Hero system 7 ideas

[Hugh Neilson]

Fair enough.  To me, the changes from 3e to 4e are largely tweaks for consistency between various uses of Hero in specific genre games.  The core engine (skill resolution; combat resolution; speed chart) was unchanged, as it has been through all editions.  Some pricing and mechanics were tweaked, but none are unrecognizable from prior editions.  Damage Negation, added in 6th, is probably a more fundamental change in subtracting DCs instead of reducing the results rolled.  Damage reduction was similar in reducing by a %, although both Armor Piercing and Find Weakness reduced defenses by a %.

 

IMO, Hero Edition changes are more comparable to the changes from 1e D^D to 2e D&D - tweaks, not wholesale change.

[Chris Goodwin]

7 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Rather than try to argue what changes would count as "broad" or "sweeping," I just want to leave this survey of rules and mechanics from 3E Champions and other pre-4E Hero games from the perspective of 5E, admirably compiled by our own Chris Goodwin. (Thanks, Chris!)   Readers can decide how substantive they are for themselves.

hero3tohero4.html 25.12 kB · 14 downloads

 

Thanks for the shout-out, LL.    I've got a better version of it in my Google Docs:  A Look Back at Previous HERO System Editions.  

[Surrealone]

[Cassandra]

Bring Back 5th Edition and call it Hero System 7.

 

That's how Coke handled New Coke.

[Legion]

I agree, 5th edition revised is the best hero system. If your going to do another edition just relabel 5th revised as seventh. Feel free to add in damage negation. As that's the only interesting thing sixth added.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Oh there's other good stuff, like the restructure of transform and area effect. 6th has a lot of good ideas to go with some mistakes.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

Kill the sacred cow of the current Characteristic ranges.  One point of a characteristic meaning different things based on which point it is is a hot load of cow excrement. 

Price them based on what five points right now should cost, then make that what one point costs and does. 

[Spence]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Oh there's other good stuff, like the restructure of transform and area effect. 6th has a lot of good ideas to go with some mistakes.

 

hmmmm...

 

6th has a lot of good ideas to go with many mistakes

 

There, fixed it

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

One point of a characteristic meaning different things based on which point it is is a hot load of cow excrement. 

Price them based on what five points right now should cost, then make that what one point costs and does. 

 

 

GB(i):

 

It's probably because it was a scorcher today and I'm up way too late, but I'm not parsing that well enough to grasp it.

 

Can you maybe follow up with some detail or a 'frinstance?

 

Much appreciated, and thank you in advance, Sir.

 

Duke

 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

1 minute ago, Duke Bushido said:

Can you maybe follow up with some detail or a 'frinstance?

I'll use INT as an example. 

Currently INT costs 1AP/point.  There is no difference between having 8 INT and 12 INT.  Only points 3, 8, 13, 18, etc provide any benefit.  Every point in between is just padding that pretends to matter. 

To fix this, remove all the intermediate points.  Assuming INT was fairly priced, this means that INT should now cost 5AP/point, and every point improves your INT-based skills and PER roll by 1 instead of every fifth. 

[Duke Bushido]

Gotcha.

 

 

Thanks.

[Oruncrest]

13 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I'll use INT as an example. 

Currently INT costs 1AP/point.  There is no difference between having 8 INT and 12 INT.  Only points 3, 8, 13, 18, etc provide any benefit.  Every point in between is just padding that pretends to matter. 

To fix this, remove all the intermediate points.  Assuming INT was fairly priced, this means that INT should now cost 5AP/point, and every point improves your INT-based skills and PER roll by 1 instead of every fifth. 

 

Except every other primary stat loses some effect by doing this. And INT doesn't gain anything.

Every point of STR increases your lifting capability by 15% cumulative.

Every point of DEX improves your chances of going first. Indeed, this was determined to be so useful that the cost of DEX is 2CP per point.

Every point of CON decreases your chances of being stunned, which is determined per pip of STUN damage you take from attacks.

Every point of EGO decreases your chances of being affected by powers like Mental Illusions, Mind Control, and Telepathy, which is determined per pip of effect rolled by those powers.

