Tasha

Thank Christopher.

 

To further refine my example, the SPD 4 character whose first phase kicks in on segment 3 could decide to do all that running in segment 3, segment 4 or segment 5, yes? Then could move the same in segment 6?

 

I have rarely had a game instance where thus might be important, but there is a tactical difference in the way this works.

 

Doc

Technically their phase is whatever segment they take it in. That phase could be on Seg3,4,5 and yes they could move up to their max on Seg 5 and then move the same on seg 6. That movement isn't fluid is kind of weird when looked at from a metagame perspective, but it's supposed to look more fluid than it plays.

BTW I have played in a game where taking a combat action didn't end a PC's phase. It wasn't game breaking. Players had to rethink their tactics a bit. It became more like 3.x D&D which wasn't good or bad. It may be time to let that sacred cow go.

Acceleration in Hero only really matters in closed spaces or when making move by and move through maneuvers.

To navigate 6e1 and 6e2 you either use the index (which includes page numbers for both books in both books) or you use the Table of Contents. On the PDF it's generally easier to use the PDF's Table of Contents. Even without that Once you understand how the books are organized it's not very hard to find stuff. They are organized exactly like 5e and 5er.

I'm curious how one similarly "trims down" the character writeups in books like the 6e Enemies books? They are all really good examples of how 6e hs evolved into the system afflicted with Massive Blocks of Inscruitable Text syndrome.

Most of those write ups create full characters instead of a simple power writeup. It makes the character sheet longer, but it's nice seeing a fully fleshed out character YMMV. Many of us have been building complex characters since 4e.

One thing that 6e gives players is an increased amount of flexability in character generation. If they want a high OCV low DCV character they don't have to do it with Skill levels. Also the Dex/Spd wars end with 6e. PC's don't HAVE to have high strength and high dex to have a decent secondary characteristics.

Also no more Elemental controls, No GM's having to say "no that doesn't belong in an EC, or Yeah, you can put that in the EC even though it's illegal", no more split powers where the EC is small and you have part of the power in the EC and the rest without any bonus. It's all been replaced by a handy Limitation "Unified Power" which links all powers of a given special effect together. It means that if one power is drained they are all drained by the same amount. It's much more simple to use and simplifies the math a TON. BTW in 5e EC's assume that all powers inside the EC are drained when any power is drained that is in the EC.

Area Effect Advantage is much more flexable with being able to choose the size of the AOE, also Explosion is a part of the AOE advantage and cheapens the advantage like Uncontrolled Selective does in 4e.

Growth is expensive in 6e because it includes all of the things it included in 3rd ed (reach, running bonus, KB resistance etc).

there are a ton of other changes in Character Gen that are very cool and very worth looking at. Champions Complete is a great way to get 6e. It doesn't have as many examples and nitty gritty edge case rulings, but it has everything you need. IMHO it's the best $40 you can spend on a game.

 

I like my Ultimate sheet. It's generic flavored, but as long as you have equipment it will include the Hit Location chart on the Combat page.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/files/file/192-6e-html-tashas-ultimate-character-sheet/

No kidding. It might work for the movies, but for other mediums its a terrible idea.

 

When I ran my last SW game, I set it during the EU at Luke's Jedi Academy and all the players were newly apprenticed Jedi. Each master was assigned 5 students to train....not enough masters to do one on one yet. And for the enemy, it was three way between the Imperial Knights....a faction of Gray Jedi who were trying to convince the empire to sponser them so the empire had its own school of Force Users....and the rise of a new group of Sith, one who did not agree with Bane's rule of two crap, so he was training a group of Sith.

 

Jedi trainees vs Imperial Knight trainees vs Sith trainees. Plenty of force users to go around. I even managed to get a love triangle going between one of the Jedi PCs and an Imperial Knight and one of the Sith.

 

Teenagers....

Also it's clear that the whole "Master and their Apprentice" doesn't mean that they can't train other force sensitives to use the darkside. They just can't make them fully Sith. Which is why Darth Maul could exist along side of Lord Dooku (poopyhead). The first was the "Apprentice" the other just another darkside force user. It's pretty clear that the empire had a ton of force trained operatives all darksiders.

I like to pretend that whole sequence never happened, much like Highlander 2

There was no Highlander 2 or Highlander 3, they are a myth. and you can't tell me any different. LALALALALALA, not listening, trying to wash those out of my poor addled brain....

Only Highlander, Highlander the Series, and Highlander the Raven. (yeah I was one of the few that liked the last one) There can be only Three!

I always preferred the Change Environment method anyway, it made more sense to me to change the environment creating an area of light than to create an illusion of a lit up area.  The problem is, as written, CE doesn't have any rules for bonuses to perception or offsetting darkness, the 6th edition tome says "a -1 to the PER Roll with one Sense or Sense Group" for 3 points.  Thankfully Hero Designer allows bonuses, and personally I think CE should be allowed to create positive effects.  It kind of does already by letting you turn an arctic area into warm and comfortable, or shut off rain and snow.

