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

[Hugh Neilson]

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

 

Good point as usual. I would like to point out that in any premade scenerio from any game system' date=' there are defaults which the scenerio is written to or types of characters best suited for it. Most scernerios, the authors recognize this and give suggestions as what is expected of the players and how the gm can adapt it to specific player groups. I don't see how a fantasy hero scenerio would be any different. In the front you would explain what the power level the game was designed at.[/quote']

 

The big difference is the variance in power levels. I know, for example, that PC's who are two levels higher in a 3.5 D&D game will have +2 to hit (full warriors) down to +1 (full casters), and I know the spells which those casters are likely to have access to by virtue of advancing from L6 to L8. Because Hero is much more versatile, there is much greater room for variance, both for starting characters and as they advance.

 

"An adventure designed for a party of 5 to 7 adventurers with

CV from X to Y

From X to Y Damage Classes

Defenses from X to Y"

 

That's probably a bare bones structure we could work with. Now, if we pick any given reasonable range, how often will we find characters that fit the mold, versus games where CV, DC and DEF have grown in proportions different from those assumed by the designer? Hero's versatility is simultaneously a great strength and a significant weakness.

[Markdoc]

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

 

The problem with the "1 from column X, one from column Y" approach in Hero, is that a PC with a CV of Y also doing damage of Y is more potent than a PC with a CV of Y doing damage of X. If - added to that - he has defence of Y, then he's much more potent. And if he relies primarily on mental attacks, then CV isn't very informative anyway.

 

In a game like D20, with very-clearly defined roles, it's virtually impossible to get a high BAB, and a high AC, and a high damage output, relative to the other PCs: you have to choose one or two of those options. In Hero, it's possible, though of course you are going to have to cut somewhere.

 

And in some ways, non-combat powers are even more problematic. If you are setting up a game for d20 levels 1-3, you can safely assume that they won't have access to flight, teleport, telepathy or high output area effect attacks. None of those things are necessarily the case in Hero system, even with 100-150 point PCs. On the other hand, if you are running a module for D20 PCs of 13th-15th level, you can pretty safely assume that they will have access to high speed overland travel, flight and/or teleport, high output area effect attacks, etc*. But none of those powers will necessarily be present in a group of 300-350 point Hero system PCs.

 

There have been multiple attempts to set up a "rule of X" for Hero, but none of them have worked very well. Truly is it said, the price of versatility is variability.

 

cheers, Mark

 

*Edit: and even then, the guidelines don't always help: last weekend, after our group tore through 2 encounters that - in theory - should have been too high CR for us, I helped the GM downgrade my character. And yet on the face of it, he's not overly powerful. The reason we're out of sync with the CR system, is that I deliberately designed a character to operate outside one of the design paradigms (namely that PC capacity will degrade through multiple encounters). Hero system doesn't operate with such clear design paradigms, which means many characters will behave in ways that cannot readily be predicted from combat stat.s.

[Ninja-Bear]

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

 

The big difference is the variance in power levels. I know, for example, that PC's who are two levels higher in a 3.5 D&D game will have +2 to hit (full warriors) down to +1 (full casters), and I know the spells which those casters are likely to have access to by virtue of advancing from L6 to L8. Because Hero is much more versatile, there is much greater room for variance, both for starting characters and as they advance.

 

And how big of a problem is it really? In theroy the only adventures that shouldn't need any adjustments would be ones that were built specifically for a specific set of characters, say the Flashing Blades for Fantasy HERO. Even then, that isn't true because you may not be using all or the nessecery characters for that adventure. What I'm getting form your posts is the feeling that a premade adventure doesn't require GM oversite at all. Which I tried to point out before that any adventure has assumptions built in it and a good author recognizes it and at least points out the assumptions so that the GM knows upfront what he has to do to adjust it. Fwiw in one of my old Star Wars rpg adventures, the author has an aside on how the scenrio went way of course because of players actions and how he corrected it.

[Markdoc]

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

 

And how big of a problem is it really? In theroy the only adventures that shouldn't need any adjustments would be ones that were built specifically for a specific set of characters' date=' say the Flashing Blades for Fantasy HERO. Even then, that isn't true because you may not be using all or the nessecery characters for that adventure. What I'm getting form your posts is the feeling that a premade adventure doesn't require GM oversite at all. Which I tried to point out before that any adventure has assumptions built in it and a good author recognizes it and at least points out the assumptions so that the GM knows upfront what he has to do to adjust it. Fwiw in one of my old Star Wars rpg adventures, the author has an aside on how the scenrio went way of course because of players actions and how he corrected it.[/quote']

 

It's not that that a premade scenario has to be able to be used without any oversight. But it needs to be usable without major changes, otherwise, why would anyone want to buy it?

