Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

[Jomster]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

For me, it's the freedom of setting up the world and mechanics I want combined with the ease of running the game in that world while playing. The system runs incredibly smoothly, yet also allows for a depth of construction that is hard to find elsewhere. I find this in fantasy, sci fi or supers, it's just a pleasure to game in.

[The Engineer]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

It doesn't need to be. The next question is, "How do we lower it?" Hero already publishes some aids.

• Pre-generated monsters (Hero System Bestiary)
  
• Pre-generated spells (Hero System Grimoire)
  
• Special fighting techniques and combat maneuvers (Hero System Martial Arts)
  

However, I can think of other ways to help novice GMs and players.

• Lists of archetypes, similar to those in the back of Champions. Pick your archetype, a set of stats from table A, skills from table B, tricks or spells from table C, complications from table D, and 90% of the work is done.
  
• Lists of magic items.
  
• Examples of magic system creation.
  
• More fighting tricks/feats, monsters, spells, etc.
  

 

As someone who's in dire need of help on a regular basis, I would recommend to the community, not to the company, that someone should write some guides to balancing encounters. I mean something in-depth from a seasoned GM standpoint, and post that on a dedicated webspace so that it doesn't get buried on a forum. I've got some of the premade monsters but it's difficult to tell what would be a challenge and what would be straight up murder.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

As someone who's in dire need of help on a regular basis' date=' I would recommend to the community, not to the company, that someone should write some guides to balancing encounters. I mean something in-depth from a seasoned GM standpoint, and post that on a dedicated webspace so that it doesn't get buried on a forum. I've got some of the premade monsters but it's difficult to tell what would be a challenge and what would be straight up murder.[/quote']

 

Maybe not exactly what you were asking but here's something you might find useful:

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

[The Engineer]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

Yeah, I've seen it. It's from the Player's POV but not a GMs. I'd need to know what I can throw at my player's w/o making something impossible for them to beat. So far the best advice I've gotten is to fudge the numbers, but that kind of defeats the point of having a game system to begin with.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

As someone who's in dire need of help on a regular basis' date=' I would recommend to the community, not to the company, that someone should write some guides to balancing encounters. I mean something in-depth from a seasoned GM standpoint, and post that on a dedicated webspace so that it doesn't get buried on a forum. I've got some of the premade monsters but it's difficult to tell what would be a challenge and what would be straight up murder.[/quote']

 

Nothing beats experience. In the absence of a "HERO System GM's Guide" kind of book (which I agree might be a good idea, depending on what was in it), I'd suggest just running some mock combats with varying levels of threat, until you get a feel for being able to "eyeball" the opposition and gauge how tough they'll be for the PCs...

[The Engineer]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

While I agree to that statement, the question was what could be done to help integrate new players. Standing in that demographic personally, that is something that I see that is lacking. I've been through numerous other systems that I've not had nearly as much difficulty with in this area. That is at least one area where some documentation could ease the gap.

[Midas]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

Maybe call it an Advanced Gamemaster's Guide?

 

Heromaster (rather than game master) Starter Kit?

[Vondy]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

I agree with everything in Hero's favor here. Hero is my go to system. Until I get to magic. Yes, it is beauty in its tailoring crunchiness. I can design whatever I want. But... the amount of work involved in doing that, especially building every spell, is the reason I don't use Hero for fantasy.

[Barwickian]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

For me, there are a number of reasons. The primary ones are:

 

1) Creative flexibility. You can build what you want, the way you want.

 

2) Tactical interest. Hero combat has a lot of options for players. My players like combats. Cool stuff like presence attacks adds things they'd never even thought about before.

 

3) Learn one set of rules. Apply optional rules for specific genres.

 

Disadvantages of Hero are:

 

1) Fairly steep learning curve. Until players really get to grips with it, you have to hold their hands through character creation. On the upside, there is usually a way to get them what they want out of a character.

