D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

[Markdoc]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

3rd edition is still really complex it's not a three step system by any means' date=' I suspect you guys are missing a few rules.[/quote']

 

The thing about DnD is that it has a relatively low bar to entry. It's easy to make a playable character.

 

Of course someone who knows the arcane and twisty lore of Feats and PrCs can make a character who will beat that vanilla character like a tin drum (as my wife acidly comments), but that's not obvious from the start, and depending on your group, may never be an issue.

 

DnD is like a mirror image of Hero system. It's actually more complex but most of that complexity is under the surface in the murky form of the mass of "extras" and their interaction. With Hero, the complexity is right up there in your face at the Chargen stage: once you get through that by contrast with DnD, actual use of the rules in play and design are pretty simple. Right now, we have three spellcasters in our DnD party and just keeping track of spells and spell effects is a pain: I'm pretty damn familiar with the rules, but I had to buy an extra PHB because we're always fighting over the GM's one to look stuff up during the game.

 

cheers, Mark

[CTaylor]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

Yeah that's a pretty good way to put it: D20 looks easy but has so many layers of complexity and difficulty that makes it incredibly tough to know and run it all. I pity DMs heh

[teh bunneh]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

Right now' date=' we have three spellcasters in our DnD party and just keeping track of spells and spell effects is a pain: I'm pretty damn familiar with the rules, but I had to buy an extra PHB because we're always fighting over the GM's one to look stuff up during the game.[/quote']

 

Hah! Yeah. When we were playing 3.5, I played the party's wizard. Not a super high-powered game; I think we started at about 6th level and ended around 12th. My wizard had... I dunno, maybe 15-20 spells per level in his spellbook, so maybe 120 spells total. But when it was time to memorize spells? I never changed my list; I just kept the same spells every time. I'd end up with 4 fireballs and 2 lightning bolts, every single time. The GM asked me once, "You've got all these spells. I keep giving you evil wizards' spellbooks for treasure, why doesn't your character ever memorize any of them?"

 

The answer was simple: Because I didn't want to have to learn new game rules every time I changed my spell list (or spend 10 minutes of combat time looking up the rules for every spell I wanted to cast).

 

After a while, he stopped bothering writing down what was in the evil wizards' spellbooks, since he knew I couldn't be bothered.

[Maur]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

Most of the D&D parties I've been in, the wizard tended to keep a certain list of what he memorized daily and just augmented that by creating scrolls of the other useful utilitarian spells that he wasn't sure if he'd need or not. So, we had an artillery spellcaster with just a few tricks with a ton of utility spells ready, just in case

 

Sorcerers are even more of a walking artillery caster due to their reduced spell repertoire and therefore the scrolls they can make are limited to the same repertoire.

[incrdbil]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

Okay, but have you READ the FH settings? Incomplete, unbalanced, hastily cobbled together--in a word, pathetic, when you compare them to, say, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc. I was excited by the prospect of FH settings. I bought both FH settings. Read them, and realized they were utter non-starters.

 

Thats your opinion. I did liek the Forgotten Realsm setting, and my next FH campaign may be that. As for Dragon Lance, Ravenloft, the extra-planar setting, and many others, well I thought those were horrible stinkers U'd never want to GM or play in. to each there own.

 

 

D&D has a magic system in place, and all the mechanics for the entire game in place. I am not crazy about some of the mechanics, but there really is no comparing them.

 

Yes--D&D sets, mechanicaly, hoo the game will be, how the world hands out its magic. If you want anythign slightly different, good luck, enjoy the guesswork. Its rules are comparable to something..

 

.... a straightjacket.

 

It looks like FH hardcover isnt a new edition--just a reprint of the soft cover. WHY is that enticing?

 

Some people like hardcovers. Why are pocket sized versiosn of the SRd selling? Because someone will buy it.

[Inu]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

3rd edition is still really complex it's not a three step system by any means' date=' I suspect you guys are missing a few rules.[/quote']

Hero's grappling system isn't 3-step either. Most of the complexity comes with the 'okay, you've grabbed them, now what? Are you trying to pin them, damage them or disarm them?' In that regard, d&D works much the same way as Hero. And, of course, the 'consequences of grappling'. In Hero, you lose a bunch of DCV, and take a penalty to OCV. In D&D, you lose your dex bonus to AC (which means you can be sneak attacked -- never wrestle a rogue).

 

As for D&D being 'broken', and able to be gamed -- fans of Hero really should not be able to make this accusation with a straight face. If you can balance Hero (since as we all know, the points don't balance themselves), you can balance D&D.

 

And if you do believe the points balance themselves, let's see whether the internet stops working when I mention 'Deadly Blow' and 'Cost of STR'.

