Switching from 4e to 6e

[zslane]

I don't think any of my 4e "skinny scientist" NPCs had the physical stats of an Olympic powerlifter, but maybe I was doing it wrong?

[eepjr24]

I don't think any of my 4e "skinny scientist" NPCs had the physical stats of an Olympic powerlifter, but maybe I was doing it wrong?

How many skinny scientist PC's did you have, though? 

[zslane]

Rough count: 3. Though they are all variations on the same character, adapted to different genres (supers, pulp, and horror).

[Tasha]

Generally in 5e and earlier Hero it is very advantageous for characters to buy their strength up (free PD, REC, Stun). In Heroic level games this isn't as much of an issue (but does cause a LOT of Str 13 Magi and clerics). In Champions this is magnified with the higher point limits where In my experience you see lots of skinny Energy Projectors, Speedsters and Mentalists with 18-23 Strength to get the little bonus stats. In 6e you don't have to do that, unless you think that your skinny 16 year old 90lb firestarter needs to lift 400kg.

[assault]

A lot of my characters tend to be red-blooded mystery men/women regardless of their powers (or lack of them), so high strengths aren't a problem. That's basically a result of reading lots and lots of Golden and Silver Age comics.

 

Aside from that I've never been reluctant to leave characteristics at their base values. My builds rarely have points to spare. (I tend not to use lots of Limitations, and that comes at a cost).

[NuSoardGraphite]

Generally in 5e and earlier Hero it is very advantageous for characters to buy their strength up (free PD, REC, Stun). In Heroic level games this isn't as much of an issue (but does cause a LOT of Str 13 Magi and clerics). In Champions this is magnified with the higher point limits where In my experience you see lots of skinny Energy Projectors, Speedsters and Mentalists with 18-23 Strength to get the little bonus stats. In 6e you don't have to do that, unless you think that your skinny 16 year old 90lb firestarter needs to lift 400kg.

This is not an edition thing, but simply a design philosophy issue. There was nothing in the previous editions preventing players from leaving their base characteristics alone and boosting their secondaries with CP. If they feel they need to buy up primaries just for the bonus, then in my opinion they are metagaming rather than building characters to concept. Now theres nothing wrong with metagaming, many games encourage it. But that doesnt mean other builds arent possible.

[zslane]

I tend to agree with NSG here. The Hero System certainly provides the means to build characters with concept, rather than point efficiency, as the guiding principle. But if players choose to build what's most efficient in a campaign that values building to concept, then I think it is more accurate to call that a player problem, not a system problem.

[assault]

Tasha is right. There were incentives to take advantage of figured characteristics. And thus incentives to play character conceptions that allowed that...

 

My character design approach (described above) "just happened" to correspond to what the system encouraged. Funny that.

 

That said, the system itself was originally designed to mimic superhero comics, where "skinny scientists" aren't really a thing. Where they exist, they tend to turn into not-so-skinny types.

 

Yes, the current version of the system is more universal. It makes it easier to build a wider set of characters.

 

Unfortunately that comes at the price of increased granularity, which tends to make me rather grumpy. Too many moving parts.

[zslane]

Tasha is right. There were incentives to take advantage of figured characteristics. And thus incentives to play character conceptions that allowed that...

Those are only viewed as "incentives" by players who think that winning the numbers game is how you win the actual game. And that is only true in certain kinds of campaigns with certain kinds of players.

 

The good news is that for players/groups who value building according to concept, rather than point efficiency, the Hero System is and always has been a great system that fully supports that style of play. The difficulty comes when you have a mixed group where not everyone is on board with the concept-driven build philosohy. But I still maintain that is a social problem that requires a social solution rather than a rules/system solution.

[Tasha]

Those are only viewed as "incentives" by players who think that winning the numbers game is how you win the actual game. And that is only true in certain kinds of campaigns with certain kinds of players.

 

The good news is that for players/groups who value building according to concept, rather than point efficiency, the Hero System is and always has been a great system that fully supports that style of play. The difficulty comes when you have a mixed group where not everyone is on board with the concept-driven build philosohy. But I still maintain that is a social problem that requires a social solution rather than a rules/system solution.

