Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

[Lavek]

Hello, I'm new to this system. I said that last time I posted on here, and I'm afraid it's still true. I have the 6e1 and 6e2 books and have read through them quite a bit. After praising the systems superiority to any other I know to all my friends they began begging me to run a game from it.

 

I agreed, but after almost a week of brushing up on the system in my spare time I realized something's missing. Unlike systems like dungeons and dragons (which I am sick of) there seems to be no particular method for determining the appropriate power level of an opponent to the party. I realize the challenge rating system is clumsy and stupid, but at least it exists. Did I miss something, or is this just intuitive to the smarter class of players that this system clearly attracts?

[L. Marcus]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Flattery gets you everywhere. ^^

 

I'd say compare the PCs' DCs, defenses, OCVs, and DCVs with your planned NPC's stats. Out of that, you ought to be able to figure out who "should" win in a given encounter.

[Lavek]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

So when dealing with the oh-so-standard party of four, how close to those statistics should an average encounter (let's say of one opponent for now) be?

[torchwolf]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

There was extensive discussions about how to balance combatants a while back, so rather than repeating it all, here's a link:

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/77063-Help-how-do-I-balance-PCs-against-NPCs

 

 

For some ideas on what you can do in the Hero combat system, here are some intricate analytical advice of tactics - even for experienced Hero GMs there are good advice here (the rest of Killer Shrike's site is also very useful for pulling writeups):

 

http://www.killershrike.com/GeneralHero/HERO5CombatTactics.aspx

http://www.killershrike.com/GeneralHero/HERO5ActionAdvantage.aspx

 

 

There are also very good writeups at Susano's site, including how-to's:

 

http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/index.html

 

 

Armed with the pages 20-21 in 6E2, you should have little to no trouble using 5th edition writeups with 6th Edition - also freely downloadable here:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/74887-5E-To-6E-Character-Conversion-Summary

 

 

Other than that, do reread 6E2 p282-285 for advice on Combat Balance and Effectiveness; the Rule of X, while not infallible, can be applied to opponents as well to give you an idea of how PCs and antagonists compare.

 

Before running a combat, you need to at least have a list of available Combat Maneuvers (those you allow to be used at this point, not necessarily including all the optional ones), and preferable be reasonably familiar with how those work, as well as the rules for taking damage - otherwise, things will slow down very much. Everything else you can probably look up in the book on an as-needed basis (i.e., you only need a familiarity with the Skills, Powers, etc. that are actually going to be used during the session).

 

Finally, do remember that CVs should rarely fall more than 4 pts between PCs and opponents, and that superior numbers of opponents and maneuverability can turn the tables quickly because of halved DCVs, Actions available and SPD differences.

 

You might also consider these approximations if you have to eyeball something quickly:

(Normal Damage dice x 3.5) - Total Defense = average STUN damage taken in 1 hit.

(Killing Damage dice x 7) - Total Defense = average STUN damage taken in 1 hit.

Note that Advantages like AP will change these numbers quite a bit, as will the use of Hit Location Rules, especially for Killing Damage.

 

 

Hope these tips help you.

[The Suave]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

When I came back to GMing after a bit of a hiatus, I found that pitting my two PCs against reasonable enemies then scaling it up for future combats seemed to work fine. This has the additional advantage of "easy combats" being a kind of "tutorial stage" to the HERO system.

 

If for some reason your players are getting slapped around too bad, you can always have your team of baddies suddenly complete a mystery objective and exfiltrate. It's a little sloppy but it works if you don't want to kill them just because you accidentally overbuffed the enemy. You can also drop their DCs and CVs on the fly if they're hitting too often or too hard.

 

As a side note: I've found, that for a newer GM scaling enemies to PCs, a team of enemies (maybe slightly greater than or equal to the number of PCs) is much easier to manage than one powerhouse enemy. There seems to be a very fine line of "boss fight" baddie. They tend to either die surprisingly quickly, or they accidentally stomp the PCs. At least for me, I find it pretty hard to balance. With a small team it seems to be easier to implement strong Teamwork skills when you need to buff them, as well as having one or two members of the team get preoccupied with other tasks (paramedics, getting to better cover, finding a good sniping position, read: any timesink) when you need to give the PCs a leg up.

