JohnBear

I just copied a stand alone picture
 
Also, Here's a simpler variation:
#!/bin/bash # A simple script to run HD # Need to work within the terminal echo "Run Herodesigner" cd /home/USERNAME/Apps/Hero/HD java -jar HD6.jar 16 the 16 on the end tells java what font size to use
 
Then you can just make a link to the script
 
 
...Running Linux Mint

By pure chance (looking for Growth via a textserach on the PDF) I noticed the books do deal with that actually. 6E2 272 "Controlling Character Power And Growth" I normally do not make such big quotes from the books, but I think in this case it may be the best option:
"It’s difficult to try to make sure that each PC is balanced — powerful enough for the player to have fun and emulate the source material (comics, novels, and movies) which inspires him, yet not so powerful that he makes the game less fun for the other players. This problem starts as soon as players begin designing characters. Providing guidelines for character creation, as discussed above, and making sure the players follow them strictly, is usually a good step toward having a balanced campaign. An experienced GM will have an instinctive “feel” for what is balanced and what is unbalancingly powerful; a novice GM has to develop this capacity through experience.
It’s more difficult to maintain character balance over time, as the characters gain Experience Points and begin to grow in power. If you run your game on any kind of a regular basis, it won’t be long before the players are chafing at the bit to increase their characters’ power (which usually means the number of dice of damage they roll and how much defense they have). They’ll start pestering you to increase the limits you placed on the campaign, to allow them to buy powers you disallowed during the character creation process, and to buy powers and abilities that don’t really fit their character. Resist the temptation to give in to the players’ demands. True, you want them to have fun — but how long will the game remain fun if it turns into an “arms race,” with each PC scrambling to earn the Experience Points to buy +2d6 for his Blast because Captain Courage just did the same thing?
The emphasis of such a game often moves quickly away from roleplaying and storytelling into materialistic attempts to earn copious Experience Points. (Of course, if you like this, let it happen — there’s not a thing in the world wrong with it, and you should do what you want in your own game.)
But sooner or later you’ll have to allow some growth. If you never increase the campaign limits on CVs, DCs, SPD, defenses, and the like, after a year or two of campaigning all the characters will meet the limits in all categories and know every Skill in the book.
The best way to control character growth it to let it proceed slowly while you monitor it carefully. When you feel the time is right, start increasing the campaign limits — but with little nudges, not wholescale raises. Make sure all players get your approval for new abilities or Skills. Think very carefully about the impact the purchase will have on the campaign. An extra point of SPD doesn’t sound like much, for example — but as any experienced HERO System gamer will tell you, one little itty-bitty point of SPD can make all the difference in the world in many games.
You, and your players, need to be ready to make retroactive changes in characters if necessary. Sometimes an ability doesn’t seem unbalancing or overly effective at first blush, but the rigors of play reveal that it’s not something you want in your game. If so, tell the player (in a nonconfrontational way) that the ability simply isn’t working out and that he’ll have to change it. Stress the need to keep the game as a whole fun for everyone — good, mature gamers will accept this explanation (or at least accede to your request gracefully). For the sake of fairness, make sure the players know in advance that you reserve the right to do this."

Genre, or as I think of it, setting conventions, on one hand should not be a straight jacket.  But in the other hand if a players agrees to play in a game they should play in the game they agreed to. 
 
Too many players agree to one thing and then try to shoehorn in something completely different.  Of course then the shitbird cry and moan...."I'm being railroaded.....whaaaaaaaa" ?.
 
These days my reaction to someone claiming they have been railroaded is to immediately lose all respect and makes me check to see if I still have my wallet ?

It hit me during work that a good example of experience in Danrasy is Conan the Barbarian. Yes his stories are not chronological but if you look at his stories at different points in time, he was no way a stagnant character. He was a pirate at one point in his career and a Captain to boot! He didn’t pick that up in the hills of Cimmeria. Iirc the Elephant in the Tower story depicts a young and inexperienced Conan.

This is pretty much what I've steered them towards. Especially using active point caps to give them a reason to broaden out the characters rather than become uber-archtypes of specific powers. So the air mage now has more "airy" powers & spells, the bodyguard/fighter has "found" religion and is now on the march towards becoming a paladin (with deity specific powers). Damage and armor caps I have also found useful in taming the arms race 12-15 DC damage, armor set a little below that and additional limits on hardend/penetrating/armor piercing have also worked in that regard.

