Is the new HERO System worth switching to?  Definitely.  Maybe.  Definitely maybe.


REVIEW:

When last we left off, I had finished reviewing HERO System 6th Edition Volume 1: Character Creation, which is now big enough that it apparently requires a second core book to cover everything else that HERO System does.  Thus- HERO System Sixth Edition Volume 2: Combat and Adventuring.

After the table of contents, which as in "6E1" covers the material from both books, "6E2" starts with Chapter One: Entering Combat.  (Page 6: 'Where's the Introduction? - See [6E1] for the introduction to The HERO System 6th Edition.')  The text states that the combat system is based on some simple rules that you can add onto to add more realism and options to combat.  It also states that these extra options work better for Heroic games than Superheroic games.  I personally have found this to be the case, especially given how little superheroic combat stresses realism.

Chapter One stresses the difference between combat time and noncombat time (as in, 'a few days later, you finally drive in to Chicago').  The transition from the latter to the former usually occurs when the GM has the PCs make Perception Rolls to avoid being surprised by the enemy or in order to spot the crisis that they need to avert.  Thus this section of the rules goes into detail on how PER Rolls work.  They are based on INT Rolls (9 + [Intelligence/5]), so for instance a 13 INT provides a base 12- PER Roll. Some characters can justify buying sharper senses as Enhanced Sense Powers, either adding directly to a PER Roll or providing a sense normal humans don't have, like Radar Sense.  Such senses can matter, because there are Targeting Senses that one can use to find opponents in combat and then there are Nontargeting Senses which... can't.  For most humans, Normal Sight is the only natural Targeting Sense, so if you lose that- in the dark, Flashed by
a grenade, or something- you have to use a Nontargeting Sense like Hearing to try to guesstimate where your target is, and that imposes pretty severe combat penalties even if it works.  Thus you get several pages going into the differences between the various Sense Groups, what they do, Range Modifiers and usual Modifiers for PER Rolls, etc.

Whereas noncombat time is however long the scene is, combat time units in HERO are defined as follows: Each Turn is 12 seconds, cut into 12 Segments of one second each.  The first turn starts on Segment 12, then the combat starts over again on Segment 1, and goes on from there until it's over.  The number of times you get to go in a Turn is determined by your Speed (SPD) Characteristic, based on the fairly arcane Speed Chart printed on page 17.  Fortunately it now comes with visual aids: The Chart goes from SPD 1 to 12 with each little "Hero Man" symbol on the chart indicating where in the turn you get to move (SPD 1 goes on Segment 7 of the Turn, SPD 6 goes every other Segment, so 2, 4, and so forth- up to 12 which gets to go every Segment).  The Segments you get to move are also written out next to the chart. A Segment on which a character can act is known as one of his Phases.  There is also a Time Chart on page 18 detailing larger units of time (for use for Powers that require Extra Time, or so forth).  In most cases a character can perform a Full Phase action, or two Half Phase actions on his Phase, an open number of Zero Phase actions and even Actions which take no time.  Compared to other games like D&D, though, there are certain restrictions.  Actions which take no time (like making a 'reflexive roll' at GM request to notice something) can be done at any point in the Phase.  You can perform any number of Zero Phase actions (like re-allocating your Powers or Combat Skill Levels) at the beginning of a Phase or after your first Half Phase action but not after an "Attack Action" (defined as any action requiring an Attack Roll, including using a Healing Power on a  willing target). Most actions, including making a combat move, are Half Phase, and most Attack Actions are also Half Phase, but if you make an Attack Action, you cannot make any other actions that phase (except those 'Actions which take no time').

