Sicarius

28 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

I have friends who started with HERO via Fantasy HERO; a couple od them had moved away to new places away from their old DnD groups, werent able to find new ones-- by even that point, DnD had grown into multiple books to play "a real DnD game" [/high-nose jackass] and, not wantinf to invest in an encyclopedia, picked up several different games to try.

 

Two of them landed on Fantasy HERO and just fell in love.

 

Its things like this that make me harp so strongly on the importance of a one thin book game.  You don't need the whole damned system to play a game.  Realistically, what with all the "options" and campaign guidelines limitations the GM must set specifically _because_ of the options and open-ended nature of advancement and building, you actually _can't_ use the whole system in _any_ game.  Even the two most recent Complete books (I almost said "current," but I caught myself.  Where does the time go?) Are _not_ complete, simply because they tried so hard to incluse so much of the System that there was no room for a setting, world-building, a campaign-  you got HERO System Basic with genre-appropriate art and build examples.  FHC gave you a paragraph of sample races (guess how detailed that was?  To skip having to detail them, they were all straight Pathfinder /recent DnD rips; if you dont know Pathfinder /recent Dnd, buy some of those books! There's a bold marketing tactic. )

 

The original Fantasy HERO was a _genuinely_ complete game, it still holds up today, it's an excellent gateway drug to HERO, and doesnt leave you with that "I was cheated; I have to buy all the rest of it to make sense of this!" feeling that the "Complete" books do.

 

It doesn't have all of the modern system.  It doesnt even have all of What was the system back then.  It flat made crap up in places!

 

And it was Still rhe whole game, and didnt suffer one bit for anyrhing that wasnt included.

 

It even had room for a chatty, casual feel, unlike the Complete books and their bullet-points feel, teying to make room for the entire system.

 

You dont need the whole thing to have a solid game that some lunatics might play for thirty years (lookin' at _you_, Duke!  You and your degenerate friends!  How dare you declare that a thousand extra pages of rules are superfluous to a good time, let alone the antithesis of one!   Freak!)

 

Seriously though:  it's entirely possible to do; it's been done.  You just have to get your heas wrapped around the idea that you dont nees the whole system, but you cant do that if youre unwilling to admit that youre not using the whole thing anyway.

We used to play the hell out of the original 3 book set of D&D with Grayhawk and Blackmoor added in.   Also 3 LBB Traveller, Metamorphosis Alpha and Stormbringer 1ed.  Great times. Even with AD&D although one of my staple players detested it as nothing but unnecessary rules bloat.  He played yet would have gladly stayed with the white box version.

So your right. We had tons of fun and just winged it half the time with these 'guidelines'.  That's really what OD&D amounted to. The others were a bit more of a system.  

It seems to me Champions Complete and FHC are enough to do the same if one wanted but are subsets of Hero for those who want maximum umph.

Game companies need to produce because it's a relatively small market.  Once the base has bought X 1st ed and sales decline on X adventures and X supplements you either go out of business, drop the line and move on to something completely different or reimagine the line with  X 2nd ed.  This is usually X 1st ed with rules changes and material from all the X supplements baked in.  Usually presented as bigger and better. 

3 decades later......Melee is Gurps 4th ed, Champions is Hero 6th ed, D&D is 3.5.  Some love it, some go the OSR route and play Swords avd Sorcery White Box. 

Personally, I like the variety but admit that if all I had was D&D White Box I would likely play more and contemplate less. 

And save money. 

I don't think options have hurt Hero, I think electronic video games, the loss of literacy and decline of social get togethers in the physical realm have done more damage. And let's not forget after 50 yrs of P&P RPGS, ebay resales and reprints on RPGnow there is a shit ton to choose from. 

Hero is really NOT for the causal group. 

I won't argue with you there. When I was 12 I had all the time in the world to create worlds. 

Now, no time to do anything but upkeep of my real one.   Assuming that it IS real...🤔...and that I am me...🤯

24 minutes ago, Spence said:

I stand corrected...

Its a big man that owns up.  Cheers to you, sir! 😉

2 hours ago, Spence said:

 

For the last few years I been saying that Hero isn't actually a RPG, not in the sense of D&D, Pathfinder, and so on. 

 

Instead it is what I call MetaRules used to write an RPG.  Every RPG has a set of "metarules", whether that is a stack of notes or "official" published company documents.  The game company uses these to write the rulebooks it actually sells maintaining game balance and cohesion. 

 

Hero doesn't publish ready to play RPGs.  Instead they publish a set of metarules that allow people to create a RPG. 

 

D&D, Pathfinder and virtually every fantasy RPG out there contains complete magic systems including complete and well rounded spell lists that can be used immediately.

 

Fantasy Hero (any version) does not.  It includes advice and some examples.  But nothing complete and usable immediately.

