Help me grok HERO!

[Hakkonen]

My copy of 6E1 arrived in the mail the other day. Man, this thing is a whopper. I could beat a man to death with this book! Anyhoo...

 

The way I generally familiarize myself with a new system is to start making characters. Behold my first attempt:

 

Aaron "Apogee" Adair

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhE9UGQsIOoSdG1tNkFPWTB4ZzU2WnV2UVJzNzVBdWc

The concept is an astrophysicist who acquired gravity control and spatial manipulation powers, probably by fooling around with some gravitic doohicky. Amidoinitrite?

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Welcome to the system - looks like I am the first to comment. There will be lots of others who are far better character proofreaders than me.

 

To me the big thing about HERO is that there is no absolute measure of a character. It is not like D&D where you can peg something as first level or fifth level, everything is relative to everything else. So, just by looking I have no idea whether you were attempting to aim for a superhero or a masked avenger type hero or something else.

 

My questions would be round some of the characteristics. You have bought a very high DEX - your astrophysicist would appear to be able to be a world class gymnast. I would have understood if the character had lots of DEX dependent skills but he does not. If you are not a superhero, then SPD 5 is pretty high but if you are then it is quite low for someone that is not a front line brawler.

 

Your main attack is 5D6 AP - VERY low for a superhero. Not bad for an agent type. Just look at the use of that weapon on your own character - 5D6 averages at 17.5 STUN and 5 BODY. Your physical defence is 7 PD. So you will deliver 13 or 14 STUN if you hit, probably about 35 STUN over a round then you'd get to recover 14 STUN. If everyone is in the same sort of offensive defensive ranges that makes for a reasonable game. If someone buys 7D6, no armour piercing then they'll do about 24.5 STUN per hit and possibly take you out in the first 12 seconds. Not so much fun.

 

If you want quick sharp combats then this is the way to go - but you encourage people to hit first and hard...

 

Making characters is a great way to get to know the system - the next step is to run a few through a couple of combats to see how they stack up and how effectively the points you used can be applied.

 

 

Doc

[Zane_Marlowe]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Welcome to the coolest system going!

 

I happened to notice that you used Change Environment to suppress air and ground movement. It's probably more accurate to write these up as adjustment powers (i.e., Drain) with area of effect advantages. Change environment in combat is most often used for modifiers on rolls based on environmental effects. So, it's kind of a way of creating situational modifiers. I recently built an "ice sheet" change environment power that requires DEX rolls for people moving over it (lest they fall prone).

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Gravity has always been one of the 'difficult' things to model in HERO. People often go with what they feel best about but Zane is right - most go with the adjustment powers.

 

This comes to one of the key game concepts of HERO. What you have to do is think about what the game effect is going to be before you think about the power. What is it exactly that you are trying to achieve. So instead of thinking "I want to change the gravity (an environmental effect) so that must be Change environment!" you think "I want to reduce the ability to move inside this area, so that must adjust the movement abilities of anyone in that area, so that is an adjustment power!".

 

It can be difficult to get your head round at first but it comes quickly and you see the power and versatility that provides you.

 

 

Doc

[ghost-angel]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

You should take a different approach to learning Hero - start setting up some ideas for a campaign type and style, then mess with some numbers a little bit (average attack damage versus defenses) and other factors.

 

Since Hero simulates multiple genres and power levels, and not all campaigns are interchangeable - actually, many aren't. A character from Campaign A may be wildly inappropriate for Campaign B.

[Christopher]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Hello and welcome. I am not the best proofreader, but I think I have some ideas:

When you want high in specific skills, it's usually cheaper to buy skill levels rather than buying up the skill. In some cases it might be cheaper to increase the characteristic directly. Buying up skills directly is rather unusual.

 

From the total I guess you wanted to make a Standart Superhero. Take a look at the guideliens on 6E1 35.

Take as measure a "12 DC Blast", or 12d6 damage. This is what you will likely face as attack. Only use lowest end of defenses with high end DCV and Dex (to dive for cover against Area of Effect attacks). Only use lowest end of damage with high OCV.