The assumption is that CE makes dark places lit enough to kill any penalties. You COULD just limit the power if you want something dimly lit.

I thought you used Change Environment to light up an area. That the images build wasn't the way it's supposed to be built anymore.

How many points the object costs and how that's dealt with are a separate issue -- handled by other mechanics in the setting.  Suffice it to say that you never lose character points.  I'm mostly interested in whether the writeup and the concept is clear enough and how people could abuse it.

I totally didn't understand your writeup at all. It was like you were assuming that I understood things you didn't include in the writeup.

Also, a power to make things is still a crafting tax on the crafter PC. You are making them pay for something that only occasionally gets used for IMHO no really good reason.

While my recollection of the math was that it worked, we never saw much crafting in 3e games, so the xp penalty never saw playtesting.

 

Ultimately, I think you and I are on the same page - the item crafter should not lag behind the rest of the group in order to enhance the power of each character in the group. The removal of xp costs in Pathfinder solved the problem (if there was one) and the perception (there definitely was one) quite effectively.

 

In Hero, if gear costs no CP, it becomes a more challenging issue - what constrains our Crafter?

 

It seems like the character for whom the gear is crafted is acquiring customized gear, which would typically cost character points, so why should that character (rather than the creator of the item) not pay points for that custom gear, just as he would if he acquired it from some backstory NPC?

 

Alternatively, if the characters can acquire gear for money, the character acquiring the additional gear is essentially gaining wealth, so perhaps he should pay the xp for the wealth. Now, if all of the PCs have similar wealth (paid for by cps or gained in adventuring), they all similar resources to devote to gear.

 

In D&D, a PC can spend character points (in the form of a feat) to reduce the cost of certain gear. In Hero, they can just pay points for wealth or gear directly.

How do we deal with the Gun Bunny that buys special sights, better ammo and a bajillion other upgrades? It's paid for by Campaign Time, and money. Why does the fact that it's "magic" make it any different. It's understood that equipment will get damaged etc. It's what happens to equipment in Heroic Games. PCs ARE allowed to pay for gear that they don't want to be taken from them.

IMHO creating a power to make items is really overthinking stuff. It also gets back to the mentality of having to write up every little stupid thing. Do you require a Swordsmith to have create to make weapons, do you require Powered Armor Heroine to have this power when she starts to manufacture her police powered armor? This is an XP tax for players who want to craft items. It overcomplicates something that doesn't need the complication IMHO.

Actually, in 3e, it worked a bit differently. My initial thinking matched yours, but if you award xp by the rules, the Wizard who is 50 xp below gaining a level, when the rest of the group is 50 xp above, catches up and passes the other guys the next time xp is awarded. So you could craftily craft magic items to gain xp faster, instead of slower, than your peers.

Except that i NEVER saw it work that way. Just casters who lagged further and further behind Melee as they supplied the potions and other magic items that kept the party alive.

Don't forget that the people who can catch flies with chopsticks take advantage of Set for a decent amount of time.10mins gets +4 IIRC.

Also animals aren't bought with shrinking. They are bought with high DCV. So the fly's DCV isn't going to be 22. I rather doubt that it's got a base CV of 8 either. It's probably a dex 14 or so. Spd 3 so base DCV 5 with +6 dcv for size. so DCV 11 which is something a trained heroic person could hit esp if they catch the fly resting (ie non combat) and/or use the Set Maneuver for a minute or 10.

That's totally confusing. I don't understand how your power works at all. Your example is as clear as black, muddy glass in a pool of hardened lava.

I never got WHY a PC would EVER pay for a power that allows you to spend YOUR character points to make a magic item. Basically blowing all of your points permanently. Monte Cook stole this for D&D 3 and spending XP to make magic was bogus. Penalizing casters for creating items, Items that are then used by people who never had to drain their competence for making the item. Which is why Paizo removed this shit in Pathfinder.

I think having a create power is really a waste. It was a HUGE misstep by Steve Peterson, I was glad when it disappeared in 4th with Independent following in 6e

Probably just do it like +15 Strength, not for Lifting, pushing etc.  Adding hand attack feels repetitive to me.

I think that top 10 list would be different as you go through the Editions of Champions. ie First/Second Edition Champions would probably be mostly the Villains at the end of the book with some from Enemies 1 and 2

3rd edition would probably be mostly the same.

4e had "Classic Enemies"

Champions New Millenium would also be different. Mostly due to a ton of villains being dead.

5e ushers in the Steve Long era which helps change the list up again.

6e has the influence of Champions Online to change the list slightly again.

Perhaps later I will put my list together for each of the eras.

My hero books are on an Oak Bookshelf. As long as one of the big earthquake faults don't let go, my Dog and Cats should be fine. Though my Hero Collection is very extensive and deep

Just putting random stuff on the shelves doesn't help.  Otherwise they wouldn't have had to sell the rights to the game universe to get the money to fund 6th edition.