This is pretty much what I've steered them towards. Especially using active point caps to give them a reason to broaden out the characters rather than become uber-archtypes of specific powers. So the air mage now has more "airy" powers & spells, the bodyguard/fighter has "found" religion and is now on the march towards becoming a paladin (with deity specific powers). Damage and armor caps I have also found useful in taming the arms race 12-15 DC damage, armor set a little below that and additional limits on hardend/penetrating/armor piercing have also worked in that regard.

weak opinions aren't worth mentioning 

Thank you folks. Fwiw, I've already done just about all of the things you've mentioned as part of my campaign design (skill caps, damage caps, stat caps. etc...). And (as megaplayboy suggested) I've already done that too. And will be raising the caps as we go forward (again)
 
And this wasn't so much me looking for ideas (now) as an observation that the books provided very little guidance. It would have been nice if they had showed how the sample characters could have looked when they were going against some of the sample villains.
 
I could write a book on how I've had  to battle and manage my *players* over the fact that too many of them designed (and often keep creating)  superheros in a LOTR or D&D or Turakian Age style world rather than "adventuring" characters who advance and grow. The first game I had a character (a fighter type)  come in with 5 levels of Deadly Blow (in daggers), DEX 20, STR 20, +5DCV, +4 OCV (daggers), +3(HTH), +5DCV (HTH), autofire, autofire skills, 2-weapon fighting, and so on. Without "magic items"! And the spellcasters were just as bad.
 
For reference, in the bestiary, the "Demon Prince of Strength" (a 1300 pt monster) has an OCV/DCV of 11
 

 
And while this forum and the folks here really helped me "tame the beasts" it would've been nice to have some "official" indicators I could have shared with the players.
 
For background several of my players have "RPG related PTSD". Their previous GM took the role that it was GM vs Players and his job was to kill them (his words). My approach is more of a "computer simulation". You are doing things in the world and the world reacts, with each NPC essentially living their own lives and pursuing their own goals.  If the players interfere...well that's what hunteds are for. But this has definitely colored their gaming perspective. It's been slooooowly changing.
 
This thread should be stickied somewhere as it greatly summarized many awesome ideas that are scattered around the forums.
 
Thanks again.
 
JB
 
 

The easy way to do this would be campaign maximums of various kinds.
 
I do think the superhero legacy fits in there since (for the most part with plenty of exceptions and special cases and all of that) most heroes are more or less static in the source material (again with exceptions, special cases, and other caveats).
Cyclops has eyebeams, Wolvie has claws, Punisher has guns, and so on.
 
I think this is also emulative of other genre fiction. James Bond rarely picks up entirely new martial arts. Legolas didn't decide he'd be a bit more fun to play with a small VPP for elf-magic tricks. King Arthur doesn't usually decided he needs more points in Bases because Camelot is getting boring.
We can certainly say that maybe Samwise Gamgee leveled up of the course of LOTR, but...he didn't really acquire anything new. Or we can say that Picard\Worf\Kirk go though character growth and change but...did they really "level up"?
 
But then also I think it works in the reverse. The D&D expectation is that folks will improve *dramatically* over time. And part of the reason for that is because the badguys are going to scale up dramatically themselves.
 
That doesn't have to be true in Hero. Aragorn doesn't have to spend XP on CSLs and more stats and more stats and more stats. James Bond doesn't have to pick up some weird OIF Regen and Combat Luck x3 just because he's got points sitting around.
 
Same for the lich stats. Are there even "normal human" fighters at that point level?
 
 
But I do agree that the rules themselves are, as is typical, unhelpful in that regard. "You could do anything you can imagine, maaaaaan!", isn't actually useful guidance for much of anything.
 
I don't have any of the books "running the game" sections memorized but...is there discussion of this anywhere? How\what\why to limit\use\shape advancement over the course of a game?
 
 

What point levels did you start them at?  Fantasy Hero in 5th edition sort of assumes you're going to start them at 150 (75+75), 200 (100+100), or 250 (125+125).  The point levels you're describing come in at around cosmic-level superhero territory; I think we're looking at Superman and Galactus level.  
 
