Disclaimer: I forgot a few rules (Nothing game-breaking), generally hat-checked combat modifiers and forgot to use the bad guys' manuevers the whole game. Also, greatly tended to forget DCV modifiers from manuevers.

It was smooth. The math wasn't hard, I had little difficulty calculating Normal and Killing damage after the initial few hitches. OCV (Offensive Combat Value) and DCV (Defensive Combat Value) took a couple of glances between sheets.

DC (Damage Class) calculations were smooth; the progression to memorize is simply +1, 1/2d6 or d6-1, d6, d6 + 1 for Killing damage - Nothing your average geek shouldn't be able to do in their head. Normal damage is even easier; 1d6, 2d6, 3d6...Filling out the DC progressions for my brothers' characters' weapons ahead of time greatly helped. It took a some read-throughs of the short section to grok how, but should go much smoother in the future.

My brother used combat manuevers, including a hit location called shot to the head (Taking out an Orcs' eye) - All went smoothly, baring that I had to look up how hit locations worked - But that's normal learning curve stuff.

I also used critical hits and failures; the only benefit was to an NPC teamster who, due to unfortunately rolling low on damage (2 + 1 on d6 + 1, x2 for critical hit), only knocked out an injured orc in the caravan attack.

The session itself: Our intrepid cat-person adventurer (Named Mar) stumbled across an evil temple and promptly started investigating. Found a creepy water basin in the first room that smelt like blood; dropped a spider in. The spider (Hat) promptly grew to the size of a hand, turned red and attacked.

(This part highlighted the ease of use of the spider; I hat-checked its Dex check (12 or less on 3d6 - All skill checks are 3d6), OCV (5), DCV (7) and Speed 2 - That's all I needed to run it.

The spider did 3 Body and about 11 Stun before being impalled on a dagger, highlighting the importance of good DCV - I judged it had 7 DCV and since we hadn't clued in to combat manuevers, my brother kept missing on its +1 Body ND (Normal Damage) attack - Due to me miss-remembering, all but its last attack did a flat *3 Stun.

Seeing as my bro hadn't hit yet, I handed him some different dice to try and remembered manuevers.

Next roll was a 4. 6? damage on a hand-sized spider...Yeah, that's one dead arachnid.

After dipping an arrow in the water and having it turn red, he headed off deeper into the mini-encounter - Found a goblin chanting evilly. This is the encounter I thought should do some damage. He shot him using a shortbow, the red arrow and the manuever Offensive Shot (1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, -1 DCV, +4 DC) and got 10 KD (2, 2, 6) (Killing Damage) and 30 Stun.

The arrow added +2 DC (Hat check), but left a faint stench of evil (Orange, grapes and rotten eggs) around him (Plot hook!).

(There was a bit of confusion here about how much damage, which was resolved in a short period of time - Learning curve stuff. What I'm typing is the RP result)

The goblin was promptly knocked out and (As I forgot about his wicker shield) killed, as well.

This allerted his hench-gnome, who responded to "What is that?" with...Yeah, I **think you know the joke. This resulted in a few minutes of laughter on both our parts - My comedic timing was good there.

Anyway, the psycho gnome charged, got shot by shortbow cat-person for 8? Body (No armour of any sort, just a 3d6 ND club) and dived behind a coffin.

Mar threw a rock and hit, but didn't do damage. His next attack was more effective; moved over for a clear shot and one-shotted the gnome.

Things Narf learned from this: *Always* give the bad guys a ranged weapon.

We decided to continue; Mar sold the club and spear but kept the wicker shield (Which, due to continual poor attack rolls on my part, didn't get used) and I used Bits of the Boulevard to, I think, at least adequate effect on my part - Later I learned that I should just use the search function for finding gates, markets and merchant stuff.

He then headed to the Mercenary Guild (Couldn't think of a better way to give out plot hooks...Er, job opportunities) where the three notable options (I described the rest as 'Kill the rats in my storeroom' kind of stuff) were gaurding a caravan for two weeks and 2 ***SP per week, guarding a sage out to and in a historical ruin and an ad for 'Experienced and ambitious men for "Business Enterprises"'.

He took the caravan job.

I did a little not-so-good description of boring caravan duty, then dropped an orc horde (50) on the caravan and mentioned that he was next to the pay chest wagon at the time. (I decided to use most of them as background and influence that fighting by how well he did)

What followed was general action-hero class fighting as he killed, IIRC, 4 and two half orcs (4 kills, two assists), with bow and dagger. He kept hitting (+3 OCV with his shortbow helped) and the orcs kept missing (^3 OCV versus 5 DCV didn't help; neither did my forgetting their manuevers).

But even so, he used manuevers well and the dice were on his side (Including the aforementioned stabbing an orc in the eye with a hit-location shot at -4 OCV).

We wound down the game with a festival in the next town; I wrapped up quickly. The guard there are lax, but I've got nothing planned for that (Literally; relaxation stop).

We had fun and are planning on continueing.

End comments:

Hero system is not scary. It's complex, but it makes sense - At least to me.