 

Having a bunch of different setting books, and very little to support any of them, is the wrong direction.  You need to focus on a few areas that really sell.  Even AD&D spread themselves too thin, which is why they cancelled most of those product lines when they went to 3rd edition.  How many Dark Sun materials did they really sell?  Or Planescape?

They didn't just put random stuff on the shelf. It was pretty clear that there was a direction and a roadmap. A roadmap that was publically available. Also, how can you call over 30 books supporting the Champions Universe not supporting their best selling product. For Fantasy Hero there is like 8 books. That doesn't count generic books like the Equipment guide, the Players book, Ultimate Skill, Ultimate base, Ultimate Vehicle. Star Hero has 5 books all published by Hero Games. Now there's not a single adventure in the lot. Because Adventures are expensive to make and don't sell in anywhere near the same numbers as Supplement books do. Perhaps that was a mistake, but remember that their target audience was us their established base. We created a revenue stream that lasted about a decade or so IIRC. Enough revenue to keep people on full time, and not on a piecework basis.

IMHO you should abandon your no vision Hypothesis, the overwhelming evidence doesn't support it at all.

Here's something that would be cool for hero. A comic illustrating play that shifts from PC to Player view. This one is for Savage Worlds.

http://www.uptofourplayers.com/comic/wild-heart-page-2/?utm_source=sbn_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=savage_bloggers_network

Massey does have a point that those of us here are not representative of the hobby at large. I feel like one of DOJ's mistakes was to tailor everything too much at the existing fan base without really trying to attract new players. There's a difference between playing to your strengths/niche vs pigeonholing your way into irrelevance.

Now that is a Fair criticism. Hero System esp since 5e has existed to stimulate sales to the fanbase. It has done little to try to attract new players to the fold. Existing players have always been prioritized. Which has lead to pretty generic supplements, because the majority of Hero players are vehemently against specific campaigns and things that they can't tweak. Voice any idea of creating a product that includes all abilities written up and somewhat black boxed and the community loses its mind with revulsion. It also isn't helped by game designers who want to quantify every little thing in the system and make sure that people pay for every shred of power they get from things.

I think there is something very old school and traditional about that scatter-shot approach to genres and products. I mean, look at the evolution of the brand through its first four editions. You had Champions, Espionage/Danger International, Justice Inc., Robotwarriors, Fantasy Hero, Autoduel Champions, Ninja Hero, Horror Hero, Western Hero, Cyber Hero, Star Hero, etc. Hero Games never lacked for unsupported genre books of dubious long-term value. But I think if everyone involved was being brutally honest about it, of all the genres that were thrown at the wall, the only one that has ever consistently stuck with any significant marketplace traction is Champions.

Champions and Fantasy Hero were some of the best selling things that Hero put out. There were a TON Of FH related supplements for both 1st Edition FH and the later 4e FH. The other big seller was Steve Long's Dark Champions and Aaron Allston's Ninja Hero. Which were generically useful for multiple genres beyond the one detailed in the books.

To be successful, you need strong financials and a solid creative vision for the game.

 

When DOJ had its run with 5th edition, it had strong enough financial backing.  It was producing a lot of books and getting them on shelves.  But it really lacked a solid creative vision.  I mean, they spent money making things like this:

 

 

The quality of artwork also went downhill really fast, and it was clear that the creative team didn't value strong visuals for the game.  Look at the cover of the 5th edition rulebook and you can see that.  Zero people in the entire universe saw that cover and were inspired pick up the game because of it.  People bought it despite the cover, not because of it.

 

And that's the problem, really.  DOJ tried to do too many things, branch out into too many genres.  And they didn't have a strong artistic vision to guide them.

That's not really fair to point to one product that had a lot of support from some people here on the board. That Darren and Jason were very excited to write as being a symptom of problems with the DOJ period. If you take a look at the entire output during the period minus that book you will see that vision. Steve posted his vision at the beginning with a PDF document talking about the ages of "magic" which talked about the various game world books and where they fit in a grand history from the Fantasy Hero Worlds to Champions though the Star Hero era. Not everyone liked that direction, but it did detail what Steve was going to write about. 

Thats what I thought and sworre you quoted 4th ed. Np, my bad.

from 6e1 pg 49 last paragraph on the page

"The accompanying Characteristics Comparison Table lists some suggested guidelines that should apply well to most campaigns, but the GM can change the ranges listed for each category if he wants."

The italicized words appear in the original text with that style.

Besides that the text talks about the chart only applying to "Humans", which at once makes it very squishy. So an Ogre PC could have a 40Strength because they aren't human.

ICE was very much less than perfect. It's easy to look back with rose tinted glasses, but they left ICE for a reason. They would have remained with R.Tal if the company hadn't decided to go into hibernation. R.Tal was a good fit. Mike P is a Huge Hero System fan. Fusion may not have been perfect, but it had a lot of great ideas. It was just not executed well enough with the first release (ie not including the whole powerset was a HUGE mistake IMHO).

Steve's output during the DOJ days really exceeded Hero During the ICE days and all of his books were larger and better put together.