Chris Goodwin

We've talked about this pretty extensively, and you'll get quite a few people who don't agree...at least, making a good character.  Yeah, OK, you probably buy DEX to the OCV and DCV you want, but SPD is still separate, and things like defenses, REC, END, and STUN...well, you might just take what figured gave ya, but that didn't mean it was any good.
 
I'll buy that keeping SPDs down, the figured characteristics could well be at least close to solid values.

In what way?  It reduces at least a dozen arithmetical operations. 

Weirdly, the things we consistently have to look up are Grabs and Multiple Attack/Combined Attack.  Those are pretty much the only reasons we crack the books open at the table.

Oh, it's not the system that is complicated, because it's the math, that gets complicated. But once character creation is done, Hero just flows, in combat.

If you get the "Complete" versions of the books, you get 4th edition level brevity with 6th edition detail, I think its the best of both worlds.  Could do with a bit better presentation and tone, but they do the job for rules.  Hero's biggest problem is lack of market presence and too few adventures.  We independent people are trying to fill in the gaps, but the company really needs to step up.  You cannot even find Hero on the shelf anywhere, sitting on line and offering POD is not good enough for a game company.

Uphill all the way...BOTH ways!

...and don't forget the trip uphill through the snow to just GET to the cave!

I think that if anything it's gotten less complicated since, say, third edition.  Mainly from capping Disadplications, changing the way END costs were figured and modified, having more powers (so you wouldn't have to go down rabbit holes to create certain effects) and in 6e, eliminating Figured Characteristics. 
 
YMMV on whether anyone in particular agrees with or likes the changes, but they're less complicated than they used to be.  (And I'll note that back in the 80's we didn't have software for building characters with; we had to scrawl them out on cave walls by lamplight from a lamp made out of a rock and animal fat.)

Hero is not overly complicated. It is overly frontloaded. 

Unclevlad answered this as I should have, thanks Unc. Maybe we were both guilty of assuming something was too obvious to mention, Chris.
 
Just as a further illustration, I believe a distinction could be made between someone shooting a jet of fire at you, versus covering you in burning napalm. You may have enough defense to "bounce" the flame jet, but the fire from the napalm will go all over your body, including parts that aren't normally hit like eyes and mouth.

I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't best. 
 
For pretty much every other advantage there's an easy SFX description.  But I can't think of one for Penetrating. 
 
Can we point at comic book characters with Penetrating attacks?  Fantasy monsters or spells?  Science fiction weapons? 
 
The mechanical usage for it is spelled out in the advantage description.  "The player wants an attack that always gets some damage through..."  What's the SFX justification for that?  (I'm not asking for a description of an attack that has Penetrating; I'm asking, what it is about that attack that "always gets some damage through"?)

It's poorly phrased, but can be read in context. To me, it means that you can apply Penetrating to an attack's damage where you add the points on the dice and apply that to a defense. You cannot apply it to an attack 's damage computed with the "normal damage BOD" system where you get 0 for a 1, 1 for a 2-5 and 2 for a 6.  So you can't apply Penetrating to the BOD of a normal attack.  Since Flash has no effect that sums the rolls on the dice, you can't apply Penetrating to a Flash.
 
The 6e issue with Impenetrable is pretty simple.  Way back in 1e, we had Armor Piercing.  Hardened defended against it. 
 
Around Champions III/2e, we added Penetrating.  It needed a defense.  Well, we already had Hardened, so the simple approach was to allow Hardened to also defend against Penetrating.  Given 2 Hardened DEF did little against AP, we just tack on that Hardened blocks Penetrating entirely.
 
Fast forward to 6e, and the decision to carve "Impenetrable" off from Hardened.  I see the issue there as "cut & paste" without assessing that this means any Impenetrable voids Penetrating entirely.  The best response, to me, would have been 1 Impenetrable defense reduces 1 point of Penetrating damage. An 8d6 Penetrating Blast rolls average 28 STUN, 8 Penetrating.  You have 30 defenses, 5 of which are Impenetrable?  Then you take 28-30 = 0; or 8 - 5 = 3 Penetrating STUN.  3 STUN gets through.
 
For some reason, Penetrating got various weird rulings.  The "average roll" rule is a close second to "1 pip KA, Penetrating is always 1 Penetrating BOD" ruling.

I may have mentioned here and there a Star Wars Hero game... I've now been running it for a couple of months.  I've written up a document for it, which contains rules info and session write-ups, here. 

As the guy who wrote the update I encourage you to pick up both of these.  🙂

My condolences.  We had to put Hobbes, age 16, down a bit more than a year back.  And I have my worries about Spike, age 12.

I'm aware Hero Games will likely never release any part of the HERO System under any kind of open license, and I'm okay with that.  But, is there any way Hero Games could support the effort by Paizo, Kobold Press, and others, with the ORC?  

We had to say goodbye to our cat tonight.  We're all pretty wrecked.
 
2008 - October 22, 2023.  ❤️

It never doesn't suck, Sir, but know that she knew you guys were with her. 
 
 

Condolences

We had to say goodbye to our cat tonight.  We're all pretty wrecked.
 
2008 - October 22, 2023.  ❤️

Sympathies, it always hurts

Condolences. 

Life is short, and it seems that thw best parts of it are the shortest parts of all.  We all lnow this, and we tell each other to make each moment special and significant, but too often we think that means more than it does, and it is not until it they arw gone that we realize it was the smallest things--  the simple presence of a particular friend or the love of a partixular person, or even the company of a pet that made life bearable, and individual moments absolutely perfect.
 
I wish it didn't have to be this way, Chris, for you or for anyone else.
 
 

Condolences, Chris!

We had to say goodbye to our cat tonight.  We're all pretty wrecked.
 
2008 - October 22, 2023.  ❤️