Hugh Neilson

well...https://www.behindthename.com/name/kevin Of course, the issue of "real world names" is an issue parallel to "just stupid names" if the game is not intended to have "real world" links. What would you think of Edward or William? I find consistency the big challenge. Conan, Hercules, Fafhrd, Elric...Solomon Kane and Harry Potter? Why do some have two names? Why do some have real-world names, and others don't? Similarly, in a world of Harry, Ron, Molly, Tom and Ginny (each with surnames), Hermione Granger is a bit jarring and what kind of name is "Voldemort"?

tl; dr - while I think both approaches are viable, I don't see either one as game-breakingly superior.

Once you get up to a Competent Normal, we have a 100 point character with 30 points of complications (and he still needs gear). A skilled normal is (50 with 25). N0teworthy is 2 (with 15). These are builds for the three tiers of "Normal" on p 34 of 6e V1. So those stats are, as indicated on p 34, "The everyday inhabitants of the world". In other words, they are the non-PC normals. That would include policemen, street thugs, soldiers, city guards - non PC type characters. Heroic characters are a cut above, "the best people a typical society can produce". A Standard Heroic has 75% more CP than a Competent Normal. Valdorian is, IIRC, high powered. The Guardsman is in the range of a Skilled Normal (with a few stats swapped around). 10 across the board is Noteworthy. Street Thug is in Skilled Normal territory, as is that Champions soldier. All, of course, will have their points focused on combat, and all can be built starting from the Skilled Normal template. Most have LESS STR (and CON) than that template. So a 12 STR or 13 STR is certainly practical for trained, experienced combatants. But not conscripts similar to that follower, who is not a professional warrior (although he may be training to be one). That approach makes more sense to me than basing durability exclusively on DCs. A wood shaft seems more easily broken than a blade of solid steel. But it does reflect a tradeoff between "extra damage" and "risk of breaking weapon". From a "historical verisimilitude" perspective, do you envision a Charge leaving many of those charging looking at broken weapons? I find halving more appropriate for the move by, where any other damage would also be halved (and breaking the weapon is far from likely, but so is taking much damage from 1/3 of the DCs). Whether accuracy or damage is more valuable is an open question, and depends on the situation. If I am going from a 75% chance to hit down to a 62.5% chance (12- to 11-), but I am more likely to STUN or KO the target, that could be a very worthwhile tradeoff. Moving 2 levels from OCV to damage gets me one DC for -2 OCV. -1 OCV and -1 DC for halving my STR down to a -1 STR min penalty in exchange for +2 DCs from 12 meters running may be a worthwhile tradeoff. Especially if that means the enemy line has bodies falling, instead of more hits, but everyone still standing, given the charge is as much or more about breaking their morale, and/or their lines. Especially if I am no longer faced with a serious risk of weapon breakage. But I don't see a Move Through used often - only when the character NEEDS that extra movement to close, so it's a move through or no attack. Move By is a speedster move, although when I look at the 6e rules, it may be as good a choice as a move through for a fantasy warrior who needs that full move to close. I don't know that an infantry Charge is "ramming speed".

Practically, all that the new player needs to know is that he can cast one spell in any phase, 6 in total over the course of the day. The overhead is looked after, if I am reading you correctly, at your end as you are doing most of the design work. The bigger question is, for his somewhat unique magic system, how does he add spells? Can he just let you know what he wants to add (no point cost until/unless you judge that the "only these spells to choose from" limitation should be reduced), or does he need to learn new spells in-game? Practically, the concept itself is complex, so the build is not going to be easy and straightforward. In any case, I and others have suggested some options. I'd say: (a) the Multipower is the cheapest, perhaps a bit easier mechanically than the VPP, but requires a handwave for converting standard charges to continuing charges in some slots; (b) the VPP is RAW, but there is judgement required for valuing limitations - I think the pricing is reasonable; (c) buying each spell individually will be priciest, unless you are prepared to allow a huge limitation for sharing a pool of charges - and I would suggest it is NOT more limiting than giving each of the four spells a single charge (being able to cast each one once a day is much more limiting than being able to choose six castings a day, so the cost should be higher than the same four spells, each one per day).