[gojira]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

That's almost exactly what I was going to say. To start, design some "mooks" for the PCs to fight. Make them as wimpy as possible. Like, half the PC's stats in almost every way. Mooks always use their best attack, and leave themselves wide open for a counter hit. They have minimal BODY, like 5, tops. They're mooks! They don't have any stomach for a real fight.

 

If the fight is too easy, just have some more mooks show up. New mooks leap out of the shadows, crash through windows or doors, or are waiting in the next room the PCs enter. Keep this up until it looks like your players have had a chance to have some fun, then stop and advance the plot to the next scene.

 

Then gradually increase the power of the mooks, giving them slightly different names or costumes, until you find something more balanced. Cut down the number of adversaries at that point, now you have some Lieutenants or shock-troops. Then you can slowly increase the Lieutenant's stats until you find a decent boss level.

 

If at any point you find an opponent is too much, just cheat. Fudge damage rolls, declare misses, and reduce DCV so the players can get more hits in. High DCV is a big mistake most of the time. Missing is not fun. Players should at least hit and do some damage, so you can describe the opponent reacting to the blows, even if he's still standing. Allowing the bad guy to get hit is at least fun, missing isn't. Even for bosses it should normally be rather low, unless you want to have a boss that really can't get hit. Those shouldn't fight though, they often just exit with the McGuffin and leave the PCs to fight lower level henchmen.

[Lavek]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

A lot of that advice is opposite from what I would get in other systems. I'm glad I asked on here before wiping out my friends in a game I promised would be fun. Well it looks like I have some reading and work to do so I'll get to it. Thank you to everyone.

[Susano]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Possibly one of the best ways is to simply hit the PCs with the PCs. Change names, SFX, and powers slightly, but make the baddies (in effect) the PCs with the serial numbers filed off). This will A) give you an idea of how effective the PCs are, and make sure you don't hit the PCs with something totally outclasses them.

[Lavek]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Yeah. It's a good thing the PCs are all people I've known for 20+ years. They all know I'm green and are willing to stick with me while I get my barings. I'm afraid we still have a little bit of a D&D mentality, because we ended up with (what amounts to) a caster, a healer, a rogue and a tank.

[Tasha]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Yeah. It's a good thing the PCs are all people I've known for 20+ years. They all know I'm green and are willing to stick with me while I get my barings. I'm afraid we still have a little bit of a D&D mentality' date=' because we ended up with (what amounts to) a caster, a healer, a rogue and a tank.[/quote']

 

Nothing wrong with sticking to what you know. Nice thing about it is that you end up with less potential for character overlap and role conflict.

[Greywind]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Possibly one of the best ways is to simply hit the PCs with the PCs. Change names' date=' SFX, and powers slightly, but make the baddies (in effect) the PCs with the serial numbers filed off). This will A) give you an idea of how effective the PCs are, and make sure you don't hit the PCs with something totally outclasses them.[/quote']

Problem being, most characters can't take their own attack very well.

[Matt Holck]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

roughly

 

set ocv dcv damage and defense standards

 

 

I imagine 6th will be better for emulating D&D

[Susano]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Problem being' date=' most characters can't take their own attack very well.[/quote']

 

Sure, but he has 4 people to mix it up with.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

The thing about HERO is that, out of context, no numerical value on a character sheet has any meaning whatsoever.

 

The trick to evaluating characters in this system is to compare their value to a campaign-specific set of benchmarks.

 

Is an OCV of 5 good? is an OCV of 10 good? is an OCV of 15 good? Unless you know the campaign in question, you'll never be able to tell.

Ditto for DCV, defenses, attacks, movement, etc.

 

Everything is context sensitive and extremely holistic. Having a OCV twice the norm may be completely broken for one PC to have, and wasted points for another. You can't tell unless you also evaluate the other powers and abilities.