 

As some examples, a scenario based around finding clues and tracking down a senior bad guy's lair isn't going to work very well if the PCs have access to Telepathy and Retrocognition.

A wilderness scenario where the players have to cross a hostile swamp isn't going to work too well if they can teleport long distances.

Any scenario where the opposition is totally outclassed by the PCs is not going to be very exciting.

etc.

 

I've seen plenty of scenarios where the point was totally destroyed by the PCs' capabilities. Now to some extent, PCs will mutate any scenario, and any competent GM has to be able to wing it. But if there's a really chance that a purchased scenario is going to go irrevocably off the rails in the first 5 minutes, unless they rewrite the whole thing, GMs are not going to be very motivated to buy them, are they?

 

cheers, Mark

[casualplayer]

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

 

A beginning D&D spellcasting character might have a bare handful of options, Magic Missile or Cure Light Wounds, and be able to cast them a limited amount of times per day. A beginning HERO spellcasting character probably has a wider selection of spells and can cast them as many times until the END runs out. D&D adventures are built off of Challenge Ratings, which means each encounter pegged at party level is meant to burn off 1/6 of the party's resources. Adventures built off of CR are serious mismatches against characters that don't have finite capabilities.

 

This is what Markdoc was talking about; he "broke" D&D by making a character that didn't have a finite pool of abilities that could be GM-chipped away at. He HEROed D&D!

[Surgo]

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

 

A beginning D&D spellcasting character might have a bare handful of options, Magic Missile or Cure Light Wounds, and be able to cast them a limited amount of times per day. A beginning HERO spellcasting character probably has a wider selection of spells and can cast them as many times until the END runs out. D&D adventures are built off of Challenge Ratings, which means each encounter pegged at party level is meant to burn off 1/6 of the party's resources. Adventures built off of CR are serious mismatches against characters that don't have finite capabilities.

 

This is what Markdoc was talking about; he "broke" D&D by making a character that didn't have a finite pool of abilities that could be GM-chipped away at. He HEROed D&D!

I don't think, in the latter era of 3.5, anyone really subscribed to the "four encounter workday" style of D&D anymore. By that point just about everyone realized that 1) it didn't ever happen that way anyway and 2) it totally broke verisimilitude.

 

Eventually, people started releasing classes that weren't balanced around the four-encounter workday. When they were at first made with weaker abilities to compensate (the first effort from WotC on this line was the Warlock), they turned out to be weaker effectively all the time.

 

Having never played 4e, I cannot speak to that. The point I'm trying to make here, though, is that while there are major differences between the systems, this isn't really one of them.

[casualplayer]

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

 

I don't think, in the latter era of 3.5, anyone really subscribed to the "four encounter workday" style of D&D anymore. By that point just about everyone realized that 1) it didn't ever happen that way anyway and 2) it totally broke verisimilitude.

 

Eventually, people started releasing classes that weren't balanced around the four-encounter workday. When they were at first made with weaker abilities to compensate (the first effort from WotC on this line was the Warlock), they turned out to be weaker effectively all the time.

 

Having never played 4e, I cannot speak to that. The point I'm trying to make here, though, is that while there are major differences between the systems, this isn't really one of them.

 

Yeah, those "people" deserve a swift kick in the pants. The Challenge Rating system of D&D was a nice framework for GMs to base adventures on. 3 CR=party level encounters/day, nice easy xp rake with room for dice to go cold and not risk a TPK. 4/day, ebb and flow, could go poorly, might have to press the panic button device, use the emergency exit item. 5/day, seriously harassed, risking coming up empty in the last battle, wizard might have to draw his dagger and fight. The GM could vary the number of encounters to easily manage the pacing, since D&D RAW has few motivators other than potential death and loss of stuff.

 

You're probably right about CR being 1/4 rather than 1/6. Been a while.

[Narf the Mouse]

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

 

Hmm...Maybe flip it around the other way?

 

"This adventure contains the following challenges:

Enemies with CVs between...

Enemies with DCs between...

Enemies with defences of...

Difficult and plague-ridden terrain...

A mystery involving tracking down a hidden base..."

 

So instead of what the PCs will need, put down what the PCs will face. Then the GM can choose based on whether it seems like a good enough match to their players/PCs.

