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What is HERO combat like?


Altair

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Noted! Had to pick up an export template, but it works ok now. Frontload the work, then you've got a nice thing there.

 

On the note of frontloading: is there a good resource for mooks? Champions Complete seemed awfully scarce on them. HDC files would be cool, but really just trying to get a good idea for what those tend to look like.

 

Our Skeleton mooks were pretty much the competent normal, if I recall correctly - 10's and 3's as far as the eye could see, 20 STUN, whassup?

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Stun on a skel? I'd go with automaton. They don't take stun. Only body.

 

That makes perfect sense, and if I had done anything resembling planning, probably would have happened. It was skeletons, because, well, I grabbed some minis, and that's what I got.  :whistle:

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Since Champions 1st ed. there have been "combat sheets" where characters get listed, in SPD and DEX order, so that GMs can cycle through combatants easily. There's nothing particularly revolutionary about such a thing, and you don't even need a computer.

 

In my experience, players who are really into the game have no trouble knowing when their Phases come up, and don't need to be told it is their turn to do something. Players who are really into the game also spend every moment of their time between Phases watching the situation unfold and preparing for their next Phase. Telling the GM what they are doing, and doing it with figures on a battlemat, becomes a very streamlined process.

 

Time spent in combat is always going to scale with the number of on-board combatants, but it shouldn't ever fall hostage to the indecisive or to those who can't follow the game in progress and plan their moves before their Phase comes up.

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Since Champions 1st ed. there have been "combat sheets" where characters get listed, in SPD and DEX order, so that GMs can cycle through combatants easily. There's nothing particularly revolutionary about such a thing, and you don't even need a computer.

Not sure of your point here. No one said it was revolutionary. I specifically called out that you could do it manually. And I don't see that this provides any help to the OP.

 

At least the rest of your post is relevant to your experience with the game.

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Since Champions 1st ed. there have been "combat sheets" where characters get listed, in SPD and DEX order, so that GMs can cycle through combatants easily. There's nothing particularly revolutionary about such a thing, and you don't even need a computer.

 

 

 

Nope, nothing revolutionary about it at all - just trying to figure out how I want to represent such things physically is all. 

 

In my experience, players who are really into the game have no trouble knowing when their Phases come up, and don't need to be told it is their turn to do something. Players who are really into the game also spend every moment of their time between Phases watching the situation unfold and preparing for their next Phase. Telling the GM what they are doing, and doing it with figures on a battlemat, becomes a very streamlined process.

 

Cool. In my experience, very few players keep that stuff in their head naturally, and the more into the game they are, the less likely they are to remember it. Of course, there are exceptions - one of the guys I play with just has a memory that works like that - but it would be incongruous with my experience to positively correlate investment with remembering initiative. 

 

In my experience, the amount of time between turns that isn't spent dealing with in-world things really puts a drag on everyone's ability to engage with the game. Two scenarios:

 

Scenario one: Fisto jumps up on the bar, knocking the pitcher of beer flying, shouting "Come and get me then!" He starts punching fools. (Rolls 3d20, 2 will hit, rolls damage)

 

Scenario two: Fisto jumps up on the bar, knocking the pitcher of beer flying, shouting "Come and get me then!" He starts punching fools. Okay, so that's, um, that's a stunning fist, so I'm gonna roll (consults table) 3 attacks at +2... umm, add my strength, so +6. Lemme roll the first one. 12. Will that hit? Wait, crap, it's 14. No, it's 18. Does an 18 hit? Cool! What's my damage roll, one second... 2d4. Wait, I add STR right? Or is it half STR? (Proceed to do this three times)

 

...

 

So, in example two, which is my attempt to faithfully recreate a real experience, it's difficult for others to stay engaged. And at least when I'm new to a system, that is, admittedly, what I'm like. I hope not as bad. Hard to keep people invested.

 

So anyway, the point I'm getting at is, making things easier to remember/reference means that less time is spent remembering/referencing them, and more time doing cool stuff in the game world, which in turn, helps keep everybody invested. Cycle of reinforcement. 

 

Anyway, thanks for your sharing your play experiences. I know that, at least in my group, I tend to interact with this stuff from a very different angle, being the weird arty one. :)

 

(Edited because I think that may have sounded snippy, which is nowhere near my intent :) )

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I guess my point about the combat sheets is that streamlining combat isn't just a problem for newbies struggling with the system. Even when the game was observably simpler (maybe "less cluttered" is more accurate) back in 1st/2nd edition, the old "combat sheet" was a key element to keeping the game moving smoothly, even for experienced players. Newbies can take comfort in knowing that the Hero System has always been a highly crunchy system in need of such aids. Moreover, they can take heart in knowing that something as simple as a 1st. ed combat sheet can handle the trickiest part, and that Hero combat isn't so complex that a computer is required to track everything. I sometimes fear that an over-reliance on computers can lead to the impression that the Hero System virtually requires computerized tools.