 

Unfortunately, almost all of this insight takes time to internalize. There are any number of good suggestions and guides available but there is no teacher like experience.

[Utech]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

I strongly recommend setting up a few simple encounters with enemies tweaked to slightly different power levels. This lets you see how changes to CVs, defenses, DCs, etc. can really change the way your game plays. You could set this up as sparring practice, a "danger room" session, or putting the beat down on some unruly mimes. Honestly, it doesn't matter. After each combat, ask your players for their input.

 

With small adjustments you can make your combats:

Short, deadly affairs.

Long battles generally decided by TKO.

Toe-to-toe slugfests.

Exercises in using the terrain and environment to give you the edge you need to win.

Cinematic "Dang those bad guys can't hit the side of the barn, can they?" fights.

Cinematic "It's a good thing the heroes have teamwork -- it's the only thing keeping the bad guys from stomping them!" fights.

Etc. etc.

[Rapier]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Match the players.

 

If there are 4 players have them battle teams of 4 villains.

If the players have 60 AP attacks, the villains have 60 AP attacks.

If the players have 25 DEF, the villains have 25 DEF.

If the players have 5 SPD, the villains have 5 SPD.

 

This way you know the battles are at least balanced. Once you get the hang of these types of battles you can experiment with tweaking the abilities of the villains a bit here and there for more or less effect. But it's never an easy answer and I can't tell you the number of times I've sat down saying "these villains will be quite the challenge" only to have them dropped within the first phase or two. It just happens. Shoot from the hip until you get some experience and then let experience lead you.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

What I do is use the Campaign Guidelines for CV, DC, DEX, SPEED, etc. If it is a bunch of mooks, I go for Speed 2, Dex 10, 1 Body, campaign minimum for OCV, DCV. You hit 'em, they fall down. For slightly more powerful bad guys, I may up the Body to 4-5. I'll also throw the OCV up by 1 or 2 points. I tend to play lower powered games, so that is a bunch. I leave their DCV where it is at to make smacking them easier. For a moderate challenge, I go middle ground on just about everything if it is a group. If it is a single bad guy I max out or exceed the Campaign Guidelines.

 

It isn't an easy thing to balance. I often error on the side of caution until I get an idea of what works and what doesn't. It is far easier to make the next opponent more deadly than to craft a new character.

[Lavek]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

It's probably worth mentioning that the character are going to spend a good deal of their time in the cockpits of mecha. I got the ultimate vehicle a while back and it's been pretty easy to convert. How come vehicle complications no longer reduce the price, though?

[Steve Long]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

I realize the challenge rating system is clumsy and stupid, but at least it exists. Did I miss something, or is this just intuitive to the smarter class of players that this system clearly attracts?

 

I haven't read the whole thread, so someone else may've already said this, but I thought I'd chime in.

 

There's nothing akin to the "Challenge Rating" rules in the HERO System because the system's too complex and variable for it to be possible to create any meaningful, useful rules like that. A Challenge Rating system is easy to create in D&D, where everything is pretty predictable and lockstep. You know that every, say, Fighter of level 6 is going to have roughly X hit points, +Y chance to hit, do about Z damage, have +A saving throws, and so on. Aside from a few variables like Feats and Skills (which in my experience are actually pretty predictable), you know exactly what a given character can do. That makes it easy to determine what can and cannot challenge him and his friends.

 

There's no such predictability in HERO. Two characters from two different campaigns, even set in the same genre, can differ wildly in terms of Character Points, amount of DCs in attacks, defenses, abilities, and so on. Setting up a "Challenge Rating" system in the official rules would be tantamount to saying, "You should play this way, based on these assumptions" -- and that's absolutely, positively the last thing I want to say to HERO gamers.