There's almost no feeling of 'wasted space' or 'wasted rules'. This is a very good thing. It feels like all 'crunch' rules, almost no 'fluff' rules.

With the Hero Designer and the Turakan Age package, making grunts was easy - I came up with the orc grunt sheet while doing the quick 'This is caravan duty' montage. Once you grok how to make stuff, it's almost all intuitive.

Also, I gave the orcs a Spear HKA (Hand Killing Attack) with a Ranged advantage. I'd almost learned my lesson - I only gave them one. Oops.

* All dice rolls are d6's. Normal damage is 1 = 0, 2-5 = 1 and 6 = 2 for Body damage; Stun is the dice total. Killing damage is the dice total; Stun is multiplied by d6-1 or x3, if you want to speed things up - I did x3, since I didn't want to bother with rolling an extra dice.

** If you don't, it's from a 4e advertisement on &'Gnomes as Monsters', in which they interview a gnome and which contains the hilarious line [Gnome Voice]"I'b a Bonster! RAWR!"[/Gnome voice]

& Gnomes aren't monsters in 4e. Yes, they are in the monster manual. So are Humans, Elves, Dwarves and all the other player races.
*This is NOT a 4e debate thread*

*** 1 Silver Piece = 1 Character Point for buying stuff. Very simple currency and I do have some concerns. Should be able to hat-check stuff that needs higher or lower prices, though.

^ Attacks are Dex Check + your OCV - their DCV + Manuever + (Optional) Hit Location modifier.

A convert!  W00t!  Someone that believes!

People look at FRED (Hero 5th edition) and go OMG, and run in fear.  Not realizing that most of it is stuff that even the GM isn't going to need but is there for "assistance".  For non supers you only have 48 pages or so that are requires for Players, maybe more if you are into combat.  Supers and those who want custom spells or alien powers, you can increase that number by 2.5 if memory serves.   Out of 700 pages really not a big thing.

Hero has this evil rep for "Lots of Bad Math". Can't seem to shake it, as so many people want the No Math of early versions of D&D (current editions have enough math that even no-math gamers must do math).  

The game is built around some simple rules that are consistant and applied through the entire rules.  There are no odd exceptions. No bolt ons. There are only straight forwards listings.  Once you see the trees for the forest, you go, "oh, it makes sense", and can figure out costs without looking them up.

Once you build a character, there really is no complicated math in Hero System.  In many cases, there is no math.

Heck, unless you are building a complex superhero, the math isn't that hard (though in the SH's case, there will be a lot of it).  Most characters are easier to calculate in Hero than in GURPs, given the set prices. (Supers gets messy in both systems).  Add some numbers together, one set for attributes and one set for skills/ perks/ etc, and one last set your base and disads.  

Complex supers, you get what you deserve. However, you have the option of trying any character you want and the GM will allow.

Just a bit of note:

The easier way to do combat it is to remember your attack number 11+OCV, and usually you remember it for each of your attack modes/ manuvers.  Roll the dice, the difference between the two is the DCV you overcome.  

Easier for PCs than GMs, who have a ton of characters.  A notation I often uses for NPCs is 14-/4  First is their basic attack number, the second is their basic DCV  (plus for shield lets say). If they have levels, I usually apply them ahead of time (adding 3 levels with sword,  one to offense, two to defense) makes it 15-/ 6 .   Sure you can mess with this in game, but unless he is a special npc, I don't.

I might list a couple of them, adjusted for attack types  (Haymaker 16-/-1 for example).  

Once you get them pre-statted, you never forget them all.  And a little familiarity makes it even that prep unrequired.  (Yes, I can do hero math in my head, I have played the game just that much.. I already know the answer)

...I use the Hero Designer. I'm not math-phobic, just like the speed, the ease and the lack of need to calculate and re-calculate multiplication and division.

(Manuevers were remembered about half the time and as Mar could make his two shortbow attacks per turn without loosing endurance over time and the evil knight had a Recovery of 9, he was in no danger of fatigue, so I didn't explicitly track Endurance use.

I also used Moonhunter's (Thanks, Moonhunter) idea for using the roll-under difference to determine the DCV hit, which helped a lot.

I wrote out some pre-fab weapons, armour and shields for the game and we ret-conned the items he had using that. I've also written out some magic systems, although they didn't see use - I'm thinking this is a low-magic game.

I roughtemated Stun as a generic 'I think you get knocked out' sort of thing this game. I may scribble stuff down on a sheet of paper in the future, but it worked well.

Due to back pain, i'm running two short sessions today instead of one long session.)

The game opened with the festival closing down; it completely closed down around mid-day. All of this was mostly back-ground noise, as my brother and I both wanted to go back to the plot.

So, the afternoon found Mar and some other caravaneers (Guardsmen, teamsters, a wainwright, etc.), heading back to the large clearing the caravan had set up in. As they neared the caravan, they heard someone shout "The caravan master is dead!"