 

Warp Beam: 7d6 with a +1/4 advantage makes a 44 AP/9 DC attack. I would no go under one attack with 10 DC and no advantages for some decent output against agent types, but you can try. But if you do, you need much more OCV.

 

Defenes:

Would be okay for a more martial artist type (high DCV, better SPD). A 8D6 blast/hth attack vs PD will stun him very likely, and 8d6 is what 175 point agents throw around. The more common 12d6 will knock him deep into the negatives with two hits.

 

I agree that increasing local gravity might be better modelled with Drain STR (or more precisely a suppress STR), Area of Effect.

Take a look at the rules for 0 STR and how Drain STR interacts with Heavy characters (Growth, Density Increase or permanently either one).

I can even give you the "Gravity number": Earth gravity is given as 5 STR. Every +5 STR means doubling of the wieght or strenght of something. Every -5 means halving it.

So -15 STR would be "8 times normal gravity".

 

When you want to create 0-G, I think Change environment bought to apply 5 TK STR, area of effect could be enough to "negate" the 5 STR of Earth gravity, but that is GM dependant.

 

Consider packign msot of your battle stuff into a Multipower. But taht would mean you could not (or only difficulty) combine them.

Unified Limitation might be worth a look.

[omnius]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Doc makes a great point... something that as a newbie Hero system guy myself, I often forget. What does it look like in the game, what is the effect or what is affected by the power or ability. I think that seemingly backward approach to designing a power or the like is difficult to do. Hopefully it gets easier the more familiar you become with the system, but right now it's like eating soup with a fork!

[ghost-angel]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

One way to Grok Hero is to focus on Special Effects - write out what a character can do in Plain English (or native language of choice) and then work on converting all that into Mechanics. Don't worry about power levels at first, just work on possibly ways any given thing you can imagine can be built. There are often more than three answers to "How do I build....?"

[GoldenAge]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Yep. Hero works best (for me and many others) if you approach the character, the campaign and everything else involved like you did when you were 7 years old: Yah, yah, he can fly! Evil is out there, everywhere!!! He can shoot blasts of awesome redness out of his hands and, and, and HIS EYES!!! He can pic up cars (but not trucks, they're too big) and throw them at the bad guys! See this? This is how he can zoom from here to there in a blink to bash evil while his magical cape keeps him from falling... etc.

Now, go back to Hero and make it happen!

 

The real trick (and when you know you're finally a HERO System expert) is when you can consistently merge these two processes in your head while keeping point costs under the allotted caps.

 

Mostly... If you're having fun, you grok Hero.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Welcome to HERO!

[Tasha]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

How I recommend figuring out the system is to find the prebuilt characters. Then open 6e1 look at each skill/power/talent/perk and skim the section that describes them. Then open 6e2 and run a combat between 2 of them (2 superheroes or between 2 of the non supes). Learn how to run the Combat and how the speed chart works etc. Attack with different attacks and see how the various defenses work.

Once you feel comfortable or bored...

 

Reread the first 50pages of 6e1 then,

Decide on what genre you want to play and then reopen 6e1 decide on a powerlevel (6e1 pg 34)

 

Create a character that falls within that genre's powerlevel.

 

Check out the essay in my signature if you want more detail and some math that will help you make decent characters.

 

PS

and/or Check with your FLGS and see if they know of any Hero system games happening that are looking for new players. Also check the boards here to see if anyone in your area is running a game. On top of this, many Convention based Hero System games are geared toward Noobies and veterans alike. Having someone teach you to play is the easiest way to learn.

[RexMundi]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Study the Environment in the Book. Knowing how tough a wall is, what level of Defense is "Bullet Proof" and what a lot of those stats equate to in the real world help a lot. Comparative Scale. Little things like knowing that a guy with a 40 STR in Hero can palm a full 55 gallon Oil Drum and smash someone in the face with it then toss it a block down the road, helps a lot with the builds.

 

~Rex

[Hakkonen]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

You should take a different approach to learning Hero - start setting up some ideas for a campaign type and style, then mess with some numbers a little bit (average attack damage versus defenses) and other factors.

 

Since Hero simulates multiple genres and power levels, and not all campaigns are interchangeable - actually, many aren't. A character from Campaign A may be wildly inappropriate for Campaign B.