 

2) The flexibility comes at a price: you have to create your own game elements (such as magic). You can use a published system (TA/Grimoire for high fantasy magic, Valdorian Age for demonic magic, etc), if they fit your vision, though. And creation isn't too hard once you grok powers and modifiers.

 

3) A little graininess (pixelation?) at Heroic scale. Not a major issue, really. There's so many different ways to build flavour. But I do currently have three PCs with SPD 4, despite advising that there are other ways to be cool in combat.

 

I am currently running a high fantasy Hero game. I've used many, many game systems for fantasy over the years. Holmes D&D, Moldvay Basic D&D, AD&D, Runequest II & III, Chivalry & Sorcery 2, 3 & 4, MERP I and MERP II, Rolemaster Classic and RMSS/RMFRP, HarnMaster I and Gold, GURPS 3.

 

HarnMaster definitely does gritty, moody fantasy better than Hero. It's what it was designed for, and it has a very distinctive feel in play. It has issues scaling up, though, and isn't ideally suited to the kind of dungeon-crawling my current group prefer. It's very much a sim game. If I want what it does best, I'll use it over Hero any day.

 

GURPS was my go-to system for many genres before I found Hero. It has a constrained flexibility about it, by which I mean it's flexible up to a certain point. It's scaled a little better for realistic/heroic games, but it still has quite a liimited range of stats. A few days ago, I created a GURPS character for old times'sake, and I was surprised by how limiting I found it. A distinct bonus, however, is that when you have the right genre books, equipment and the like is built for you. I do like picking equipment from a list and having it laid out nice and separate from powers (thank you GURPS Character Builder).

 

A big plus for my most rules-dedicated player is that he hasn't yet found a way to break Hero. We tried several systems before I let him loose on this one. MERP he broke straight away ("Can I try to shoot the crossbow from his hand? No? Oh."). EABA he found too complex and characters to be glass cannons in combat. D&D3.5 we still use for one-offs, but we were looking for something to replace that for a campaign.

 

When Cameo Mo first tried Hero, I gave him Drudaryon (FH, 5ER version) as a character and set him up against half a dozen orcs. He immediately set about trying to break the system with unusual actions.

 

"I want to charge them and bash into one of them."

 

"No problem - that's a Move Through... and, yeah, solid hit with your shoulder, low and hard. He's down and winded."

 

"I want to pick one up and throw him at the others."

 

"No problem... give me a moment ... Yeah, you throw him into one of the others, they're both down in a tangled heap."

 

"I roar 'Who's next?'" (Mo getting into it there).

 

"OK, that's a presence attack. Violent, in combat... Roll 6d6."

 

"What's a presence attack?"

 

"You might scare them."

 

"I was just, you know, roleplaying. There's a rule for this?"

 

"Yup. Roll the bones. Ok, the one on the left, he hesitates for a moment. The two in front of you drop their swords and run. The other one sees that and flees as well. You have the field."

 

"I didn't even use a weapon."

 

"Yes, you did. You used your wits, bravado, your presence and ferocity, and your body."

 

"I LOVE THIS GAME!"

 

Without Mo bringing the other players on board, we'd probably still be using 3.5 for fantasy, because that's what they're familiar with.

 

Last session we used hit locations for the first time. Mo, reluctant to add more complexity at first, agreed afterwards it really brought something cool to the game.

 

Mo's often round my place. Every once in a while I knock up a couple of genre characters, and we have at it, arena style, on the battleboard. Keeps us fresh, lets us try new rules, new ideas. Hero works quite well as a boardgame as well as an RPG.

[Susano]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

Maybe call it an Advanced Gamemaster's Guide?

 

This is a good idea. And not just for fantasy, but for all genres. Recommendations and suggestions for how to balance encounters, things to think about when building your foes (what's the difference between foes with CVs lower than the PCs and those with CVs higher?), exp rewards, handling different types of adventures and/or genres, and so on. In fact, a book such as this would benefit from having numerous authors contribute material and ideas. For my money, I'd like to hear from Scott Bennie, Darren Watts, David Mattingly, teh bunneh, and others with their ideas and opinions on making a game run well and be fun for all.

