Reading through Fantasy Hero 1e right now, which I think corresponds to Champions 3e in terms of rules development, and something is really jumping out at me.
You've got a stat for movement, which is how far you can move in a phase. This stat is derived from some primary stats, but can also be bumped up independently if you pay for it.
You've also got a stat for speed (SPD), which is how many phases of action you get in combat round. This is also derived but can be bumped up.
See where I'm going yet? If you want to cover more ground in combat, you can either increase your SPD, which also increases your general ability to do multiple actions including melee attacks and shooting bows, or you increase your movement rating. This seems weird.
I realize there's some sort of rule for "out of combat" movement but I haven't looked at that yet.
Even stranger, the rules state that if you cast a continuous spell, you have to pay an endurance cost every phase to keep it in effect. So, if you cast a defensive spell on yourself, you'll run out of energy faster if you have a higher SPD? Granted that you can also be doing more stuff relative to (say) the lackey who's trying to brain you with a club, but if all you're doing is trying to stay alive while waiting for the fighter to come to your rescue, your higher SPD is an absolute disadvantage. Yes?
Somebody tell me what I'm missing, please. And/or if this has been addressed anywhere. Thanks.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;235185You've got a stat for movement, which is how far you can move in a phase. This stat is derived from some primary stats, but can also be bumped up independently if you pay for it.
You've also got a stat for speed (SPD), which is how many phases of action you get in combat round. This is also derived but can be bumped up.
See where I'm going yet?
I don't know about Hero, but Shadowrun solves this same problem by making [the equivalent of] your movement be how far you can move per
combat round, not per
phase. Is it possible that Hero works this way, also? Or could such a change be easily houseruled into the system?
I'm sure it could be, just divide your movement by your speed. But there may be a logic to the whole thing that I'm missing.
Now I'm wondering how Dragonquest 1e dealt with this issue; probably the most detailed phased combat system I've ever played--but it was a long time ago.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;235185Somebody tell me what I'm missing, please. And/or if this has been addressed anywhere. Thanks.
Nope, you have it right.
If you wished, you could declare a campaign standard (i.e. your rules for making characters) determine common total movement rates for a turn (SPD * Movement)- and then have characters buy up or down based upon their SPD.
Example: You feel humans can run a total for a Turn of 36" max. Thus a SPD 4 character needs running 9", and a SPD 2 character needs 18". A rather extreme example but you get the idea.
This concept of a Campaign Standard is very important when playing HERO. It's how you define the use of a very open ruleset for your group/setting.
As far as the END cost thing goes- yes, that's how it works. It's the price for having all those combat moves (otherwise SPD would cost more than 10 pts per). If you like however you can buy Reduced or No End on all or part of the character's abilities. Or up the REC or END. Or some combination.
Thanks, Brian. Requiring standards (or an envelope) for movement is fine, since it works within the point-balance system. That is if you have a certain "final movement rate per turn", giving yourself more actions is always more expensive, as it should be. And if you have a certain number of actions, then increasing your "final movement rate" is also more expensive, as it should be.
Bu the issue with the END cost is that it "breaks" the point balance somewhat--depending on circumstances, what ought to be an advantage becomes a disadvantage.
One thing I've seen from doing some searches, is that somewhere in the various Hero rules there's something that says you can voluntarily reduce your SPD to 2. I'll have to check if that's in FH, but if it is, then a wizard who wants to cast a continuing spell (such as a shield, or maybe an enhancement to an ally's weapon) and then just maintain it without doing anything else can reduce his per-turn END expenditure to twice the basic cost of the spell.
It's still a little weird but not as big of a problem.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;235207Bu the issue with the END cost is that it "breaks" the point balance somewhat--depending on circumstances, what ought to be an advantage becomes a disadvantage.
It doesn't so much break the balance has shift it IMO, at least in practical terms.
Consider the following:
A character buys a 8d6 EB with the Continous advantages on it. That means he fires and hits once, but there after he can inflict 8d6 damage on the target in each of his phases. Hence he should spend END on each of those attacks (otherwise he's getting free attacks), this makes sense.
