5th Edition vs 6th Edition

[Gauntlet]

As for utilizing villains, I have found no problem using either version with either version of game. There is no problem playing a 6th edition villain in a 5th edition game or a 5th edition villain in a 6th edition game. The only ones that should share the same game type is the characters. That way you know that they technically are on the same ground. The only real difference is if you are using a 6th edition villain in a 5th edition game you will need to half his/her movement and if you are using a 5th edition villain in a 6th edition game you will need to double his/her movement.

[Lord Liaden]

I disagree to some extent when using the system in a Supers game with a lot of Powers, or a Fantasy game using Powers to build magic spells. There are a number of mechanical differences between editions in the system which you need to at least be aware of, to compensate for their differing functions.

[LoneWolf]

HKA are often more powerful in 6h edition due to the maximum damage limit being removed.  Under 5th edition a 30 STR character with a Karate Chop (Killing Strike) would do 1d6+1 damage, under 6th edition it now does 2 ½ D6 damage. The cost of the maneuver does not increase for the stronger character they simply do more damage.  There is a suggestion that weapons that do more than double the damage might have a chance to break, but that is a suggestion.  

 

Another thing that changed is that now skill levels in all campaigns can be used to increase damage.  In Earlier editions this was usually limited to heroic campaigns This is probably one of the reasons they increased the cost of skill levels.  This can make certain characters more powerful in a superhero campaign. A highly skilled sniper is a more dangerous in a superhero campaign in 6th edition campaign than they are in a 5th edition.  

 

Some powers have changed how they work.  Force Wall was replaced by Barrier and is quite different in how it works.  Growth also changed a lot and is now more expensive but gives you a lot more.  It also is less flexible.  Each level of growth represents a full doubling in height not mass.  

 

All resistant defenses are now under a single power called resistant defense.  If you want it to act like the old force field, you add the limitation cost END.  They added a new defensive power called Damage Negation that reduces the DC of the attack hitting you instead reducing the damage rolled. Damage Negation can have some interesting effects on combat especially in games that use hit locations.  

 

As other have said most of the differences between 5th edition and 6th edition are in character creation instead of game play.  Even in character creation it is not that big of a deal.  Figured stats and the increased points are about 80% of the defenses between the editions. 

 

What really changed is that the new books are a lot bigger and go into a lot more detail.  They give more details and examples of how things are supposed to work.  This seems to bother some people who have been playing the game for years, but I find that most of the extra material is reasonable and well thought out.  It does mean a lot more reading, which is probably why a lot of people don’t like it.
 

[Lord Liaden]

10 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

What really changed is that the new books are a lot bigger and go into a lot more detail.  They give more details and examples of how things are supposed to work.  This seems to bother some people who have been playing the game for years, but I find that most of the extra material is reasonable and well thought out.  It does mean a lot more reading, which is probably why a lot of people don’t like it.
 

 

It seems that the most common concern is the intimidation factor for new players. A great many gamers will reject out of hand a game rule book that looks like a college textbook. That's why the company, and no few fans, have created introductory or "lite" versions of the rules that are easier and faster to absorb. Even with those, a GM still has to invest a good amount of time in reading; although not substantially more than for many other games.

 

But I admit that even for me, who's been playing Hero System since 1982, the two-volume Sixth Edition rule books feel pretty daunting. TBH I still haven't read through them completely. 😔

Edited September 9, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[LoneWolf]

I think the idea that the Hero System is more reading than other systems is not really true.  Other game systems have more books and spread things out more.  Hero System actually has fewer books than most current game systems, but each book has more content. Looking at the 2nd edition Pathfinder site I see 16 rule books listed with prices around $50 - $60 books.  I am not familiar with 2nd edition Pathfinder, but in 1st edition each book had completely expansions of the base rules. So, while getting started is slightly easier having everything is a lot more complex and requires substantial investment.   

 

With the Hero System all you really need are the two rule books.   Other books in the Hero System are more advice on how to run a specific campaign and some source material for those types of campaigns. Fantasy Hero for example has a lot of information for the GM to setup his campaign and has expanded lists of equipment and talents. Really only the GM needs to purchase Fantasy Hero.   

Other systems have a lower entry threshold but are a lot more difficult to master than Hero System.
 

[Lord Liaden]

I think of the psychological difference as comparable to being given one cookie at a time to eat, versus being told you have to eat a whole box of them. Eventually you may consume the same number of cookies, but it doesn't feel like as much up front.

