greysword

I finally got through all the posts in the thread. I will say that for people coming from roll 20 I flip the attack rolls as well as skill rolls. To them, OCV is just another number they add to their roll to see if they hit. The target number is 10+ DCV-OCV. In the roll under method we have two people with 4 OCV / 4 DVC. The roll target is 11-, with offensive skill levels increasing the number you need to roll under. In roll over it is 10+, with any skill levels just adding directly to your roll, like most players are used to.
 
I know there are people that are out there saying "How hard is this??? Roll low for hits, high for damage!", but why? If it is easier for players, it can work either way. And I find that my players prefer to have higher rolls be good no matter what they are doing. It just intrinsically makes more sense to most people, more money = better, higher rolls = better, etc. Any system that flips that model tends to confuse people (Hero is definitely not the only example here, take a look at AWG for another big one). 

One other thing about the question, "why do we add an 11 to OCV", It appears that in skill tests an 11- is considered Competent:
 
Champions Complete pg. 23

 
Thus, I think the 11 assumes the hero is already "competent" at using their powers, as they've likely spent time practicing (hopefully, at least 🙂).  OCV is then used to increase the attack skill above competent at a cost of 3CP per +1 Attack, much like any other skill (which usually cost 2CP per +1 skill increase).  This seems like an easy way to explain why the 11 is in the equation.
 

Thanks Brian!  That's a great question, so here's my history.
 
So, our group met for session 0 on June 19th, 2016.  Here, we learned about the setting and what sort of characters we'd need.  Before this, my encounter with Champions (and the Hero System) was 4th edition, where I made a character that was never played.  This was back in 1995-ish.  So, this game was technically my real first encounter with Hero.  We played every other week in our current game through mid November, and unfortunately, our GM had to resign.  I took up the mantle of GM for the group for our December 11th game, and stayed in this role for about 10 months.  Since then, we've been rotating the GM role, and I've been a player.
 
I don't have the two large blue rule books, mainly because 6E1 was going for about $200 at one point.  Now that they are Print on Demand and I've been in the system for about 3 years, it might be time. 😉  Instead, I've just been using Champions Complete as the rule book, Hero Designer for characters (PC & NPC), and the various Villain Books and modules available.
 
Oh, I should say that I've been an on again/off again gamer since the 1980s.  Played AD&D and Star Frontier a lot in Middle School and High School, but then mostly stopped.  I had a nice run for a few months on D&D 2E in the late 90's, but nothing since then until Hero.
 
 
 
I don't think the to hit rolls have been that much of a problem.  Myself and all of the other gamers new to Hero that we've collected (about 6, I think) all caught onto the system pretty fast.  However, none are casual gamers.  The good news is we have a "new to gaming" player that is about to start in a few weeks (not you, Chris).  If there is anything you'd like us to do or record, I'm happy to run the experiment. 😁  Just let me know.
 
 
 
Thanks and I appreciate the welcome!  A long-time Hero system user, friend, and gamer in our group was surprised when Steve Long answered a rules question for me, himself   This is an awesome group of gamers on the Hero boards!
 

Welcome to the forums, Greysword! Out of curiosity, how long have you been playing in the HERO System? This isn't a challenge to your authority or anything like that, I'm simply curious. Many of us have been playing the games since the rules were only 70 pages and really easy to learn. I think @Duke Bushido is on to something when he doesn't play past 3rd edition. Trust me, you'll learn this if you spend enough time on the forums. . . .  (Love you Duke!)
 
So, perhaps you're misunderstanding my question. I'm not interested in dumbing down the rules permanently for casual gamers. I agree that gamers are smart and can figure this stuff out on their own simply because they want to. But what I am interested in is how much can you boil the game down for teaching purposes so that casual gamers can get into gaming. I've got a new group of 6 and only one of them is an experienced RPGer, so my challenge is to not only teach them what role playing games are all about in the first place, but also how to explain rules mechanics to people who've never experienced the concept before. It's not insulting to try to come up with better ways to teach the rules. I'll let the full ruleset come into play after they get used to the basics.
 