[Captain Obvious]

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

 

Of course, Hero is easy enough to tweak up and down, too. A few guidelines on how to adjust the adventure to fit higher or lower power levels wouldn't take up much room.

[Surgo]

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

 

Yeah, those "people" deserve a swift kick in the pants. The Challenge Rating system of D&D was a nice framework for GMs to base adventures on. 3 CR=party level encounters/day, nice easy xp rake with room for dice to go cold and not risk a TPK. 4/day, ebb and flow, could go poorly, might have to press the panic button device, use the emergency exit item. 5/day, seriously harassed, risking coming up empty in the last battle, wizard might have to draw his dagger and fight. The GM could vary the number of encounters to easily manage the pacing, since D&D RAW has few motivators other than potential death and loss of stuff.

 

You're probably right about CR being 1/4 rather than 1/6. Been a while.

Considering how I'm one of these "people" -- I think the only person who needs the kick in the pants is you. The four-encounter workday pretty much only worked if your party was under a constant dungeon crawl, like World's Largest Dungeon or something. Try to do literally anything else in the campaign and it broke completely because four encounters a day just doesn't make any sense at all from a verisimilitude standpoint. Gee, it sure is funny that we're running into four exactly-challenging encounters in this forest per day, while merchant caravans are traveling through it all the time!

 

Truth be told, it didn't make any sense in dungeon crawls either thanks to the existence of spells like Rope Trick. It only ever worked when the party was under serious time constraints, which is a story mechanic that can get tired and overused extremely quickly.

[Hugh Neilson]

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

 

A beginning D&D spellcasting character might have a bare handful of options' date=' Magic Missile or Cure Light Wounds, and be able to cast them a limited amount of times per day. A beginning HERO spellcasting character probably has a wider selection of spells and can cast them as many times until the END runs out. D&D adventures are built off of Challenge Ratings, which means each encounter pegged at party level is meant to burn off 1/6 of the party's resources. Adventures built off of CR are serious mismatches against characters that don't have finite capabilities. [/quote']

 

IOW, it's pretty easy to design a scenario for "a balanced party of 5 L3 characters". You know they should have some healing resources, a tough fighter with a +3 BAB, access to a reasonable array of skills and some magical firepower. You also know they won't be able to fly or teleport, blast off fireballs and lightning bolts, etc. Those assumptions are not as safe in Hero. That means a lot more discussion of how to modify the scenario if certain assumed abilities aren't there, or some that would break the adventure are. That discussion reduces space for the actual adventure, and adds to the prep work required.

 

Unfortunately, that prep work is not nearly as avoidable in Hero as it is in a more structured game that restricts PC options.

[Old Man]

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

 

The way I see it, published adventures in Hero would have to be tied to a particular campaign setting or at least use the system assumptions inherent to one. This would help limit some of the infinite possibilities of Hero for newer players. As they get more comfortable with the system and their characters start to be more creative, then they can start tweaking the published adventures to fit.

 

There's no way a Fantasy Hero published adventure will fit all possible FH campaigns; the idea is mainly to help new players get started.

[Markdoc]

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

 

Considering how I'm one of these "people" -- I think the only person who needs the kick in the pants is you. The four-encounter workday pretty much only worked if your party was under a constant dungeon crawl' date=' like World's Largest Dungeon or something. Try to do literally [i']anything else[/i] in the campaign and it broke completely because four encounters a day just doesn't make any sense at all from a verisimilitude standpoint. Gee, it sure is funny that we're running into four exactly-challenging encounters in this forest per day, while merchant caravans are traveling through it all the time!

 

Truth be told, it didn't make any sense in dungeon crawls either thanks to the existence of spells like Rope Trick. It only ever worked when the party was under serious time constraints, which is a story mechanic that can get tired and overused extremely quickly.

 

It depends on your situation: it's pretty silly to wrap up your adventuring day after 15 minutes, every day, as well, which is why the "15 minute adventuring day" also became a D&D trope. I don't think the "4 encounter day" (or for that matter the "15 minute adventuring day" was ever meant to be taken completely literally: it was simply a metaphor for the fact that PCs' capabilities degrade fairly swiftly with each encounter. In a recent game, for example, we had 3 encounters over the space of about an hour (game time) - but by encounter #3, something which would have been reasonably challenging at the start had become "cut and run" because most of the party had used up a substantial part of their spells/hit points. Rope trick or similar "hide up for 9 hours" tactics are not going to work in that setting.