[Duke Bushido]

And here I am, paraphrasing the locals:

 

If it ain't 2e, it ain't Bible.

 

 

though I do spread some love onto Sidekick as well. 

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

So you're strictly an Old Testament man? None of them newfangled Gospels an' stuff.

[unclevlad]

14 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

As for utilizing villains, I have found no problem using either version with either version of game. There is no problem playing a 6th edition villain in a 5th edition game or a 5th edition villain in a 6th edition game. The only ones that should share the same game type is the characters. That way you know that they technically are on the same ground. The only real difference is if you are using a 6th edition villain in a 5th edition game you will need to half his/her movement and if you are using a 5th edition villain in a 6th edition game you will need to double his/her movement.

 

Moving from 6E to 5E is often easy, altho 6E has numerous aspects that 5E doesn't.  If you're using prebuilt characters, too...most I've seen have been quite straightforward.

 

Moving from 5E to 6E...are you counting points or not?  Figured characteristics is a BIG factor.  

 

Push comes to shove, tho, yeah, since villains are usually around for only a session or two, then it probably won't matter.  But the build styles each supports best, are QUITE different.  If you care about efficiency, that is.

 

The biggest 2 issues in 6E, IMO:

--poor organization and editing.  It's overly verbose in too many places, and repeats itself too often.

--It tries to be universal...all levels, all genres.  There's far too much marginal material that shouldn't *be* in the core rules.

 

The divisions between what's in V1 and V2 are also problematic.  I need to go to V2 for range mods?  That's a significant factor for how one builds a ranged combat specialist.  

 

The sheer size also makes finding anything a royal PITA.  Whether you have the physical book or the ebook, looking up any detail...and we darn sure can't track all of em...takes longer than it needs to.  

[Doc Democracy]

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

--It tries to be universal...all levels, all genres.  There's far too much marginal material that shouldn't *be* in the core rules.

 

You are 100% right here.

 

Duke says we ruled too much about 2E and wanted the true answer to Al, our gaming queries instead of being content with a few rough options and a steer to doing what was most fun.

 

Steve Long was probably the right answer to the wrong problem.  He dedicated himself to getting all the details folk argued about in the rules sorted and pushed into the main rules. 

 

What we needed was someone who was more focussed on game theory, boiling the system down to its essentials, who was the ghost written by someone who was focussed on delivering gameplay.  And Steve writing a bunch of Almanacs outlining options on how to use the rules if you wanted to nail down the details.

 

A lean, flavourful core. A suite of genre books that provided the spices to deliver specific types of game and another suite for the number geeks who wanted detail on what that cool thing should look like in HEROcode.

[Doc Democracy]

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

And here I am, paraphrasing the locals:

 

If it ain't 2e, it ain't Bible.

 

 

though I do spread some love onto Sidekick as well. 

 

To be honest Duke, you bring a kind of New Testament take to 2E, even if your commitment to it might be quite fundamental...

[Duke Bushido]

 

 

id you guys dont cause me to asphyxiate on my own laughter, I might have to start a church!

 

 

 

 

 

[Ndreare]

I found 5th easier for new players because of book size. For some reason the same rules in both books. But as soon as new players see the book sizes for 6th they get intimidated.

 

After that I started using the 6th Edition Basic (like Sidekick was for 5th). Casual players accept the smaller reference books more easily. 

[Hugh Neilson]

17 hours ago, unclevlad said:

The biggest 2 issues in 6E, IMO:

 

--It tries to be universal...all levels, all genres.  There's far too much marginal material that shouldn't *be* in the core rules.

 

14 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

You are 100% right here.

 

Duke says we ruled too much about 2E and wanted the true answer to Al, our gaming queries instead of being content with a few rough options and a steer to doing what was most fun.

 

Steve Long was probably the right answer to the wrong problem.  He dedicated himself to getting all the details folk argued about in the rules sorted and pushed into the main rules. 

 

What we needed was someone who was more focussed on game theory, boiling the system down to its essentials, who was the ghost written by someone who was focussed on delivering gameplay.  And Steve writing a bunch of Almanacs outlining options on how to use the rules if you wanted to nail down the details.

 

A lean, flavourful core. A suite of genre books that provided the spices to deliver specific types of game and another suite for the number geeks who wanted detail on what that cool thing should look like in HEROcode.