 

D&D and such spell lists are crafted to compliment the "in actuall play" needs of the PCs that use them.  The closest thing for Hero are their Grimoirs.  But those are massive alphabetical lists grouped by what is basically their special effect or unifying concept.  Which makes the book useless to new inexperienced players just trying to identify a few starting spells that they can afford at chargen.

 

It is

 

But Hero has been stuck in the "chicken or the egg" cycle for years. 

 

In most RPGs the GM merely takes pre-existing balanced game components and inserts them into a story.  If they are confused or don't quite understand, they have access to hundreds of prebuilds and the majority of games include one as an example right in the book.

 

Players normally have a baked in guides for building characters. 

 

Hero has neither, so GMs and players must learn by trial and error. 

 

 

That's the cost of being allowed access to the source code!  Hero with bestiary, grimoire and FH's templates seem pretty much equal any given D&Dish type set. (admitted with a greater investment by GM and players),  Warhammer FRP, Hollow Earth Expedition, Zweihander are examples of more complete gaming environments.  Which is great and cool as long as your content with the setup.   Hero is freaking awesome if you want to build your own world.

The complexity issue between Steve Jackson's Melee, Wizard, Adv Melee, Adv Wizard, The Fantasy Trip and GURPS is to me a personal preference of the GM and group because even Melee is a tougher game than Hangman or UNO.  But Melee opens tons of options over them there UNO cards and Hero opens tons of options over....uhh...EVERY FREAKING THING!

But I still like UNO!  😃

6 hours ago, HeroGM said:

 

Lady Blue from CNM can't possibly have a spinal column.

Marylin Manson perhaps?  Bit more than the ribs?

16 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I appreciate the builds behind the scenes, but do people really care or need them?  When my Player's Guide comes out I'll bundle the heromaker files together, including the talent builds but I wonder how much people even care.

I do because being new to Hero it explains not only the logic but the mechanics behind the talent.  These builds are similar to code snippets in a programming manual.  And Hero is a kind of programming manual for P&P RPGs.  Or toolkit, whatever lingo floats your boat. 

I sometimes see in the rules something like "the player could be allowed to take a -0 perceivable Limitation", or "not worth more than a +0 Advantage".  

Other than being a descriptor of the power or a function of the special effect does this have any other in game effect?

I am interpreting it as flavor text rather than something which alters the rules.  Truth is I'm confused because I'm thinking of it as follows and I'm betting I'm wrong. 

Example: The Torch could have a -0 Limitation that his flames are perceivable or a +0 Advantage that his flames can provide light in the dark. 

4 hours ago, HeroGM said:

Ok, here we go.

Thats what I'm talkin bout!

1 hour ago, HeroGM said:

Yes

Thank you!

6E says Talents are built from skills and powers. The example build of Universal Translator in 6E1 Appendix is built using Detect Meaning of Speech 10 pts and Detect Meaning of Text 10 pts.  

Am I correct that this is from Powers-Sense Groups and uses Detect Table - 'A large class of things' ?

1 hour ago, archer said:

 

Wundarr isn't even in that picture!

 

< humming his "Age of Aquarius" theme song >

Use your Vision!

3 hours ago, JmOz said:

Perez on Cap, trying to get the ugly gone , ohh the Avengers as well

 

 

 

I'm trying to look at the difference in Cap but my eyes keep Wandaring.  

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Two things:

 

First, never, _ever_ tell me where that naked guy was hiding that fat wad of cash.

 

EVER!

 

 

Second:

 

if we're going to keep bumping this thread, can we go ahead and get it to the next page?  I don't know about you guys, but for me this page opens dead onto that picture of Captain Bender up there with his chest panel door swinging open....

 

 

No wonder my momma called it 'filthy money'

🤮

Ok, I looked at the Unified Power limitation and it seems to me at first consideration that it is a decent replacement for EC.  It forces part of the limitation I thought should be attached to EC but I might offer it at 1/2 for dampening effects other than Drain attacks.  Such as a fire hose or lack of oxygen putting out the Flying Flamers Unified Suite of powers as well as a Drain attack.  I would have to think about it though.  In the case of flame, water and vacuum are fairly obvious and common.  Something which would dampen cosmic powers, like magic green rock, would be less obvious and uncommon.

3 hours ago, eepjr24 said:

Edit: It is also not as prone to gaming the system with things like "Oh, my flames burn a material that my body excretes which produces it's own oxygen, so the Bat-Halon-arang does nothing to me" or similar nonsense.

 

I cannot even imagine someone besmirching the efficacy of the Bat-Halon-arang!

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

It's not exactly the same, and it's a bit more work, but if you just liked the ebb and flow of EC, take a look at the Limitation: Unified Power.

 

Or do what I did and use EC anyway.