Yeah I found out that the numbers became much more important when faced with a concept where every point mattered. Suddenly, Getting every extra point from minmaxing became super important as that might be the difference in being able to afford that skill or power the PC needs to fit the concept. Which is another thing that the point based system where you give min maxing incentives can generate.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Practically speaking, I doubt many builds have changed despite decoupling the primary and secondary stats.  People still are buying their DEX up and getting CV around DEX/3.  OCV and DCV are still the same in most characters.  People are still buying 18 CON, not 17.  At least, that's what I'm seeing in published and in created characters on here.  Why?  Well rolls still are stat/5 etc.  Habit.  Point breakdowns are still there, just not as exaggerated.  I don't think its made that big a difference in how people are building most characters at least.

That could be because people haven't gotten used to the added flexibility or are updating premade characters, so why change the stats?  I dunno.  Personally I really liked the idea of figured stats, and if you look around you see many new games and editions of systems actually have them.

[assault]

Those are only viewed as "incentives" by players who think that winning the numbers game is how you win the actual game. And that is only true in certain kinds of campaigns with certain kinds of players.

 

The good news is that for players/groups who value building according to concept, rather than point efficiency, the Hero System is and always has been a great system that fully supports that style of play. The difficulty comes when you have a mixed group where not everyone is on board with the concept-driven build philosohy. But I still maintain that is a social problem that requires a social solution rather than a rules/system solution.

 

Any point based system is a budgeting system, and can be min maxed. It's inevitable that it will happen.

 

It's not a bad thing in itself. Especially when we are talking about a particular subsystem which isn't particularly vulnerable to abuse.

 

Champions II included "The Goodman School of Cost Effectiveness", which laid out the basics of characteristic min maxing for all to see.

 

That and the character building guidelines in 2e Champions formed the basis of my character builds right through until 5e. To a degree they still do so in 6e, although I design a lot fewer characters these days.

 

I've never spent enough time on Heroic level builds to really nail down the art. I mainly use Hero for superheroes.

[Surrealone]

Yeah I found out that the numbers became much more important when faced with a concept where every point mattered. Suddenly, Getting every extra point from minmaxing became super important as that might be the difference in being able to afford that skill or power the PC needs to fit the concept. Which is another thing that the point based system where you give min maxing incentives can generate.

I'd call that a GM problem (presuming the concept was built by the GM) or a player problem, not a system problem.  If the concept you face forces you to minmax in order to have a hope of facing it -- then the root cause of the problem stems from the individual(s) who allowed it to exist and be faced ... not the system on which it was built.  Don't blame the gun that fired the bullet that killed someone -- blame the owner of the hand that used it to pull the trigger.

 

 

 

Any point based system is a budgeting system, and can be min maxed. It's inevitable that it will happen.

This is mostly spot on, but needs a caveat that should read: "It's inevitable that it will happen if permitted by the GM."  And in Hero System, it's ok for the GM to permit that if s/he wants -- and for players to opt into or out of such games if they want.

[Hugh Neilson]

This is not an edition thing, but simply a design philosophy issue. There was nothing in the previous editions preventing players from leaving their base characteristics alone and boosting their secondaries with CP. If they feel they need to buy up primaries just for the bonus, then in my opinion they are metagaming rather than building characters to concept. Now there’s nothing wrong with metagaming, many games encourage it. But that doesn’t mean other builds aren’t possible.

I tend to agree with NSG here. The Hero System certainly provides the means to build characters with concept, rather than point efficiency, as the guiding principle. But if players choose to build what's most efficient in a campaign that values building to concept, then I think it is more accurate to call that a player problem, not a system problem.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to say “sure, you can build any concept you want. Your concept just happens to be one that will be really point-inefficient, so you’ll be playing a sidekick who will b overshadowed because characters with a more point-efficient concept will have better stats in all respects”.

 

The problem was not the existence of figured characteristics, but the point balance. The “no figured” limitation highlighted this. One of the less commented on aspects of 6e was the reduced cost of REC, STUN and END. Pre-6e, buying these up (rather than building them through STR and CON) was not efficient when compared to higher defenses, and reduced END. Try building an 18 DEX SuperSoldier with a 12 OCV and 12 DCV, and compare him to a 35 DEX SuperSolder with the same CV’s.