 

So it is fair - and more to the point it is accurate - to say that the degradation of capabilities remains a significant factor in design for games like Pathfinder (it's still present in 4e, because you use up your healing surges and daily powers, but to a lesser extent). And it fits nicely with the standard D&D trope of "building up to the boss fight": you wear the PCs out - to some extent - on minions, so that they don't overwhelm your "boss encounter" at full power.

 

The fact that this isn't usually the case in Hero system isn't such a big deal: the GM has more scope to customise his encounters anyway. My point was simply how easy it is to "break" the challenge rating system if you operate outside outside the expected parameters. And the parameters in question are fairly rigidly restricted. In Hero system, it would be very hard indeed to put together a rating system which gave even a rudimentary idea of what to expect from the characters: I've been playing/GM'ing Hero system for nigh on 30 years and still, the only way I can do it is by actually eyeballing the characters one by one.

 

That said, you could provide prewritten scenarios in "relative scale" format. Instead of writing "The players enter a 10x10 room with 14 Hobgoblins" and providing the hobgoblin stat.s, you could write "The players enter a 10x10 room with X number of Hobgoblins" and then write up a basic hobgoblin stat. package, with notes like "2 Hobgoblins per PC, base OCV is equal to highest PC OCV -2, PD/ED is equal to DC of highest PC attack, DCV is equal to average PC DCV, weapons are of a DC equal to 1/2 highest PC's PD", for example. You'd also need to make notes on what to do about various potentially game-breaking powers.

 

As an example, when I put my old Sengoku era game online, each adventure included notes on how to pick up the thread from the last adventure, what could go wrong and how to fix the storyline if it did. It wasn't (couldn't be) comprehensive, but it's a start. It adds a significant extra level of complexity to writing scenarios, but it can be done.

 

cheers, Mark

[Ninja-Bear]

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

 

The way I see it, published adventures in Hero would have to be tied to a particular campaign setting or at least use the system assumptions inherent to one. This would help limit some of the infinite possibilities of Hero for newer players. As they get more comfortable with the system and their characters start to be more creative, then they can start tweaking the published adventures to fit.

 

There's no way a Fantasy Hero published adventure will fit all possible FH campaigns; the idea is mainly to help new players get started.

 

That's what I think too. And half-arsed in saying.

[gojira]

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

 

That said' date=' you could provide prewritten scenarios in "relative scale" format. Instead of writing "[i']The players enter a 10x10 room with 14 Hobgoblins[/i]" and providing the hobgoblin stat.s, you could write "The players enter a 10x10 room with X number of Hobgoblins" and then write up a basic hobgoblin stat. package, with notes like "2 Hobgoblins per PC, base OCV is equal to highest PC OCV -2, PD/ED is equal to DC of highest PC attack, DCV is equal to average PC DCV, weapons are of a DC equal to 1/2 highest PC's PD", for example. You'd also need to make notes on what to do about various potentially game-breaking powers.

 

This is pretty much what I had in mind for any rating system for Hero. No system can be perfect of course, but if there's a rating system and it is at least consistent, then the GM approximately about how his PCs measure up, and has a clue how to start reading and adjusting the module.

 

Also the rating system would keep you away from challenges that are clearly too far advanced or too simple for your players. Those cases should be flags that the GM will have to do a lot more modification than usual to obtain a fun and balanced encounter.

[casualplayer]

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

 

Considering how I'm one of these "people" -- I think the only person who needs the kick in the pants is you. The four-encounter workday pretty much only worked if your party was under a constant dungeon crawl' date=' like World's Largest Dungeon or something. Try to do literally [i']anything else[/i] in the campaign and it broke completely because four encounters a day just doesn't make any sense at all from a verisimilitude standpoint. Gee, it sure is funny that we're running into four exactly-challenging encounters in this forest per day, while merchant caravans are traveling through it all the time!

 

Truth be told, it didn't make any sense in dungeon crawls either thanks to the existence of spells like Rope Trick. It only ever worked when the party was under serious time constraints, which is a story mechanic that can get tired and overused extremely quickly.

 

You're one of the people, the people you mentioned before, who created D&D classes that don't have expend-and-recover abilities and didn't play nicely with the game's core paradigm? What did you want to go and do that for? Or you're one of the people who played in games where your GM lined up 4 beasties in a queue, you fought them one at a time and then took a nap or climbed a rope? Tough break, because that does make for boring, repetitive games.