Actually, I bought HERO with a very specific idea for a game I want to run for my group: what if a small group of superhumans suddenly cropped up in the real world? All the PCs (3-6 of them, depending on how many of my players sign on) will have a shared origin, in that they are all from the same small town in Midwestern America, and will experience a shared empowering event. Thereafter, I'm going to try to make the campaign as free-form and player-driven as I can. Will the PCs use their powers at will, sparingly, or not at all? Will they go public, or try to keep the secret? If they go public, how will they react to their sudden global fame, and the targets painted on their backs? That sort of thing.

[Hakkonen]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Hello and welcome. I am not the best proofreader, but I think I have some ideas:

When you want high in specific skills, it's usually cheaper to buy skill levels rather than buying up the skill.

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean buying the skills as powers? The Powers chapter gives the cost for buying Skills as Powers as being equivalent to the cost of the Skill.

 

From the total I guess you wanted to make a Standart Superhero. Take a look at the guideliens on 6E1 35.

Take as measure a "12 DC Blast", or 12d6 damage. This is what you will likely face as attack. Only use lowest end of defenses with high end DCV and Dex (to dive for cover against Area of Effect attacks). Only use lowest end of damage with high OCV.

 

Warp Beam: 7d6 with a +1/4 advantage makes a 44 AP/9 DC attack. I would no go under one attack with 10 DC and no advantages for some decent output against agent types, but you can try. But if you do, you need much more OCV.

 

Defenes:

Would be okay for a more martial artist type (high DCV, better SPD). A 8D6 blast/hth attack vs PD will stun him very likely, and 8d6 is what 175 point agents throw around. The more common 12d6 will knock him deep into the negatives with two hits.

Why is 12d6 considered the "standard?" What Defenses would be more appropriate?

 

I agree that increasing local gravity might be better modelled with Drain STR (or more precisely a suppress STR), Area of Effect.

Take a look at the rules for 0 STR and how Drain STR interacts with Heavy characters (Growth, Density Increase or permanently either one).

I can even give you the "Gravity number": Earth gravity is given as 5 STR. Every +5 STR means doubling of the wieght or strenght of something. Every -5 means halving it.

So -15 STR would be "8 times normal gravity".

 

When you want to create 0-G, I think Change environment bought to apply 5 TK STR, area of effect could be enough to "negate" the 5 STR of Earth gravity, but that is GM dependant.

Interesting. Where can I find more information relating HERO stats to RL constants?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean buying the skills as powers? The Powers chapter gives the cost for buying Skills as Powers as being equivalent to the cost of the Skill.

 

Nope, see 6E1 p. 88 (related to Combat Skill Levels, 6E1 p. 69)

 

Why is 12d6 considered the "standard?" What Defenses would be more appropriate?

 

Typical Standard Superhero games tend to have villains throwing around attacks in the 12d6 range, with defenses in the 20-30 range. A 12d6 Blast will average 12 BODY and 42 STUN, so you'll want to look at those numbers to determine where you want to set your defenses. If your character as written were hit with a 12d6 physical attack doing 12 BODY and 42 STUN, he'd take 5 BODY (12 - your 7 PD) and 35 STUN (42 - your 7 PD). As the 35 STUN damage is greater than his CON of 20, he'd be Stunned, and with your STUN of 40 you'd be left with 5 after that attack. If you had 24 PD you would on average take no BODY and 18 STUN from that same attack -- note that even a slightly above average roll would still Stun you.

 

Interesting. Where can I find more information relating HERO stats to RL constants?

 

They're kind of scattered throughout the books. STR is the easiest one, as the lift values are right there in the table. "Normal Characteristics Maxima" are 20 for the primary Characteristics (STR, DEX, CON, INT, EGO, PRE) if that helps; these are usually enforced in heroic level games, but 20 in any of those is considered near the peak of human ability.

[Christopher]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean buying the skills as powers? The Powers chapter gives the cost for buying Skills as Powers as being equivalent to the cost of the Skill.

No, I mean Skill Level (6E1 88).