Every point of PRE decreases your chances of being affected by Presence Attacks, which is determined per pip of effect rolled when a PRE Attack is made.

 

INT is the only primary stat that doesn't gain anything per point.

 

Removing the granularity from the other primary stats won't improve INT's game effects one bit, but every other stat would be screwed.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah when I see this kind of complaint, my response is "find a way to make INT work better" not "mess everything else up"

[sentry0]

8 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah when I see this kind of complaint, my response is "find a way to make INT work better" not "mess everything else up"

 

You could make a case that each point if INT will net you a higher IQ.  Someone with a 12 INT would have roughly a 140 IQ which I think puts them in the in the Very Superior category of some IQ scales.  Although this has no official game effect it does help put things into perspective.

 

Personally, I'm fine with writing it off as a system outlier and moving on.

[ScottishFox]

11 minutes ago, sentry0 said:

You could make a case that each point if INT will net you a higher IQ.  Someone with a 12 INT would have roughly a 140 IQ

 

How are you deriving that number?  140 is quite exceptional.  Much higher puts you at the practical human limit minus a handful of "legendary" people.

 

140 IQ puts you in the top 99.3790320141% of the population almost top 1 of 200 people.

160 IQ puts you in the top 1 of 10,000 people.

180 IQ puts you in the top 1 of 3,000,000 people.

200 IQ is top 1 in 2,000,000,000+ people.  Like 3-4 on the planet.

 

Given the older style descriptions where people begin to describe you as a thing around 13-15 (he's strong, she's smart, etc.) and where you start to dominate your respective field of endeavor around 18 and are among the best in the world at 20+.

[sentry0]

5 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

How are you deriving that number?  140 is quite exceptional.  Much higher puts you at the practical human limit minus a handful of "legendary" people.

 

140 IQ puts you in the top 99.3790320141% of the population almost top 1 of 200 people.

160 IQ puts you in the top 1 of 10,000 people.

180 IQ puts you in the top 1 of 3,000,000 people.

200 IQ is top 1 in 2,000,000,000+ people.  Like 3-4 on the planet.

 

Given the older style descriptions where people begin to describe you as a thing around 13-15 (he's strong, she's smart, etc.) and where you start to dominate your respective field of endeavor around 18 and are among the best in the world at 20+.

 

I'm taking 100 points as the base which may or may not be accurate as a base.  Using the HERO standard of doubling every 5 points that means +20 points if IQ per point of INT. 

 

It was napkin math 😁

[ScottishFox]

6 minutes ago, sentry0 said:

 

I'm taking 100 points as the base which may or may not be accurate as a base.  Using the HERO standard of doubling every 5 points that means +20 points if IQ per point of INT. 

 

It was napkin math 😁

 

INT 12 = genius. 

[sentry0]

5 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

INT 12 = genius. 

 

I know, I know.  I didn't claim it was perfect just following the conventions set forth by the founding fathers.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I tend to treat INT that way: each point makes you one smarter, like Spinal Tap's amplifiers.  In game, I try to work it out so someone who has higher INT can work out clues faster, get notes helping them out more, etc.   In truth, however its defined in the rules, intelligence in Hero means more perception, memory, and speed of thought than it does actual smarts.  Someone very, very smart but slow (such as my buddy who is an actual nuclear physicist who worked at Hanford reactor in summers while in college) was very slow and methodical but terrifyingly intelligent.  Someone can have a super fast mind and be really stupid otherwise.

I used to give free background points at character generation for each point of INT (non-combat stuff) but I dropped that after a while because it was just trying to benefit higher INT and in Hero, intelligence doesn't equate to experience or wisdom.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

3 hours ago, Oruncrest said:

 

Except every other primary stat loses some effect by doing this. And INT doesn't gain anything.

Every point of STR increases your lifting capability by 15% cumulative.

Every point of DEX improves your chances of going first. Indeed, this was determined to be so useful that the cost of DEX is 2CP per point.

Every point of CON decreases your chances of being stunned, which is determined per pip of STUN damage you take from attacks.