[Susano]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

Nothing beats experience. In the absence of a "HERO System GM's Guide" kind of book (which I agree might be a good idea' date=' depending on what was in it), I'd suggest just running some mock combats with varying levels of threat, until you get a feel for being able to "eyeball" the opposition and gauge how tough they'll be for the PCs...[/quote']

 

Yes, but I think it would help to have those who've been there be able to talk about their experiences (and what works and might might now work) so that new GMs would have a better idea what the numbers mean (and can do) without needing to sit down and run fights over and over. I've never seen anyone say one should run some sample fights just to get a feel for D&D or other systems, they all want you to grab characters and get going.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

Off topic' date=' but Tasha now I got the convert Robot Warriors to 5th bug again. One of my biggest hurddles is dealing with scale. Robot Warriors deals with a 16m hex, and Battletech a 30m hex but standard Hero is of course 2m. Any suggestions on dealing with scale? (And without handwaviuem, this is of course Hero! : ) )[/quote']

 

I think that if you were to do a Google search for

 

robot warriors 5th edition hero

 

you might find some info...

 

Edit: Poop. It's not out there. I'll track it down and throw it back up somewhere.

 

Edit edit: I've attached it in this post.

[McCoy]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

Hero works quite well as a boardgame as well as an RPG.

QFT.

 

When my sons wanted to learn we did quite a few "danger rooms." It started with both of their characters against my one. Then I had to bring in two characters. Then I was refereeing as they fought each other. By the time they played with a group, they had a good understanding of what their characters could and couldn't do.

[culhwch]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

When Fantasy Hero came out it was a natural to stop using AD&D because we were all sick of the rigid rules about character creation. We also liked the fact that we moved away from the attitude of "I am a 10th level ranger, those 20 orcs don't scare me." to "Dang 20 orcs I wonder if we/I should run away and fight another day." A couple of lucky hits and you might be dead.

 

This! My group at the time also tried Fantasy Hero when it first came out because we were all tired of all fighters looking the same in AD&D. While D&D 3.x and 4 is a bit more flexible, there is still a lot of rigidness to it (as would be the case for any class-based system).

[Barwickian]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

Maybe call it an Advanced Gamemaster's Guide?

 

I'd buy that. And I'd Kickstarter support it.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

Yeah' date=' I've seen it. It's from the Player's POV but not a GMs. I'd need to know what I can throw at my player's w/o making something impossible for them to beat. So far the best advice I've gotten is to fudge the numbers, but that kind of defeats the point of having a game system to begin with.[/quote']

 

There is a short article on this here: Opposition from DM to GM. It might help.

 

That aside....for starters, if you are not yet comfortable with threat scaling in HERO, follow the recommended guidelines published in the rulebook. They are generally solid and work fine for most campaigns. When you feel more comfortable with the give and take of the system, you can start to tweak or disregard the recommended levels to better suit your preferences.

 

For some rules of thumb, while the HERO System is a vast and diverse space with a lot of different options that make it very difficult (perhaps impossible) to offer a universally accurate algorithm or flow chart with which to balance challenges and opponents, it is possible to develop some heuristics (rules of thumb) to help out.

 

The bottom line is that no matter how diverse the abilities or how many points are involved or what the scale of a given campaign is, everything is relative. You can't look at a challenge or an opponent in a vacuum and know if they are balanced or not. Such assessments are only meaningful in a specific context of a campaign and the particular characters that are being used in that campaign.

 

 

Thus to know if a potential opponent is too tough, or a potential challenge is too difficult, you need to consider it holistically, as an exercise in relative capabilities, including any campaign specific rules in effect and the pc's currently in the group. This is basically true in all roleplaying games, but it's less important in games that have interchangeable characters that are simply an instance of a class graded at a level (or similar structure). HERO System characters are really each a rules subsystem and are individualized, even sometimes unique.