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I guess my point about the combat sheets is that streamlining combat isn't just a problem for newbies struggling with the system. Even when the game was observably simpler (maybe "less cluttered" is more accurate) back in 1st/2nd edition, the old "combat sheet" was a key element to keeping the game moving smoothly, even for experienced players. Newbies can take comfort in knowing that the Hero System has always been a highly crunchy system in need of such aids. Moreover, they can take heart in knowing that something as simple as a 1st. ed combat sheet can handle the trickiest part, and that Hero combat isn't so complex that a computer is required to track everything. I sometimes fear that an over-reliance on computers can lead to the impression that the Hero System virtually requires computerized tools.

 

Legit. I'm a big proponent of physical aides too, though I do tend to use a lot of digital stuff, even for very simple games. I tend to keep my character sheets on a tablet more often than not.

 

Aides for everybody! Whoo!

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The sheet that it's based on contributed highly to my interest in Savage Worlds. HERO benefits highly from its existence, and I want (and will possibly make) more cool stuff like it for this game. Actually gonna start a thread to that effect!

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Hero combat runs pretty smooth for me because when I GM i keep tracknof everything thats going on with everyone. The only thing i dont track are the PCs Body and Stun (The players keepntraack of that).

 

I also dont play by RAW. I handwave a lot of unimportant stuff, especially for opponents. I dont give unimportant enemies recoveries. When they are knocked out, they're done. I dont track their endurance either.

 

Most of the time i dont count hexes of movement unless there is a chase scene where its important to keep track. I just pay attention to the distance characters are from each other to see if they are in range for specific attacks. I have everything flow dynamically in the Theater of the Mind.

 

Maneuvers aare pretty intuitive once you understand how they function. Assigning skilll levels literally takes a few seconds. Calculating CV and basic chance to hit is just as fast. I just ask thenplayer what their final OCV is for the attack (after skill levels plus maneuvers) and quickly add 11 to the total then subtract the opponents DVC. takes about 2 seconds.

 

I make regular use of Hit Locations, Critical hits and Impairing/Disablling rules. Hit locations dont really add much extra time because i have mynplayers make the to-hit roll and the location roll at the same time (rolling 6 dice vs 3) and the Impairing/Disabling rules oftentimes takes enemies out of the fight quickly. Impairing wounds to the head, vitals or chest, or a Disabling wound anywhere will take the fight outta that enemy. Critical hits are similar (they easily KO or kill opponents)

 

Basically, during the battle i try to make it as easy for my players as possible by doing as much of the math for them that I can so they can concentrate on tactical decisions. Which powers or maneuvers to use in any given circumstance. The only thing they have to do is calculate their final OCV and DCV fornthe phase and keep track of any damage they take.

 

Then i take all the mechanical and mathematical results and translate it into a visual description of what just happened incorporating the results into that description. It actually works quite well and when my players are on the ball with their decisions in combat, it runs smooth and quickly.

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I've never encountered Champions players who used theatre of the mind for superheroics. Everyone I've ever played with wanted to use every bit of tactical detail available on the battlemat. The thinking was that if you're running supers and you're not trying to line up your opponents for maximum knockback damage, you're doing it wrong... ;-)

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Basically, during the battle i try to make it as easy for my players as possible by doing as much of the math for them that I can so they can concentrate on tactical decisions. Which powers or maneuvers to use in any given circumstance. The only thing they have to do is calculate their final OCV and DCV fornthe phase and keep track of any damage they take.

 

Then i take all the mechanical and mathematical results and translate it into a visual description of what just happened incorporating the results into that description. It actually works quite well and when my players are on the ball with their decisions in combat, it runs smooth and quickly.

 

Yeah, the way to get to fast, smooth combat seems to be minimizing the amount of time dealing with issues extraneous to the matter at hand. Whether through system mastery accross the board, one person who's very familliar with the system and handles a lot of the mechanical details (like yourself), or external aids, I think that minimizing time spent on matters outside the game world is key.

 

I'm curious to hear more thoughts on Hit Locations, Critical Hits, things like that. How do they change the feel of the game? Both mechanically, and from a narrative perspective? I'll be honest, I haven't used any optional rules, and don't think I will until I get a better feel for the core game.

