JesseBFox

This.
 
I think this adds to the slowness of other systems. They seem quick, and like combat resolution shouldn't take long, but with all the rules references, calculations, etc it seems to take time to grow. I find once the GM knows Hero, things can move pretty quick because the rules are so modular, and what seems to take the most time for new players is learning to count body + stun on normal attacks. 6e I find myself looking things up during character gen to make sure it still works the same because I haven't run it a billion times yet, but actually during the session, lookups rarely occur.

Wow, yes people are.
 
And Aftermath! Flashback, I had completely forgot about that game. It lasted 1 session with us. Back then in one of my gaming groups, half the group were cops. One guy really really loved the concept of aftermath and the detail of it. I can picture this guy you are talking about like that but to the nth degree to where it just isn't fun. 
 
Living Steel did seem like it could be fun, I never actually ran it. Just read the rules thoroughly and did some solo testing to make sure I understood how it all worked. 
 
I found Champions somewhere around 84 I think it was. An early edition, my brother introduced it to me. If I recall correctly, he had 2nd edition but picked up 3rd brand new and I was with him, and we played (He is 8 years older than me and introduced me to RPGs). It was totally different than D&D, Gamma World, mutants and masterminds etc. I fell in love. I was visiting him in Wash DC, and when I got home I had to find a copy for myself and introduce it to my friends. We loved it. I had no idea it had other genres until I saw a fantasy hero book and then my mind was blown and I started to use it for almost every game I played. I ran it exclusively for a long time, but still read other systems as a nut for game design. It was either homebrew or hero for many years.
 
Then life put me in situations where I had no face to face group. I didn't roleplay consistently for a long time. I had a champions campaign I ran that I literally drove 3 hours one way to get to. That lasted about 5 months. Well 2 years ago I found a local gaming group, but they were all about D&D. After a few months I introduced them to shadowrun as an alternative and they fell in love, and been slowly introducing them to new stuff since. But most weren't interested in supers, until recently a couple people started, so I was able to introduce them to hero....That's when the bug bit me again, I was like "Why did I not introduce them to this before?" and so now I am doing the shadowrun crossover to try to plant the seeds. 
 
So yeah, slowly converting them. 
 
We went way off topic, but yeah it's great to reminisce. Aftermath. Holy cow did that bring back a flood of memories and ideas from back then. Yeah that is over 35 years ago. Wow.

Thank you for a good idea. I do not have the equipment guide. I may pick up the character pack to get the Hero Designer files, that should cut a lot of time off my prep. Sometimes you need someone to say something obvious for it to occur to you 😛

Have you ever played Shadowrun (Any version)
 
or Phoenix Command?
 
Or in fact D&D with newer players who are cycling through a list of abilities and dealing with spell slots, and have to re-read every spell before they can cast it. Out loud. To the group. Just to find out it doesn't apply to the situation?
 
I agree, it can be slow. There are a number of things to keep track of that other systems do not have. It will take some getting used to. But these particular players are coming from shadowrun. In which the simplest character has a combat round like this: (not even factoring in intiative and combat passes)
 