Where you're having trouble (and where I did originally) is that he also has to spend END on each phase for things like Forcefield, or Life Support if it has a costs END advantage.
To do other would require an added layer of complexity in the rules, i.e. defining what does or does not cost END per phase.
And rather than do that- they left it as is, but dropped the cost of SPD to reflect the fact that additional END costs as side effect of the increase to SPD.
This is how I made it fit into my own head.
In HERO, points are points and you can get anywhere generally although there are some issues in the rules. I often spend a good amount of effort balancing a character's END costs and recoveries. It can be down on a number of levels.
Have you checked out the HERO House rules on my website? They may be of use for more gritty campaigns.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;235207One thing I've seen from doing some searches, is that somewhere in the various Hero rules there's something that says you can voluntarily reduce your SPD to 2.
That's been part of HERO for sometime now. If it's not in FH, I'd add it. Useful for the drowning/hold breathe rules and other things.
The concept is that if you attempt to conserve yourself- you can. It just means you can't be as active.
You can change your speed post-segment 12, though you can never go higher than your actual SPD. So if you're in combat and waiting for the fighter to do his thing so you can get past the bad guys and into one-on-one combat with the BBG, standing around with your Force Field on is going to bun through all of your END in short order. So post-12 you can drop yourself to 1 if you'd like.
There's also an optional rule for changing within the Turn, i.e. before post-segment 12, but I forget it. So yea, unmitigated a character with high SPD can burn through his END, but players should always be aware of this rule, since it strikes me that this is why it was written.
Note: I freakin' LOVE chatting about Hero.
-=Grim=-
Quote from: GrimJesta;235312Note: I freakin' LOVE chatting about Hero.
As do I.
And not many others. Well, lots of people to talk with at the official boards- but I have no love of the official HERO mindset and can't stand the place. I imagine many D&D fans here feel that same about their official and semi-official boards.
Well, if I have any more questions I'll be sure to post them here to give you guys some fodder for discussion.
Thanks, guys.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;235396Well, if I have any more questions I'll be sure to post them here to give you guys some fodder for discussion.
Thanks, guys.
You should let us see what standards you come up with for construction. Depending upon how you set the stats, skill levels, armor and damage- you can vary the result across the range of resolution styles.
The official methods give a very D&D like tone to me. But you can pull it in the other direction too- out GURPing GURPS even.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;235396Well, if I have any more questions I'll be sure to post them here to give you guys some fodder for discussion.
Thanks, guys.
As a side note, my contribution to Hero 5th was also related to phased actions with respect to movement.
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/herosystem/
In practice, most of my games (all of the non-superheroic ones) we made everyone have SPD 4 to simplify things.
Quote from: jhkim;235458In practice, most of my games (all of the non-superheroic ones) we made everyone have SPD 4 to simplify things.
We never went that far but, in practice, tended to limit most characters (except for the odd speedster or slow normal) to a SPD range of 3-4 ratings wide (usually 3-6, with 6 being rare). It's not fun sitting around doing nothing while everyone else gets to go.
Quote from: John Morrow;235491We never went that far but, in practice, tended to limit most characters (except for the odd speedster or slow normal) to a SPD range of 3-4 ratings wide (usually 3-6, with 6 being rare). It's not fun sitting around doing nothing while everyone else gets to go.
Never was a problem with the groups I've been in, and I've had groups that ranged from 4-10 that worked quite well.
Quote from: gleichman;235383...but I have no love of the official HERO mindset and can't stand the place.
Dude, seriously. ast time I was there, which was several years ago, I had to defend my self against a dozen or more people who were literally chewing me out for not switching editions. Like, they literally had the stance that newer edition automatically means better edition and if you don't switch you were retarded. I don't like 5th edition and I don't need it. It's that simple. They couldn't understand that.
-=Grim=-
Quote from: GrimJesta;235590Dude, seriously. ast time I was there, which was several years ago, I had to defend my self against a dozen or more people who were literally chewing me out for not switching editions. Like, they literally had the stance that newer edition automatically means better edition and if you don't switch you were retarded. I don't like 5th edition and I don't need it. It's that simple. They couldn't understand that.
