Shiva13

From Fifth to 6th edition, that is true. But from 4th to 5th the price of individual elements of characters were not that different.

I tried to keep things civil. That's all. Tasha: The growing view of complexity comes from the verbosity of character sheets. 4th edition, the baseline superhero character was 250 points. 5th edition, they lept up to a 350 point baseline, And 6th edition, the baseline is now 400 points. The verbosity in character sheets actually started in 4th edition with Dark Champions. It was a paradigm shift in how characters in the sourcebooks were presented.

"Better than nothing" alienated a significant majority of the 4th Edition fanbase to a worse degree than Fuzion ever did. It only embraced the hardest of the hardcore fanbase, and utterly ignored the rest of the game's audience.

Let's not get into a "fan defensiveness" situation here. They tend to devolve rather rapidly. And I just don't want to deal with that. I've been with the Hero System since 3rd edition. And I have a copy of 2nd edition. I also have a complete run of the Adventurer's Club. And one of my letters was printed in issue #9 of the Champions comic book series. So yeah, I've got more than a little experience with the system and the community around it. My view of the Hero System is my own. I'm not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking.

I am the one who posted that original post on RPG.net. Completely my responsibility. It already is a big trend. It's been an ongoing issue since before the rise of Fuzion. A rift in the Hero System community formed around the issue of increasing complication and definition. As a result, those who really did not like the growing complexity ended up feeling disenfranchised. As the company focused more and more on that hardcore audience that liked the growing complexity. That rift eventually led to the massive migration of those people who had been Hero System gamers that the company chose to ignore to Mutants & Masterminds. Which contributed, at a shocking level, to that game system's success and popularity. So honestly? I view your concerns about Hero System gamers migrating to other systems as being a case of "too little, too late". Because the Hero System now is what it has become.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? One of the other reasons to advocate lower SPD scores, is the effect it has on END per turn. The higher the SPD score, the more END you spend per turn. So if you artificially inflate SPD, you have to artificially inflate END as well to compensate. Lower SPD scores allow for a greater efficiency in END use. Which also leads to a character being lower point cost overall.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? That's actually a gap in the Hero System itself that you have exposed. Not really a SPD issue. It's something the Hero System doesn't really have a practical method of representing. In Mutants & Masterminds, there is a power called Quickness. It allows a character to reduce the amount of time to complete non-combat skill based tasks at a reduced amount of time of completion, depending on their Quickness rank. This allows characters like the Flash, to do things like tearing apart an engine of a moving car in the blink of an eye.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? CasualPlayer, Thank you for understanding. You hit exactly the points I was trying to express. SPD inflation causes a lot of negative effects. If a player becomes accustomed to that inflation, they most certainly will be jarred when a GM does something about it. However, I have tried to stitch in my "soft ceiling" directly into my campaign ground rules. So that when players come up against them, it is there from the outset. And doesn't feel tacked on mid-campaign. It's a standard that applies across the board, universally. Everybody is expected to abide by it. Including the GM, when opponants are made to challenge the characters.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? When it comes to character design, I don't punish any particular character concept. I do, however, believe in strong mechanical regulation of the system by the GM. Because the consequences of not having a firm hand are pretty high.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? I wouldn't accept said character. I require players to give me their character concept first. Before the character sheet is made. However, I will work with the player to create an acceptable character sheet that matches the likes and desires of both the player and GM.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? I don't view people altering their character concept to accomodate whatever BS mechanical exploit they come up with after the fact as proper. Concept drives the design of a character sheet. Not the other way around.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? Which I would regard as completely unacceptable behaviour.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? My best play experience with the Hero System was a game of Danger International. All of the characters were SPD 4 or less. And the time had was glorious! Play has never moved faster for me.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? Yes, I was on that list. I have since learned to appreciate the need for simplicity. Controlling SPD simplifies combat dramatically.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? Abuse of SPD causes characters who legitimately should be superhuman, as dictated by their concept, to be penalized for the sake of powergaming. They are made to be less special, simply to accomodate someone's sense of competitiveness. Rather than any real legitimate reason. I don't believe powergaming to be acceptable in the least. In character design, I believe the character concept is the prime guide in which a character sheet is constructed. Yes, I may seem strict here. But I thoroughly believe that is someone's concept doesn't justify them having something, they shouldn't have it. Period.