The game also generally assumes the 1-5 XP per session; I've never seen or even heard of large-block XP awards for completing arcs.  
 
If you're starting them at higher points and giving higher XP awards, you are for sure going to see exactly what you describe.  And while I personally tend to not favor Fantasy Hero, or heroic level games in general, with characters with lots of Powers, if you're running a game with high point values you're pretty much going to have to let your players spend points on them.  Fighters with weapon tricks or special attacks?  Wizards with some truly earth-shaking abilities?  Shapeshifting druid-types?  Thieves with stealth-suites (Invisibility, Desolidification, Telekinesis)?  
 

If I were going to run a fantasy hero game, I'd try and establish some clear character benchmarks for the world, and then make sure I didn't exceed them.  Characters buy up combat skill levels because it makes them more effective.  They don't buy +20 OCV just for the hell of it -- there's no benefit once they're hitting most targets on a 14 or less.  If random orcs are showing up with 8 levels in all combat, the players will respond by buying more.  But let's say that enemies are going to top out at around a 7 OCV/DCV.  Players probably won't go to much more than a 10 total, regardless of any hard limits imposed.  And if you do impose a hard limit, they probably won't feel restricted since they're still able to hit effectively.
 
Aragorn is at the top end of the OCV/DCV paradigm in LOTR.  It doesn't matter what that exact level is, just that Aragorn is there.  Nobody is going to show up and best him in hand to hand skill.  Likewise you won't have players dumping points into tons of damage if you don't have ogres or trolls with 30 Body that you have to slowly hack your way through all the time.
 
Once they're satisfied with their level of combat ability, and they aren't facing the constant "monsters get tougher and hit harder" progression, then they'll be free to expand their characters in other directions.
 
I toyed around with the idea of having wizards who only know like one spell.  What about a necromancer who is a powerful fighter, has an array of henchmen and a gloomy castle, has a magic scepter that lets him bind spirits (mind control vs ghosts), and knows the ancient ritual "Summon Undead Army" (summons 10,000 skeletons at 75 points each, but can only be cast under a full moon with rare components).  In some ways he's more powerful than any D&D wizard, but he's also far more limited.  It's something you wouldn't see in other fantasy games.
 
If you take off the D&D shackles, Hero offers a whole lot of possibilities.

If you have Fantasy HERO 6e handy, there are a couple of sections that offer suggestions (very broad suggestions) on these issues:
p. 108, for several pages, discusses characteristic maxima, ranges, and specific rationales for cultivating certain characteristics in various situations.  p. 390, for several pages, discusses character guidelines, effectiveness caps, ranges, and growth, etc. I assume 5e discusses the same things in roughly the same spots, but I only have 6e handy. It’s not extensive, but it is a handful of pages that summarize much of what has been offered above by everyone else. He layout isn’t always the most friendly, but the information is usually in there somewhere. I’ve toyed with other layouts of information for teaching purposes, but no matter how you do it it still amounts to drinking from the fire hose while simultaneously jumping onto a moving merry-go-round!
 
I hope this helps, at least in terms of explaining where the material is. Whether it’s enough is another issue. 

These are my rough opinions and guidelines.  
 
For non-superheroic games
To start with characters equivalent to about a first level D&D basic character (either the original B/X or later BECMI edition games), you could expect to see about 100 total points for Hero editions up through 5th edition revised (5er), or 125 total points in 6th.  (75 base with 25 Disadvantages in first-gen, 50+50 or 75+25 in fourth and fifth, 125 with 25 Matching Complications in 6th.)  
 
First level AD&D (1e or 2e) characters would probably be about 125 total points up through Hero 5er, and probably about 150 total in Hero 6th.  Probably 75+50 or 100+25 in earlier editions, 150 with 25-50 in Matching in 6th.
 
First level D&D (3rd-5th edition) characters would probably come to about 150 total points in Hero 5er and prior, and 175 in Hero 6th.  75+75 or 100+50 in earlier editions, 175 with 50 Matching in 6th.
 