In most cases initiative is determined by straight Dexterity, with high DEX going first.  Tied DEXes make competing DEX Rolls- if the rolls tie, then the two characters go simultaneously.  There are some other variants on this initiative order: One can Hold an action which allows you to go on a later DEX number or even a later Segment, as long as he doesn't Hold "through" his next Phase (if he Holds on Segment 12 and his next Phase is Segment 3 of the next Turn, he can hold until the end of Segment 2).  You can also Abort to a defensive action (like Block or Dodge) specifically to react against an attack that goes before your DEX, but of course this cancels your move that Phase (so it's also called 'Cancelling a Move').  There is an Actions Table on page 23 that goes over what specific actions require Full Phase, 0 Phase, etc.

All characters have some form of movement, which is now represented purely in meters.  It used to be that Movement Powers were represented as game "inches" where each inch or map hex was 2 meters across.  Ironically, removing the gamespeak might require some Hero gamers to do an additional conversion back from metrics to the "real" measurement for familiarity's sake even though the intent is to make the figures immediately obvious.
This is yet another example of why I'm ambivalent about the new edition: It cuts off the fat, but in such a way that it could trip up veteran players while not actually being easier for novices.  Not that it's so hard to learn metrics, obviously, but while 4th Edition D&D could be accused of over-emphasizing maps and miniatures, 6E, by de-emphasizing game scale units, might make it harder for novice roleplayers to grasp where they and their targets are on a battlefield.  Unless of course you take out one of those old Hero hex maps and say "each one of these is 2 meters across."

In any case, your character's basic movement rate can be split into Half Moves (rounding up on odd numbers on the first Half Move) or Full Moves, and furthermore can be defined as Noncombat Movement in which you can go at least twice your standard Full Move, if you lower yourself to 0 OCV and ½ DCV (because you're not concentrating on combat).  Most Movement Powers in 6E1 allow a character to buy them with Noncombat Multiples.  One accelerates at the rate of 5 meters per meter traveled up to the full Combat or Noncombat Velocity one can go.  However deceleration works the same way, so braking distance is required.  There are a few Power Advantages that allow instant acceleration or deceleration, but of course they make the base Power cost more.  Some of this also matters if you want to do the Superman trick of stopping a moving vehicle, so there are rules for that.

Chapter Two: Fighting gets to the actual process of mixing it up once people have perceived each other and closed to within combat distance.  One important opening sidebar sums up: You want to roll LOW for most things, like making a PER Roll or rolling to hit somebody.  You want to roll HIGH only when rolling for damage or effect on a Power.  In all of the "roll low" cases you're rolling 3d6, against a base number (either 11 or less for Attack Rolls or whatever the number on your Skill Roll is) and in some cases how well (low) you rolled is a margin of success.  The basic formula for the Attack Roll is that 11 or less roll plus Offensive Combat Value/OCV minus Defensive Combat Value/DCV.  This can be counter-intuitive compared to D20 and "roll high" games, so there are other ways to look at it.  Since the roll becomes 11- again if OCV and DCV are equal, one simply applies the difference as the final modifier.  Another way to think of it (if the GM doesn't just tell you your opponent's DCV) is to take your OCV plus 11; subtract what you rolled on 3d6 and that tells you what DCV you hit. There's also a Quick-Reference Table of Combat Values vs. hit numbers on page 35.

There are of course several other modifiers applied to both OCV and DCV, like adjustments for Martial Arts maneuvers, Range Modifiers for attacks at range, Combat Skill Levels, attacking an opponent who's Surprised, etc.  The main modifiers are in a table on page 37.  A character's DCV cannot be reduced below 0, even voluntarily.  Modifiers to CV remain in effect from the point they're applied to beginning of the character's next Phase.  (If a SPD 6 character performs a Dodge on Segment 2 to increase DCV, and goes next on Segment 4, the DCV bonus lasts from his action on 2 until the beginning of his next Phase on Segment 4.  There are also Mental Attacks (including Attack Powers bought with the Alternate Combat Value Advantage vs. DMCV) that use the Offensive Mental Combat Value (OMCV) stat to target DMCV (Defensive Mental Combat Value); this is essentially the same as standard combat except using those stats, and using one's EGO score as the initiative stat instead of DEX.
Also, standard Mental Attacks work on Line of Sight, which means there are no Range Modifier penalties if you can target the opponent at all.