[Bygoneyrs]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

Wow I missed this debate early on....geeeehhhh

 

 

Ok I have been playing D&D now for 32+ years, thus for the last 25+ years I have DM'd my own Home grown campaign of my own making. As to game mechanics I just loved AD&D, and still think that was by far the best of their systems YET!!! over time I switched first to v2.0 and then later to v2.5. I resisted going to 3.0, but later went to 3.5. Now since D$D is about to go to v4.0, I just freaking give up and refuse to rebuy it all over again and relarn all this crap. At 43 I have had it and refuse to reinvent the wheel again.

 

Now I have had and played Champions since v2 came out, and about 1-1.5 yrs ago my oldest son started to pick up my old gaming books and liked and learned to play Champions. So I said I would buy him the current latest version of Champions v5 Revised and started buying everything. At this point I own almost

all there is out there for v5. I am quite amazed at all of it and view it as a great resource library to build from.

 

So I have started to relearn the Hero System again, and have to redesign my game mechanics for my worlds. Plus I want to redesign and update my campaign and add or expand on the realm that I call Jhorgule.

 

Penn

[incrdbil]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

 

As for D&D being 'broken', and able to be gamed -- fans of Hero really should not be able to make this accusation with a straight face. If you can balance Hero (since as we all know, the points don't balance themselves), you can balance D&D.

 

 

Sure. But unliek D&d, HERO actually is made to help you balance it.

[Inu]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

Sure. But unliek D&d' date=' HERO actually is made to help you balance it.[/quote']

By mucking with the system, sure. Which requires fairly intricate knowledge of the system. Youc an much with D&D, too. In both systems, the best way to balance them is to say 'no' to any build that's too powerful. This is equally possible in both D&D and Hero. It's just a skill you learn more readily in Hero, because it's more necessary. Whether that's an advantage for Hero or D&D is up for debate, and unlikely to be solved here.

[teh bunneh]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

By mucking with the system' date=' sure. Which requires fairly intricate knowledge of the system. Youc an much with D&D, too. In both systems, the best way to balance them is to say 'no' to any build that's too powerful. This is equally possible in both D&D and Hero. It's just a skill you learn more readily in Hero, because it's more necessary. Whether that's an advantage for Hero or D&D is up for debate, and unlikely to be solved here.[/quote']

 

Well... yes and no. D&D is much easier to topple by changing relatively minor points. Or to put it another way, if you aren't playing exactly by-the-book D&D then the whole house of cards comes down.

 

To take an example I am intimately familiar with... When 3.0 first came out, I ran a game for my group. But I've never been a "play it just like it is in the book" kinda guy, so I gave them one ground rule: No wizards. Magic had been outlawed decades ago, and all wizards (plus their spellbooks and dang-near every magic item) had been thrown in the fire generations past.

 

Pretty minor change, or so I thought. But it upset the very delicate balance of the rules system. Challenge ratings were no longer an accurate assessment of a monster's toughness, so I had to use weaker monsters. Weaker monsters gave the heroes fewer XPs, so character progression slowed to a crawl. And when they finally did encounter wizards who really knew magic? I ended up having to create my own spellcasting system from scratch. It was like a row of dominos; one minor change and the whole thing ceased to work properly.

 

(And keep in mind that this was right after the game came out, before all the wierd supplements and their unbalanced Prestige Classes were introduced -- thank god I didn't have to deal with that mess!).

 

At the time at least, there were no rules or suggestions for how to run a magic-lite game (this may have changed; I dunno), so I had to wing it. It took us nearly a year to figure out what was wrong, and by then we were ready to abandon the system/game completely. Heck, I don't know if there even is a fix for what I wanted to do.

 

Straight out of the box? D&D is only capable of D&D. That's perfection fine if that's what you want to play. But if you want to run a customized setting, you might as well invent your own rules system for the amount of work you have to do. Hero is capable of much, much more, with considerably less work involved.

[CTaylor]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

D20 is not designed for balance, it's designed for playability. If there's imbalance, you guess and make a judgement call. There's no system for what spell goes to what level, how to limit a feat or how many prerequisites it should have. It's just a matter of making it up on the fly. That can work, or not work - and if you look at the history of D&D, not work is the more common as times goes on.

 

Hero is designed for balance, you have point values assigned to everything, it can be gamed, but not as easily and material put out for it is completely up in the air. It's what you say it is, there's no standard, no benchmarks.

 

There's really no comparison. Doesn't make D20 bad, it makes D20 unpredictable and you have to be some kind of long-bearded scholar in the source material to have a chance to be ahead of everything.

