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MeklorIlavator
2009-04-21, 09:56 PM
I've recently been introduced to the hero system, and found it to be pretty fun, and it certainly looks adaptable, but I was wondering if anyone in the playground had experience with it, and their opinions of it.

Knaight
2009-04-22, 09:51 AM
I've seen it, played a little, and didn't particularly like it. Its like chartmaster (my bad, rolemaster), a little too rules heavy for me. Still, I do like the concepts behind it, and it is certainly a really nice system for roguelikes and computer games (unlike fourth edition D&D).

JMobius
2009-04-22, 10:06 AM
My most well recieved campaign ever was done in HERO. Make absolutely sure to buy a copy of the 3rd party character creator and its not so bad at all.

Hat-Trick
2009-04-22, 01:45 PM
HEROES is fun. Everything costs points, so the wizard/mentalist/hacker can't be a win button unless some really bad munchkin comes around. They'll still be really good, just not epic compared to everyone else. Remember, Roll Low, Think Low, Be Low on attack roll, limbs can become useless EASILY, DEX is the God stat, and hate END drains.

Oh, and PRE Attacks can turn the tides of battle.

Krrth
2009-04-23, 10:26 AM
Pay special attention to any power that has the stop sign next to it, and police any power frameworks carefully.

Never be afraid to say NO to a concept or power, and remember: No matter how much a player whines, a disadvantage that doesn't actually disadvantage the character isn't worth any discount. (ex: Powers that only work at location X, and one lonely power that only works to transport you to location x.)

Mental entangles suck.

Hat-Trick
2009-04-23, 01:09 PM
Yeah, the way the game works, the character will always have some sort of tactical dis/advantage against others. That desolidification annoying you? Throw an enemy with the Affects Desolidified Advantage. Brick too unkillable? Mind Control can shut him down at least, or use Armor Piercing to cut his defenses in half. Rogue channeling the DEX god? One Hex AoE attack is only a 1/2 advantage, and Drain DEX will knock him down a peg.

And you can play whatever character you want from the get go. I've wanted to make a character that's only thing is that he's uber resistant. Damage Reduction, Damage Resistance, Inherent Armor, maybe some Power Defense.

Now, I'm just ranting.

Krrth
2009-04-23, 04:02 PM
Yeah, the way the game works, the character will always have some sort of tactical dis/advantage against others. That desolidification annoying you? Throw an enemy with the Affects Desolidified Advantage. Brick too unkillable? Mind Control can shut him down at least, or use Armor Piercing to cut his defenses in half. Rogue channeling the DEX god? One Hex AoE attack is only a 1/2 advantage, and Drain DEX will knock him down a peg.

And you can play whatever character you want from the get go. I've wanted to make a character that's only thing is that he's uber resistant. Damage Reduction, Damage Resistance, Inherent Armor, maybe some Power Defense.

Now, I'm just ranting.

Check out pgs 37-50 of Galactic Champions.

Hero by the name of Bulletproof.

70 points of resistant, hardened(X4) Ed/PD.
25% P and E Damage Reduction, resistant.

Hat-Trick
2009-04-23, 04:17 PM
^Boosh. Spot on, my friend. Damnable amount of points for that though, I'll bet. Probably cheaper to get 75% resistant reduction and dropping that PD/ED down a bit. Maybe 40 or as low as 20, but no lower.

TheEmerged
2009-04-23, 05:27 PM
LONGTIME Hero player here. If I was allowed to make my own title on this board, it would be HERO(tm) in the Playground. Next year will be my 20th year playing it. I'd be playing it more regularly (instead of D&D) if I could get more people in the area that would play anything except D&D, but D&D is pretty fun so don't take that as whining :smallbiggrin: For that reason, I can't comment on their most recent products ("FREd" (see spoiler) is as high as I've gone).

Sound Bite = The strength of HERO is that you can build (almost) anything in it. The limitation of HERO is that you HAVE to build just about everything from scratch when using it.

--------------------------------

Calling HERO a roleplaying system is a bit of a misnomer -- and no, I disagree with the people that are about to chime in that it's a ROLLplaying system :smallredface: HERO is really and RPG creation engine. It's a way to create the crunchy bits your RPG will need.