 

To SurrealOne's point, that IS a system problem, not a player/GM problem. Getting the same abilities should not carry markedly differing costs. That result is, objectively, unbalanced. That's not like whether the price of +2 DCV is appropriately the same as +1 SPD, where direct comparison is simply not possible.

 

To me, “you can play any concept you can imagine” carries an implicit “and different concepts with similar stats will be similarly efficient”.

 

Practically speaking, I doubt many builds have changed despite decoupling the primary and secondary stats. People still are buying their DEX up and getting CV around DEX/3.

I’m not. DEX is for characters with a lot of agility skills. Going first is not that big a deal. If we take two identical characters, one with 23 DEX (the old Hero Norm), and the other with 8 DEX and +3 SPD, or +3 OCV and +3 DCV, which one will come out ahead?

 

Now, if we also want half a dozen agility skills, that DEX becomes a much better buy. But that wasn’t the typical 23 DEX Super.

 

OCV and DCV are still the same in most characters.

Again, not on mine. Practically, few characters tend to rely on “I won’t get hit” rather than “I will weather the blow” because so many players build to be able to hit reliably because missing is frustrating. Once you’re hit anyway, it doesn’t much matter if they hit by 1 or hit by 7.

 

People are still buying 18 CON, not 17. At least, that's what I'm seeing in published and in created characters on here. Why?

CON’s only real purpose now is “not getting Stunned”. That means breakpoints have little impact, outside the rare CON based roll. But a low CON character is still not combat-viable – being able to weather an average hit without being Stunned is pretty much crucial in most games. Whether it’s 2 or 3 points above “average damage roll minus defense” or a larger spread so only an exceptional hit can STUN the target, I see precious few characters who will be stunned by an average hit.

 

Well rolls still are stat/5 etc. Habit. Point breakdowns are still there, just not as exaggerated.

I think point breakdowns are always there in some form. The problem with Figured was that they cost more than the stat that generated them. To me, another 6e option retaining Figured would have been repricing the Figured (and/or the primaries), and revising “no figured”, to be much closer to point-neutral.

 

For STR, that probably meant really thinking through the whole “range/no range”, “hand attack/martial arts DC” conundrum. Keeping STR at 5 points then becomes tough. Even now, “only adds to damage and effects of Martial Maneuvers” at -1/4 and “only adds to direct damage” at -1/2 (AKA Hand Attack), hear routine criticism.

 

For DEX, I think it either meant upping the price a lot, and pricing OCV and DCV independently as well, or decoupling from OCV and DCV, and I think it was more DEX than STR and CON that pushed the decision to “get rid of figured”. That, and why does it matter if the pricing is appropriate without Figured anyway. I don’t think 6e got the price balance between DEX, INT and PRE right anyway, but that’s the topic of more than enough other threads, so let’s not get into it here.

 

CON would have needed a “no figured” limit in the -1 ½ to -2 range, even with a decline in the price of REC, STUN and END. BOD would have been pretty easy as it only fed to one stat, and “not getting killed” is a nice benefit by itself.

 

The difficulty of STR and DEX motivated ditching figured entirely rather than working to rebalancing, IMO. STR and CON also fed to defenses, which could not have their prices adjusted without a huge ripple effect, so either defenses had to be decoupled, or we had to accept that 20% of the price of STR and 10% of the price of CON was automatically being recovered from PD/ED, much like SPD from DEX was really a DEX rebate reducing the cost of “all else DEX provides” to 2 points.

 

I don't think its made that big a difference in how people are building most characters at least.

That could be because people haven't gotten used to the added flexibility or are updating premade characters, so why change the stats?

This is also a function of the effort made to preserve reverse compatibility. You can’t interchange 2e, 3e, 4e and 5e D&D characters at all. But you can plug a 1e Hero character into 6e pretty easily. If the new sample characters really reflected decoupling – no more “average Super Dex is 23, most characters have equal OCV and DCV and triple it to get approximate DEX, then repeat with mCV and EGO”, for example – then these characters would look very different from a 5e character plugged into 6e.

 

The sample characters have a lot more impact than I think we give them credit. Think back – way back – to 1e Hero. If those few example characters had been constructed with, say, DEXs reduced by 12 and SPDs reduced by 2, we would have had:

 

- Slow Supers with a DEX of 8 or so (20 – 12), and 3 CV, and SPD 2 (4-2)

- Average Supers with DEX 11 – 14 (4 – 5 CV) and SPD 3

- Fast Supers with DEX 18 or so (CV 6) and SPD 4.