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? If you go back to 4th edition and look, you will see that the characters of that era were not built to any unified standard. They varied in power level and benchmarks from sourcebook to sourcebook. There was no editorial mandated standard of character creation that would guarantee character compatibility with the assumed baseline of character creation at that time in Champions. So the arguement of reverse compatibility in character creation has absolutely no foundation. Going back to the benchmarks set by the Normal Characteristics Maxima helps establish a reasonable standard scale in which to base characters upon. And yes, I contest the benchmark chart in the rulebook. Because it defies the established foundation of logic in the system itself. And I have little patience for powermongering.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? Anything above SPD 4 is superhuman. I disagree violently with people who try to say Bruce Lee was superhuman. When he was not. He was near the pinnacle of human achievement. But he was still just a regular human being. People seem to also forget one of the fundamental issues regarding weightlifters. By the definitions of the game itself, a weightlifter is pushing when they attempt to lift such extreme amounts of weight. So there is actually no excuse for rating them beyond STR 20. Except in some rare exceptional cases. For this reason, I also believe that the ability benchmarks chart in the rulebook is broken.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? I use an equasion I derived from the Normal Characteristics Maxima in 5th Edition Revised to control Though some people would consider it tyrannical. But I find it to be an essential tool to keep SPD scores sensible. I have gone so far, that with my own characters, I have incorporated use of that equasion into any character I make at all. ((Dex /10)+1) X 1.333333333, rounded off This equasion generates what I consider the maximum allowable SPD score based on the character's DEX, in my own house rules. As well as the standard I build my own characters by. By this house rule, I have made an adaptation of Barry Allen. The Flash at having a SPD 4. quite a few skill levels, and Autofire on his STR. and the Rapid Attack Skill. Resulting in a character that has a truly enormous number of attacks per game turn. So using that example, a high SPD is really even unnecessary for the most archetypical speedster of them all. Having the Autofire bought to 5 shots, and having enough skill levels to reliably fire off 4 of those volleys with the Rapid Attack rule. Makes that SPD 4 character able to fire off a maximum of 20 attacks with a single attack action. They can still use the other half action to dodge, move, or whatever. And of coarse those autofire attacks can be spread over an area.... That comes out with a character that can fire off a maximum of 80 attacks per turn.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? In my experience, SPD is the most abused characteristic in the system. It is the most prone to getting artificially inflated, simply over a player's desire to have their character act more in a turn. Instead of actually giving a care to actually the game's scaling. This causes innumberable problems with actually running a game in the Hero System. It slows things down dramatically, to compensate for those artificially inflated SPD scores. And it starts a SPD arms race that the GM finds themselves having to play "keep up" with just to make adiquate challenges for the PCs. Let's look at the game's scaling. Every 5 points spent on a characteristic is a doubling on the scale. And since SPD is 10 points a pop, that means a SPD 5 actually represents 4 times the ability to act as a SPD 4. Pretty significant overall. SPD inflation breaks the system.

Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net Hello people. I am the "hater" with the 8 year plus history over on RPG.net. Surprised that I am here? You shouldn't be. My history with the Hero System goes back into 3rd edition. I've had a love/hate relationship with the game system since that time. Partly because of what I saw as system exploits, part of because of the behaviour of people out to abuse the system Itself. That created quite a bit of fatigue as a GM. If not outright dread in dealing with the whole thing. What I love about the system is the fact you can make a character just the way you want to make it. That an honest player who is not looking to be exploitive can make a character they are happy with playing from the outset, and be a credit to whatever campaign they are a part of. I'm a big fan of the good times that can be had, without misbehaviour. Then there were the encounters with actual negative elements of the community itself. Caused by individuals engaged in acts of absolute zealotry regarding the game system itself. Zealotry I do not condone or excuse in any form. They leave a stain on the gaming community as a whole. So why am I here? I still follow the system. And as any company rep here can tell you, I buy Hero System products directly from the company. I played in chatroom run Hero System campaigns on this very site. And I have a right to my opinions. Just as other people have a right to disagree with them. Everybody has a history. Everybody also grows and evolves other time. As do their opinions.

Re: Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains when will it be on the shelf?