 

10 hours ago, Ndreare said:

I found 5th easier for new players because of book size. For some reason the same rules in both books. But as soon as new players see the book sizes for 6th they get intimidated.

 

After that I started using the 6th Edition Basic (like Sidekick was for 5th). Casual players accept the smaller reference books more easily. 

 

Agreed that the intimidating size of the core rules is a significant problem.  Not sure I agree with these interpretations of the cause.  The real problem, to me, is that the publishing and the sales pitch are backwards.

 

There was a fundamental shift from 3e ("Old Testament Hero" - OTH) to 4e (New Testament Hero" - NTH). OTH Hero used a common rules framework to build, write and publish games.  NTH published a common rules framework, with the building and publishing of games coming either next or, worse, never.  This required NTH to be all things to all people - all genres, all playstyles, all power levels.

 

Write and publish a game.  Maybe it's a Standard Supers Bronze Age game.  Perhaps it's a grim and gritty, realism-heavy post-apocalyptic low-power heroic game.  It can be a high-powered Supers Saturday Morning Cartoon game that has no BOD stat because no one ever dies.  But it has to be a GAME - a GM and some players can pick it up, read it and run the game.  Only those mechanics relevant to, and used in, the game are included. That full-blown rules system, complete with dial settings and alternate rules, is used to build the game.  If that game does well, maybe we publish some supplements.  Maybe we publish some variants (here's how you tweak that Supers game to an Iron Age, or a Golden Age, or a Silver Age game.  Or how you power it down to Street Level, or up to Cosmic; let's dial back the gritty realism and toss in bizarre mutations to that Post-Apocalypse game).  Those dial settings and optional rules appropriate to that variant of the original game get added in.

 

You can even publish the whole rule set for anyone wanting to design their own game, or their own variants to a published game, but that's an ancillary product for the tinkerers, not the core book(s) of the line, and the entry point for new players or GMs. Publish a stripped-down Basic version and an Advanced version.

 

I started in Champions 1e (not Hero - Champions - OTH). Duke never left Champions 2e. How many of us Hero Grognards started with 4e or above (NTH; system before game)?  For those who did, how many started in a group that had already learned Hero with an OTH game, and how many started with The NTH System and designed their own game?

Edited September 10, 2023 by Hugh Neilson

[unclevlad]

Yeah, you may be right there.  If you want supers only 6E rules, focus on Champions Complete, for example.  It's about 240 pages.  It might be TOO terse, but 6E1 is often far too verbose.  Adjustment powers general discussion..CC, a bit over 2 pages.  6E1...it's 9 pages.  CC's Absorption doesn't include the Limited Phenomena limitation...which is probably fine because it's not worth taking most of the time...in supers.  In CC, Flight doesn't include Usable as Second Form of Movement...this is most commonly used to fly underwater, I think, and with supers, that's largely a given.

 

Perhaps one of the bigger problems with 6E's size is the decision to incorporate so much material from, it looks like, the rules forum.  For example, Flight has a paragraph of discussion on IPE.  You ask, huh??  Flight can't be hidden.  It's talking about the Flight Only in Contact, and doing things like leaving no tracks.  I get it, but it's very much a fringe aspect.  The section on Only in Contact is far more verbose as well, answering what should be common-sense points...no, you can't stand atop the water, you have to be *moving*...that sort of thing.  I do get, tho, that the worst oxymoron in the English language is common sense...but including this stuff is a big reason why 6E1 is so bloody big.

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

4 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I started in Champions 1e (not Hero - Champions - OTH). Duke never left Champions 2e. How many of us Hero Grognards started with 4e or above (NTH; system before game)?  For those who did, how many started in a group that had already learned Hero with an OTH game, and how many started with The NTH System and designed their own game?

 

I will put my hand up for 1E Champions.

 

I think you missed out a category though, those who just run a game under 6E without trying to "create" a game from the system toolkit...

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I think you missed out a category though, those who just run a game under 6E without trying to "create" a game from the system toolkit...

 

Off the top of my head:

 

 - With Hit Locations or without?

 

 - What point totals?

 

 - Is equipment purchased with points or cash?

 

 - Knockback or Knockdown?

 

The system's dials have to be set for each game.