 

So, start off by looking at relative combat values (CV vs DCV, in both directions) for opponents, or required skills and target roll unders (#-) for skill based challenges. All 3d6 resolution rolls are on the bell curve so you can easily gauge percentages.

 

Look at relative actions between two sides...combined Speed totals basically, though a little fudge factor is recommended here as in actual play some actions will likely be "wasted" by either side due to circumstance. If your player group is indecisive or tend to not make their actions count, hedge a bit.

 

Look at relative damage classes vs average defenses. Hybrid defenses or "special" attacks that have some side effect or edge (like AP, Penetrating) make this a fuzzy comparison, but basic math is still a decent gauge. If opponents really can't hurt your pc's (or vice versa), or if one side does substantially more damage to the other this will obviously slant outcomes.

I generally compile spreadsheet summaries of the speed, defenses, cv, primary / best attacks, relevant maneuvers, and combat levels for all the PC's in a campaign, including a line for "joe average" or "official recommended levels" for comparison. I compare opponents against this list when planning a standard combat encounter.

 

 

Consider hoser utility abilities that allow a "we win" condition, but don't give them too much weight. You will generally need to be creative or non-conventional to allow these abilities to be used and be useful, but to prevent them from being too powerful or rendering entire encounters a pointless exercise as the hoser ability simply terminates the scenario.

 

For instance, in one campaign I ran one of the characters had an "EMP" attack that a) targeted robots and such for specific effect and also exploited the standard Disadvantages robots had in the campaign. When using robotic foes against the group I had to take it into account, but I couldn't just buff all robots to cancel the ability out (for a variety of reasons); instead I made them weaker and sent in more of them; the character still got to use their ability, but couldn't affect all of the robots fast enough to invalidate the encounter and also though the could contribute significantly to the encounters they couldn't render the other pc's pointless by doing it all themselves.

In a long running fantasy campaign, the group had a "Priest of Wee Jas" who was particularly good at dealing with Undead. If I didn't employ any undead at all, the character would lack relevance to the campaign. If I employed Undead too often or too much, the character would be too relevant. Instead I continued to use Undead in more or less the same frequency I would have normally if the character wasn't in the roster, but used smaller numbers of more powerful Undead it would allow the character to remain relevant, and so useful / reliable when the opportunity arose due to specialization as to compensate for the majority of scenarios where that specialization was irrelevant.

 

 

Finally, to make more interesting encounters, don't make them simple pass / fail or who can beat up who scenarios.

 

 

For combat encounters you should also always consider one or more alternate means of resolution other than one side kills the other and design into that mechanically. Does a group of opponents have poor morale? Represent that as a Disadvantage, perhaps Accidental Change: Run AWAY!, When Combat Goes Bad; or Susceptibility to Presence Attacks, or a PsyLim. What does this opponent or group of opponents actually want; what is their essential goal? Do they need food, resources, to protect their turf, or something more elaborate. Are there any opportunities for non combat resolution, or is combat the entire point of the encounter? By allowing for alternate resolutions it allows more nuanced game play.

 

For skill based encounters you should always allow for more than one skill to be able to succeed. Though there may be one specific skill or ability that is the absolute obvious best option with the best chance of success, allow for at least one other similar ability to at least have a chance, or else leave an "out" for yourself should the situation turn out differently in play than you expected when you were planning. A classic example is a bomb scenario; there's a bomb and the Demolitions skill is obviously the ideal ability to have to disarm it; one of the PC's has this skill. In your planning, the PC with Demolitions gets a chance to use their ability and grab some spotlight; but in actual play the PC with the skill ends up getting shot, or the party split and they aren't at the bomb location and can't get there in time, or they are there and use their skill and blow the roll making the clock countdown faster. What's your plan B? Can another character with Electronics try to disarm it? Can a character with Luck just cut a wire and hope they got it right? Can a PC phone a friend and be talked through how to disarm it? Is the bomb merely a ruse planted by the bad guy to distract the heroes from their real objective? You can try to fudge this on the fly, but unless you're good your players will know. Build some reasonable forks / alternate paths into the encounter during planning however and you look omniscient.