- REALLY fast characters might push DEX up to 21 or 23 (CV 7-8) (instead of 33 – 35/11-12 where we got to pretty quick in Enemies books), and 7-8 SOD would have been 5-6

 

That would have meant REC was more valuable, since PS12 would happen a lot more frequently relative to actions taken. Supers would still compare pretty much the same as now – actual OCV/DCV isn’t all that relevant. The difference is. But agents with 18 – 20 DEX would be near-Super instead of needing special gear to have a shot at getting a hit, and wouldn’t seem half paralyzed on the Battlemat.

 

I dunno. Personally I really liked the idea of figured stats, and if you look around you see many new games and editions of systems actually have them.

I think the big difference is that, because Hero permits those “Figured Stats” to also be bought up separately, the pricing model becomes much tougher to balance. Try getting +3 to all agility skills, or +1 to hit and +3 damage with all martial weapons, in D&D. That flexibility comes with a cost in complexity, and a greater need for point balance since you can’t just “not build that” or restrict its availability to characters of level 13+.

[eepjr24]

I think there were multiple "problems" most of which have been laid out above. I change things up a bit by swapping all the 9+char/5 to 7+char/3 for heroic level play, but leave perception at 9+INT/5. I prefer the non-figured characteristics because it never made mechanical sense to me that being more dexterous made you run faster by default. Or that being stronger made you more resistant to electrical shock.

 

The power consolidations in 6e also made sense to me. As did getting rid of LoW and some of the transform and other tweaks, in my mind. It's not perfect, but to me it keeps getting better.

 

- E

[Hugh Neilson]

I think there were multiple "problems" most of which have been laid out above. I change things up a bit by swapping all the 9+char/5 to 7+char/3 for heroic level play, but leave perception at 9+INT/5. I prefer the non-figured characteristics because it never made mechanical sense to me that being more dexterous made you run faster by default. Or that being stronger made you more resistant to electrical shock.

That would make more sense if Running had ever been a figured char, or if STR had fed to ED instead of PD. But Leaping was the only movement power that could be enhanced like a Fig (from STR) and STR boosted PD while CON boosted ED.

[eepjr24]

That would make more sense if Running had ever been a figured char, or if STR had fed to ED instead of PD. But Leaping was the only movement power that could be enhanced like a Fig (from STR) and STR boosted PD while CON boosted ED.

Really? So SPD does not affect how far you move in 12 seconds? STUN is not figured from STR? Perhaps "resistant" was a poor choice of words, I probably should have said less likely to be knocked out from electrical shock. But even your examples prove my point, someone who is able to life large amounts of weight does not somehow magically become less affected by a punch to the face.

 

- E

[Hugh Neilson]

Really? So SPD does not affect how far you move in 12 seconds?

That's not an artifact of figured characteristics.

 

STUN is not figured from STR? Perhaps "resistant" was a poor choice of words, I probably should have said less likely to be knocked out from electrical shock. But even your examples prove my point, someone who is able to life large amounts of weight does not somehow magically become less affected by a punch to the face.

There are always some compromises. We still have a single stat governing weightlifting, HTH damage, grappling, etc. Why aren't Olympic weightlifters also Olympic boxers and wrestlers?

 

DEX implies gymnasts are lockpicks and vice versa.

 

There will always be compromises between gameplay and reality. However, the decoupling of Figured went a long way to facilitating differing builds - not everyone needs high DEX to be combat effective, for the biggest example, and an 8 STR Blaster can still have 5 PD and a decent STUN and REC without being point-disadvantaged compared to a 23 STR Blaster with the same PD, STUN and REC.

[Ninja-Bear]

I see that two zombie horses are back for another beating.

 

1) The lineage of Champions Complete

 

2) Building the characters of your dreams.

[Joe Walsh]

Apparently, they're masochistic zombie horses.

[eepjr24]

That's not an artifact of figured characteristics.

Um. So DEX was not what SPD was based on? Isn't that what they mean by "figured"? 