Every point of EGO decreases your chances of being affected by powers like Mental Illusions, Mind Control, and Telepathy, which is determined per pip of effect rolled by those powers.

Every point of PRE decreases your chances of being affected by Presence Attacks, which is determined per pip of effect rolled when a PRE Attack is made.

 

INT is the only primary stat that doesn't gain anything per point.

 

Removing the granularity from the other primary stats won't improve INT's game effects one bit, but every other stat would be screwed.

Recalibrate the STR table.  You don't need that granularity. 

Reducing the DEX spread doesn't change the fact that DEX is initiative and makes the initiative maneuvers actually useful.  Or be really daring and rip out initiative too, it's not used in an interesting manner so switching to something more dynamic like popcorn initiative wouldn't hurt. 

Stunning is a terrible mechanic and should be excised.  "I'm sorry Billy, but you didn't take a superhuman CON because it was out of concept so now this 6d6 NND is going to also remove your next turn and half your DCV so you're gonna get dogpiled and KO'd" is another hot load. 

The current win instantly or do nothing model for mental powers is a terrible mechanic and should be excised. 

Presence Attacks are a terrible mechanic and should be excised and replaced with an actually functional social system. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Gnome, have you ever thought that maybe you just don't like Hero?

[ScottishFox]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 In truth, however its defined in the rules, intelligence in Hero means more perception, memory, and speed of thought than it does actual smarts.  Someone very, very smart but slow (such as my buddy who is an actual nuclear physicist who worked at Hanford reactor in summers while in college) was very slow and methodical but terrifyingly intelligent.

 

My limited understanding of IQ theory says that IQ tests very heavily weight working the former (perception, working memory and speed of thought) because that's actual intelligence.

 

Someone, on the other hand, can be very methodical, conscientious (the psychological trait) with a vast amount of knowledge and would not be considered intelligent. 

They would, however, accomplish far more than "smarter" folks with less knowledge, unrefined processes and weaker work ethics.

 

As a game mechanic INT affects enough skills that I think it's fine the way it is.  It doesn't really break down in super campaigns where the per-five-points design of the game works better.

It's in the heroic game levels where HERO system tends to not work well.

 

I recall an article from the 80s talking about the various gaffes in each game system and the example for Champions was that a 0 STR baby could throw a football a laughably far distance.

 

It made such a good point that I wrote a letter to the game designers (this was before email was a thing) complaining that the throwing distance was too far at the low end (babies with baseballs) and failed to scale (superman with baseballs) at a suitably comic-book level.

They very succinctly told me to make my own chart.  There might have been a silent go-pound-sand in there. 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

On 9/26/2019 at 1:21 PM, Cassandra said:

Bring Back 5th Edition and call it Hero System 7.

 

That's how Coke handled New Coke.

 

Old Coke was selling...

 

22 hours ago, Legion said:

I agree, 5th edition revised is the best hero system. If your going to do another edition just relabel 5th revised as seventh. Feel free to add in damage negation. As that's the only interesting thing sixth added.

 

I wonder why they bothered writing 6e when 5e was the perfect game, and as a result generated huge sales...

 

Have to admit, if I made my living writing and selling games, I think I'd be OK writing a moderately crappy game that generated huge sales and made me incredibly wealthy.

[Joe Walsh]

I recall there being some call for moving to fewer Powers at one time, but with more modifiers. Powers would be Attack, Defend, Move, Sense, and (if I recall) Transform. Modifiers would be used to derive the rest.

 

It'd be interesting to develop a HERO variant that way. I'm not sure it'd be an improvement, though.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Gnome, have you ever thought that maybe you just don't like Hero?

I like HERO System, I'm just highly critical of the systems I like. 

HERO System has the second-best combat model I've encountered (absolute best for big fights), great char-gen, wonderfully modular mechanics that make learning the system easy, and a great deal of flexibility.  It's easily the best superhero system I've played, and the only one where combat is both interesting and mechanically sound. 

It just doesn't hold up well under certain fairly specific circumstances and has some nasty traps for new players, and unfortunately some of those are very easy to blunder into or the sort of thing I instinctively look for.