Ok, so this is more what I was asking for. I think experienced gamers who are used to rolling dice for various reasons have forgotten what it's like to be a beginner who has never rolled dice for anything other than Monopoly. Subtracting a dice roll from 11 + your Offense (I like your simplification there) just doesn't make sense to someone who doesn't understand the concept of how the roll functions. The first formula is much more intuitive, and that's all I teach. Maybe later I'll switch it up on them when I don't want them to know the DCV of their opponents, but for now, it's so much simpler to jut give them a target roll.
 
As you say, dropping the acronyms helps too! There have been lots of various suggestions for this over the years, and I'm always curious about different ways to present the information so it doesn't confuse a new player.
 
Thanks for the input! Enjoy the forums!

Since it seems the sticking point is explaining how Attack Rolls (which fundamentally work exactly like Skill Rolls) work; let's try.
 
Attack Skill = 11+OCV.
Literally forget everything else about OCV, DCV, and Combat. Just have them write down Attack Skill, 15-
Edit: forgot, you only ever need to do this once, at character creation. Like you only ever really calculate you skill rolls once, at character creation.
 
Skill Rolls: How much you roll under your Skill is how much you succeed by. If you have a Lockpick Skill of 14- and you roll a 10, you succeeded by 4. What does that mean? Well, the GM assigned a difficulty of 2 to the Lock. So, any roll that succeeds by 2 or more unlocks. (in Hero Combat Terms, the Lock has a DCV of 2, and your Lockpick Roll hit a DCV of 4 or lower, the explanations go both ways, because it's literally the same math.)
 
Moving back to Combat; You make an Attack Roll, you roll a 9, you have succeeded by 6 on your Attack Roll. What does that mean? Well, DCV is just a target difficulty, like with Skills. Your target has a Difficulty of 5, you hit if you succeed by 5 or more.
 
Modifiers:
Attack Modifiers adjust the success level of the Attack Roll, just like Skill Modifiers adjust the success level of the Skill Roll. You can either add this onto the Skill Roll directly, or you can add it to the Success Level after the roll - the math is the same. If you have +1 to OCV you can either say your Attack Skill goes up to 16- or just add 1 to your Success Roll.
 
Defense Modifiers adjust the target number, normally Skill Challenges have static target numbers (the Lock does not become more difficult or less difficult, typically, one attempt to the next), but Combat is fluid and sometimes positions change and the Target Number moves. Still - you're just adjsuting the target number, either yours or the GM adjusting the NPCs. And while this is typically yet another number to keep track of in combat, it's not especially unique to Hero - D&D has plenty of spells that adjust the AC modifier on the fly (heck, even as a reaction in the same Action sequence).
 
Once you strip out the, poorly presented IMO, formula in Hero and literally treat Attacking like any other Skill Challenge you only need to teach one mathematical idea. In or out of combat, Attack Rolls are just Combat Skill Challenges and Skills are just Non-Combat Attack Challenges.

If none of the strengths of hero are a draw; well, you know what - I can't help you.
 
D&D is a box, it's not even a particularly creative box. You choose from cut outs, you play cut outs, and you fight cut outs. Heck, some editions of D&D barely encourage roleplaying in any sense, non-combat aspects had to be (badly) stapled into AD&D2E. D&D4E (still my favorite edition, really) is basically a board game. It comes right out and even tells you "you need these elements in a party. deviating will make the game not work."
 
Hero's strength is flexibility, versatility, and yep, does require some up front work to get going. You have to know what flavor of game you want to play, without that it's just a book full of words.
If you want a grab & go system, there's bunches out there.