I want to shoot something. Hmm Yes, with this ak-97. OK. So um, single shot, short burst extended burst? Ok short burst. oh focus the burst for more damage, or a spread short burst to cause the enemy to lose defense pool? Hmm spread.
Ok. That's 3 bullets. What did I do last round? I shot a single shot. The round before? Shot then moved. OK, so that is 1 recoil from last round + 3 from the bullets this round. Recoil of 4! But my gas vent on my gun gives me +1 recoil compensation plus 2 more for my base strength means I have 3 points of recoil compensation. 4 recoil  - 3 = 1 dice penalty for recoil. What are the lighting and wind conditions DM? OK  range? ok got all that down. I now roll 11d6 and count successes (5's and 6's). Oh wait there are a bunch of 1s there too, are there 6? If so that is a glitch. No no , just 4. OK, so I got 4 successes. Now the defender rolls his defense pool, reaction + intuition. Wait, does he have enough intiative that he can abort to a defensive manuever? Or has he already done a full defense manuever? Add the dice from that. He rolls and gets only 2 successes so I hit! I have net 2 successes over him. My gun does 9 base damage + the 2 extra successes is 11 base damage. So now the defender has to roll body + armor. He has 5 body and 12 armor. But my weapon has a -1 AP so that reduces his armor by 1. What kind of ammo am I using? I have APDS loaded, that is -2 AP, for a total of -3... so their armor is 9 and 5 body. GM rolls 14 dice and counts successes to negate the damage. What? We forgot to do penetration? Oh well the modified armor is 9 and the modified damage is 11, so the damage is more. so this penetrates and is physical damage, not stun. Phew. OK, where were we? Oh yes GM soaks the damage, rolls 5 successes. So 6 damage boxes get x'ed out. Bad guy is still up, but let's look at his damage monitor. OK, now he is at -2 to all dice rolls due to his condition monitor because he has no pain negating cybernetics...
 
No joke. This is not even calculating cover, casting spells, deckers performing matrix actions and attacks during the combat, riggers and their drones or any of that.
 
Hero isn't the quickest to resolve an action, but at the same time you rarely have extended combats like some other games with tons of HPs and you go many rounds in a big fight. But hands down the slowest combat system for any tabletop RPG? I disagree there.
 
However any system, introducing the crunch slowly is a good idea for people. But coming from Shadowrun I have a feeling they will have a sense of the combat being quicker and easier. Which is one reason I am hesitant of adding in the extra overhead of the damage negation. But some players I think will appreciate how the armor piercing factor works. My main concern is balance of weapons vs armor and how it will change fights to make them longer/shorter or have a different feel. And the extra time of damage negation factoring in and that they will need to have a DC chart to start letting them know how it scales (and anyone using a Katana may need to know that anyway for str bonuses and str boosts)
 
Point taken on the crunch. But I also think you underestimate the slowness of some other systems and their complexity.

Thank you for a good idea. I do not have the equipment guide. I may pick up the character pack to get the Hero Designer files, that should cut a lot of time off my prep. Sometimes you need someone to say something obvious for it to occur to you 😛

The big thing that HERO does it that it's all about a set of reused building blocks and modifiers.  Once I know what Drain, RKA, Blast, Armor Piercing, AoE, and Autofire do individually, I know what any combination of them do because their meanings don't change.  There's a finite pool of things to learn, and a much smaller pool of things that come up frequently.  Once I know them, I know them. 
Contrast this with things like D&D, where every feat, spell, magic item, and monster ability is a brand new and totally unique thing.  No amount of playing in a cleric-less party will let me the player pick up what cleric spells do.  The instant a new monster comes out, the GM has that many new things to learn and keep track of.  So on and so forth, with each new splat or module pushing the rules larger. 
HERO might seem complex at first (it is) but as soon as you're over the hump, you're a master since it really is all in the core book(s). 

That is a possibility. In the end, I broke it down in my head and realized I really don't need many levels of different resistance for armor. But needed more granular control over how much some weapons penetrated defenses without being crazy. In the end, I settled on the optional piercing from Advanced Players Guide. The reasoning, is to simulate the various levels of penetrating, and keep the flavor I was looking for I needed various effectiveness levels of piercing. With AP/Hardened it is either: Full defense, or Half defense. Also the straight up reducing the defenses applied makes a few things easier and quicker when it is on the table, in addition to being able to calculate averages in my head a little easier. Basically every point of piercing is the same as +1 damage, only vs armored enemies. If you follow what I am saying. It also allows a weapon that is good at penetrating personal armor (Such as a high powered sniper rifle) be able to use bullets designed to pierce defenses (APDS) and actually have it impact the damage done. Where the straight AP vs Hardened, it would be a double penetrating weapon, which means against 99% of the targets it has the same effect (Half the armor).
 
