How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

[Nolgroth]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

One of our die hard DnD players had a good one last night during the new arc of my 6e Campaign. all they could say was...."Hmmph....Just realized I've spent years cobbeling together add on books and pages of home rules, to duplicate something HERO does with one skill or power set up. Where can I pick these books up at?"

And another one falls into the fold.

[RexMundi]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Yeah it was easy after I laid out the cost per content afterwords. Told him it was OK...he could still keep the DnD stuff on the shelf. After all converting is good practice to learn the in's and outs of the HERO system anyway.

 

~Rex

[knightwriter]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Thanks for all the opinions and information. I don't want to start a war here, because for one it's stupid, and two, everyone is going to have their opinions. I just happened to be interested in hearing about the opinions of both sides of the fence. All good stuff here though!

[AirborneRob]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Thanks for all the opinions and information. I don't want to start a war here' date=' because for one it's stupid, and two, everyone is going to have their opinions. I just happened to be interested in hearing about the opinions of both sides of the fence. All good stuff here though![/quote']

 

Bwahahaha, little did you realize the debating and opionion tossing you have wrought here with this thread of doom Im just kidding, lol, this has been a great deal of fun for me

[RexMundi]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Heh, true that, this one has been one of the least flamey of the DnD stuff....I'm all for a good time, but for now, time to go score a chili dog and a movie.....

 

~Rex

[AirborneRob]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Heh, true that, this one has been one of the least flamey of the DnD stuff....I'm all for a good time, but for now, time to go score a chili dog and a movie.....

 

~Rex

 

Mmmmm.........Chili dogs

[Killer Shrike]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

I've been tracking the new Pathfinder Serpent's Skull Adventure Path from Paizo.

 

A friend let me borrow the Core Rulebook, DMG, Bestiary, and Advanced Players Guide and it interested me enough to tune in again. I just finished reading part 3 last evening (though I'll go over it again for the mechanichy details).

 

I'm constantly aggravated by the straightjacket of D20, but at least the Paizo version isn't uncomfortably tight, particularly w/ the APG in the mix.

 

If push came to shove, I'd probably start the game off as Pathfinder d20 with a new group and convert it over to HERO using my conversion materials once the group was hooked on the story.

 

The materials and quality of a shop like Paizo is very nice, and despite the unlikely variety of different types of opponents crammed into a very small region in true DnD style, its fun in a nostalgic way to read the adventures. Of course, I used to read adventures for fun back in the day and have a map fetish so maybe I'm not indicative.

[Cancer]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

The materials and quality of a shop like Paizo is very nice' date=' and despite the unlikely variety of different types of opponents crammed into a very small region in true DnD style, its fun in a nostalgic way to read the adventures. Of course, I used to read adventures for fun back in the day and have a map fetish so maybe I'm not indicative.[/quote']

Then again, maybe you are, too.

 

Our group plays a lot of different campaigns in a lot of different systems. We suffer from a bad case of "Ooooo ... SHINY" when it comes to RPG systems and genres. Perhaps a more flattering way to put it: in some ways, we are students of RPGs, and there's usually some good bits to be taken out of anything. We've got D&D4 campaigns with a timeshare in our Friday night sessions; we've got HERO system campaigns with timeshares too, though the two that come immediately to mind are on the shelf for now.

 

As many posters have noted, D&D4 is strongly MMO based, which was a novelty when it came out. That means it lends itself toward tactical combat, possibly to the exclusion of roleplaying, though the skill challenge mechanic is a very interesting and versatile one. As someone who was a tactical boardgame player for most of a decade before I discovered RPGs, D&D4 scratches an itch for templated tactical combat games that I had almost forgotten I had. I do NOT consider previous editions of D&D to be like this; it was an interesting development, a fundamental revision of core game structure philosophy. I know serious long-time gamers (who are not HERO gamers) who object strongly to that philosophy revision and sticking with all their old D&D 3rd, not even 3.5, stuff.