So here are a couple of observation from Origins this week, where I was in a couple of sessions with complete beginners:
They can’t understand the character sheets. Don’t try to sell them on HERO with the character sheets! I actually liked the layout of a couple of the HD templates, but I knew what I was looking at. What really helped was a separate page that explained, in plain language, what their powers could do. Emphasize this kind of simplicity. Sell them on the ease of the skill system. It’s wide open, and one set of skills is not dependent on another set of skills, so none of those meta-gamey skill trees are needed, thank you very much. Totally emphasize he flexibility of combat! It’s way cool, as long as you help them understand the core concepts (OCV, DCV, and the effects of maneuvers to these). One dice roll resolves most of it. But please, Please, PLEASE do not teach them this: 11 + OCV - dice roll= DCV you can hit. NOBODY understood what the hell this means! Seriously. I watched it happen in real time. They were able to calculate stuff and make the dice roll, but they didn’t intuitively understand why they were doing it. Teach them the pre-6th way: 11 + OCV - DCV = the roll you need to make. People get it when you are subtracting the opponent’s DCV from your OCV. It makes intuitive sense. Who cares if they know the opponent’s DCV while they are learning the game. That sort of meta-game knowledge may actually help them understand the interaction of the parts better. You can always unload the 6e formula on hem later if you want to hide the DCV. I can’t emphasize this enough. It was a deal breaker for a couple of the new folks, who never quite got the math. When players simply sit back while you calculate everything for their roll, it’s a good indicator that they’ve pretty much tuned out. While it may take getting used to, it’s exciting to roll a handful of dice for damage! People often cheer at a good die roll, but they go nuts for a good 10d6 roll! Just a few observations from the field. God bless all you GMs who run these convention games! I couldn’t do it. 

I'm glad someone mentioned that.  Yes, one of the big appeals of Champions (and later HERO), at least to me, was that you could be a skilled combatant (if you wished) without having to also be a mass-murderer or serial killer.  In other words, traveling the countryside thwarting villains and monsters did not automatically turn your party into yet another pack of murder-hobos, which greatly enhanced the odds of finding players who wanted to be-- well, something _more_ than just murderous hobos.
 
 

Switching to Champions (from AD&D back in the day) was a no-brainer for me because of two major aspects of the Hero System that I was immediately drawn to:
 
1. The character building system was logical and extremely flexible. I am a "builder" by nature, and so this system not only made sense to me logically and mathematically, it appealed to the engineer/designer in me. The notion that everything could be expressed in terms of Character Points was a total game changer. A further consequence of the point-build system was that the simplistic and rigid "level" system of D&D was replaced with a more user-directed and granular character progression paradigm, which was a welcome change to me.
 
2. The combat system, along with the separation of BODY and STUN (and the use of END to power, well, powers) was so much more logical to me than THAC0, hit points, and saving throws. The awkward way that AD&D tried to incorporate the concept of knocking an opponent out (rather than killing them) never really worked right with the concept of hit points, and the BODY/STUN paradigm solved this problem elegantly.
 
Basically, anyone who has played D&D for a while and has become frustrated by its over-simplifications, awkward combat mechanics, and rigid leveling system could do a lot worse than to look at the Hero System as a remedy for all those woes.

Ok, so here it goes from a person who has only been playing/GMing for a couple of years.
 
1) As mentioned, you can have any hero you want.  Classes don't exist, so mix & match whatever power and skills you want to get the correct effect.
 
2) Play is fast and easy, character creation takes the most math.  However, using the Hero Designer program (sold and supported on this site) makes this easy and pretty fun, too.  You can spend minutes creating a character or days, it depends on how involved you'd like to be.
 
3) It isn't d20. It uses small and large groups of d6's, so the dice are not "weird" for casual players.
 
4) If you buy a book to start get Champions Complete (for superheroes), Star Hero (for sci-fi), or Fantasy Hero (for D&D or other medieval style game).  The books are smaller than the three tombs of D&D and contain all of the rules you need to play the game (full stop).  They won't scare your players, and they might even want to thumb through the books at the table (or outside of the session).
 
5) Hero is a sandbox.  Once you learn the rules, you can have any adventure anywhere for any genre.  This sounds overwhelming, but it is liberating.  For instance, say your group saw a movie (The Matrix, for instance), and want to recreate it.  No problem in Hero.  Just use the tech skills and change the special effect of the power/abilities to match the setting (such as the Change Environment power is what the team does to get a special item, or bullet time is a boost to the Speed ability (# of times a character can act in a turn).  It is a pretty effective system.
 