In the end, both would work. It's just how you want the end results to play out.
 
In the end, for me and in this particular case, I think piercing is just right. Damage negation would introduce more slowdown than desired, as others pointed out, and basic AP would not allow enough granularity while also introducing more slowdown than piercing (1/2 the armor is slower than a simple -2 armor).

Have you ever played Shadowrun (Any version)
 
or Phoenix Command?
 
Or in fact D&D with newer players who are cycling through a list of abilities and dealing with spell slots, and have to re-read every spell before they can cast it. Out loud. To the group. Just to find out it doesn't apply to the situation?
 
I agree, it can be slow. There are a number of things to keep track of that other systems do not have. It will take some getting used to. But these particular players are coming from shadowrun. In which the simplest character has a combat round like this: (not even factoring in intiative and combat passes)
 
I want to shoot something. Hmm Yes, with this ak-97. OK. So um, single shot, short burst extended burst? Ok short burst. oh focus the burst for more damage, or a spread short burst to cause the enemy to lose defense pool? Hmm spread.
Ok. That's 3 bullets. What did I do last round? I shot a single shot. The round before? Shot then moved. OK, so that is 1 recoil from last round + 3 from the bullets this round. Recoil of 4! But my gas vent on my gun gives me +1 recoil compensation plus 2 more for my base strength means I have 3 points of recoil compensation. 4 recoil  - 3 = 1 dice penalty for recoil. What are the lighting and wind conditions DM? OK  range? ok got all that down. I now roll 11d6 and count successes (5's and 6's). Oh wait there are a bunch of 1s there too, are there 6? If so that is a glitch. No no , just 4. OK, so I got 4 successes. Now the defender rolls his defense pool, reaction + intuition. Wait, does he have enough intiative that he can abort to a defensive manuever? Or has he already done a full defense manuever? Add the dice from that. He rolls and gets only 2 successes so I hit! I have net 2 successes over him. My gun does 9 base damage + the 2 extra successes is 11 base damage. So now the defender has to roll body + armor. He has 5 body and 12 armor. But my weapon has a -1 AP so that reduces his armor by 1. What kind of ammo am I using? I have APDS loaded, that is -2 AP, for a total of -3... so their armor is 9 and 5 body. GM rolls 14 dice and counts successes to negate the damage. What? We forgot to do penetration? Oh well the modified armor is 9 and the modified damage is 11, so the damage is more. so this penetrates and is physical damage, not stun. Phew. OK, where were we? Oh yes GM soaks the damage, rolls 5 successes. So 6 damage boxes get x'ed out. Bad guy is still up, but let's look at his damage monitor. OK, now he is at -2 to all dice rolls due to his condition monitor because he has no pain negating cybernetics...
 
No joke. This is not even calculating cover, casting spells, deckers performing matrix actions and attacks during the combat, riggers and their drones or any of that.
 
Hero isn't the quickest to resolve an action, but at the same time you rarely have extended combats like some other games with tons of HPs and you go many rounds in a big fight. But hands down the slowest combat system for any tabletop RPG? I disagree there.
 
However any system, introducing the crunch slowly is a good idea for people. But coming from Shadowrun I have a feeling they will have a sense of the combat being quicker and easier. Which is one reason I am hesitant of adding in the extra overhead of the damage negation. But some players I think will appreciate how the armor piercing factor works. My main concern is balance of weapons vs armor and how it will change fights to make them longer/shorter or have a different feel. And the extra time of damage negation factoring in and that they will need to have a DC chart to start letting them know how it scales (and anyone using a Katana may need to know that anyway for str bonuses and str boosts)
 
Point taken on the crunch. But I also think you underestimate the slowness of some other systems and their complexity.

Have you ever played Shadowrun (Any version)
 
or Phoenix Command?
 