 

Guess your GM didn't get that "cunning" means in D&D that even though I might be the first person you meet I intend to be the 4th or 5th person you encounter, when you are depleted, weak, easier pickings. I'm sorry that your GM didn't realize the basic story progression of Mook (CR much less than party level,) Peer (CR slightly less or equal,) Lieutenant (CR equal or greater,) then Boss Monster (CR much greater) that leads to tense, satisfying, dramatic climaxes. Just because it wasn't used properly doesn't mean CR wasn't a useful tool.

 

HERO is a little trickier to scale competition but still doable. If the adversaries have +3 DCV or greater on your party's OCV it hardly matters what the adversaries' defenses are because they won't be touched. If the enemies have defenses tough enough to soak the party's best attack their DCV hardly matters. If the antagonists' base attacks are enough to one-shot the party then all the party will be doing is turtling, Dodging or hunting for cover. You have to know your party thoroughly and make sure none of these areas is completely outclassing their capabilities. Slightly outclassing, that's good fun and makes for satisfying victories.

[Surgo]

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

 

You're one of the people, the people you mentioned before, who created D&D classes that don't have expend-and-recover abilities and didn't play nicely with the game's core paradigm? What did you want to go and do that for? Or you're one of the people who played in games where your GM lined up 4 beasties in a queue, you fought them one at a time and then took a nap or climbed a rope? Tough break, because that does make for boring, repetitive games.

 

Guess your GM didn't get that "cunning" means in D&D that even though I might be the first person you meet I intend to be the 4th or 5th person you encounter, when you are depleted, weak, easier pickings. I'm sorry that your GM didn't realize the basic story progression of Mook (CR much less than party level,) Peer (CR slightly less or equal,) Lieutenant (CR equal or greater,) then Boss Monster (CR much greater) that leads to tense, satisfying, dramatic climaxes. Just because it wasn't used properly doesn't mean CR wasn't a useful tool.

 

HERO is a little trickier to scale competition but still doable. If the adversaries have +3 DCV or greater on your party's OCV it hardly matters what the adversaries' defenses are because they won't be touched. If the enemies have defenses tough enough to soak the party's best attack their DCV hardly matters. If the antagonists' base attacks are enough to one-shot the party then all the party will be doing is turtling, Dodging or hunting for cover. You have to know your party thoroughly and make sure none of these areas is completely outclassing their capabilities. Slightly outclassing, that's good fun and makes for satisfying victories.

 

What on earth are you even ranting about? I never even talked about whether CR was useful or not (it is -- in fact, it's the only useful measure of power in D&D). None of this has anything to do with how the four-encounter workday completely breaks down anywhere outside of a dungeon, which is why everyone abandoned it in the first place. Plus, nobody was even that limited in the first place once you passed level 6. Let's face it: what you're claiming is a core paradigm is actually a joke.

 

I'll break it down for you in steps that happened, though...

 

1) People realized the four encounter workday didn't make any sense at all and made worldbuilding incredibly stupid.

2) WotC gave us early "you always have your abilities" classes that weren't Fightan Mans or Rogues (which we had even in the PHB) -- the Warlock.

3) The Warlock was, straight up, weaker than the Wizard. This was done intentionally because Warlock is all at-will.

4) But...it turned out the Wizard was pretty much always at full strength or close to it. (Plus, even a not-full-strength Wizard was still insane power.) Ability depletion only even worked before level 7, because once you hit level 7 you have four levels of effective save-or-die spells. You just aren't running out of save-or-dies after four encounters.

5) So, balance shifted to assuming parties were almost always close to full power. Because they totally were.

[casualplayer]

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

 

So GMs take a flawed premise, that CR-equivalent encounters burn exactly 1/4 of party resources, multiply that out and try to max out every adventure cycle , assuming everyone in the party is the same level and every encounter is set precisely at that CR, and then there are introduced character classes that don't diminish progressively with each additional encounter bringing people to the conclusion that the forced, befuddled "4-encounter workday" that was not the intended use of the rules structure in the first place should be abandoned. I get that you had lots of company in this misinterpretation and misuse, but if you crap on the scale the balance shifts.

 

More than STUN and SPD and END and PD and DCV, I think this kind of thinking is why I prefer HERO to non-HERO for fantasy.

[Surgo]

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

 

So GMs take a flawed premise, that CR-equivalent encounters burn exactly 1/4 of party resources, multiply that out and try to max out every adventure cycle , assuming everyone in the party is the same level and every encounter is set precisely at that CR, and then there are introduced character classes that don't diminish progressively with each additional encounter bringing people to the conclusion that the forced, befuddled "4-encounter workday" that was not the intended use of the rules structure in the first place should be abandoned. I get that you had lots of company in this misinterpretation and misuse, but if you crap on the scale the balance shifts.

