7th Edition thoughts

[Christopher R Taylor]

Its basic consistency with the way the system works.  Its a +1/2 advantage to either have range or add strength damage to an attack.  Except with HTA where it gets this pointless limitation.

 

If people are really that concerned maybe a 7th edition should make strength not do raw damage at all; add to damage to things like weapons, but no straight up damage.  Strength then would only be lifting and STR exertion rolls, and people would have a base 2d6 attack and have to buy HTA to do more.

[Hyper-Man]

How HA's are handled (no matter what they are called) IS a big deal as it fundamentally affects the weapon lists included with the core rules as well as any future equipment books.  It seems simple but any minor change to it and STR have HUGE ripple effects across the entire system.  I'm fairly neutral when it comes to making changes or not.  I only desire consistency.

[Ndreare]

The more I think about it the more I do not want a seventh edition.

 

6th edition is the most balanced game I have played without shutting down creativity.

While I would buy 7th edition if they made it, I think sixth is great.

 

The reason I think this is because I see hundreds of characters and they do not all look like carbon copies. In a game were I tell everyone this is a mage only game I will see 5 completely different wizard or psionic write ups. If something was really so broken it has to be fixed I think I would see more of the types I saw in 5th edition were characters always had high strength and dexterity for no reason, with large adjustment powers. Or like in D&D were everybody of the same class always has the same feats.

Steve Long did a great job and I would be very sceptical of a new edition.

 

About complexity I think HERO is fine. There are hundreds of simple and medium games out there and why compete with them? If I am running a one-off game or a game that will only be three sessions I do not want complexity do I pay something light. But if I want to start a campaign were characters progress and we can feel it I want the detail only HERO can offer.

Other games (like GURPS) try. But they never really get the scalable detail and sense of progression we get from HERO.

[zslane]

I've been a Hero System player since 2nd edition and I don't recall running into characters that had high STR and DEX and Adjustment powers "for no reason", mostly because GMs.

 

Are we blaming the system for not doing the GM's job again?

[Greywind]

I've rarely seen any characters with adjustments powers. Player or NPC.

[bigbywolfe]

I've been a Hero System player since 2nd edition and I don't recall running into characters that had high STR and DEX and Adjustment powers "for no reason", mostly because GMs.

 

Are we blaming the system for not doing the GM's job again?

Most example characters in 5E (and sadly 6E because Steve didn't really edit them) had high DEX for no reason.  So have most 5E Superheroic characters I've seen at Cons. 

[Ndreare]

On the topic of adjustment powers, my players quickly learned that only a few points for or suppress can make a huge difference.

 

I as a GM am supposed to work with the players to make a fun game or story for them. I am not their baby sitter or their adversary. Blaming the GM (me) for efficient character designs is ridiculous. Making suppress a limited version of drain made it so 60 points off suppress does not end up blocking out 21 active points of defence powers. Making almost all the pre fabricated npcs 1/3 or less as effective. The small change made it drop to only 10 active points of defence dropping.

 

(Based on 12d6/2 versus 6d6/2 for a common attack.The /2 is the modifier to adjustment powers versus defence powers.)

 

Frankly I love HERO System and think it is the best system there is. But strength and dexterity were under priced in 5th edition period. Which means players will be inclined to think of concepts that support high strength or dexterity. In 6th edition I do not see this same behavior implying to be a balance between use and cost has been meet.

[zslane]

I'm mildly shocked that anyone would regard doing essential QC on player character design as babysitting, or regard it as intrinsically adversarial. Maybe it's a gaming style thing. *shrug*

[Nolgroth]

I liked 5th Edition a lot. I like 6E even more. I would play either but I will only run 6E now. I am looking at the slimmed down rules in the x Hero Complete series almost as a Hero lite. Those are the variants that I am focusing on, with the occasional foray into the massive Hero encyclopedia edition only when there is a reason for clarification or expansion. I'm not sure that a 7E is necessary or even wise at this juncture. Just reading this thread has shown me a wildly divergent opinion in what makes Hero satisfying to different players. A 7E might only split the base even more and cut down an already minor market share even further. We here are a dwindling breed. Hero is going to play a decreasingly loud third fiddle to computer games, narrative systems and publishers with way more money for slick graphics and snazzy advertising. I'd rather not lose anybody else to an unnecessary edition change.