 

 

There are always some compromises. We still have a single stat governing weightlifting, HTH damage, grappling, etc. Why aren't Olympic weightlifters also Olympic boxers and wrestlers?

 

DEX implies gymnasts are lockpicks and vice versa.

 

There will always be compromises between gameplay and reality. However, the decoupling of Figured went a long way to facilitating differing builds - not everyone needs high DEX to be combat effective, for the biggest example, and an 8 STR Blaster can still have 5 PD and a decent STUN and REC without being point-disadvantaged compared to a 23 STR Blaster with the same PD, STUN and REC.

I agree that there will always be compromises. I just think there are less of them now and improvement is good.

 

- E

[Vanguard]

Practically speaking, I doubt many builds have changed despite decoupling the primary and secondary stats.  People still are buying their DEX up and getting CV around DEX/3.  OCV and DCV are still the same in most characters.  People are still buying 18 CON, not 17.  At least, that's what I'm seeing in published and in created characters on here.  Why?  Well rolls still are stat/5 etc.  Habit.  Point breakdowns are still there, just not as exaggerated.  I don't think its made that big a difference in how people are building most characters at least.

That could be because people haven't gotten used to the added flexibility or are updating premade characters, so why change the stats?  I dunno.  Personally I really liked the idea of figured stats, and if you look around you see many new games and editions of systems actually have them.

 

That's mainly due to the fact that most of the published (or republished) material is just copy/pasted into the new books.  Which is one of the reasons why I think most character building is still the same.  Why change the way you build characters if it doesn't appear that the published characters are being changed.  And it's not fair to ask the GMs to go through all the published stuff and change them to reflect the new rule sets.

 

As to why players do so, you've already pointed that out. It's habit to make your CVs DEX/3, regardless of the fact that that character concept might not require it.  Since it was done in the past, it's done now.

 

I, personally, didn't like figured characteristics because it caused issues like Tasha pointed out.  Characters would be created that were extremely dexterous and agile, yet had not spent a lick of time in combat yet, because of figured stats, they had higher CVs than long term combat vets.  Removing figured, fixed that or at least has the potential to fix it.

[Hugh Neilson]

Um. So DEX was not what SPD was based on? Isn't that what they mean by "figured"?

In my experience, the link between SPD and DEX was the least "figured" of any. No one ever took a SPD lower than the next one up from their DEX-figured score. It really just meant DEX cost 2 points after turning in your SpeedRebate.

 

Any discussion I ever saw on Figured's referred to STR and CON. The issue with DEX was that OCV and DCV were not figured, in that there was no way to buy them independent of DEX.

 

 

 

I agree that there will always be compromises. I just think there are less of them now and improvement is good.

With that, I can agree 100%.

 

 

 

That's mainly due to the fact that most of the published (or republished) material is just copy/pasted into the new books.  Which is one of the reasons why I think most character building is still the same.  Why change the way you build characters if it doesn't appear that the published characters are being changed.  And it's not fair to ask the GMs to go through all the published stuff and change them to reflect the new rule sets.

Who was it that said fairness as a concept is vastly overrated and hugely misunderstood? There's little point in changing the rules if you don't actually apply the changes. I don't find many other games since 3e D&D which look for reverse compatibility between editions. Prior to 3e, a new edition of a game was typically a tweak to some rules, not essentially a brand-new game, but 3e changed that model.

 

Decoupling was substantially expanded in 6e, but just printing the same characters we had from 5e suggests there was no real point in doing so. I think that was ultimately a failing in the presentation of 6e.

 

As to the Zombie Horse of what the Complete books do, Jason Walters had a fine post on that a couple of years back which can be found on a search. As the CEO of the company, I consider him to have the definitive word. It's a sore point for a lot of people, and not worth reopening, so hopefully that can be avoided on this thread.

[Joe Walsh]

To paraphrase my photography geek friends, the best Hero is the one you actually use.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Characters would be created that were extremely dexterous and agile, yet had not spent a lick of time in combat yet, because of figured stats, they had higher CVs than long term combat vets.

 

 

I never had that problem really, but I can see how people really trying to crunch numbers would.  If my character concept was someone less agile, then they were less agile.  If they were accurate, I bought levels.  If they were quick, I bought speed, if they were slow, I didn't.  But that probably wasn't the norm.