 

More than STUN and SPD and END and PD and DCV, I think this kind of thinking is why I prefer HERO to non-HERO for fantasy.

I honestly don't have any idea what you're even talking about anymore. I was just talking about how the attrition model through the 4-encounter workday (or however many encounters beyond that you want to even use) neither worked or made any sense and now...you're agreeing with me? Alright then.

[Old Man]

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

 

What's an "adventure cycle"?

 

Anyway, if I ever win the lottery, I'll quit my job and write up a FH campaign setting with associated critters and spell lists, and publish adventures based on those. I really think 4th ed was almost there with Western Shores and the FH Companions and Bestiary. At that point you could have published stock adventures that referred to the appropriate critter and spell lists and that happened to be set in Choon if that's the world you were using.

 

As an aside, the Shadow World adventures with better FH support had condensed tables in the back of the book that listed the important stats, CVs, defenses, and damage with one line per adversary. It wasn't hard to use those listings to run combats, especially if you didn't mind writing hash marks in the book to track damage.

[casualplayer]

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

 

I honestly don't have any idea what you're even talking about anymore. I was just talking about how the attrition model through the 4-encounter workday (or however many encounters beyond that you want to even use) neither worked or made any sense and now...you're agreeing with me? Alright then.

 

D&D wasn't ever meant to encourage simulating "4-encounter workdays," even though that is what the gaming masses gravitated towards. You're criticizing the system for not working properly when being used incorrectly while incorporating character classes that were designed post-release by people sketchy on the design parameters. There's lots of things to criticize D&D for but Challenge Rating is not one of them.

 

An adventure cycle is the time and events between full rests, full rests being the only meaningful increment of time in D&D.

[Surgo]

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

 

D&D wasn't ever meant to encourage simulating "4-encounter workdays," even though that is what the gaming masses gravitated towards. You're criticizing the system for not working properly when being used incorrectly while incorporating character classes that were designed post-release by people sketchy on the design parameters. There's lots of things to criticize D&D for but Challenge Rating is not one of them.

 

An adventure cycle is the time and events between full rests, full rests being the only meaningful increment of time in D&D.

I don't quite think you get it. I have never criticized Challenge Rating -- in fact, I posted a defense of the concept of Challenge Rating. The only reason I have discussed a "4 encounter workday" is because that is the standard "adventure cycle" everyone uses. What I have been discussing applies to any number of encounters/day, however. The idea of depleting resources as a whole is a complete joke.

 

If you think the dev team did not encourage the "4 encounter workday", what exactly do you think it encouraged? You posted earlier about some progression from fighting mooks to your-CR monsters to above-your-CR encounters all in the same day -- I'll go with that, I guess. That doesn't at all in D&D either. In addition to the many reasons stated before...

 

1) D&D combat is nasty, brutish, and very short. Mooks are pretty much always OHKOed by things like Solid Fog, Forcecage, and (explicitly by) Blasphemy. The spell lists in D&D are littered with a large number of spells specifically designed to kill mooks in one round without a save.

2) At-your-CR encounters with at-your-CR monsters (non-mooks) are pretty much standard, nothing to say there. If you've fought a mook encounter (or many mook encounters) before, it doesn't even matter -- thanks to point #1.

3) Above-your-CR encounters with above-your-CR monsters: this can take two forms:

* If it's one monster, it gets stunlocked, focus-fired, and dies. D&D characters are especially great at taking down a single monster in an extremely short amount of time, or keeping a single monster from moving.

* If it's multiple above-CR monsters, then we enter TPK territory because now the party are the "mooks" and point #1 applies.

 

The steadily-ramping-up progression of encounters, designed to drain resources, just isn't something the D&D system does well or even does at all. Resources are never actually drained, and even a full-power party is simply not meant to take on above-CR encounters with numerous above-CR monsters. It's not breaking D&D, or "HEROing D&D" (as you said a few pages ago) to use a spell that's in the core rulebook, or use classes like the Rogue that are in the core rulebooks that don't have per-day limits you can chip away at. This idea became so nonsensical that future splatbooks even included stuff that would let you take a full rest in 1 or 2 hours instead of 8. By the way -- a Cleric's "full rest" was only ever 1 hour long, meaning to do any kind of draining at all you'd need to make all the adventures happen with no more than an hour in-between.

