SSB_Kal_El

On 12/15/2019 at 12:27 AM, theinfn8 said:

Welcome to Hero!

 

You're definitely on the right track with trying to create the characters based on their feel and not trying to completely reproduce the original characters. That's the road to hardwork and disappointment. As far as level of play, you're going to want to stick with Heroic, methinks. Start with what feels like a reasonable amount of CP to build the characters (225, why not?). But don't be completely wedded to that number. You might find that the characters are adequately represented, but they might also not be. In that case, bump it up a bit. (Conversely, if you *really* trust your players, tell them to build their characters and don't really pay attention to the end cost of the character.) There are a ton of dials that you can turn and switches you can flip in Hero, so don't be afraid to test some out as a group and make a collective decision on them.

 

You are also going to need to figure out how to make magic work for you. If your wizard has spell analysis paralysis then be careful with the method you choose. Variable Power Pools that can be changed on the fly are awesome and powerful, but if you think choosing from a list of spells slows you down, this can be worse.

 

As was said, combat doesn't change pace much as you get to higher levels. But there are some things you can do to speed it up a little. You can ignore hit location for now (but it does add a fun new dimension to combat.) Make a chart with everyone's speed that shows what phases they act on and has their major combat stats. I put mine in a plastic report sleeve so I can write in the bad guys and notes as the combat goes along with a dry-erase marker. Then I just erase it when I'm done.

 

You didn't say which books you have, but I do recommend getting the Fantasy Hero genre book if all you have is the core book(s).

 

I ended up building everyone's characters, then we had one test run, tweaked the characters then resumed our campaign. We've had about 4 sessions with a cadence of buildup session then fight session that seems to be working for everyone. I totally did the plastic speed chart thing and it makes combat flow very quickly, thanks for that!

In case anyone else stumbles across this in the future in terms of my original question about AP limits, I ended up going with the defaults (60 AP attacks/ about 8-12 resistant defences / points for equipment) from the champions setting book and basing the characters off of the champions book templates. My villains for now are also drawing from the champions math. I just reflavored the viper agents as magically enhanced shock troops of the evil empire. For the spell casters, we are currently using a regular multipower with fixed slots, until the players get comfortable with the character points part of the game math.

Everyone's having a good time with the new ruleset. All the players' minds were blown when the bad guy wizard haymakered a fireball and I described it as spending extra time to gather magical energy. The real "whoa" moment was telling them that they could do that too.

I'm sorry Killer Shrike, I chose my words poorly. I have been reading your site on and off for months trying to get a feel for which numbers go together or how much damage you benchmarked a fireball as for example. I have probably read the whole thing more than once, so thank you for providing such a wealth of material. I was just trying to make sure all the replies to my initial question weren't just directing me back to your site. Sorry about that.

Thanks, folks. Based on these answers, I think we'll go with the 400 pt superheroic option. We'll do some practice combats first to get everyone (especially me) comfortable with their options each round. I'm sure I will be back to ask more questions.

Hello, all. I've been GMing a group for the past 2 years playing 5th edition D&D but we've decided to jump over to 6e Hero. I have never run Hero before and I am trying to decide between running the game with heroic 225 pts and a 40 AP limit or superheroic with 400 pts and a 60 AP limit. We are reimagining the players' characters in Hero so I'm not looking for conversions like what's on Killer Shrike's site, I'm more curious about maintaining a similar feel in terms of power level as well as manageable combat times.
 

We played from 3rd level to 12th level but started running into the normal problems that occur with high level D&D characters. The player running the Fighter wanted to use his strength to toss enemies around and utilize improvised weapons but those actions aren't well supported by the rules. The Wizard player felt she had analysis paralysis every turn as she consulted all her prepared spells each turn before acting. The Rogue wants to have some fire magic but the multiclassing rules left him feeling underpowered in exchange for having more flexibility. For my part, after about level 8 it was hard to challenge all four characters because at 2.5 hours per session, we generally have time for about 4 encounters, including 2-3 talky scenes, 1 puzzle or skill type challenge, and 1 fight. With access to 8 encounters worth of resources for a single battle, the PCs could walk over most monster manual monsters, and the ones they couldn't usually were written up with attacks that could one shot a character on a lucky roll. So for the past year I have had to homebrew all the opposition anyway. We tried switching to Mutants and Masterminds a few months ago but the players felt like it was bit too vague/abstract. The tone of the campaign is lighthearted pulpy noir, sort of fantasy Godfather meets Ducktales with a dash of Lord of Light.
 

At level 12, the characters already feel like fantasy super heroes. If I go with the 400 pt superheroic option, how long should I expect combat to take with 4 players and appropriate opposition? Alternatively, if I choose the heroic option, will the characters feel "fragile", always close to dying?