I look at this and think “2 points off for having those minimum stats? Why not make +2 STR, +1 DEX, +3 EGO and +3 PRE part of the package? Seems to me that having higher stats is beneficial, not detrimental. If we think KS: Soldier 11- is worthless (so we have to offset it with a 2 point Package Bonus), why does KS: Soldier cost points at all? I remain sold on “Get what you pay for and pay for what you get”

How does one tell the difference between two spear users when: (a) One has the exact STR Min and one has 5 STR more than the MIN?; or (b) One is 5 STR below the STR Min and the second has the exact STR min? One is a bit more effective than the other in both cases. "Can't use well" is a pretty relative term, and it's always amazing how differently we perceive a -1 penalty versus no penalty, compared to no bonus or a +1 bonus. Either approach is a game construct whose relation to any realistic evaluation is decidedly questionable. We do know that, in game, 8 STR is average and 10 STR is "noteworthy", while 12 is some greater, less common level of STR. And we know a 12 STR gets the full DCs and OCV out of that medium spear. We don't know what a typical soldier, or guard, or farmhand conscript, using that spear has, objectively, as OCV or DCs. We can see, as could the actual users, that it's pretty effective at poking holes in the other guy. The example characters use the specific word "noteworthy" to describe a person with straight 10's. That is a baseline PC, and a Noteworthy person. Your 12 STR, 6 DEX example (to pick two stats) is likely known for both STR and clumsiness. "Skilled" gets us up to 13 STR. So the reason a charge was a popular tactic was so your men could break their weapons? from 6e v2 p 72: if the BODY damage done to the target exceeds three times (3x) the weapon’s base Damage Classes, the weapon breaks. If that's only half of the DCs done to the target, I find it reasonably unlikely the weapon will break. If the target is not knocked back and it takes full, breaking seems like it could be a real threat (but taking full damage from my own move through is also a threat). For a move by, that 1/3 damage is typically easy to ignore. But then, a Move By halves base damage. Rather than halving STR and allowing full weapon damage, my recollection is that we always played it as "compute weapon + STR damage, halve those DCs and enhance with velocity modifer from the mve by". I don't think that would make the move by more powerful. I won't lay claim to expertise on medieval military history, but if I look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_(warfare), it suggests my gut feel that cavalry charges were big. Much of the advantage of an infantry charge seems based on closing more rapidly so you don't get shot at quite so many times, and on breaking the enemy's morale (PRE attack, which also explains why charges were typically also noisy). A lot of this is offset because the charge is cinematic, but I don't find the rules discourage a charge. Neither do they overpower one.

Given most of your stats with a basis are 8, it would be fair to apply 8. I was told some years back that IQ is a relative measure, with the average (median?) always being 100. At some times, a score of 100 in some parts of the world would actually be higher or lower than in other parts of the world. That was explained to me about 15 years or so back by a psychologist.

There is no limitation to the cost of the pool. However, the control cost and the pool cost have been decoupled. The maximum AP of any power in the pool is equal to twice the base cost of the reserve. Since the highest AP spell considered in my example was 60 AP, the base control cost is 60 AP/2 = 30. The pool itself is real points. As only one spell will be in the pool at any one time, and the highest real point cost of any spell (in my example, the real point cost of each of the four spells) is 22 points, the pool costs 22 points. The pool cost itself cannot be reduced by limitations, but the pool only needs to be big enough to cover the Real Point cost of the powers. The decoupling of the size of the pool (governing real points available) and the maximum AP of any power in the pool (2x the control cost) was a significant change to the VPP in 6e. In 5e, if I wanted a VPP of 60 AP attack powers, all of which were OAF, I had to buy a 60 point pool even though the powers only had a cost of 30 real points each. Green Arrow should really be firing two arrows with every attack to fully use his pool. In 6e, the pool cost of 30 would allow one 60 AP, 30 Real Points power at a time, so GA can only pull one arrow out of the quiver at a time.