[Doc Democracy]

I agree, but I reckon there are going to be a chunk of people that dont become aware of the need for such decisions until they are well into the game and others that make ad hoc decisions, or assume stuff because they played earlier editions 20 years ago.

 

I think people starting with NTH create their game, if they stick with it long enough but the failure to recognise them, means we probably lose a chunk of those people that end up thinking HERO is too complicated.

[Hugh Neilson]

I would say those ad hoc decisions are still decisions. When you or I set up a Supers game, we have likely already set many of the dials not recognizing that we have done so.  We know that:

 

 - Without Hit Locations

 

 - Standard Supers point totals (we might consider this one, depending on the game)

 

 - Equipment must be purchased with points, not cash (and looting fallen opponents won't allow you to keep their stuff)

 

 - Knockback; Knockdown is a limitation

 

Until some poor new player who tries to read the books asks questions that are so obvious that old-school Hero players don't even recognize that there IS a question.

 

If the entire group is new to Hero and starts with the 6e (or 5e, maybe 4e but it had Supers stuff in the back if you bought the big book - but that won't help for a different genre) and has to figure out all those dial settings, coming away believing that Hero is super-complicated is a pretty predictable result.  Even though most of those dials are pre-set as "Superheroic" and "Heroic"  for most of us.  A quick chart setting the dials in the genre summaries could have done a lot - and putting them near the start of V2 instead of at the end might help those newer to Hero focus their read of the rules based on the game they want to play.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Right, no disabling and impairing, no bleeding rules (standard -1 Body per turn), that kind of thing.   There are a ton of things assumed in Champions just by its genre.  Its like playing D&D, you assume stuff without being told and new players have to ask.  Every game is like this, its the basic argument I've made for years here: Hero is not complicated or more difficult to play than any other system, its just been presented poorly.

[Ninja-Bear]

Fwiw, I’m the BBB, pg S25, the is a filled out Champions Campaign Groundsheet for Champions. It’s labeled as a Standard SuperHeroic game and all the dials are set. Perhaps that should’ve been bigger and easier to find.  

[unclevlad]

On 9/10/2023 at 5:10 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Off the top of my head:

 

 - With Hit Locations or without?

 

 - What point totals?

 

 - Is equipment purchased with points or cash?

 

 - Knockback or Knockdown?

 

The system's dials have to be set for each game.

 

A couple more...

DCs in an attack.  This is significantly separate from character points.

Max DCs, as well as how often the GM will throw KAs out there against the players.  This has a major influence on how invest in defenses.  

And we've talked about it here, but it's still perhaps something of a fringe notion/consideration...SPDs.  

 

[Hugh Neilson]

On 9/11/2023 at 5:41 PM, unclevlad said:

 

A couple more...

DCs in an attack.  This is significantly separate from character points.

Max DCs, as well as how often the GM will throw KAs out there against the players.  This has a major influence on how invest in defenses.  

And we've talked about it here, but it's still perhaps something of a fringe notion/consideration...SPDs.  

 

 

All good items - historically, these have not been presented so much as "campaign guidelines and dial settings" as extrapolated from sample characters - typically, characters whose expected usage (expected to go one on one against a single PC; expected to be a tough fight for a team of PCs,; etc.).  I've sometimes questioned whether those "back of 1e|" characters were intended to be reasonable solo villains (tougher than any one PC, but easily taken down by the team), with the expectation that PCs, at least starting PCs, would be more like those "wimpy" Geodesics.

 

As players, we built more towards going one on one against Shrinker, Pulsar, Dragonfly or Green Dragon.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Hugh Neilson

[Gauntlet]

On 2/21/2012 at 6:27 AM, Lucius said:

There is at least one significant difference in play; the way Killing Attacks work was nerfed. In 5th edition Killing Attacks were better than Normal Attacks but cost the same. The new regime cut the Stun Multiplier.

 

Actually Killing attack wasn't reduced that much. The average stun multiplier for 5th edition is 2.6 while in 6th edition it is 2. You do have a chance of getting better with 5th edition but it still will be just a 1 33.33% of the time as rolling both a 1 and a 2 are considered a 1.

[Gauntlet]

On 9/9/2023 at 8:16 AM, LoneWolf said:

I think the idea that the Hero System is more reading than other systems is not really true.

 

Yea, but LoneWolf I know you, you wouldn't have a problem is the new Hero rule were fifteen 1000 page manuals. In fact, you might even enjoy it further. 🤪