 

(FWIW, I played D&D out of the three booklets in the old faux woodgrain pasteboard box, plus the old Greyhawk and Blackmoor supplement booklets; that literally went up in smoke in a fire in my apartment. 20+ years later I was in a very abbreviated campaign in v3.5 which has since been translated to 4th; and now I play (and run, though it's been a while since I ran) some D&D4. I skipped all that other stuff in between, mostly due to a decade-long abstention from gaming due to grad school and first postdoc, nudged along by the aforementioned fire.)

 

I observe that for whatever reason people who are intimidated by character and power creation in HERO tend not be by character creation and power selection in D&D4. I haven't figured out why that's so, but it's there. To me, the D&D canon universe source material is ... tedious and overly restrictive. (Our group approximately never uses published adventures as they come "out of the box"; whether it's our playing style, or that playtesting such materials always gets squeezed out of the production timeline no matter what the publisher's intentions, there's always something broken or lame about every published adventure material.) I would never "stat out" a god or a central anti-god; I'd never gratify a munchkin by letting them challenge a real deity on-stage. But that's me....

[djkester]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Of course' date=' I used to read adventures for fun back in the day and have a map fetish so maybe I'm not indicative.[/quote']

 

Ummm, is a map fetish a bad thing?

 

~Dave

[djkester]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Then again, maybe you are, too.

I observe that for whatever reason people who are intimidated by character and power creation in HERO tend not be by character creation and power selection in D&D4. I haven't figured out why that's so, but it's there. To me, the D&D canon universe source material is ... tedious and overly restrictive.

 

A big reason I've gotten back into HS is because of this very issue. Something about the structure and nature of the D&D mechanics appeals to people quickly. But upon a constant and diligent attempt to create a thriving diverse and complex game world you struggle endlessly against those same mechanics. Trying desperately to fit your ideas and thoughts into a structure that is by its very nature is static.

 

Having purchased and actively used all of the D&D 4e core and most complimentary rule books through August of 2010 I am clearly a nut case anyway. So it shouldn't be a surprise to my friend that my goal has now become to use the HS 6e to create the game world I envisioned and attempted earlier. Then by developing a campaign setting with predefined packages etc... on race, training, magic systems (spells) etc... Provide a similarly balanced game to D&D with a basic character development methodology similar to D&D. But give them all some insight into the extensive nature of the system and watch their eyes open. None of my current gaming community has ever played HS.

 

In reading a lot of posts here I've found this approach has been recommended many times and I believe them when they say its effective. So i have a high amount of confidence in my plan.

 

The question now is how to fit the time to design the things I want.

 

Dave

[mayapuppies]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

A big reason I've gotten back into HS is because of this very issue. Something about the structure and nature of the D&D mechanics appeals to people quickly. But upon a constant and diligent attempt to create a thriving diverse and complex game world you struggle endlessly against those same mechanics. Trying desperately to fit your ideas and thoughts into a structure that is by its very nature is static.

 

Having purchased and actively used all of the D&D 4e core and most complimentary rule books through August of 2010 I am clearly a nut case anyway. So it shouldn't be a surprise to my friend that my goal has now become to use the HS 6e to create the game world I envisioned and attempted earlier. Then by developing a campaign setting with predefined packages etc... on race, training, magic systems (spells) etc... Provide a similarly balanced game to D&D with a basic character development methodology similar to D&D. But give them all some insight into the extensive nature of the system and watch their eyes open. None of my current gaming community has ever played HS.

 

In reading a lot of posts here I've found this approach has been recommended many times and I believe them when they say its effective. So i have a high amount of confidence in my plan.

 

The question now is how to fit the time to design the things I want.

 

Dave

This is the philosophy behind character creation in the Kamarathin setting.

[AirborneRob]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Just for the record, the 2 best campaignes i have seen for 2nd Edition were A Night Below and Return to the Tomb of Horrors. The former you had to improvise for the large scale combats that could happen with non-forward thinking PC's. Although as a rule i do not enjoy out of the box games, those 2 are an exception.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

As many posters have noted' date=' D&D4 is strongly MMO based, which was a novelty when it came out. That means it lends itself toward tactical combat, possibly to the exclusion of roleplaying, though the skill challenge mechanic is a very interesting and versatile one.[/quote']

 

I am interested to hear your experiences with 4e. My group of Hero/D&D players have found that while D&D 4e purports to be based around tactical combat and skill challenges, the tactics are lackluster and skill challenges are waiting for a good set of rule that don’t have mathematical issues.

