aprilfool

D&D uses all manner of different sided dice. HERO only uses 6 sided dice.

Thanks for the explanation

In the general idea behind the system, D&D is geared to have the rules tell you what you can do, and everything else is up to the GM.  In Fantasy Hero and the HERO System in general, the GM instead tells you what you can't do.  This does mean the GM has to do a little more work up front to determine how they want, for instance, magic to work, but the advantage is that you can have magic work exactly the way you want it to.  

 

With Fantasy Hero, you can do pretty much everything you can do with D&D, and a whole lot more.  The reverse isn't true.  

 

As far as rules are concerned, I'd say that besides the whole different polyhedral dice thing, probably the biggest differences are in the way characters increase in power.  For instance, in D&D a 10th level character will have on average 10 times as many hit points as a 1st level character.  The equivalent in Fantasy Hero won't necessarily have many more "hit points" (BODY and STUN) but will be well rounded and experienced in many other ways.  

 

Oh, and once you've learned Fantasy Hero, you've also learned the all of the rules you need for playing superheroes, or galaxy spanning science fiction, or cyberpunk, or post-apocalyptic, or gritty modern day, or pulp adventures.  

what do you mean by "the whole different polyhedral dice thing"

In the general idea behind the system, D&D is geared to have the rules tell you what you can do, and everything else is up to the GM.  In Fantasy Hero and the HERO System in general, the GM instead tells you what you can't do.  This does mean the GM has to do a little more work up front to determine how they want, for instance, magic to work, but the advantage is that you can have magic work exactly the way you want it to.  

 

With Fantasy Hero, you can do pretty much everything you can do with D&D, and a whole lot more.  The reverse isn't true.  

 

As far as rules are concerned, I'd say that besides the whole different polyhedral dice thing, probably the biggest differences are in the way characters increase in power.  For instance, in D&D a 10th level character will have on average 10 times as many hit points as a 1st level character.  The equivalent in Fantasy Hero won't necessarily have many more "hit points" (BODY and STUN) but will be well rounded and experienced in many other ways.  

 

Oh, and once you've learned Fantasy Hero, you've also learned the all of the rules you need for playing superheroes, or galaxy spanning science fiction, or cyberpunk, or post-apocalyptic, or gritty modern day, or pulp adventures.  

I am beginning to like the sounds of HERO more and more.

Thanks for replying

- D&D did the mistake of not letting Armor reduce damage. Wich meant a ton of Rules was needed to compensate for htis (like the saving throws and evasion like abilities). It also meant that combat was mostly "whittling down HP". HERO does not has this bug - armor reduces damage - wich makes stuff like saving throws unessesary.

- Hero does not like absolute effects like "Attack always hits", "Instant death" and the like. But then again Hero deson't needs those to be balanced.

- the closest equivalent for a D&D turn would propably be a Hero Phase.

- every +1/-1 in HERO is roughly equivalent to +2/-2 in D&D. Hero has a bit less granularity, especially in low powered areas.

- balancing Weapon Fighting, Defenses and magic can be a bit of a problem. But there are guidelines in the Core Rulebook that should help.

- balancing Armed Figthing and Magic can be a problem. There are several approaches to solve this - like the Equipment Pool form the APG and the various Magic Systems of Fantasy Hero. Or just playing low/no magic setting for the start.

 

Things you might need:

You need the Core Rules (6E1 and 6E2, might be avalible as a bundle). Alterantively Champions Complete can be used as Core book (but it is somewhat more focussed on the Superheroic genre). 80-95% the rules for every genre are in these books (a bit like a mix of D&D Player Handbook and GM Handbook). Genre books cover whatever the core rules could not.

Optional: Fantasy Hero (the Genre book). Also has subrules and tips for the genre. Highly Advisable.

Optional: Hero Designer. Programm to create Charactersheets. Might be less needed for Fantasy then for Superheroic games. Only avalible from Online Store, not 3rd party retailers.

Optional: Hero System Grimoire* - prewritten spells.

Optional: Hero System Marital Arts (HSMA)* - covers martial arts from no-magic Fantasy too superheroic and everything in between.

Opional: There used to be a Hero Book for Monsters* (thinkg of Monster manual), but I cannot find the name. Alternatively only the HD Pack would be enough.

Optional: There are also several 1-2$ Suplements from steve long for a specific thematic, like [Theme] Magic. Or about Skeletons/Demons.*

 

*The good thing about Hero is that you can build everythig yourself. The bad thing is that you have to build almost everything yourself, unless you have book/HD pack that had the work already done for you.

The first part of your post sounds like Greek to me... LOL. Probably because I haven't played in so long

Things for the list of things I need. I will check those out. 

Thank you for replying

Fantasy Hero and the Hero System itself (you'll need the PDFs of the 6th edition rules or you can use the rules from Champions Complete) allows you to play any sort of fantasy genre that you like. Sword and sorcery in a gritty world? No problem. Epic, continent-sweeping campaign? No problem. Magic-sparse intrigue à la Game of Thrones? No problem. Dimension-hopping, high powered fantasy? No problem.

 

Hero allows you to create and tweak how everything works, and Fantasy Hero provides several example genres of magic systems for you to start with. It also provides tons of information about different types of campaigns, elements of fantasy roleplaying, weapons, armor, and all sorts of related data.

Thanks for the information!

Fantasy Hero is Genre Book and has several 5th edition settings books available (which include basic magic systems).  Like HERO in general it is designed as a toolkit to allow a GM to make a personalized game.  Depending on what version of D&D you are familiar with certain parts will seem familiar.  Characteristics in HERO at low low levels (>20) are equivalent to AD&D 1st Edition.  Many Talents will seem very familiar if you've played D&D v3.x (feats).  The biggest things to get used to is that mechanics matter in HERO.  The Special Effect is not nearly as important.  There is no direct translation of Hit Points in HERO. If you plan on being the GM, you will probably want to get a setting book and a spell book (if Magic will play an important role in your game world). 

I played DnD 20 plus years ago. I was not a huge gamer then. I only played a game or two. 

Thanks for the information.

May I ask what you mean by "the biggest things to get used to is that the mechanics matter in HERO". 

No plans on being the GM

This was interesting to see

i played D&D long ago but never Fantasy Hero yet - in what ways are they alike? or different?

Both! i wanna get physical and i wanna get spiritual!