[casualplayer]

Re: D&D vs. FantasyHERO vs. Palladium

 

Competing characters? Well, D&D and Palladium characters have a lot of BODY however D&D armor doesn't prevent any damage, just makes them tougher to hit. Or maybe they have scads and scads of points of Ablative Combat Luck. D&D characters seem to have convinced the GM to let them buy Takes No STUN, like they were Automatons. D&D and Palladium characters seem to have sold down their SPDs to 1 for some strange reason, but D&Ders have this Triggered attack if you try to break melee with them. Spell use seems to be effortless, maybe bought through Charges with no END Cost. Also odd, D&D weapons don't seem to do any STUN damage at all. Palladium weapons can but only do BODY once the STUN is depleted. D&D characters all have glowing letters above their heads identifying what class(es) they are, handy for picking targets.

 

Just pulling out of thin air, a starting FH character (150 pt) would be a 7th level D&D character or a 5th level Palladium one. Could have some fun and have everyone play Trolls in which case the FH character is a mediocre Troll, the D&D player is a 3rd level Troll and the Palladium player is still 5th level. Oh noes, who wins now?

 

I've had fun with all three. Can't beat Fantasy HERO's mechanics, Palladium's setting and genre art and D&D's influence, so why try?

[Thia Halmades]

Re: ~ All Out War~d&d Vs Hero Vs Palladium

 

So ugh guys.... What about in a actual battle between 3 adventuring partys' date=' which party puts the smack down on the others? WHY?[/quote']

 

Hmm. Well, I've played all three systems, and a whole bunch of other systems. I don't know that the question can really be answered. Not because I'm coppin' and saying "It's a matter of opinion," because, gee whiz, what other criteria would you use? But more because there are levels of detail, and look & feel among the three systems that people take away and say that the game resonates with them.

 

For me, as has been well documented here (and in an article series I need to get back too) I went from d20 to HERO, and before d20 I was mucking about with Palladium (although let's be clear, that was a good 12 - 15 years ago, possibly longer). So my journey has been one of personal development; ultimately I realized that to be content with my game system, it had to be either as simple, or as complex as I wanted to make it.

 

HERO's core rules are elegantly simple; yes, power construction takes some time to learn, but you don't need to learn it. You just sort of eventually do. The core rules are very basic. Swing, hit, abort is the big wrinkle and outside of that, you're pretty much dealing with the same principles in all of the other RPGs. And to be honest, the abort rule is pretty fantastic.

 

Most importantly, the rules are shockingly consistent, both internally and across games and genres with 5th Ed Rev. I can't really compare d20, since I don't (as has been noted by others) consider it a dedicated RPG; it's a dedicated Skirmish game that uses roleplaying elements to move you from fight to fight. With a lock-step growth system and a "best combo" power design, it's impossible to not power-game it, even if power-gaming isn't your thing, basic math dictates what you need to do to be successful playing a specific role in the party.

 

Palladium doesn't really bear mentioning, as Incrdbl pointed out on page one; it can't really put up a fight here. HERO, however, is built to be the game you want it to be. Pure, skill based role playing? Fine. Hardcore epic fantasy? Okie doke. Screaming high fantasy with incredible races and floating castles and heaven knows what else? We have rules to build all that, too. So the big thing with HERO is that it lacks a certain sense of definition, because with enough work it can be anything to anyone.

 

d20 has a look and feel that people try very hard to mimic; for me, it's the magic system. I always liked it and I went to the trouble of rebuilding large chunks of it (a project I stopped for HERO: Combat Evolved but planned on picking back up at some point).

 

But the questions you've asked can't really be answered. You're on the HERO board. OF COURSE 99% of us are going to say HERO. We're here, aren't we? I mean, this is a HERO board. You're going to get HEROcentric answers, and those not HERO based will likely mention an alternate system (Runequest, Harn, Ars Magicka, etc.).

 

What GROUP would win?! How can I answer that without appropriate power levels, class construction, rules type, and so on? If I use the HERO rules I'll have a very different fight than if I use the d20 rules or the Palladium rules. The three aren't compatible. What does 250 points of HERO look like in Palladium, considering among other things that the system itself is grossly unbalanced, something that Siembieda considers a FEATURE and not a BUG for reasons I've never comprehended.

 

All of that now having been said, your first question is answered fairly simply: HERO is the most balanced system available, pound for pound, and for that reason alone I play it exclusively now. I don't enjoy the skirmish game design of d20. I think it's great, and for certain people the shiny paper and high production value are viewed as the same thing as "a good game," and I hate to say that it just ain't so. I can't imagine what my beloved 5ER would weigh in glossy 8x10 with full color images.

 

I hope that answers your question, without being too raving fanboyish.