 

In my experience HERO has more interesting tactics, due to the speed chart, holding actions, aborting, and the many different maneuvers. All the fights in 4e I’ve had were fairly straightforward either blow all encounter powers then grind with at-wills or target minions first, then grind with at wills on other mobs.

 

Also, I played 3.5 Tome of Horrors, and I think it lost some of it’s flavor by taking 10 on search checks, having a really good searching rogue, and knowing that you are going into a tomb of horrors (I don’t mean metagaming, I mean this is supposed to be the house of a famous lich, you should be on guard for traps).

[AirborneRob]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

I am interested to hear your experiences with 4e. My group of Hero/D&D players have found that while D&D 4e purports to be based around tactical combat and skill challenges, the tactics are lackluster and skill challenges are waiting for a good set of rule that don’t have mathematical issues.

 

In my experience HERO has more interesting tactics, due to the speed chart, holding actions, aborting, and the many different maneuvers. All the fights in 4e I’ve had were fairly straightforward either blow all encounter powers then grind with at-wills or target minions first, then grind with at wills on other mobs.

 

Also, I played 3.5 Tome of Horrors, and I think it lost some of it’s flavor by taking 10 on search checks, having a really good searching rogue, and knowing that you are going into a tomb of horrors (I don’t mean metagaming, I mean this is supposed to be the house of a famous lich, you should be on guard for traps).

 

 

 

3.5 has caused much of what i liked to lose flavor.

[Cancer]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

I am interested to hear your experiences with 4e. My group of Hero/D&D players have found that while D&D 4e purports to be based around tactical combat and skill challenges, the tactics are lackluster and skill challenges are waiting for a good set of rule that don’t have mathematical issues.

 

In my experience HERO has more interesting tactics, due to the speed chart, holding actions, aborting, and the many different maneuvers. All the fights in 4e I’ve had were fairly straightforward either blow all encounter powers then grind with at-wills or target minions first, then grind with at wills on other mobs.

 

Also, I played 3.5 Tome of Horrors, and I think it lost some of it’s flavor by taking 10 on search checks, having a really good searching rogue, and knowing that you are going into a tomb of horrors (I don’t mean metagaming, I mean this is supposed to be the house of a famous lich, you should be on guard for traps).

 

The "formula" for budgeting monsters in battles in terms of EPs and level and number of PCs is on one hand restricting, but on the other hand it is a formula and it does seem to work for balancing encounters. We've had a PC taken out in one hit in a HERO system fight ... and I mean that literally, from zero damage to unrecoverable more-than-negative BODY Thin Red Mist in one hit by an uber-villain in a more or less four-color supers campaign with CvK as a required PC disadvantage. Call this what you will ... bad PC design, bad party design, bad encounter balance by the GM, bad dice on all sides, whatever. The lack of guidelines in a HERO campaign (so an inexperienced GM has to guess at what an appropriate level of opposition is) and the use of homebrew NPCs (so that players have no good way of recognizing the level of opposition before PC deaths start happening) can make for a genre-breaking encounter. I don't think it was done on purpose, but ... well, even though it wasn't my character, I'll never take another HERO character who doesn't have resistant defenses and SPD at campaign limits again.

 

Tactics may become stereotyped in D&D4. We have yet to play any characters beyond Level 6 (we're playing one session a month in our most persistent campaign). So far, the variations our GM has thrown at us have yet to turn stale. Not saying they won't, but it hasn't happened yet.

[Wolf]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Sorry, I was out for the weekend. I'm not at anyone's throat, nor am I in any was upset about my previous discussion upthread. It was a good one, that I think was winding it's way down, because we were starting to move the goalposts around a good bit (I was too, not blaming without taking my heat... in one post I specified both 2nd ed and mentioned power attack (clearly a 3.x feat) so, yah, it was pretty much outside of the borders of the OP's question), but it wasn't an argument...

 

I was fully aware that I was not changing his opinion, and I was pretty sure my opinion wasn't being modified. So there was nothing on the table to get uppity about. So meh... I don't much plan on continuing it anywho... I lost a lot of the steam by being offline this weekend.