A short run brought them to the site of a murder; the caravan master and four of his five guards, all killed by one man (As determined by an *elven tracker)...And with a broken necklace holding the symbol of the order of evil knights who killed Mar's tribe and forced his parents to flee to another land. A quick conversation relayed that information to the guard captain.

The caravans' tracker lead a team of guards, including Mar, the guard captain and his lieutenant, along the tracks and into rocky, hilly terrain. An ambush ensued, involving a Kight of **Takernim and his armsmen.

(I was able to run any necessary combat dice rolling off the top of my head; not as well as if I wrote stuff down, but well enough that I can see that it's very doable for a few combatants)

The knight proceeded to kill several guardsmen, the guard captain and his lieutenant (All rolled, although I fudged the first guardsman - Decided he rolled low enough on the attack he just died - That didn't 'feel' right, so I dropped that for the remaining guards); Mar finally brought him down with an arrow through the gut, leaving the knight barely alive. A guardsman finished him off (Just said it hapened. He had one Body left and I ruled he was out of it with pain, so...).

The ***four remaining weary and bloody guards stumbled back to the caravan, to the general dismay of everyone...Except, perhaps, the missing guard...(One Tavram, by given name)

In the aftermath of the loss of anyone with overall authority, the caravan broke up into three groups. One decided to sell/buy in town and head off on a different route; one decided to hire a new caravan master and guard captain and continue along the route; the last decided the caravan was cursed/had bad luck/wasn't supported by *foo and so broke up in different directions.

After twelve days (Including a weeks' travel), Mar is now in the port city of Sanside with the reformed caravan...And someone has been shadowing the caravan...

(And the elf's name is Bralstan, as Mar now knows)

* Through some OOC and IC thought processes, it ended up that elves almost never gave out their names (Including, to a significant extent, among each other) and tended to travel singly, so calling an elf 'Elf' is accepted and expected by both elves and non-elves. 'You', if there's more than one. It's a wierd bit of elven psychology; they'd find it insulting if you used their name without being given it. They may or may not adapt to other cultures' ideas on naming when it comes to non-elves.

** Said genocidal human supremicists.

*** Mar, two guardsmen and the elven tracker.

(Some scribbling of stats happened in session 2b, which included stun damage in the applicable encounter)

Being the suspicious sort, Mar climbed a tree to keep a watch out for whoever had been shadowing the caravan. Being that he rolled 12 on a 11- Perception check, he completely missed the hidden assasin, who promptly tried to kill Inspector *Garack as the inspector was coming to inquire about this new, out-of-area band of fanatical genociders.

Mar couldn't tell him much, partly because he didn't know much and partly because of an assasination in progress...

Between the combined efforts of Mar and the inspector, the assassin was driven off (Lost half his Body), after which I discovered that his Speed was 3, not 2, which means he should have been getting three actions per round instead of the more normal 2 per round. Which means that when he comes back, he'll be even more deadly, in the style of good re-occuring villians.

The inspector decided to follow Mar around; Mar decided to continue following the merchant caravan. The merchant caravan decided to take ship to a city down the coast.

Along the way they **spotted a crumbling castle ruin atop a one hundred and fifty foot cliff, when three figures carrying another two burst out of the castle doors, running away. Ghastly howls followed them down the hill.

The ships' captains steered further away from the ruin, with haste.

As they were crossing one particular bay, a mist began streaming towards them and gathered to such an extent that no-one could see more than twenty feet away from the ships.

Ghostly ships lanterns soon appeared and a ship faded out of the fog. Mar rolled a 6/11- on Perception and thus noted first that the ship should not still be floating with that many holes in it and that the crew did not look alive.

A furious melee ensued as the ***undead pirate ship crashed into the merchant ship Mar was on (Merchant Ship Moe, of merchant ships Larry, Curly and Moe), with Mar plying his bow to good affect against the unholy horde. The opposing captains engaged each other.

(My brother liked my undead sound effects)

Mar managed to down a zombie with a head-shot, after which a somewhat comical duel occured, with a particularly bright zombie pirate climbing into the enemy ships' crows' nest and taking pot-shots at Mar with a crossbow - Managing to deal significant damage on two shots, but mostly missing.

The ****shot that downed that zombie was an Offensive Shot, attempt at a head-shot, with a rolled hit location of 'Head' - Which resulted in 2d6 x 2 damage = 16.

Most of the crews of both ships were dead or deader at this point and the ships' captain was down when the remaining two ships pulled alongside and finished them off.

The two remaining ships captains elected the dead captains' lieutenant as the new captain, re-sorted the crew and, in an act of ironic revenge, looted the pirate ship...

...Most of the loot looks normal...

* I haven't decided if that's foreshadowing, but the dear inspector does know more than he's telling...

** Random adventuring party.

*** 14-/3 OCV to-hit and DCV, 18/N/A Body/Stun and 3 PD versus piercing attacks. 2 actions/round.

**** There's two ways of doing hit location damage; you can try for the general area or you can try for an exact location. The first way, it's easier to hit your opponent at all. The second way, if you hit, you always hit where you were aiming.