Forgive me the conceit of an example. In D&D 4th Edition, in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide, we're given a series of background bonuses to give characters. One of the first things I did upon reading through this book was to backward engineer the system they used to balance them so I could create background bonuses appropriate to my world. In HERO, they start out by giving you the system.

This is both the strength and weakness of HERO. In D&D, if I want to create a Telepath class I either have to a> wait for them to publish it, b> refluff existing material, and\or c>struggle to discover what system was used to build the existing powers and then strike a balance with what exists so my Telepath is neither too weak nor too powerful. HERO starts out by giving me the 'guts' of the system, and then expects me to do all the work building all the powers.

The best advantage of this is that HERO works across a *lot* of genres and playstyles. It works best at the upper-end of street level to the lower end of mythic (so it can do a Batman or Aquaman excellently, but starts running into trouble around Superman). I have done historical martial arts campaigns, "Hollywood Ninja" campaigns, high-low-medium fantasy campaigns, science fiction campaigns, science fantasy campaigns, giant robot campaigns, modern espionage campaigns, swashbuckling campaigns... and campaigns that mixed and mingled them.

One thing that disappoints some people -- I feel it is a feature instead of a bug -- is that HERO is linear in its power construction. What that means is that it doesn't handle the absolutes well: there is no equivalent to invulnerability in the rules, because everything has a counter (this was mentioned by an earlier poster).

It is also a bit more GM-intensive than many GM's realize going in. You have to do a LOT of the balancing work that in other products are done by the game designers. Of course, for me this is a feature because it allows me to tweak anything I want to tweak.

Take the powerset someone mentioned above, with high defenses: I'd refuse to allow a 70 DEF character in a campaign, unless most characters were throwing around 20d6 attacks as the norm and 24d6 to 26d6 attacks were common (and that's fairly high, pretty much the point HERO starts breaking down IMO).

I'll second the motion someone made earlier: just because you *can* build things in HERO doesn't mean the GM should allow them. Sure, the Mind Mole (Tunnelling + N-Ray Vision + Ego Attack) is a powerful build, as is Nowhere Man (Powers bought "Only Usable (Here)", except for the power to teleport (Here)). But you as the GM not only have the right to disallow them, you have the responsibility to disallow them.

Similarly, there's nothing in the rules that says you are limited to +2 in cumulative advantages or -3 in cumulative disadvantages on a power -- but you may find this a useful standard. There are rules allowing for powers like Mind Scan (find anybody, anywhere), Telepathy, N-Ray Vision, and other powers that can easily ruin a mystery -- but there are obvious reasons for disallowing them in most campaigns.

I'm approaching the TL:DR cap, so I'll end by repeating the advice that any construct marked in the book by a Stop Sign is so marked for a reason -- they can cause problems and/or require careful checks on their use. From 5th Edition on, make sure you understand how Multiple Power Attacks (MPAs) work since most people (myself included) didn't allow them in previous editions but later ones are clearly balanced around it.

The origin of FREd goes like this. 4th Edition HERO was known as the BBB (Big Blue Book) amongst its fans, so when 5th Edition was about to become a reality we were discussing what to call the new edition. The publisher came onto the boards and joked, "You can call it Fred for all I care, as long as you buy it." His joke stuck, and was retconned into meaning Fifth Revised Edition.

Krrth
2009-04-23, 05:41 PM
To be fair, Bulletproof does fight villians that have a 500 cosmic power pool (costs 1250 pts!), and Mechanon who's built on almost 5,000 points. With a 10d6 RKA (ranged killing attack) that is either 250 hexes Area of effect or armor piercing (x2).


But on average, I seem to recall the recommended limit on attacks for Champions is 75 points, with defenses around the same.

MeklorIlavator
2009-04-23, 07:38 PM
Yeah, it requires a more active DM role than other games. Still , it seems enjoyable, and I think it could work much better than DnD for many things. I'm looking forward to the next time I get to use it, though has anyone had experience with it in a PBP setting? I think it would do as well as DND, but I'm not sure, and I don't remember seeing any games on the forum.