[Ninja-Bear]

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

 

It's not that that a premade scenario has to be able to be used without any oversight. But it needs to be usable without major changes, otherwise, why would anyone want to buy it?

 

As some examples, a scenario based around finding clues and tracking down a senior bad guy's lair isn't going to work very well if the PCs have access to Telepathy and Retrocognition.

A wilderness scenario where the players have to cross a hostile swamp isn't going to work too well if they can teleport long distances.

Any scenario where the opposition is totally outclassed by the PCs is not going to be very exciting.

etc.

 

I've seen plenty of scenarios where the point was totally destroyed by the PCs' capabilities. Now to some extent, PCs will mutate any scenario, and any competent GM has to be able to wing it. But if there's a really chance that a purchased scenario is going to go irrevocably off the rails in the first 5 minutes, unless they rewrite the whole thing, GMs are not going to be very motivated to buy them, are they?

 

cheers, Mark

 

I see your point. But when all these concerns came up, I keep thinking, well all these things are applicable in a superheroes setting yet that doesn't deter scenerios being wrtten up. P.s. for the record, I am advocating scenerios with a specific setting which by default has monsters and magic built to that settings internal standard.

[Markdoc]

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

 

I don't quite think you get it. I have never criticized Challenge Rating -- in fact' date=' I posted a defense of the concept of Challenge Rating. The only reason I have discussed a "4 encounter workday" is because that is the standard "adventure cycle" everyone uses. What I have been discussing applies to [b']any[/b] number of encounters/day, however. The idea of depleting resources as a whole is a complete joke.

 

If you think the dev team did not encourage the "4 encounter workday", what exactly do you think it encouraged? You posted earlier about some progression from fighting mooks to your-CR monsters to above-your-CR encounters all in the same day -- I'll go with that, I guess. That doesn't at all in D&D either. In addition to the many reasons stated before...

 

1) D&D combat is nasty, brutish, and very short. Mooks are pretty much always OHKOed by things like Solid Fog, Forcecage, and (explicitly by) Blasphemy. The spell lists in D&D are littered with a large number of spells specifically designed to kill mooks in one round without a save.

2) At-your-CR encounters with at-your-CR monsters (non-mooks) are pretty much standard, nothing to say there. If you've fought a mook encounter (or many mook encounters) before, it doesn't even matter -- thanks to point #1.

3) Above-your-CR encounters with above-your-CR monsters: this can take two forms:

* If it's one monster, it gets stunlocked, focus-fired, and dies. D&D characters are especially great at taking down a single monster in an extremely short amount of time, or keeping a single monster from moving.

* If it's multiple above-CR monsters, then we enter TPK territory because now the party are the "mooks" and point #1 applies.

 

The steadily-ramping-up progression of encounters, designed to drain resources, just isn't something the D&D system does well or even does at all. Resources are never actually drained, and even a full-power party is simply not meant to take on above-CR encounters with numerous above-CR monsters. It's not breaking D&D, or "HEROing D&D" (as you said a few pages ago) to use a spell that's in the core rulebook, or use classes like the Rogue that are in the core rulebooks that don't have per-day limits you can chip away at. This idea became so nonsensical that future splatbooks even included stuff that would let you take a full rest in 1 or 2 hours instead of 8. By the way -- a Cleric's "full rest" was only ever 1 hour long, meaning to do any kind of draining at all you'd need to make all the adventures happen with no more than an hour in-between.

 

We're going off a real tangent here, but I'm guessing part of the reason for the apparent confusion between posters is that you haven't played a lot of D&D prior to 4E (which is what most people still play). "Stunlock" is an 4E mechanism: there is not and never has been anything equivalent in earlier D&D. Nor, for that matter does "focus fire" (another MMO-style concept) really work in earlier D&D, since there is no cycling of defences, almost all of which tend to be passive in earlier versions of D&D. You can inhibit movement (much harder to do in 3.75) but lockdown builds in classic D&D typically work by punishing movement, not preventing it. And high CR singleton monsters tend to have high damage/high BAB attacks, reach, SR and/or DR, all of which negate most of the advantages of lockdown. 4E was built very much with MMO styles of play in mind. So what works in WoW, or Diablo (or 4E) does not necessarily translate to the tabletop game most people have played/are playing and think of as D&D.