 

So in the end, it falls on the shoulders of you, the bold and adventurous GM, to determine what's going to challenge your PCs. In short, you learn to set "challenge ratings" based on experience and knowledge. Like so much else in life, HERO rewards you in proportion to the effort you put into mastering it. Things will be harder on you now, as you're learning the system, just as they were on me and everyone else who's posted to this thread at one point. But after a certain amount of experience working with the rules, you'll learn how to evaluate "challenges" almost effortlessly and realize that your game is the better for it. Or at least that's how it worked for me.

 

 

Postscript: It might be possible to set up a "Challenge Rating" system for a specific campaign based on defined parameters -- for example, for the Turakian Age setting based on the assumption that you use monsters from The HERO System Bestiary exactly as-is and with characters built on X points, with a Y effectiveness ceiling and limits on this, that, and the other game element. Even then I don't know if it'd be worth the work, but it would be possible.

[Lavek]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

That's all pretty much what I figured, I just thought I'd missed maybe a few suggestions for figuring out the level of challenge something should present, and everyone here has been very helpful in pointing out the right parts of the book, and giving me tips from their experience.

 

From a total newbie perspective the "Gamemastering the HERO System" chapter all kind of ran together, and I didn't realize how important of couple of the little tips (all optional ones, no less) were to someone as inexperienced as me.

[The Suave]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

I'm really glad you're encouraged, Lavek. This thread title makes me sad every time I see it.

 

If newbie and GM never went together we'd rarely have new gaming groups pop up.

 

Keep your head on a swivel and your campaign will run just fine.

[JmOz]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Yeah. It's a good thing the PCs are all people I've known for 20+ years. They all know I'm green and are willing to stick with me while I get my barings. I'm afraid we still have a little bit of a D&D mentality' date=' because we ended up with (what amounts to) a caster, a healer, a rogue and a tank.[/quote']

 

I have seen this happen before, and something kind of fun can happen. The Priest will decide to pick up a sword, or the tank will learn to be more roguish, or in my case it was a mage who became downright amazing at hiding (Stealth 17-), characters will start to go outside of there class, then someone will die, and there new character will be a bit of x and a bit of y (similar to a duel class, but more coherent)

[The Suave]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

Another thing that's nice about your situation: You and your players are coming from D&D, and they are playing pretty standard character archetypes, which makes it easier for YOU as a new GM. You know how tanks, healers, casters, and rogues tend to act, and you know how they tend to act in unison with one another. You are used to those character archetypes and you know your players (quite well it seems), so that should make it easier for you to tailor your game to fit your players needs and desires. Then as you all get more familiar with the system, your players (and you!) will start to branch out, exactly as JmOz stated.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

One approach I like for new players, new characters, new genres, etc. is "cage match". Throw the PC's up against one another. Throw them up against 1 orc per 2 PC's. 1 orc per PC. 2 orcs per PC. A Gargoyle. None of it happens in-game. It's a way to feel out the characters' combat capabilities, and get a feel for the rules. for new players. One PC seems ineffectual? Maybe he needs some redesign. 1 orc per PC seems like a walkover, but 2 is a TPK? Then 1.5:1 is probably more in the game for a reasonable challenge.

[Fearghus]

Re: Newbie and GM shouldn't go together.

 

One approach I like for new players' date=' new characters, new genres, etc. is "cage match". Throw the PC's up against one another. Throw them up against 1 orc per 2 PC's. 1 orc per PC. 2 orcs per PC. A Gargoyle. None of it happens in-game. It's a way to feel out the characters' combat capabilities, and get a feel for the rules. for new players. One PC seems ineffectual? Maybe he needs some redesign. 1 orc per PC seems like a walkover, but 2 is a TPK? Then 1.5:1 is probably more in the game for a reasonable challenge.[/quote']

 

I do this as well... especially for new players and I will kind of walk them through the combat have the NPCs in the combat use a wide range of attacks so they get to see how they all work. It's very informative.

 

Another thing I do sometimes is write into the story (for the first couple scenes of the campaign anyway) a friendly NPC that could come in and save the day if I accidentally create an axe murder encounter.

 

lastly there is always the option of fudging stats, if you find you made the encounter too easy or too hard.