It seemed from your comments that the main point was not wanting to clutter up the sheet with detailed builds and minor items. To me, if a skill is not worth its 3 point cost, then it should not cost 3 points. It should not get a discount if purchased in combination with some other abilities, but not if purchased with other abilities. Calculating the package deal bonus is, to me at least, an added step in the accounting for costs, not a reduction in the accounting requirement. It's effectively applying a fractional limitation to many of the abilities combined in the template/package. For me (and your view clearly differs) the real value of these templates/packages/whatever is the ease for the player of making "an elven street urchin archer", not shaving off a few points to get the most desired abilities for the lowest cost (an approach which, ironically, Steve Long often refers to as "it's a game, not a tax return").

It need not be Damage over Time - it could simply be continuous casting of a Cumulative transform for longer periods.

The point is that they could read those fourth edition rules in the context of the game they had already played, and did not have to learn the basics from that rule book. It's not a question of which version of the rules one may prefer, but how practical it is for someone to learn the game, from scratch, working with only the rules for that edition. For 1-3, I think it was quite practical. For 5-6, I do not think it is. I'm still on the fence on 4e, though. 4e still presented the rules in the context of a game, which makes it a lot more digestable, in my view.

An "Average Person" has 8s. That did not change from 5th to 6th. The starting template for a standard character is a Noteworthy Normal, who has primary stats of 10. 6e stats them out on v1 p 440. First off, who says that the average soldier was not taking a CV and damage penalty? How would one objectively compute that the soldier would hit a typical opponent more frequently if he were a little bit stronger? Do we have objective data from historical battles to demonstrate what percentage of attacks hit, and what percentage missed, in order to extrapolate the typical OCV and DCV of the combatants? While a trained warrior is probably not am "average person", I'm not sure he would be more than "noteworthy", nor a lot stronger than the farmer who labours in the fields all day. Verisimilitude answer: Because charging someone and swinging your arm out as you pass (Move By) or crashing into him, shoulder-first (move through) is a lot easier than keeping the pointed end of the stick properly aligned to puncture that same someone rather than just smack him with a stick instead of your arm/shoulder. Game balance answer: Because using a weapon mitigates one of the most significant drawbacks of using these maneuvers, being the damage taken by the attacker.