That was exactly what I ran into.
I use the 5th Edition rules, with some role back on some rules (plus some house rules) because I like having everything in one hardback book. But I consider may of the changes Long did to be less than idea.
Add in the fact that I think the default build standards HERO uses to be rather poor, and there's basically nothing at that site for me.
Very fan-boyish board there. Hanging off Long's every word.
*Very* Fan-boyish.
Some people there were really cool though, and rather helpful to boot. But the masses killed it for me. Much like ENworld. Meh.
What do you mind wrong about the default character builds?
-=Grim=-
Quote from: GrimJesta;235597What do you mind wrong about the default character builds?
Well, first off- it's a matter of taste for the most part. But I think HERO feeds the oft-stated comment that HERO can't do gritty very well because of it. The worst issue is that they insist on using the same defaults...
On to details, and this is a short list.
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Allowing BODY to range from 1-20 as the human normal does a number of things that I don't like. Since the optional rules for impairing and disabling are based upon that number- the required weapon damage needed to provide a good chance of doing either grows to large to remain in the same 'human' range. This is even worse if you extend the 'exceptional' human range to 30 as the default rules do.
I fix the builds to a 9-11 range for normal humans (12 as the top end max). The result is that the rifle damage baseline given in the rules actually start to act like rifles.
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The exceptional Range for the other stats (i.e., humans can buy it at double cost over the normal range) going up to 30 is too much. It expands the CV range too much away from average and has equal impact in other areas.
I fix the top human value at 25 to control this.
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The standard assumption in HERO for Superheros for SPD and DEX used to be SPD 5 and DEX 23. I'm not sure what it is now, but it's either the same or has grown larger.
I fixed that to SPD 4 and DEX 18 to move them closer to human. IMO (and for Marvel style games) the difference between skilled humans and Superheroes is not combat speed and/or skill- but powers. So I think the focus should be there. Helps cut on the END impact noted at the start of the thread as well.
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HERO tends to use low Defenses compared to the attacks. They do this so that even low damage characters can damage high defense villians. To offset this they use higher values for CON and STUN than I do.
Yes, that means some characters can't damage some targets without special effect or abilities. But to me that's matching the source material.
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I've completely reworked firearms in an attempt to make them both more realistic and more dangerous to the typical man in the street. I also upped the DC for melee weapons by 1 for the same reasons.
This moves kill attacks from something not that far from D&D (i.e., it takes multiple strikes to bring down even the average man on average) to something closer to... oh original Runequest.
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Since Long took over the line, there is a strong bias for paying for what IMO should the special effects of some of the standard powers.
For example:
Rather than allowing a character with stretching to simply stretch his head over the corner of the building to look around it- Long requires on to buy Clairsentience with limits to do the same thing.
Rather than allowing a superstrong character to bend bars around someone to entangle them (I can't think of a comic brick that hasn't used this one)- Long wants you to buy Entange with limits.
And so on. He seems more interested in point costs and clever builds than he is game play with these.
I do very little of this- only for near signature moves for certain characters that other similar ones don't do.
And that's a start.
Is Long the dude doing 5e? I only play 4e. I like some of the changes you made and am considering incorporating them, especially the Norm and Super stat ranges.
Clairsentience to look around a corner...um... when you have Stretching? Bullshit.
-=Grim=-
Quote from: GrimJesta;236282Is Long the dude doing 5e? I only play 4e.
Long did a few supplements for at least 4th edition back in the day. He then bought all or part (I forget which) of HERO Games when the original owners had enough.
At that point he did 5th edition. As an editor (i.e. combining all the text into one book in a rational way with a good index)- he excels. And he also produces like a book rabbit in heat, although he takes full advantage of cut and paste to do so.
He has stated that he's started work on 6th edition, and that he is now free to make whatever changes he wishes. Fifth edition may be the last version I use depending upon the nature of those changes.