[AirborneRob]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Sorry, I was out for the weekend. I'm not at anyone's throat, nor am I in any was upset about my previous discussion upthread. It was a good one, that I think was winding it's way down, because we were starting to move the goalposts around a good bit (I was too, not blaming without taking my heat... in one post I specified both 2nd ed and mentioned power attack (clearly a 3.x feat) so, yah, it was pretty much outside of the borders of the OP's question), but it wasn't an argument...

 

I was fully aware that I was not changing his opinion, and I was pretty sure my opinion wasn't being modified. So there was nothing on the table to get uppity about. So meh... I don't much plan on continuing it anywho... I lost a lot of the steam by being offline this weekend.

 

It's ok Wolf, lol, i blame you for everything

[RexMundi]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Bleh, Blame is like Fruitcake. It's meant as a present.

 

~Rex

[AirborneRob]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Bleh, Blame is like Fruitcake. It's meant as a present.

 

~Rex

 

Merry Christmas Rex ----> Blame wrapped with care

[RexMundi]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

*Regifts it to Teh Bunneh* Because as the source of true evil in the Universe, only he can truely appreciate such a gift.

 

~Rex

[teh bunneh]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Mmm. I do likes me some fruitcake.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

The "formula" for budgeting monsters in battles in terms of EPs and level and number of PCs is on one hand restricting, but on the other hand it is a formula and it does seem to work for balancing encounters. We've had a PC taken out in one hit in a HERO system fight ... and I mean that literally, from zero damage to unrecoverable more-than-negative BODY Thin Red Mist in one hit by an uber-villain in a more or less four-color supers campaign with CvK as a required PC disadvantage. Call this what you will ... bad PC design, bad party design, bad encounter balance by the GM, bad dice on all sides, whatever. The lack of guidelines in a HERO campaign (so an inexperienced GM has to guess at what an appropriate level of opposition is) and the use of homebrew NPCs (so that players have no good way of recognizing the level of opposition before PC deaths start happening) can make for a genre-breaking encounter. I don't think it was done on purpose, but ... well, even though it wasn't my character, I'll never take another HERO character who doesn't have resistant defenses and SPD at campaign limits again.

 

Tactics may become stereotyped in D&D4. We have yet to play any characters beyond Level 6 (we're playing one session a month in our most persistent campaign). So far, the variations our GM has thrown at us have yet to turn stale. Not saying they won't, but it hasn't happened yet.

 

 

Balancing HERO encounters is a skill. Unfortunately it is both an art and a science. I regret that you got pasted, but I don’t think that was the system’s fault, it seems more like the GM just double the PC numbers and didn’t think about it.

 

As far as the tactics go, I think we have had different experiences. Once the levels go past 10 I’ve had the tactics just become meaningless grinds, and past 20 a painfully long grind. I’ve yet to find HERO tactics a systemic problem at any power level of play (from 50 points to 800).

[Kraven Kor]

Re: How do Hero System players/GM view DnD?

 

Oh, I've had some HERO situations go hilariously wrong, but usually due to poor planning on my own, or the player's, part.

 

I built a Brick for my current group when I first met them. I built a damn good Brick. 4E; 20 Resistant Defense, 50% Resistant Damage Reduction, 1 BODY per Turn Regen, 80 STR, etc. Easily "better" than the rest of the team. Dead as a doornail on the second encounter because I failed to realize it was an encounter "we were meant to lose" and took a nuke to the face. "I have a lot of hit points, how bad can it be?" mentality; totally my own fault.

 

In another, I failed to look over a character before starting, realized he had not bought any real combat skills at all beyond a handful of martial maneuvers... he gets the attention of a small group of bad guys, couldn't get away, ended up zero BODY after 2 phases.

 

And most recently, I had to seriously tone down the mind controller I put them up against when nobody had bought any form of mental defense, etc. Had I went with the original plan, the entire party would have been his puppets in 4 phases, unless they managed to bring him down before that (possible, but doubtful, as he is the BBEG for Chapter 1 of my Campaign - Mind Control, Telepathy, Tele/Cryo/Pyrokinesis, and Alien Power Armor to boot.)