Changes between 6th Edition Core and 'Complete' books

[Tywyll]

So I've recently been using Narosia as my go-to rule book, but I've noticed a few oddities cropping up in how certain rules are handled. This has led me to check my Fantasy Hero Complete and compare via the Core rules.

 

I'm curious what's going on...whether the newer books are the 'official' rules or if they've been simplified?

 

For example. Escaping grapples in Core works as its always worked, you can roll half your strength to shake off a grab as a 0 Phase action. But in FHC and N, you roll your entire str and need to beat the grabbers roll by double. Small change I know but still.

 

Firing into melee is also different. In core, if you miss by the cover penalty, you roll again versus the new target's DCV with your unmodified OCV. In FHC it's your OCV -3, and in Narosia it's with an OCV of 0. 

 

???

 

Now I know that Narosia took some liberties with the rules (which is cool, use the tool kit as a tool kit and all that). But I'm curious about FHC vs the Core. Is this the official word now? What other changes are there that I've not noticed yet?

[Ninja-Bear]

Tywyll if you read 6th core it’s strongly suggested that you can use casual strength as a 0 phase action. And iirc that was added (at least I first noticed) in Fifth ed. So FHC could for simplicity sake just left it out. There are a few changes between Champions Complete and Core which if you go to DrivethruRPG you can get a copy Champions Complete Conversion  for free. And I think FHC follows those changes too. One difference between Core and FHC is that both CC and Core have no ranged Martial Arts whereas FHC does. Class of minds is change to not needing to define a class when bought as in Core. Also I believe Passing Strike is included in both CC and FHC. I didn’t see dismissible for Barrier in FHC but it’s in CC and not in Core.  They are minor changes and either what was added can be found in other sources such as HSMA or in the case of Class of Mind went back to an older edition. I haven’t looked but certain skills like gambling went back to a generic 3 pt in CC and FHC but still might be a “class”-such as cards- chosen when bought in Core.

[BNakagawa]

the Narosia treatment of firing into melee seems to make more sense than the core version. In Core, if you miss because of the cover, you're being penalized for being more accurate, assuming you want to avoid hitting the cover. (e.g. hostage situation)

[Tywyll]

16 minutes ago, BNakagawa said:

the Narosia treatment of firing into melee seems to make more sense than the core version. In Core, if you miss because of the cover, you're being penalized for being more accurate, assuming you want to avoid hitting the cover. (e.g. hostage situation)

 

Yeah, agreed. But equally, at a certain point, you will never hit someone with a 0 OCV (unless you roll like a 3 or 4) which seems maybe too generous?

 

What do you think about the -3 OCV that FHC uses?

[Tywyll]

43 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Tywyll if you read 6th core it’s strongly suggested that you can use casual strength as a 0 phase action. And iirc that was added (at least I first noticed) in Fifth ed. So FHC could for simplicity sake just left it out. There are a few changes between Champions Complete and Core which if you go to DrivethruRPG you can get a copy Champions Complete Conversion  for free. And I think FHC follows those changes too. One difference between Core and FHC is that both CC and Core have no ranged Martial Arts whereas FHC does. Class of minds is change to not needing to define a class when bought as in Core. Also I believe Passing Strike is included in both CC and FHC. I didn’t see dismissible for Barrier in FHC but it’s in CC and not in Core.  They are minor changes and either what was added can be found in other sources such as HSMA or in the case of Class of Mind went back to an older edition. I haven’t looked but certain skills like gambling went back to a generic 3 pt in CC and FHC but still might be a “class”-such as cards- chosen when bought in Core.

 

Sorry, no, what FHC did was instead of using Casual Strength, that concept is gone. You now roll full strength but need to roll twice as well to shake off the grab.

 

The problem (for me) is that the way its worded create's weird consequences. You get to roll to shake it off as a 0 phase free action. If you roll 2x their result, you shake it off as per 5E and 6E. If you roll 1x-2x their result, you shake it off but lose your phase. However, as it's free to do, and done immediately upon being grabbed, that penalty is weird...what if you've already acted? Do you lose your next phase? Or does that only apply to this phase. In effect the new rule allows grabbers to automatically steal actions from their target (if they are faster), which isn't how grabbing used to work.

 

Nope, sorry, just reread it. Casual strength is still there. The x2 thing is only when using your action to escape the grab. Okay, never mind.

 

Shooting into melee is still different though. 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

6 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

 

Yeah, agreed. But equally, at a certain point, you will never hit someone with a 0 OCV (unless you roll like a 3 or 4) which seems maybe too generous?

 

What do you think about the -3 OCV that FHC uses?

A flat penalty still means that a better shot is more likely to hit what he was aiming to not hit. 

I think that the flat OCV approach is the way to go, just not with 0 OCV.  Somewhere in the ballpark of 2 or 3 should make hits on 1/2 DCV cover (such as a Grabbed hostage) decently common while leaving full DCV cover safe. 

Actually, now that I've typed that I can see the argument for 0.  A normal is CV 2 while Grabbed, so OCV 0 is decently likely to hit a Grabbed normal but it's below 50%.  But it also can't really hit a competent combatant serving as a Grabbed hostage. 

Hmm.  I'll have to think on this one. 

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Tywyll said:

 

Sorry, no, what FHC did was instead of using Casual Strength, that concept is gone. You now roll full strength but need to roll twice as well to shake off the grab.