 

 

I've never encountered Champions players who used theatre of the mind for superheroics. Everyone I've ever played with wanted to use every bit of tactical detail available on the battlemat. The thinking was that if you're running supers and you're not trying to line up your opponents for maximum knockback damage, you're doing it wrong... ;-)

 

That's really interesting to me. My initial thought was that I'd never want to do supers combat with anything more granular than Fate's zones, and that using a map might be entirely counterproductive.  I will say that doing so worked very well - it added a lot - but I'm not certain if it doesn't also subtract a lot. Superhero combat specifically is very dynamic in my head - and elevation is kind of a big deal. That's difficult to model well on a hex map, at least in my experience.

 

Going forward with maps for now, but open to other ideas too.

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Hit Locations can be rolled at the same time as a to-hit roll, using different colored dice than you use for the to-hit roll. That's worked pretty well in past groups I've played with. If everyone has a copy of the hit location chart in front of them, they can usually calculate the damage easily enough. I've not often run into people who have difficulty multiplying by x1/2 up to x5, but it has happened.

 

I've sometimes used Critical Hits, basically doing maximum damage if a 3 is rolled to hit. If a character has Luck, they could roll those dice to see if the range was extended, but that slows things up a little. Since I don't see 3s, 4s, 5s or even 6s rolled very often, it doesn't seem to add a lot to the time involved.

 

Unless you want really gritty games, avoid using Bleeding. It is an extra roll to make on segment 1 each turn and can be a lot to keep track of for a GM when everyone begins accumulating BODY damage.

 

One suggestion on BODY damage that was suggested on the forums I often use is the 1 for 20 Rule: if a character takes 20 STUN past their defenses, they take a point of BODY damage. This nicely simulates bloodier combat when using characters with higher defenses and damage.

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There are quite a number of things in the Hero System that depend rather heavily on precise distances and relative positions. Knockback. Explosions. RMods. And then there are issues like LOS, where knowing for certain if something blocks it can make the difference between hitting or missing. There is no way you can execute any of that accurately without a battlemat. Estimating simply isn't good enough, not for me anyway.

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Hit Locations can be rolled at the same time as a to-hit roll, using different colored dice than you use for the to-hit roll. That's worked pretty well in past groups I've played with. If everyone has a copy of the hit location chart in front of them, they can usually calculate the damage easily enough. I've not often run into people who have difficulty multiplying by x1/2 up to x5, but it has happened.

 

I've sometimes used Critical Hits, basically doing maximum damage if a 3 is rolled to hit. If a character has Luck, they could roll those dice to see if the range was extended, but that slows things up a little. Since I don't see 3s, 4s, 5s or even 6s rolled very often, it doesn't seem to add a lot to the time involved.

 

Unless you want really gritty games, avoid using Bleeding. It is an extra roll to make on segment 1 each turn and can be a lot to keep track of for a GM when everyone begins accumulating BODY damage.

 

One suggestion on BODY damage that was suggested on the forums I often use is the 1 for 20 Rule: if a character takes 20 STUN past their defenses, they take a point of BODY damage. This nicely simulates bloodier combat when using characters with higher defenses and damage.

 

Noted! I'm planning on trying something with hit locations the next time we muck about, just to see if we like it or not. It isn't that I'm not interested in how mechanically streamlined that process is - I promise you, I'm quite interested - but I'm really curious as to how that changes what playing the game feels like.

 

Sorry if that's a really qualitative criterion, but qualitative feedback is what I'm looking for. The latter two points on Bleeding and the 1 for 20 rule are great examples of this - how do I change the "genre author" of my comic book game from J.M. Strazynski to Frank Miller? Now I know :D

 

There are quite a number of things in the Hero System that depend rather heavily on precise distances and relative positions. Knockback. Explosions. RMods. And then there are issues like LOS, where knowing for certain if something blocks it can make the difference between hitting or missing. There is no way you can execute any of that accurately without a battlemat. Estimating simply isn't good enough, not for me anyway.

 

While I think all of that can be executed without a hex map, I certainly find that it changes the feel of the game. Something fast, cinematic and highly narrative risks losing those qualities on a map. Likewise, something tactical, methodical and deeply strategic risks losing those qualities off of one. I'm guessing that HERO combat is more of a tactical thing in your interactions with it? 

 

No criticism, that's one of the deeply attractive things about HERO to me, though it's admittedly not my default state. But I'll bet that at least one of my players is going to be interacting primarily in that fashion, so understanding the things that are essential to have a fulfilling tactical experience is always good to hear. 