 

Just my opinion and everybody knows I have an odd way of looking at things.

[Scott Baker]

I'm mildly shocked that anyone would regard doing essential QC on player character design as babysitting, or regard it as intrinsically adversarial. Maybe it's a gaming style thing. *shrug*

I prefer to think of it as collaborative rather than adversarial. I'm not out to get anyone.

[Greywind]

...until the fighting starts.

[ghost-angel]

I forsee Hero living in the same space in the 2010s and it did in the 1990s: players will not stop playing, and even introducing new players to it. But there won't be a company directly behind pushing either New material (and no, I do not consider Champions of Fantasy Complete as New material, it's rehashing existing material) or a New edition. Someone will probably get a bug up about in in 5 years and look to getting the rights to create a new version based on their idea of the ideal implementation of the system.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree, I think Hero will be sort of static for a while with a significant difference: the catalog will grow continually with products written by individuals like myself, adding source material, adventures, and so on to the store.  Back after 4th edition and Hero kind of went stagnant, nothing came out.  It was essentially a dead company.  With the licensing agreement and kickstarter, Hero can thrive and stay a valid product unlike back then.

[Lucius]

That's true, but nobody seems to care that with HKA you have the same damage class issues and always have.

Some of us definitely care. There have been threads about it.  

 

Secondly, it stomps all over suspension of belief. We don't have real world experience with magic and lasers

Actually, physicists have something like fifty years of real world experience with lasers.

 

It's like trying to achieve parity between apples, oranges and watermelons.

And yet, grocery stores manage to set prices for these fruits in dollars and cents every day. 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Some people think it's been all downhill since 1st edition. I think it's all downhill from the top of a palindromedary's hump.

[Greywind]

Do the same fruits cost the same everyday across all stores?

[ghost-angel]

Some of us definitely care. There have been threads about it.  

 

 

Actually, physicists have something like fifty years of real world experience with lasers.

 

 

And yet, grocery stores manage to set prices for these fruits in dollars and cents every day. 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Some people think it's been all downhill since 1st edition. I think it's all downhill from the top of a palindromedary's hump.

 

1) very true.

 

2) I think he meant the SF "pew pew" kind of laser, not the focused light kind of laser.

 

3) But the prices aren't set in relation to each other, they're set in relation to each fruits individual market forces for the specific area you happen to purchase them in... so that's a complete non-sequitur and utter meaningless in this context.

[Ndreare]

I'm mildly shocked that anyone would regard doing essential QC on player character design as babysitting, or regard it as intrinsically adversarial. Maybe it's a gaming style thing. *shrug*

I do not know if you are trying to degrade my point of view by your comment, but it reads (to me) as if you are. It is okay for us to have different points of view on a forum like this. Personally I still stand with the game is more balanced in 6th edition pricing especially around strength and dexterity than 4th or 5th. As a GM I try very, very hard not to veto a player’s character ideas and builds as long as they fit in my initial campaign guidelines. But those guidelines never include advanced value judgments that only certain characters may have high values in the point efficient traits.

 

Character QC, should be to help make sure the player has created the character he thinks he has and that the character fits in the story. It should not be to place value judgments on the player’s character concepts.

If the player has a concept to make a character modeled after the D&D style blade singer, who is physically awesome sword fighter with a narrow selection of combat enhancing spells (a multipower that includes suppress and succor or aids and drains). The next player has a concept for a monk styled martial artist whose ki powers are supernatural including anatomy strikes to weaken his foes (drains versus speed or strength). The last player wants to be a sorceress with a full range of spells that happen to include adjustment powers.

None of those concepts are bad or wrong and as a GM I will decide to make power defense more common in general. But which player do I tell oh, I am sorry but your concept is not as cool as Angela’s so I am afraid that you cannot have adjustment powers?

If the players notice something is under priced they will be naturally inclined to think of concepts that include those abilities, simply because it is efficient. No-one wants to pay more for less efficiency. I see those builds trimmed down and characters with high strength/dexterity/suppress combinations have declined greatly since 6th edition came out. This clearly tells me that there is more general balance from the player’s point of view with the new price format.

The strength and dexterity inflation has been an issue for as long as I know of with 5th edition and the usefulness of adjustment powers from the first time one of the players used it in game. After that concepts naturally floated towards having it and adjustment powers started showing up on about half of all the character concepts I would see.