6) Normally, people get jazzed when they play a superhero that can fly through the air or pick up a bus and slam it into a bad guy.  The players may get more excited about playing, too.
 
Oh, and the current system creator, Steve Long, answers questions in the Rules forum himself, and the discussion forums are pretty friendly.  D&D doesn't have this sort of customer service.
 
See if a group in your area is using the Hero system, and drop in for a look.  Good luck.
 
Good luck!

While I'd love to promote an in production Champs game, a game I've been talking up and promoting since the 80's.  The reality is that it has moved from an "in print and available to brick & morter" game to an "pdf online game". 
 
My gaming mostly happens in FLGS's or at cons.  Public gaming.  Being able to put hardcopies on the shelf and in the hands of players is a requirement.  CC cannot do that.
 
Since I am playing a "dead" game, I might as well run the version I most enjoyed and that I have sufficient copies in hand. 
 
And it is also how the books are received by the players.  5th and 6th are met with glazed eyes and indifference. 4th on the other hand, even with it being black and white and "feels" much more Super.  The people I have shown the 4th ed book never have the glazed look. 
 
5th & 6th are great textbooks.
3rd and 4th are great games.
 

Ok, so here it goes from a person who has only been playing/GMing for a couple of years.
 
1) As mentioned, you can have any hero you want.  Classes don't exist, so mix & match whatever power and skills you want to get the correct effect.
 
2) Play is fast and easy, character creation takes the most math.  However, using the Hero Designer program (sold and supported on this site) makes this easy and pretty fun, too.  You can spend minutes creating a character or days, it depends on how involved you'd like to be.
 
3) It isn't d20. It uses small and large groups of d6's, so the dice are not "weird" for casual players.
 
4) If you buy a book to start get Champions Complete (for superheroes), Star Hero (for sci-fi), or Fantasy Hero (for D&D or other medieval style game).  The books are smaller than the three tombs of D&D and contain all of the rules you need to play the game (full stop).  They won't scare your players, and they might even want to thumb through the books at the table (or outside of the session).
 
5) Hero is a sandbox.  Once you learn the rules, you can have any adventure anywhere for any genre.  This sounds overwhelming, but it is liberating.  For instance, say your group saw a movie (The Matrix, for instance), and want to recreate it.  No problem in Hero.  Just use the tech skills and change the special effect of the power/abilities to match the setting (such as the Change Environment power is what the team does to get a special item, or bullet time is a boost to the Speed ability (# of times a character can act in a turn).  It is a pretty effective system.
 
6) Normally, people get jazzed when they play a superhero that can fly through the air or pick up a bus and slam it into a bad guy.  The players may get more excited about playing, too.
 
Oh, and the current system creator, Steve Long, answers questions in the Rules forum himself, and the discussion forums are pretty friendly.  D&D doesn't have this sort of customer service.
 
See if a group in your area is using the Hero system, and drop in for a look.  Good luck.
 
Good luck!

Ok, so here it goes from a person who has only been playing/GMing for a couple of years.
 
1) As mentioned, you can have any hero you want.  Classes don't exist, so mix & match whatever power and skills you want to get the correct effect.
 
2) Play is fast and easy, character creation takes the most math.  However, using the Hero Designer program (sold and supported on this site) makes this easy and pretty fun, too.  You can spend minutes creating a character or days, it depends on how involved you'd like to be.
 
3) It isn't d20. It uses small and large groups of d6's, so the dice are not "weird" for casual players.
 
4) If you buy a book to start get Champions Complete (for superheroes), Star Hero (for sci-fi), or Fantasy Hero (for D&D or other medieval style game).  The books are smaller than the three tombs of D&D and contain all of the rules you need to play the game (full stop).  They won't scare your players, and they might even want to thumb through the books at the table (or outside of the session).
 
