active point limits on some campagines.

 

Break Free does a lot of things. Sort of a penetraiting damage shield vs entangles only plus knockback resistance plus mental defense for 30 seconds.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

The difficulty that I see with doing an accurate conversion of CoH to HERO is not converting the powers themselves, but their interactions with the discreet leveling and archetypes that are so fundamental to the PC game. Every time you level up, all of your powers get a little better. Not only that, but a Blaster's Ranged powerset is always noticably better than a Defender's at the same level. And most of the powersets are like that.

 

The level of recordkeeping to set up and balance so many things, is 1) a lot easier for a computer to do and keep hidden from the players, and 2) a big reason why the game took so long to develop (and at least one complete overhaul of the origin/archetype/powers system -- although finding documentation of that now is difficult -- look at this 2002 IGN preview for differences).

 

I'm not sure it is worth all the work to do it. It would be better, in my opinion, to take the backstory and the general origin/archetype concepts, and run Champions from there. You can still get the feel of the City of X universe, without the crushing weight of all that record keeping.

[Tim]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

A rough concept for CoH to Hero using feel instead of strict conversion.

 

Blasters - Primary: Ranged attacks

Secondary: Status Attacks

Tertiary: Movement, defenses

 

Defenders - Primary: Buffs, Heals, Debuffs

Secondary: Ranged Attacks

Tertiary: Movement,defense

 

Controllers - Primary: Entangles, Status Attacks

Secondary: Buffs, Debuffs, Heals

Tertiary: Movement, defenses

 

Scrappers - Primary: HTH Dmg attacks

Secondary: Defenses

Tertiary: Movement,

 

Tankers - Primary: Defenses

Secondary: HTH attacks

Tertiary: Movement

 

Primaries are 60 AP, Secondaries are 40 AP, and tertiaries are 30 AP.

 

Very rough and much overlap between types.

[gojira]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

The difficulty that I see with doing an accurate conversion of CoH to HERO is not converting the powers themselves' date=' but their interactions with the discreet leveling and archetypes that are so fundamental to the PC game. Every time you level up, all of your powers get a little better. [/quote']

 

That's one thing I would not model in a face to face game. And for exactly the reason you mention. Too much record keeping. Blech.

 

More from my notes:

 

Campaign World – Paragon's Heroes

 

Converting player characters and NPCs with levels to a point based system can be difficult. Here's a guide to levels and NPC abilities in Paragon's Heroes.

 

First I want to say a couple of quick words about my philosophy making this conversion. I'm not going to try to model each level from 1 to 50. This is fine for a computer game but doesn't work as well with a RPG like Hero System. Player characters in Paragon's Heroes start out as fairly powerful beings, around level 30. They don't “level up” as quickly as they would in a CRPG. This allows me to use more normal starting values for player characters, as outlined in the rule books, and also to reuse material from published Hero System sources if I need to.

 

I'm starting with the assumption that a level 30 CoH character is about equal to a 350 point Hero character. A level 50 CoH character would therefore be about 600 points in Hero, a good experienced superhero, nearly at JLA levels. Player character will start at level 30, with 350 character points. Everything here is scaled to that assumption.

 

Minions: Minions are the weakest of the opponents a hero will typically face. In CoH, a single hero can face a fair number of them and still expect to be victorious. In Hero System, these are Agents, the flunkies employed by other villains to do the villains dirty work. Agents in Paragon's Heroes are built on 100 + 50 points, or a bit less. They are Standard Heroic NPCs, although they should be built closer to the middle of that range and not it's upper end (see table below). This makes Minions in Paragon's Heroes about the same level as other Agents in the Champion Universe (for example, VIPER Agents).

 

 

Minion Power Levels in Paragon's Heroes

CV: 3-6

SPD: 2-3

Char: 10-15

DC: 3-8

Skill Points:15-30

Skill Roll: 8-12-

A.P.: 15-50

Def: 10/r5

 

Lieutenants: Lieutenants in CoH are the next upgrade from a minion. They are still possible for a single hero to defeat, but more than about four can be problematic. Lieutenants in Hero System are Powerful Heroic characters, built on 150 + 50 points. They are Elite Agents, who carry more powerful equipment and have heavier defenses that standard Agents. The VIPER Heavy Weapon Agent is a good example of an Elite Agent. Like Minions, Lieutenants should use the middle to lower end of the ranges defined for Powerful Heroic characters.