 

Is this sort of multi-lateral development technically "balancing" an encounter? Some might say no, balance is purely mechanical and relying on anything else for balance is just handwavium or somehow cheating or a failure of the mechanics. Maybe; but this seems too simplistic of a stance for me. As I see it the GM's job is to run a session that allows the players to have fun, for their characters to matter, for the shared story to be furthered, and that makes the players want to return for more later. Encounters are simply non-exposition events that give players something for their characters to do; otherwise 'roleplaying' would just be improvisational storytelling where people sit around and interject dialogue into the GM's running narrative. The purposes of the encounters are nothing more than that, allow an interactive opportunity for players choices and decisions to matter, including the ones they made in the past when they chose and developed their character over time.

 

From my perspective encounters that further the larger goals of the roleplaying campaign as a whole are "good encounters", and encounters that cause the campaign as a whole to have out-of-character turmoil, or to fall apart altogether, are clearly "bad encounters". Thus while it is important to understand the mechanics and to develop an intuitive feel for what impact design time decisions will have on the run time of actual play, I think it is more important to understand the dynamics of the campaign as a whole and what role an encounter or challenge plays within that bigger picture; with such a view it will quickly become clear to a GM which encounters are good and thus "balanced" against this larger concept and which are counter to it and thus are detrimental or bad or unbalanced, whichever label you wish.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

 

Mo's often round my place. Every once in a while I knock up a couple of genre characters, and we have at it, arena style, on the battleboard. Keeps us fresh, lets us try new rules, new ideas. Hero works quite well as a boardgame as well as an RPG.

 

Yeah, we used to do the same thing. It's a great fallback when only a couple of players can make a planned session, also. I tried to start up a "fight club" on HERO Central, but the play by post nature was just too slow for it to be worth the time.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

The bottom line is that no matter how diverse the abilities or how many points are involved or what the scale of a given campaign is' date=' [b']everything is relative[/b]. You can't look at a challenge or an opponent in a vacuum and know if they are balanced or not. Such assessments are only meaningful in a specific context of a campaign and the particular characters that are being used in that campaign.

 

This is very true. I think it would be useful to have an example on relativity. Perhaps how a foe (or hero) could be powerful (and why) at "normal" level, tough at heoric level and weaker at powerful heroic (as opposed to super heroic so all the same rules are in use).

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

On and now that I think about it, it is interesting that people recommend the bestriary for foe to have a balanced encounter. Yet, as discussed, this is not necessarly true. As loneg as the hero are built with the guidelines described, then they should be. Does anyone know, what the default is? Just curious. (Bestriary is nice that there are pre-builds and you can scale to taste.)

[The Engineer]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

So, start off by looking at relative combat values (CV vs DCV, in both directions) for opponents, or required skills and target roll unders (#-) for skill based challenges. All 3d6 resolution rolls are on the bell curve so you can easily gauge percentages.

 

Look at relative actions between two sides...combined Speed totals basically, though a little fudge factor is recommended here as in actual play some actions will likely be "wasted" by either side due to circumstance. If your player group is indecisive or tend to not make their actions count, hedge a bit.

 

Look at relative damage classes vs average defenses. Hybrid defenses or "special" attacks that have some side effect or edge (like AP, Penetrating) make this a fuzzy comparison, but basic math is still a decent gauge. If opponents really can't hurt your pc's (or vice versa), or if one side does substantially more damage to the other this will obviously slant outcomes.

I generally compile spreadsheet summaries of the speed, defenses, cv, primary / best attacks, relevant maneuvers, and combat levels for all the PC's in a campaign, including a line for "joe average" or "official recommended levels" for comparison. I compare opponents against this list when planning a standard combat encounter.