The next section goes over what these Combat Modifiers are and when they're applied.  These are all summed up at a table on page 41 – what modifiers you get for being behind cover, surprise attacks, CV modifiers for target size (applied to the attacker's OCV as a bonus or penalty, whereas greater or smaller than man-size used to be a DCV modifier), and so on.  The modifiers include conditional ones like cluttered areas (at least -2 DCV unless an Acrobatics Roll is used to eliminate the penalty) or intoxication: "Intoxicated, drunk, stoned, or similarly impaired characters are at -2 OCV and -2 DCV."  Obviously some of these rules matter to some genres more than others.  There's also a section called Nine Ways To Speed Up Combat, on the grounds that: "The slow pace at which combat sometimes proceeds is a complaint common to many roleplaying games."  As in, not JUST this one.  Suggestions include: Prepare stat sheets of every PC's Speed and combat stats along with those of their enemies, abolish the Speed Chart altogether, use 'average' damage rolls to avoid having to total up dice, and don't let minor NPCs recover STUN in combat, or even rule that one shot is enough to take one out.

Chapter Three: Combat & Martial Maneuvers uses the prior rules as a base to describe the other combat maneuvers a character could use for free, or in some cases learn with points.  The latter, Martial Maneuvers, are bought as parts of a specific Martial Arts style.  Both standard and martial maneuvers can be classed as either Hand-to-Hand or Ranged, although Martial Arts for Ranged combat are rather rare.
As in the game's descriptions of Powers, HERO System does not attempt to detail every type of combat maneuver one could imagine; rather there are general effects, each of which can be an example of a number of related maneuvers ( i.e. the Nerve Strike Martial Maneuver can be represented as a 'low blow' in Dirty Infighting or a Tien-hsueh strike in Kung Fu).
The general 'free' maneuvers are at a table on page 56.  Some of these create interesting dynamics compared to other RPGs.  Block, for instance, allows a defender to make an "attack" against his attacker's OCV to block the attack, and if this succeeds and both characters have their next Phase in the same Segment, the Blocking character gets to move first on his opponent, regardless of their relative DEX.  You can also keep Blocking multiple attacks until your next Phase, although each attempt after the first is at -2 OCV cumulative until you fail, at which point you can't Block any more.  6th Edition also has rules for blocking ranged attacks, most of which are on a common-sense basis (like using a shield) and can also be barred on a common-sense basis ('For example, trying to Block a laser beam with one's bare hands tends to be a Very Bad Idea').  Using a similar principle, you can also do a Multiple Attack routine, but these also are at GM's discretion.  Examples of valid Multiple Attacks would be throwing a Blast and then Flash on two opponents each, which is a -6 OCV penalty (three more than the base, times -2 OCV).  Multiple Attack also places you at ½ DCV.  6th Edition also allows some optional combat maneuvers like doing a Choke on somebody to subdue or strangle them (something that should probably be intuitive but wasn't free before).
Martial Maneuvers are bought as combinations of modifiers to OCV, DCV, Damage Classes (dice of damage) and other effects- for example, a Martial Throw is +0 OCV, +1 DCV, does STR + v/5 damage (the thrower's Strength plus the thrown target's velocity over 5 in dice) and the target gets thrown to the ground, which among other things means that the attacker gets to move before him like he would if he had Blocked.  Martial Throw costs 3 points.  The rules dictate that Martial Maneuvers have to be bought in packages costing no less than 10 points each (such Maneuvers can cost no more than 5 each, but are usually 4 points).  Jujutsu, for instance, concentrates on grappling maneuvers like Martial Throw and Martial Escape (extra STR to break a Grab).  There are also "Weapon Elements" for allowing use of weapons with one's martial maneuvers, as in Kung Fu and other arts where one can use exotic weapons with a style.  Fencing is presented as an example of a martial style based on weapons, in which case one doesn't need to buy a Weapon Element separately.