 

 

Will do.  Thank you for the suggestions.

On 12/22/2020 at 12:18 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

I always found Elemental Controls more challenging to build but yes, easier to use. They just worked, there was no figuring or moving around of powers.  But it was not really a fair or reasonable construct: you got a big point break just for having a tight concept your GM liked.

Only reason I was reviewing this is I just got 6th ed and was trying to get why EC's were dropped.  To me it seemed like a good why to create sensible characters, (common power source), with an Achilles heel.  As long as the GM enforces that weakness and has villains capitalize on it often enough to be a PITA for the player.  I liked the 'tightness' of it.

Thank you Chris for both the correction and the correction!  😁  I even checked the errata for 5th and 6th and it was missed.  After pouring through the pages in both rules set I was stymied so I begged for help.  Your my Hero! 🤩

Are:

Ultimate Skill

Dark Champions

Spacers Toolkit

Galactic Champions

Still available?  If so how much total please?

Quote

 

Firebrand, (the demo 5th and 6th ed character), has 6 PD, 10 ED.  Resistant PD 20 and Resistant ED 20.  His Total PD is 23 and his Total ED is 30.  Why is his Total PD not 26? (6+20=26)  I thought it a typo but checked both 5th and 6th ed and its the same so I must be confused.

I also assume this means against:

Standard attacks: 23/30 when flaming, (26/30 is what I would think it should be)

Standard attacks: 6/10 when not flaming.

Killing attacks: 20/20

Is this correct?

Thanks,

Mike

On 4/25/2020 at 12:00 PM, steriaca said:

Anyone have any suggestions for fictional gunslingers to add on my list?

Paladin

Rooster Cogburn 

Mississippi Kid

The Gunslinger 

On 4/23/2020 at 9:22 AM, Emperor Kang said:

That's a product I am really looking forward to. I hope there will be at least a POD-option - I like PDFs, but having long-dead processed tree in my hands beats any PDF every time of the day and twice on High Nooon!

Dam straight!

6 minutes ago, Jhamin said:

The Ultimate books are deep dives into their various topics.  If you are just looking for some power builds you are probably fine with what you have, but the Ultimate books are going to go into a lot more depth/detail on how the archetypes work in various genres and how to really play around with their subject matter in a specific game.

There is a decent overlap between Ultimate Martial Artist and Martial Arts 6th ed, but the UMA has a lot more genre stuff.  On the other hand Champions Powers has a few pages on Brick Tricks (for example) and the Ultimate Brick spends several chapters on the subject.

Its really a question of how much depth you want.

Thank you very much.

Hello,

I have Champions Powers and Martial Arts 6th Ed.  Is there any reason to get Ultimate Brick, Mentalist, Mystic, Ninja, Energy Projector, Speedster, Metamorph or any others I might have missed or does Champions Powers and Martial Arts combine all these under two hoods?  I know the Ultimate series is 5th Ed but I also know conversion is relatively easy.

I am a bit of a collector and have 4th,5th, and 6th edition stuff but....sometimes I look for justification to spend the $ and find room on the shelves.

Thanks,

Mike

On 9/12/2003 at 10:52 PM, Gary said:

 

The point is that it's far easier for a Human Torch character to justify a EC compared to a Batman type character. Why should the Human Torch save oodles of points on non-attack powers while Batman has to buy most of his non-attack powers straight?

 

You can argue that Batman could buy most of his powers with foci, but the fire character could easily buy his fire powers through a gem or powersuit as well.

 

Since I happen to think that Batman is as good of a conception as the Human Torch, I wouldn't give a cost break to one over the other.

Ancient post but the reason seems fairly obvious.  If something, such as a vacuum or environment which limits flame comes into play the Torch is nothing more than a normal dude with some basic skills.  How about a halon attack from a Bat-Halon-Arang? Batman cannot be hampered in such a way.  His abilities cover a larger spectrum.  The EC is not simply good character conception, it links all the powers to a common source.  Dampen that source and the Hero is a Zero.  This is a BIG limitation.  If Batman was after Torch he would devise attack modes to dampen and defend against flame and that's about all he would need.  Remember how he was able to whoop up on Superman, a god, using a green rock to dampen all his powers?  Superman's powers are all basically an EC based upon our yellow sun, (at least in some versions), with a EC wide susceptibility to kryptonite.   Take away that that susceptibility to his entire suite, (EC), of abilities and he is fairly unstoppable.

The Torch on the other hand would need a vast array of tools to counter Batman's array of toys and abilities.  Think about PSI Boy, whose powers are all PSI based.  Batman tosses Bat-PSI-Null-Arang and oops!  PSI Boy is toast.  And of course anyone with an EC would find their returning foes leveraging that weakness if at all possible.  Lack of Oxygen becomes kryptonite to a EC flame based hero.