 

Maybe fore the same reason,you're also wrong about the cleric: yes, it takes him one hour to prepare his spells: but he can also only do that at a predefined time of day: once every 24 hour cycle (3.5 PHB, column 1, paragraph 4: the same is true in 3.75). The same is true of the other classes: Sorcerors don't need to prepare spells in advance, but their spells per day are defined by the table in the 3.5 PHB on page 54. Like Clerics, it only takes wizards 1 hour to prepare spells, but they need a good night's sleep beforehand (and items like a ring of sustenance that decrease the need for sleep, specifically note that they do not affect the need for 8 hour's rest before preparing spells). The spell allotments for casters are what they get per day: no more. The same language is actually used for all primary casters, where the fact that the respective casting tables give maximum output per day is specifically noted.

 

So yes, the adventuring day is defined largely by the 24 hour spell cycle: that's where the concept came from, and why it's still valid (outside 4E). The concept of attrition is also very valid, as your own examples make clear. Yes, for sure you can blow away minions as you rise in level: that's a major design paradigm. But an equally important design paradigm is that this is attrition. Yes, you can slow down or remove a mass of minions with Blasphemy/Holy Word (design note: minions are typically character level -4 or less: above that they are regarded as level-appropriate foes). But you just used up a 7th level spell to do so, and even high level characters don't have a lot of those. That significantly degrades your capabilities for the rest of the adventuring day: especially for prepared casters - odds are good that you will have - at most - 2 of those slots loaded with Blasphemy/Holy Word and pretty good you will only have one. Again, outside 4E, attrition remains one of the defining features of D&D and D&D design (Monte Cook, in particular, talked about it at length and about how "resource management" was a crucial part of the game). An encounter chain doesn't have to follow the traditional minions -> level appropriate foes -> BBEG, to make use of attrition. You can, just as easily start out with a BBEG and then challenge the party effectively with minions, because by the time the party hits the minions, you can be certain that their resources will be severely degraded.

 

A real life example (so to speak) comes from our current game, where a while back we ran into a single higher-CR challenge (some kind of a fey creature). It had sufficient DR that our melee types were getting just a few HP through her defences per round and sufficient SR that most lower-level spells were fizzling. In the end, we were able to drive her off with a mixture of martial attacks that avoided DR and assay spell resistance+Flamestrike to get around SR and DR. But that fight took place in the morning and cost us a couple of horses. More importantly, was the constant problem with attrition. The primary casters had used up most of their higher level attack spells and the cleric burnt off a bunch of lower level spells on healing. That gives us the choice: press on to the next village - and face any subsequent encounters at greatly decreased capacity - or return to our starting point. We pressed ahead, but a subsequent encounter with trolls - which would normally have been but a speed bump - turned into a bloody encounter, with near death for one PC, because we had burned through most of the party's magical firepower and we had to take them down in the end, in HTH combat.

 

More importantly - to get back on track - this is a feature that D&D doesn't necessarily share with Hero system. I don't see that as a design problem, although it is something to take into account when adjusting D&D modules. The real problem with writing Hero modules is what has already been noted: there's really no such thing as "level appropriate challenges" since every party in Hero can be very different in capability. Another simple example: a ghost is a CR7 monster (and actually quite a nasty one). But if you throw it at a level appropriate party, unless you are running a very abberant D&D game, you can be pretty sure that they can affect it, because by then they are pretty much guaranteed have spells and magic weapons that affect incorporeal creatures. In contrast, in my own game, I have twice excited panic in the party by throwing a ghost at them ... and nobody, in either party, had an "affects desolid" attack. We didn't get TPK, because the scenario was set up to challenge, not kill, the party and I knew in advance that they would be unable to affect it directly. But that makes the point, I hope: what might have been a minor challenge to one party in Hero system could easily have been a TPK in another. t's why I don't think we'll ever get a useful CR-like rating.

 

cheers, Mark

[Hugh Neilson]

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

 

More importantly - to get back on track - this is a feature that D&D doesn't necessarily share with Hero system. I don't see that as a design problem' date=' although it is something to take into account when adjusting D&D modules. The real problem with writing Hero modules is what has already been noted: there's really no such thing as "level appropriate challenges" since every party in Hero can be very different in capability. [/quote']

 

Bit of an aside, but does anyone remember the old Villains & Vigilantes scenarios? V&V used a hit point mechanic similar to D&D, as well as a "power" stat used like END, but which did not recover as rapidly, so several smaller encounters could wear the characters down. The first step in translating most V&V scenarios, at least for me, was to consolidate the opponents so the five PC's would battle five villains at once, not one at a time which, in Hero, would make those combats a cakewalk with all STUN and END recovered between each adversary.