 

My problem with this is that I feel it's a bit vague. For example, when comparing OCV to DCV, at what point does the spread become difficult to nigh-impossible to hit? If I did my math right, these two numbers need to remain within a certain range of each other no matter how high or low powered the campaign is, but it's left up to experience to figure that out.

 

Assuming a GM's guide were to be made, info like that would be helpful to new people who don't grasp the math involved right away.

[Susano]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

My problem with this is that I feel it's a bit vague. For example, when comparing OCV to DCV, at what point does the spread become difficult to nigh-impossible to hit? If I did my math right, these two numbers need to remain within a certain range of each other no matter how high or low powered the campaign is, but it's left up to experience to figure that out.

 

Assuming a GM's guide were to be made, info like that would be helpful to new people who don't grasp the math involved right away.

 

Case in point, the BBEG you all fought should have had 4 Overall Levels, not just two. That would have made a major difference. OTOH, I've been notorious at being unable to hit anyone with my villain's attacks....

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

My problem with this is that I feel it's a bit vague. For example, when comparing OCV to DCV, at what point does the spread become difficult to nigh-impossible to hit? If I did my math right, these two numbers need to remain within a certain range of each other no matter how high or low powered the campaign is, but it's left up to experience to figure that out.

 

Assuming a GM's guide were to be made, info like that would be helpful to new people who don't grasp the math involved right away.

 

You are halfway there. You realize that you just need to understand the math involved. And it's simple math. You just need to sit down and run the numbers a few times to get it. Do some mock battles between characters with various levels of CV, damage and defenses to see how these things stack up to each other. Once you wrap your brain around Combat Value balance and Damage vs Defense balance, everything pretty much falls into place. Then after a short time running real games, it becomes easy to balance things on the fly.

 

Just some basic advice here:

 

Combat Value Balance:

If OCV vs DCV are within 0 to 1 difference. Odds are pretty even. An 11 or less chance to hit is 62% chance of success. A 10 or less chance to hit is 50/50.

If OCV vs DCV are 2 points different, the odds shift fairly significantly. A 13 or less to hit has an 83% chance of success. Where a 9 or less chance to hit is 37.5% chance.

If OCV vs DCV are 3 points or more different, the odds shift greatly. A 14 or less chance to hit is 90.7% chance. However an 8 or less chance to hit is only a 25.9% chance.

 

As you can see, the odds are only even at the 0 to 1 point difference level. Anything beyond that and the character with the advantage, has a pretty good chance of coming out on top. Skill Levels can significantly shift the odds as well. These must be considered in the equation. It is important to note also if the character has any other ways of generating OCV or DCV bonuses (or accruing penalties) such as Martial Arts maneuvers, skills and/or Powers that can affect their ability to hit or be hit.

 

Damage vs Defense is the next most important determiner of balance in an encounter. The things one must consider in the equation are:

The basic damage of the attack in question. (Damage Class)

If the attacker has ways of boosting the damage such as Combat Skill Levels, Talents, Powers or Martial Arts Maneuvers that are reliable. (Pushing and Haymaker aren't exactly reliable)

The Defense(s) the defender can bring to bare vs the aggressors attacks.

If the defender has additional ways to reduce the damage (Damage Negation, Damage Reduction etc)

The Body and Stun of the defender.

 

The general guidelines are pretty straightforward. Calculate the total Damage Class a character can generate regularly. Include Martial Arts bonuses and Talent bonuses (such as Deadly Blow) that the character can utilize on a regular basis with little trouble. Combat Skill Levels can be added into the equation if the player has a penchant for using them in that manner (to enhance DC. Not a lot of players do this regularly, but some do)

 

Next, add together all of the relevant defenses the defender can bring to bare against the attack.

 

Compare the numbers. If the Damage Class is half the Defense total or less, that attack will in all likelihood be ineffective.

If the Damage Class of the attack is close to being equal to the Defense total, that attack can (and will likely be) effective, but is unlikely to be overwhelmingly deadly or devastating.