[zslane]

I am trying to reconcile the notion that a character can be built properly upon a strong concept and at the same time have inappropriately high STR or DEX (or anything, really) "for no reason." I agree, we are all drawn to the Hero System for its ability to express whatever character concepts we can think up, even the really unbalanced or ill-conceived ones. But while the system can help make that build process less blunder-prone, it ultimately rests with the GM to ensure that nothing appears on a character sheet "for no reason," especially if it is potentially unbalancing. I don't see this fundamental responsibility as in any way stifling creativity or placing "value judgments" on players or character concepts. It is just basic campaign quality control.

 

It is always worthwhile to lobby for improvements to the system, and to celebrate them when they are implemented. But when there are perceived flaws in a system, every GM has to take up the mantle of making localized corrections to the system and never allowing system abuses to slide into their campaigns unchecked just because the system "allows it" by default, or because those abuses express the unique specialness of players.

[ghost-angel]

The average Dexterity across all published 5th Edition Superhero Characters is 20. If it crept up from all the published 4th Ed characters, it couldn't have been by much.

[Christopher R Taylor]

That actually seems lower than 4th edition.  Seems like 23 was the average back then, or even higher.

[Greywind]

23 was the average DEX according to a poll that Hero did through an AC referring to the average character. It wasn't necessarily the average DEX of characters the company made/printed through various sources.

[IndianaJoe3]

23 was the average DEX according to a poll that Hero did through an AC referring to the average character. It wasn't necessarily the average DEX of characters the company made/printed through various sources.

 

23 DEX was considered the, "sweet spot" because you got favorable rounds both for CV (DEX/3) and DEX rolls (9+DEX/5).

[Grailknight]

It probably is lower than 4th Edition. The increase to 350 points with fewer Disadvantages in 5th caused a shift in character design. People built their characters straight rather than using Focus/OIAD excessively. There was also the introduction and encouragement of No Figured Characteristics built through Foci(especially powered armor) plus a conscious design move to lower DEX across the board(implemented strangely-Dr. Destroyer had the highest DEX  in the CU until Galactic Champions was published).

[ghost-angel]

Found an error in my formula (left out a whole series of characters by accident because they were on a different tab of the spreadsheet) the Average is actually 23. (this is the same spreadsheet used to determine the shift in Point totals Steve ended up using when we needed to figure out how to adjust for decoupling Figured Characteristics, I have approximately 400 published Superheroic and a few hundred published Heroic characters stat blocks because of that.)

 

It looks like the Average from 4th to 5th remains constant; Which doesn't surprise me at all. There's no reason for them to change.

[Balabanto]

The more I think about it the more I do not want a seventh edition.

 

6th edition is the most balanced game I have played without shutting down creativity.

While I would buy 7th edition if they made it, I think sixth is great.

 

The reason I think this is because I see hundreds of characters and they do not all look like carbon copies. In a game were I tell everyone this is a mage only game I will see 5 completely different wizard or psionic write ups. If something was really so broken it has to be fixed I think I would see more of the types I saw in 5th edition were characters always had high strength and dexterity for no reason, with large adjustment powers. Or like in D&D were everybody of the same class always has the same feats.

Steve Long did a great job and I would be very sceptical of a new edition.

 

About complexity I think HERO is fine. There are hundreds of simple and medium games out there and why compete with them? If I am running a one-off game or a game that will only be three sessions I do not want complexity do I pay something light. But if I want to start a campaign were characters progress and we can feel it I want the detail only HERO can offer.

Other games (like GURPS) try. But they never really get the scalable detail and sense of progression we get from HERO.

 

There are some things I want changed. I want Transfer brought back. I want Damage Negation removed. I want Growth fixed, because it doesn't fit neatly into five or ten point blocks anymore, and that's a big problem for me. Shrinking needs to be more expensive. It's a huge DCV boost for a pittance of points. It is now the most effective power pound for pound in the game. Plus, when you look at the metalevel with growth, there's a problem with the simplest characters who only have the power to change their size. Aid also needs to be more expensive. If it costs about 15 points to take someone's energy and give that to yourself, it should cost about the same amount of points to boost up, if not more. Most of these issues revolve around additional time taken to resolve combat or getting away with too much for limited amounts of points.