Continuing charges are more useful, so "6 charges" which can Continue for a turn or a minute is not the same as "6 charges" which each last one phase. That is one of the issues making this a more complicated build. Given that, I am not sure how you conclude a VPP would be more expensive than buying each spell individually, even if we allowed -2 for "common pool of charges". This is a construct I find really difficult to evaluate in a vacuum. You mentioned the potential for 6 powers, being two attacks, one rDEF and Flight. So let's flesh that out. My analysis below is pretty long, so I will pull the conclusion up here. Comparative Cost Conclusion: Based on all of the above, the VPP costing (44 points in my example belom, which assumes 12DC attacks, so pretty powerful) is in no way unfair or excessive. Define the Powers Let’s say that the powers in question all require a Magic Skill Roll (-1 per 10 AP), Gestures and Incantations. That’s a total -1 limitation, before we consider the “charges” issue. They have 6 charges in aggregate, so that is a further limitation of at least -3/4. Let’s further assume that the attacks are 60 AP attack powers. The rDef is expected to last for a full minute (-3 levels on the Charges table, so this would normally equate to 13-16 charges, or -0). The Flight is to last for a whole day (-8 levels on the Charges table, which would become a +1 advantage! A ripoff all its own, since just making it 0 END would be +1/2, so I will cap it out at +1/2). If we were to use a VPP, we would need a Control Cost of 30 to handle 60 AP. We have -1 ¾ in limitations from the above. Let’s tack on a further -1 ¼ in that there are only a very few, pre-defined powers available. We can change between them any time we want, so it is Cosmic. A skill roll to change them plus a skill roll to successfully cast is overkill. Control Cost is 30 * 3 /4 = 22. Now, what powers do we have? 2 60 AP Attacks have a Real Point costs of 22. The Flight has 6 charges, but they are Continuing for a -+1/2 advantage. 30 meters of flight with a +1/2 advantage and -1 in limitations costs 22 real points. There’s our Flight spell. Converting 6 standard charges to 6 Continuing Charges that last for 1 day is effectively a +1 advantage, as it halved the AP we can direct at the actual Flight power. The rDef has 6 charges that last a minute, which should be a -0 limitation. We could have +15 rPD, +15 rED, with -1 limitations for 22 real points, so that can be our rDEF spell. We may want to tone that down for campaign reasons - +15 is a lot of rDEF for a Heroic game - but we’ll run with it for now. That reduced us from 60 AP to 45 AP, and we don’t have +1/3 advantages, so I will call moving from single use charges to one minute charges +1/2 in this instance. The rDEF could be reduced to +13/+13 to compensate. So the VPP would cost 22 for the pool + 22 for the control cost. It also gave us advantages to toss on those “Continuing powers”. If we instead allowed a Multipower, we would need a 60 point pool, with -1 ¾ in limitations, so 22 points. We would have four Fixed slots, as set out above (rDEF being +13/+13 with a +1/2 Advantage to make the charges Continuing), so that’s 2 points per slot = 30 points in total. Each power individually would have the limitations set out above, and “common pool of charges”. So we have: two attacks are 60 AP attack, Gest, Incant, RSR (-1), 6 charges (-3/4), shared charges (-x); Flight is 30 meters flight, 6 Continuing Charges (1 day, +1/2), 45 AP, Gest, Incant, RSR (-1), 6 charges (-3/4), shared charges (-x); +13 PD/+13 ED rDEF, 6 continuing charges (1 turn, -0), Gest, Incant, RSR (-1), 6 charges (-3/4), shared charges (-x). If x=0, total cost is 74 points. We know that is way too much (unless we decide the cost benefits of frameworks are not appropriate in this game). It has to be -2 just to get us to 43 points (close to the VPP option), which leads me to believe the VPP approach is not overpriced, as I do not think 6 shared charges is more limiting than one charge for each power. A -4 limitation would get total costs of 31, approaching the Multipower discount. Comparative Cost Conclusion: Based on all of the above, the VPP costing is in no way unfair or excessive. If anything, the ability to vary the duration of the charges should reduce the limitation on the control cost, but I think I am OK with the cost allowing “6 shared charged” at -3/4. Whether "only these four options" is -1 1/4 could be further considered as well, and this would decline if more powers became available. However, this would be my build choice.

IIRC, the discussion in question revolved around the requirement that all magic be cast via an END reserve while all other abilities cost 0 END. Casters were therefore effectively forced to put "costs END" on all of their abilities (as every other ability in the game was "0 END" automatically) for no point savings. However, if we want to revisit that discussion, I suggest reopening that thread.

I don't see how this links to the rest of your discussion. Whether the template costs the full price of its components or is reduced by 2 or 3 points has no impact on its ability to With or without that discount, you don't have to work with Of course, NCM is also a calculation of a +1 advantage on the cost of characteristics over the NCM. In any case, I do not see how Makes I do see how having templates makes it a lot easier.