5) Hero is a sandbox.  Once you learn the rules, you can have any adventure anywhere for any genre.  This sounds overwhelming, but it is liberating.  For instance, say your group saw a movie (The Matrix, for instance), and want to recreate it.  No problem in Hero.  Just use the tech skills and change the special effect of the power/abilities to match the setting (such as the Change Environment power is what the team does to get a special item, or bullet time is a boost to the Speed ability (# of times a character can act in a turn).  It is a pretty effective system.
 
6) Normally, people get jazzed when they play a superhero that can fly through the air or pick up a bus and slam it into a bad guy.  The players may get more excited about playing, too.
 
Oh, and the current system creator, Steve Long, answers questions in the Rules forum himself, and the discussion forums are pretty friendly.  D&D doesn't have this sort of customer service.
 
See if a group in your area is using the Hero system, and drop in for a look.  Good luck.
 
Good luck!

Hello everyone,
 
I have a few questions about Linked (and Jointly Linked) powers of a duration other than Instant (which is the duration used in most of the examples).  To assist me in this endeavor, I have ask Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch, to assist.  Now, onto the show...
 
Johnny Storm, a normal guy with no special abilities, hears a rumor that Dr. Doom is at a cafe two blocks down from him.  What does he do?  "Flame On!!!"  This (not so) mild mannered guy instantly turns into the Human Torch, and off he flies to find his team's nemesis!
 
Now, let's say the foundation of his hero persona is the Shape Shift power (Constant, uses Endurance).  He has Resistant Protection that is Jointly Linked to the Shape Shift power (when one is on, so is the other), and all of his other powers (Flight, Blast, Barrier, Life Support, etc) are all Linked to the Shape Shift power, as well (not Jointly, though). 
 
Now for the questions:
 
If a character with a Constant power is Stunned (CON Stunned, STUN=0, etc), runs out of Endurance to spend, or has the power drained to 0 Active Points, then the power turns off.  If Dr. Doom CON Stuns the Human Torch while they share a latte, what happens to Johnny's other powers that are linked?  How is the Jointly Linked yet Persistent Resistant Armor affected?  Does his Life Support power turn off?  If he is mid-flight, we know his Flight power turns off and he falls due to being CON stunned, so that isn't an issue (maybe for him but not for this post), and he also can't attack while being CON stunned, either.
 
What happens in the above example if the Shape Shift power had the advantage to make it Persistent?  If the Human Torch is then CON stunned, does he stay fiery?  If he does, is his Resistant Protection in full effect (to help with the falling damage he is about to take)?
 
In either example, what happens to the Resistant Protection if he kisses Rogue, and she (inadvertently) steals his Shape Shift ability via a Drain power (both partially or fully)?  What happens to his other powers?  What happens to Johnny if the two were in mid-flight?
 
 
Lastly, I have some questions about Greater and Lesser powers in a Linked situation and their Limitations and Advantages.
 
In the case of the Human Torch, if the Shape Shift was of lower AP value than the Resistant Protection, then is the Shape Shift (the core power) considered the Lesser power that is linked?  If so, does the Resistant Protection only receive the -1/4 Limitation?  If the Shape Shift and Resistant Protection were Jointly Linked, does this mean the Shape Shift only gets a -0 Limitation as well? 
 
6E1 Pg. 383:  
If the Shape Shift receives a -0 Limitation and it is Jointly Linked to Resistant Protection, would the Shape Shift need to take the "Greater Power is Constant or in use most of the time (+1/4)" offset, making it a positive Advantage to have them linked?  That doesn't seem right, because if the Resistant Protection is drained, then his Shape Shift would stop working as well (and all of his other powers), right?  Also, is it possible to apply the "Lesser Power can only be used when character uses greater Power at full value (-1/4)" effect?  If so, which power should this apply?  Do Persistent powers need to take the "Greater Power is Constant or in use most of the time (+1/4)" offset like Constant powers?
 
Thank you very much for your help!
 
 - Chris