If the Damage Class of the attack is more than the total Defense score then the attack will likely be very effective and possibly deadly/devastating at the higher levels of the damage roll.

If the Damage Class of the attack is double or more the Defenses the defender can use against it, the attack will probably be incredibly effective and could easily be deadly depending on how high the Damage Class is.

 

This mostly applies to Normal Damage Attacks and the Body damage of Killing Attacks. The Stun damage of killing attacks can often be a wild-card. However the reduction of Stun multiplier to 1D3 will regulate this effect somewhat.

 

Next, to determine if an attack will likely be deadly, compare the Body score of the individual to the Average Body Damage an attack can dish out, minus defenses. If the the attack does less than 1/2 the Body score of the character after defenses, it is not life threatening. If it can do more than 1/2 Body after defenses, it is a threatening attack. And if the attack can do close to the full body score of the character after defenses, then the attack can be very deadly. Damage reduction will affect this calculation as normal. Characters with 50% Damage Reduction are quite tough. Characters with 75% Damage Reduction are freaking tanks.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

My problem with this is that I feel it's a bit vague. For example, when comparing OCV to DCV, at what point does the spread become difficult to nigh-impossible to hit? If I did my math right, these two numbers need to remain within a certain range of each other no matter how high or low powered the campaign is, but it's left up to experience to figure that out.

 

Assuming a GM's guide were to be made, info like that would be helpful to new people who don't grasp the math involved right away.

 

They had a page in the BBB which gave some recommendations to this affect. Good choice was a 3 Dex spread and 1x DC was weak, 2x was typical and 2.5x DC was strong. One point, the advice was primarily for Champions but still decent advice. (I found martial arts threw a monkey wrench into the sytem)

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

My problem with this is that I feel it's a bit vague. For example, when comparing OCV to DCV, at what point does the spread become difficult to nigh-impossible to hit? If I did my math right, these two numbers need to remain within a certain range of each other no matter how high or low powered the campaign is, but it's left up to experience to figure that out.

 

Assuming a GM's guide were to be made, info like that would be helpful to new people who don't grasp the math involved right away.

 

Well, there is nothing vague about the 3d6 Bell Curve. The first +/- 1 has the most effect; stacking more +/- 1's grants rapidly diminishing returns and eventually is essentially wasted. Equal values have the same % chance regardless of if the actual numbers are low or high and thus the HERO System tends to play the same at low points and high points (though outliers tend to scatter more at higher point levels).

 

Thus, two characters with 3 OCV and 3 DCV are just as evenly matched as two characters with 16 OCV and 16 DCV. A character with a 6 OCV / DCV in a setting with an average of 3 OCV / DCV is pretty awesome, relatively speaking; but in a setting with an average of 9 OCV / DCV that same character is pretty sad.

 

 

On the other hand, as to vagueness, heuristics often are vague. It's interesting to consider the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition in this context. You don't want broad generalizations or maxims, you want a precise recipe.

 

Seeing as how Wikipedia is going black for a day any minute now, I'll risk irritating a moderator and paste the main body of the wikipedia content here for discussion purposes.

 

The original five-stage model

 

In the novice stage, a person follows rules as given, without context, with no sense of responsibility beyond following the rules exactly. Competence develops when the individual develops organizing principles to quickly access the particular rules that are relevant to the specific task at hand; hence, competence is characterized by active decision making in choosing a course of action. Proficiency is shown by individuals who develop intuition to guide their decisions and devise their own rules to formulate plans. The progression is thus from rigid adherence to rules to an intuitive mode of reasoning based on tacit knowledge.