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Sometimes if we are supposed to be in a real place, we will pull it up on Google maps. Then we point to wherever we're going. "I knock him back into that building there".

 

Ha! 

 

I briefly ran a GURPS superhero game (which I was mechanically very unsatisfied with, but that's another tirade) set at the university where we were all students. Like many urban universities, we have a parking crunch. 

 

So when the villains knocked a hero through the support structure of a parking garage, everybody was intensely upset. It was delightful.

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I admit I have not yet read that part of the Advanced Players Guide, but I have trouble imagining how that works.

 

As long as "Move" is an action one can take, and SPD = number of actions you have in a Turn, I don't see a way to get around the idea that how far you can move in a Turn is a product of both how far you move when you move, and how often you can move that far.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says I don't move often enough nor far enough

 

 

You can break down movement into segments, so people move each segment instead of phase and then act otherwise on their phase.  Except teleport, of course.  I haven't done that because it would in my opinion slow things down a bit more.

Shadowrun has been doing that for several editions.

However thier "SPD" table only has 3 SPD's with 2 and 3 being rare (only 1-2 guys in a group).

It is fiddly once any character has more then one action phase per turn and wants to attack. It is propably not a good idea for Heroes much more granular SPD table.

 

In the most recent edition they just went and gave every character "Initiative Roll/10, rounded down" actions per turn. With excess actions being taken at the end of everyones turn. That might also be a simplification for the starter rules:

http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/E-CAT27QSR_SR5-Quick-Start-Rules.pdf (starts at the end of page 7)

 

Stun on a skel? I'd go with automaton. They don't take stun. Only body.

Immune to Stun is a seperate power in 6E.

 

However, I started to think that this is exactly not what you should do with stuff like Skelletons/Zombies and Robots. Right now I am more likely to give them very high resistant Protection, but with less resistance to Stun damage (possibly limiting the defenses).

The issues is not taking a Zombie out of a fight (stunning it). The issue is keeping it out of a fight (killing it). Getting enough Body past the defenses to "make it stick". Add to that the special effect of "being knocked out" being different for them (zombie fell over and impaled it's chest on a long pipe, nailing it).

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Another way to speed up combat is to have the players roll their to hit roll and damage roll all at once.  Using different color/size dice.  That can help.

 

I haven't been using random hit locations but I do allow players to take placed shots in my heroic level games.  Many players end up buying +3 vs. hit location penalties (the most I allow).  Then they take a placed shot to the chest.  It definitely speeds up the damage calculation for Stun.

 

 

We don't use hit locations or placed shots for our superhero games. 

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Yes indeed, the Hero System--and more specifically, Champions--is a tactical wargame once combat begins. I wouldn't want it any other way. I want to know that I can or can't do a half move and reach cover, fire at a target at a specific range so I know how to assign my CSLs and RSLs, and do it from a direction that will, with a good enough damage roll, knock the target into a nearby wall and get awarded extra damage. I don't want the GM fudging it and deciding for me how much of all that applies, and to what extent. That robs me of way too much agency.

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We always use a map for the "big" combats. For smaller stuff we'll wing-it. It really comes down to the style and comfort level of your players.

 

Since you're all just learning, I'd recommend using the map, etc. to start with. Once you are familiar with how things work when you actually track the details, then you can abstract things away. It's harder to go the other way.

 

 

Another option for speeding up combat is to have your players help out--if they aren't too busy just figuring out what they're going to do. They can roll the villain's damage against another player's character for you, etc. Keeps the folks who are waiting engaged, and lets you move on to the next thing. Mind you, this only works if you aren't following the old D&D DM-style of hiding behind your DM (GM) screen to keep every little detail secret. 

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Admittedly I'm relatively new to HERO, but I like Hex-grid and Map for fantasy, since movement for pretty much everyone is at a reasonable scale. It allows players to make use tactical combat, especially when a number of the players have either AoEs, 'Attacks of Opportunity' (essentially built as Naked Triggers on damage or other effects), or both, which require a reasonable knowledge of the area and the combatants therein.

 

In Superhero games, I don't see much of the need for a map, both from a logistics perspective (when the speedster can travel across literally every single hex on the map in a turn amd the guy in power armor can fly at Mach 5, what's the point of a map?), and a genre-convention perspective: I see Champions as effectively mirroring a comic book: every character's phase is a panel in which that character acts, Normal Damage calculation explains why Superman can beat up Lex Luthor, without killing him, despite being able to juggle planets, ect. It seems strange to try and ruin that good genre emulation with gritty details of hex movement and the like.

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