 

Levels for Lieutenants in Paragon's Heroes

CV: 3-7

SPD: 2-3

Char.: 10-15

DC: 5-10+

A.P.: 20-60

Def: 15/r10

Skill Points*:15-30

Skill Roll*: 8-12

 

Bosses: Bosses are much tougher opponents. Most players could prevail against one, but more than one will almost always result in defeat for a player. In Hero System, they are Low-Powered Superheroes. These are the villain's right-hand men and women. They often have specific titles created for them by the GM, rather than generic terms like “agent.” The GM should probably use the full range allowed for superheroic characters, keeping in mind fairness and play balance. Bosses can be built on 200+50 character points, or 150+100 character points, or any convenient combination thereof.

 

Use the full range for Bosses as given for

Low-Powered Superheroes

 

Elite Bosses: Two words: Super Villain.

 

Arch-Villain: In both Hero System and CoH, arch-villains are powerful enemies designed to be taken on by entire teams of heroes. They should completely out-class any single hero. Since they are plot devices embodied in an NPC, they should also be very difficult to trap or defeat in combat. If cornered, an arch-villain will typically monologue, summon minions unexpectedly, and then disappear through some hidden doorway or unlikely escape route. Arch-villains in Hero System should be built on at least 500 points (typically around 350+150) right on up through 1500 points for a truly global threat.

[Willpower]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

A rough concept for CoH to Hero using feel instead of strict conversion.

 

Blasters - Primary: Ranged attacks

Secondary: Status Attacks

Tertiary: Movement, defenses

 

Defenders - Primary: Buffs, Heals, Debuffs

Secondary: Ranged Attacks

Tertiary: Movement,defense

 

Controllers - Primary: Entangles, Status Attacks

Secondary: Buffs, Debuffs, Heals

Tertiary: Movement, defenses

 

Scrappers - Primary: HTH Dmg attacks

Secondary: Defenses

Tertiary: Movement,

 

Tankers - Primary: Defenses

Secondary: HTH attacks

Tertiary: Movement

 

Primaries are 60 AP, Secondaries are 40 AP, and tertiaries are 30 AP.

 

Very rough and much overlap between types.

 

I agree, that is the perfect way to do this type of convertion. Forget power levels, but ideas on how to build the powers how they appear in the game is great. For instance, EB = EB is easy. Lightning Blast (or whatever it is called), would be built slightly differently, as it doesn't do Knock Back, but i believe it drains End. So it might be EB with does no KB limitation, and an added End Drain power.

[Richard Logue]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

To answer the original poster's question, I have not personally done any conversions.

 

Now, that being said, I'm not sure "direct" conversions would be all that easy or fruitful. I think it would be much more useful to simply convert the "feel" and the "theme" of the character to HERO System. One could certainly use the power sets for ideas of the major powers and abilities to use in a Champions CoH/V-based character. That should be simple enough.

 

Personally, I would love to see write-ups for all the wonderful Council agents and Crey personnel. The Carnies and the Tsoo would make for fun write-ups too. It would be a fun, but massive, project to write-up all the mobs from the game. Not to mention the actual heroes and villains of the CoH/V universe.

 

Who doesn't want to see Ghost Widow's stats!

 

Richard

[Tim]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

Who doesn't want to see Ghost Widow's stats!

 

Richard

 

A rough guess looks to be 34-24-32

[Mr_Yuck]

Re: City of Heroes to HERO conversion?

 

A rough guess looks to be 34-24-32

 

 

Hahaha!!

 

Some of the female costumes in that game are simply stunning... :eek:

 

I like to use COH/COV for character pictures.

I throw together anything, just to get a picture of the costume for use with Champs. It's kinda of a pain to clip them out, but not impossible.