 

Michael Eraut summarized the five stages of increasing skill as follows:[2]

 

1. Novice

 

"rigid adherence to taught rules or plans"

no exercise of "discretionary judgment"

 

2. Advanced beginner

 

limited "situational perception"

all aspects of work treated separately with equal importance

 

3. Competent

 

"coping with crowdedness" (multiple activities, accumulation of information)

some perception of actions in relation to goals

deliberate planning

formulates routines

 

4. Proficient

 

holistic view of situation

prioritizes importance of aspects

"perceives deviations from the normal pattern"

employs maxims for guidance, with meanings that adapt to the situation at hand

 

5. Expert

 

transcends reliance on rules, guidelines, and maxims

"intuitive grasp of situations based on deep, tacit understanding"

has "vision of what is possible"

uses "analytical approaches" in new situations or in case of problems

 

A sixth stage for innovation

 

During in-depth interviews carried out 1987-1990 with Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus by Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, Flyvbjerg problematized the fact that the Dreyfus model in its original form does not account for innovation, i.e., how new skills come into being and outcompete old ones. This lack in the original model makes it relatively undynamic and unable to grasp skill acquisition in full, according to Flyvbjerg, who proposed as a remedy a sixth stage for innovation.[3] Flyvbjerg also questioned the way phronesis (practical wisdom) seemed to be conflated with techne (craft) in Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus's thinking about skills.[4] At first the Dreyfus brothers rejected additional stages to the five-stage model on the grounds that they did not understand innovation.[5] In 1990, Flyvbjerg published an evaluation and extension of the model including a sixth stage for innovation.[6] Later, Hubert Dreyfus embraced both a sixth and a seventh stage taking into account innovation and practical wisdom in the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition.[7]

 

So...if you buy into the model, when learning the HERO System or any other complex knowledge / skill base, as a novice people tend to want clear directions; checklists basically. Unequivocal direction.

 

So...as a novice, if you wanted a "rule" to follow, I would say try to maintain a range of CV's within your campaign setting +/-3 from midline with most people within +/-1.

 

So, if the average is 5 the very worst person should have no worse than a 2 and the very best person should have no better than an 8, and the majority should fall at 4,5,6; someone with a 9 would be god like and someone with a 1 would be effectively an invalid, able to miss even the broadside of a barn. Totally normal folks can still have some impact and interact (particularly in packs of 3), as a CV of 3 is poor but still affords a 37.5% chance of hitting an "average" significant character in the campaign with their average 5 CV.

 

If your average is 7 then the low is 4 and the high is 10, with most people falling at 6,7,8. Normals with CV 3 might as well be considered non-combatants and are only meaningful in mobs of 8 or more, as aside from AoE attacks they can't reliably hit the campaign average of 7.

 

 

Combat maneuvers, and usage of various abilities make these statements more or less true in context, but if you keep the majority within +/- 1 of average and the absolute outliers within +/- 3 you wont break anything too badly.

 

Damage Classes vs defenses work similarly; there's an equilibrium between them and if you maintain it the system works well; if you tilt the equilibrium one way the game becomes more lethal / damaging / favors the attacker, and if you tilt it the other it becomes less lethal / damaging / favors the defender. I go into this a bit in this article, if it helps: Lethality Options (by Design).

 

 

Ultimately though, what makes the HERO System powerful and useful is the very fact that it provides the tools and not the final product; it's harder to work with initially but if you engage with it you can use it to build the game you want...assuming some other company doesn't already publish such a game already in which case you might as well go buy it and save yourself the effort.

[tancred]

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

 

This is a good idea. And not just for fantasy' date=' but for all genres. Recommendations and suggestions for how to balance encounters, things to think about when building your foes (what's the difference between foes with CVs lower than the PCs and those with CVs higher?), exp rewards, handling different types of adventures and/or genres, and so on. In fact, a book such as this would benefit from having numerous authors contribute material and ideas. For my money, I'd like to hear from Scott Bennie, Darren Watts, David Mattingly, teh bunneh, and others with their ideas and opinions on making a game run well and be fun for all.[/quote']

 

Despite all the years I've been running/playing HERO, I would still buy this. Every time I read about a campaign someone's running (in any genre) I get new ideas.

This would be more of the same only better.