A lot of people have written a lot over the years about advancement; you could probably not go too wrong with about 5-10 Hero XP per *D&D level for lower level play (say, 1st-5th), and 10, 15, 20 or more XP per level for higher level D&D characters.  The games are different, and someone will probably have their own ideas and guidelines, but they probably won't be far off from mine.  
 
Champions
Early edition Champions characters would tend to be around 200 total points, for the equivalent of a beginning superhero (immediately post-origin story) in their first issue; 225-250 points would make them more rounded.  The books made it a point to talk about how different a 200 total point character with 50 points of experience would be from a 250 total point starting character, but they never really went into a lot of detail.  You could look at the original Strike Force book to see the differences between starting player characters in Aaron Allston's campaign and their more experienced counterparts.  Fourth edition set a "standard superhero" at 250, or 100 base with 150 in Disadvantages; earlier editions started with 100 base, with anywhere from 100 to 150 or more points worth of Disadvantages.  (Diminishing returns in 1st-3rd editions meant you took more Disadvantages to make up those points; the sweet spot was 225-250 total, with 100 of that from base points.)  250 never felt like enough to me in 4th edition; there was a lot more to buy, newer Skills and Powers and whatnot, but never enough points to really realize your concept.  Fifth edition put a standard superhero at 350 total points; 200 base with 150 in Disadvantages.  A sixth edition standard superhero is 400; 400 total points with 75 points in Matching Complications.  Fifth and sixth edition totals seem to me to be more in line with Marvel Cinematic Universe characters in their first movies; maybe inexperienced but well rounded and powerful to be sure.  
 
I hope this was helpful, and I'm trying not to editorialize too much.  I've got some strong opinions, as you've no doubt seen.

Clearly I have to write a few more pages for my Fantasy Hero Basic document: a good GMing advice section.
 
Yay! A project.

You could set caps at the beginning and then raise the caps at a steady rate, say +1 to max CV per 50-100 xp, +1 Dc to max damage per 50-100 xp, and so forth. This keeps people from just plowing all their xp into more damage and more CV.  You can also make sure that noncombat skills and interactions are very important in the campaign, and scale those challenges up as well.  So maybe the heroes have to put 10-15xp out of every 50 into noncombat stuff.  

Yeah this is less a flaw with the rules than a feature of the system.  In a leveling game, its clear what comes next and how to build up some character super easy: everyone gets x, y, and z no matter who they are in this level.
 
Hero does things way more freely and openly and it takes some experience playing to get a feel for how to advance characters.  You can literally get anything you want in the limits of the campaign and GM's approval.  Your wizard wants to learn to fight with a sword?  OK.  Your Batman character now needs to learn a new language?  Got it.  Your star fighter pilot works on his medical training?  OK.  Its up to you.  Sometimes the open nature and possibilities can be a little paralyzing and daunting.
 
I saw that in my campaigns, some characters people really didn't seem to know what to do with experience, so they just sat on it or bought little stuff aimlessly.  Others were good about writing down notes: I want this next.
 
Because of that, I'm working out a way for my Fantasy Hero setting to provide suggested "blocs" or advancement sets that people can look at moving into with experience, and giving out experience in chunks rather than a constant drizzle.

Hi Folks,
 
I've been running a fantasy hero game for the past few years (may run a mechwarrior variant next)  and I''ve noticed what I consider to be a serious lack in the hero books. And this applies to every genre.
 
Specifically character advancement. Yes a trip through the bestiary or any book shows characters at various point levels. but actually advancing characters is another story entirely. Sure, I can look up a lich (powerful undead wizard - 900 points Turakian Age page 302) but what would a normal human fighter look like at an equivalent point value within the "canon"? For example I've got human normal fighters running around with CSLs of +20. And DCVs even higher. There's not a critter in any of the books that could even touch my players.
 
Now I can obviously adjust things (and have) so it's all good, and we're having fun. But that's not the point.
Excluding characters that have to put all their XP into "spells" where would fighters and thieves put their experience? Especially since in a heroic game equipment and magic items don't cost character points.
 
We're currently using 5th ed, but the 6th ed books have the same limitation.
 
It's as if the game is designed for the characters to remain relatively static. Am I just seeing things? Or is this (as I suspect) the legacy of the "superhero genre" origins of the system.
 
JohnBear
 
 
 
 

Best bet is likely to go the reflection route:
 
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