To me, the key here is that they did not have to read the written rules, and interpret them on their own, to play the game. That is "learning from the rules". Playing in a game using the rules, with guidance from existing players who already know the rules, and reading the rules in that context, is not "learning from the rules". To me, 1e through 3e (the "One Book/Box Game Era") had games you could learn from the rules. 5e and 6e do not - you need to read and understand the rules in order to build a playable game using those rules. There is no game provided. 4e is in an odd middle ground. There were still games published (Fantasy Hero is a good example; the BBB was as much "Champions" as "Hero System"). I think you could learn the game from the 4e rules, but that may be nostalgia talking - I and my group already knew the game from prior editions, so we did not have to learn the game from 4e. So I cannot precisely place the time when "learn the game from the rules" was a practical short-term objective. I would say that was possible in 4e, but not in 5e. And, as I think on it, I think learning to play Champions from the BBB would have been at least AS practical as learning to play D&D from the 2e or 3e rule books, which would have been the 4e Hero contemporaries. Both grew - Hero into the Hero System Tomes to build your own game, and D&D into Splatbook City. But D&D maintained the "you can start with these core rules and add on" model. Hero put all the add-on rules in one place, and stripped out all of the "Game" from that place.

To me, the template works fine. I don't need a few points of bribe to build a coherent character. I also found "give them a point for every x points of lower-utility ability in there". If those abilities are overpriced, reduce their cost.

well... somewhere in my bookshelves is a Hero Games newsletter from long, long ago - I think I have three, maybe four, and would be delighted if someone posted these old gems... containing...

What if I want a Killing Attack that does 2d8 + 7 BOD, or a 2d6 HKA that gets +1 DC/8 STR and has a 1d12 STUN Multiple? There is a difference between customization and changing base mechanics. Maybe I like d% to hit rolls, opposed by d% defense rolls. I do agree that Hero's "open source design code" is unique, and very powerful for those who want to modify the system and design their own items. Comparing the design of a D&D spell vs a Hero spell is a great example (I suspect WOTC has some internal design parameters, but nowhere near as robust as Hero System - just knowing the value of not needing gestures or incantations is a huge difference).

I also see it, and I think you nailed it. 4e saw the "complete system". It also saw some games using it, at least early on, but by 5e it was all Toolkit, no Game. We can have both - a complete toolkit to build any game you want, and any number of games constructed using that tookit, without the mechanics on full display.

Remove "6e" and note "21st Century" in its place and the statement is equally true. By far the biggest rule set was AD&D, and the Players' Handbook (which was really all the player needed) weighed in at, IIRC, 128 pages. Including a lot of spells you did not need to read because your character could not cast them. The DMs Guide was bigger, but it contained a lot of info not necessary to run the game (and I will note the Light spell cast in a target's eyes began the "corner case rulings" we have grown to see in every game today). Every other game looked much like the Champions 1e book or 2e box. Now, it seems like every game needs at least a 280 page tome, although I think some of the Indies are pushing back on that.

It sounds like they learned from you, not from the rulebooks. Which rule set did you initially learn the game from, so that you could pass it along to them?

I will suggest THAT is the price we pay when the people fail to use their voice wisely.

As I ruminate on this, I think we have it backwards. Hero System 6e does not need support. It IS support. The problem is that we have all this support - a huge array of rules options, a ton of settings, and character books, and prebuilds and all that stuff, for a huge array of genres. But somewhere along the line, we forgot one key thing - the GAME that all of this material is designed to SUPPORT. Hero is not a game - it is a system with which games can be designed. It needs the game(s) it is supposed to be supporting - for some reason, we forgot to publish any since some time in the 4e days. 4th Edition Fantasy Hero was a game. Somewhere between then and 5e, Hero/DoJ stopped making games.

Does any game actually use the entire Hero system? It is a series of many options. I see few Champions games use hit locations, impairing and disabling rules or bleeding rules. Not a lot of non-Supers games use Knocbback, Every game has to pick knockback, knockdown or neither. For those who learned Hero from other gamers, did you learn the whole thing all at once, or the rules used in the game you were playing at the time? Action Hero!, with only the rules for the dial settings it selects, and only the abilities it uses, will be a Hero System Game, just like anyone's home game that uses some options, ignores others, allows some constructs and disallows others. Just like every other game designed using the Hero system, including the ones we play around our own gaming tables.