 

The problem (for me) is that the way its worded create's weird consequences. You get to roll to shake it off as a 0 phase free action. If you roll 2x their result, you shake it off as per 5E and 6E. If you roll 1x-2x their result, you shake it off but lose your phase. However, as it's free to do, and done immediately upon being grabbed, that penalty is weird...what if you've already acted? Do you lose your next phase? Or does that only apply to this phase. In effect the new rule allows grabbers to automatically steal actions from their target (if they are faster), which isn't how grabbing used to work.

 

Nope, sorry, just reread it. Casual strength is still there. The x2 thing is only when using your action to escape the grab. Okay, never mind.

 

Shooting into melee is still different though. 

Minor correction. FHC presents the wording a little different but the rule for escaping the grab is the same as Core. When breaking out of a grab (or entangle) if you roll beat the body score  of the grabber,  you escape with a half action. If you beat the score by x2 then you have a full phase in which to act.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Tywyll said:

 

Yeah, agreed. But equally, at a certain point, you will never hit someone with a 0 OCV (unless you roll like a 3 or 4) which seems maybe too generous?

 

What do you think about the -3 OCV that FHC uses?

I looked at FHC and I found a chart for Behind Cover and the penalty is based on how much is covered. So where did you find the flat -3 OCV? I couldn’t find it. (Not saying that it isn’t there, I just couldn’t find it.)

 

*PS to be sure you mean by FHC as fantasy hero complete not fantasy hero companion, right?

[Tywyll]

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I looked at FHC and I found a chart for Behind Cover and the penalty is based on how much is covered. So where did you find the flat -3 OCV? I couldn’t find it. (Not saying that it isn’t there, I just couldn’t find it.)

 

*PS to be sure you mean by FHC as fantasy hero complete not fantasy hero companion, right?

 

Missed Shot, page 172

Missed Shots
Ordinarily, a Ranged attack that misses its target simply misses — it doesn’t hit another character. If the GM thinks there’s a possibility an attack could hit an unintended target instead, the attacker attempts an Attack Roll against that target’s DCV using his base OCV Characteristic at -3; if he succeeds, the attack hits that target.

[dsatow]

The differences can be due to genre also.  Something which fits Champions might not fit Fantasy Hero and vice versa.  The most reliable set is 6ev1 and v2 for 6th and FRED for 5th. 

 

4 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Missed Shot, page 172

Missed Shots
Ordinarily, a Ranged attack that misses its target simply misses — it doesn’t hit another character. If the GM thinks there’s a possibility an attack could hit an unintended target instead, the attacker attempts an Attack Roll against that target’s DCV using his base OCV Characteristic at -3; if he succeeds, the attack hits that target.

 

6th has the rule under Missed and random shots" on 6e2p127 which corresponds to your quote.

 

There used to be a rule that said if you miss by the amount of bonus DCV you got from partial coverage, you hit the cover instead.  

Ex:  If the Thug is hiding behind a DNPC , they might get +4 DCV from the hiding behind the DNPC (The +4 corresponds to a high shot OCV penalty using hit locations).  If the Hero tries to shoot the Thug, and misses, the Hero would hit the DNPC if they didn't miss by more than 4.

[Ninja-Bear]

5 hours ago, Tywyll said:

 

Missed Shot, page 172

Missed Shots
Ordinarily, a Ranged attack that misses its target simply misses — it doesn’t hit another character. If the GM thinks there’s a possibility an attack could hit an unintended target instead, the attacker attempts an Attack Roll against that target’s DCV using his base OCV Characteristic at -3; if he succeeds, the attack hits that target.

Thanks! But you said Firing into Melee. Check out pg 171 of FHC it’s the same as Core-Firing into melee.

[Tywyll]

2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Thanks! But you said Firing into Melee. Check out pg 171 of FHC it’s the same as Core-Firing into melee.

Yeah, I always assumed you used those rules together. Otherwise slow guy could get into a fight with a highly defensive villain and you would have a better chance to hit the villain by targeting your ally, since you now ignore the villains dcv entirely.

[Ninja-Bear]

4 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

Yeah, I always assumed you used those rules together. Otherwise slow guy could get into a fight with a highly defensive villain and you would have a better chance to hit the villain by targeting your ally, since you now ignore the villains dcv entirely.

I’ll admit I’m not super up on those rules but I don’t think that’s the way they work. 

[Lord Liaden]

A while ago Derek Hiemforth posted what he remembered of (what could be called) "changes" he made from 6E core when he wrote Champions Complete. Some of those he considered just differences in presentation. Probably not exhaustive, but at least hits most points to be aware of.

Champs Complete changes from 6E.rtf

[Spence]

9 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

A while ago Derek Hiemforth posted what he remembered of (what could be called) "changes" he made from 6E core when he wrote Champions Complete. Some of those he considered just differences in presentation. Probably not exhaustive, but at least hits most points to be aware of.

Champs Complete changes from 6E.rtf 4.05 kB · 4 downloads

Thanks, I never remembered to download that one.

[Tywyll]

On 1/24/2020 at 11:26 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

I’ll admit I’m not super up on those rules but I don’t think that’s the way they work. 

 

So firing into melee completely ignores the DCV of the other potential targets?