Or in fact D&D with newer players who are cycling through a list of abilities and dealing with spell slots, and have to re-read every spell before they can cast it. Out loud. To the group. Just to find out it doesn't apply to the situation?
 
I agree, it can be slow. There are a number of things to keep track of that other systems do not have. It will take some getting used to. But these particular players are coming from shadowrun. In which the simplest character has a combat round like this: (not even factoring in intiative and combat passes)
 
I want to shoot something. Hmm Yes, with this ak-97. OK. So um, single shot, short burst extended burst? Ok short burst. oh focus the burst for more damage, or a spread short burst to cause the enemy to lose defense pool? Hmm spread.
Ok. That's 3 bullets. What did I do last round? I shot a single shot. The round before? Shot then moved. OK, so that is 1 recoil from last round + 3 from the bullets this round. Recoil of 4! But my gas vent on my gun gives me +1 recoil compensation plus 2 more for my base strength means I have 3 points of recoil compensation. 4 recoil  - 3 = 1 dice penalty for recoil. What are the lighting and wind conditions DM? OK  range? ok got all that down. I now roll 11d6 and count successes (5's and 6's). Oh wait there are a bunch of 1s there too, are there 6? If so that is a glitch. No no , just 4. OK, so I got 4 successes. Now the defender rolls his defense pool, reaction + intuition. Wait, does he have enough intiative that he can abort to a defensive manuever? Or has he already done a full defense manuever? Add the dice from that. He rolls and gets only 2 successes so I hit! I have net 2 successes over him. My gun does 9 base damage + the 2 extra successes is 11 base damage. So now the defender has to roll body + armor. He has 5 body and 12 armor. But my weapon has a -1 AP so that reduces his armor by 1. What kind of ammo am I using? I have APDS loaded, that is -2 AP, for a total of -3... so their armor is 9 and 5 body. GM rolls 14 dice and counts successes to negate the damage. What? We forgot to do penetration? Oh well the modified armor is 9 and the modified damage is 11, so the damage is more. so this penetrates and is physical damage, not stun. Phew. OK, where were we? Oh yes GM soaks the damage, rolls 5 successes. So 6 damage boxes get x'ed out. Bad guy is still up, but let's look at his damage monitor. OK, now he is at -2 to all dice rolls due to his condition monitor because he has no pain negating cybernetics...
 
No joke. This is not even calculating cover, casting spells, deckers performing matrix actions and attacks during the combat, riggers and their drones or any of that.
 
Hero isn't the quickest to resolve an action, but at the same time you rarely have extended combats like some other games with tons of HPs and you go many rounds in a big fight. But hands down the slowest combat system for any tabletop RPG? I disagree there.
 
However any system, introducing the crunch slowly is a good idea for people. But coming from Shadowrun I have a feeling they will have a sense of the combat being quicker and easier. Which is one reason I am hesitant of adding in the extra overhead of the damage negation. But some players I think will appreciate how the armor piercing factor works. My main concern is balance of weapons vs armor and how it will change fights to make them longer/shorter or have a different feel. And the extra time of damage negation factoring in and that they will need to have a DC chart to start letting them know how it scales (and anyone using a Katana may need to know that anyway for str bonuses and str boosts)
 
Point taken on the crunch. But I also think you underestimate the slowness of some other systems and their complexity.

Just a thought, if you cap the stunx, you are essentially tinkering with the hit locations again, and the result would be 62.5% of all hits are at x3 stun multiple, 31.02% at x2 and 6.48% at x1. In other words, x2 really rare, and x3 shows up twice as often as x2. As long as you are ok with that spread I say go for it. It only lowers the average multiplier from 2.87 to 2.56 so not a big impact on the overall damage, but very much reducing extreme results.
 
But you are essentially tweaking the chart again, just in an indirect way. And I can completely understand once you get to higher power levels wanting to reduce the multiplier to prevent these extreme results.