If you don't want to deal with allocation, just buying up the characteristics is also a simple saving option. Once you have 3 Skills that you want to increase 1 point each (6 Character points), it's cheaper to just increase the characteristics and thus the base roll (5 CP).

 

Why is 12d6 considered the "standard?" What Defenses would be more appropriate?

Simply put: Because the established characters use that level. You can find the guidelienes on 6E1 35.

Pretty much every written up character around 400 points has a 12 DC attack, more often a selection of 12 DC attacks.

 

Those that also have the potential for exceptional OCV, don't deal 12 DC with thier top OCV. Usually they have some tradeoff to get to either extreme (a martial arts with different Maneuvers, Combat Skill Level, a multipower).

 

The same way those with little protection have usually above averga SPD, DCV and DEX. They have to spend phases to defend themself (as one hit will likely stun them), but they usually can deal with that.

 

Interesting. Where can I find more information relating HERO stats to RL constants?

That is one of the few. STR has the best established values.

 

The only other thing is the "peak normal human" range:

Just look at what is listed as "Normal Characteristis maxima"* (6E1 50) and add 50%.

 

 

*This a often used optional rule for Heroic games. Beyond a certain points (the NCM values) characteristics cost double. While I would never consider to use them in Supers game, they may still be helpfull guidelines if you aim for "peak human capacity".

[RexMundi]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

I use them in my Super's Campaign. Makes that guy with the 40 STR really scary.

 

~Rex.....the 12d6 is the Marvel Class 100 Benchmark. Gives you a comparative scale to use against things in the comics. Scale is important. Let's you see Just what is Bullet Proof. Just what is Tank Proof. Far to often as of late it becomes more about Dice Piles as opposed to what the Pile can actually do in relation to it's environment, hence, many of the piles are far far to big for what the player or gm is trying to accomplish.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

I use them in my Super's Campaign. Makes that guy with the 40 STR really scary.

 

~Rex.....the 12d6 is the Marvel Class 100 Benchmark.

 

Except lifting capacity in Hero is a deadlift, and in Marvel it's an overhead lift. So, add five points for the doubling. =)

 

Then again, Marvel doesn't actually know what anything weighs anyway, and a 60 STR has always been a benchmark in Hero, so it's fine as is.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

I don't think the lifting capacity at X STR equals the damage capacity at X in Marvel. For example looking at how much a 60-75 STR Character can lift and compare it to a Marvel character that can lift that much, than look at how much damage the Marvel character can do and (I think) it is usually more than 12-15d6 if we compare it to the average DEF and Body of objects.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

I think that just gets back to Marvel not really caring too much about what things weigh or real world physics vs. what looks good on the page.

[casualplayer]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Apogee seems like a great Heroes/Alphas-level character to me. Powerful enough to give a handful of cops or gangsters a problem, not knocking over office buildings or ripping armored cars in half.

[RexMundi]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Except lifting capacity in Hero is a deadlift, and in Marvel it's an overhead lift. So, add five points for the doubling. =)

 

Then again, Marvel doesn't actually know what anything weighs anyway, and a 60 STR has always been a benchmark in Hero, so it's fine as is.

 

In Marvel it's a Benchpress. At least as far as their old OHOTMU material goes. Currently they just use lift. Gets more fun after that simply because you can deadlift more then you can lift, and then there's all the really fun stuff like Clean and Jerks, and Military Presses..etc etc etc. I think the APG came up with some splits for different types of lifting, on top of things like the Analyze skill use, and good old fashioned Pushing.

 

Will have a thread for that stuff this weekend. Inspired by another thread. Anyway hot to get back to slinging drums of solvent.

 

~Rex

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

I've always read it as an overhead press.

[Stacie.Winters]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

I am glad this thread is here... it's so helpful to me as a returning Champions newbie.

 

@Tasha: I really like your link in your signature, it's very very helpful. Just wanted you to know that.

[Hakkonen]

Re: Help me grok HERO!

 

Well, chargen day 1 (of at least 2, since one of my players wasn't able to make it) was last Saturday. One of my players wants his character, a "biokineticist," to have a Transform power. Since Transform is one of the "Stop!" powers, what do I need to do or know in order to make sure the end result isn't game-breaking?