Chapter Four: Damage And Its Effects gets to the next step of a combat- once you know what you're going to hit somebody with and what the modifiers are for the maneuver, then you have to find out how much dice you roll for the attack and see what happens.  Usual damage is of two types: Normal (bruising) Damage and Killing Damage, the latter cases being weapons, bone-breaking martial arts holds, etc. and is both more lethal and slower to heal.  Damage is normally organized by Damage Classes which in most cases directly translate as Active Points over 5 (an 8d6 Blast or 40 STR both do 8d6).  Killing Damage is normally bought as 1 die per 15 Active Points Killing, so each 1d6 Killing Attack is 3 Damage Classes (or 3 DCs).  The complication here is when one determines the DCs of attacks and Powers that have Advantages.  For example, if an attack has the No Normal Defense Advantage, the Advantage is +1 value, which means that 1d6 (5 points) of Blast with that Advantage gets multiplied by another factor of +1, so each 1d6 NND is 10 points (5 x2).  10 points equals 2 Damage Classes, so each odd DC of NND damage is ½ d6.

Likewise most damage rolling is pretty straight.  If you have an 8d6 attack with physical damage (like a punch) you roll eight dice and apply the total to the target's Physical Defense (or Energy Defense if it's an energy attack like lightning or something).  Thus if you roll 34 points on those dice the target subtracts his Physical Defense (PD) and takes the remainder against his STUN.  Most Normal attacks will also do BODY, based on what number is rolled on each d6, where a 1 does no BODY, a 6 does 2 and 2-5 do 1 each- so on 8d6, a roll of 6, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 3 and 1 does 34 STUN and 10 BODY.  (It's suggested that one shorthand way to determine the BODY is to take the number of dice, add 1 BODY for each that comes up 6 and subtract 1 for each die that comes up 1, and that's the number of BODY you rolled.  In this case you got three 6s and one 1, so that's a net +2 over your eight dice, so 10 BODY.)  Killing Damage is even more straightforward except that 6E nerfed some of it;  you roll the dice and that number is the BODY the target takes, with STUN determined on a random roll of ½ d6 (resulting in a STUN Multiple from x1 to x3).  Previously you rolled the STUN Multiple on 1d6-1 for a result of 1 to 5, but this made the "STUN Lotto" a bit too attractive for knocking out opponents, resulting in even more slasher-motif "superheroes" than we would have had otherwise.

In 6E there are also clarifications for how one adds damage types together, for instance adding STR to Martial Maneuvers and/or weapon damage.  In Heroic games weapons usually have a "STR Minimum" that one has to have to use the weapon and one can only add STR above that limit, so that a sword with STR Minimum 10 and 1 ½ d6 base Killing Damage (5 DCs) only adds +1 DC if you have a 15 STR (5 over the Minimum).  If he then has a Martial Strike with weapons that adds +2 DC, that makes his total DC 8, so his sword can do 2 ½ dice Killing.  Usually campaigns establish an upper limit that whatever your base damage is can be no more than doubled with all the add-ons, so in this case the base 5 DC sword would crank out no more than 10 DC no matter how much you add with it.  In 6E, when you add damage that has separate Advantages, you have to basically prorate the total, using a "Damage Class Quick-Reference Table" on page 101.  For example, if a character has 20 STR and a mystic mart
ial arts technique that adds +8d6 Hand-to-Hand damage with the Armor Piercing and Penetrating Advantages, those Advantages have a +3/4 when buying those extra 8d6.  Cross-referencing DC 4 (the STR 20) with +3/4 Advantage on the chart yields 2d6, so the 20 STR only adds +2d6 to the Advantaged attack, not +4d6 like normal.  This is actually a lot more balanced than the 5th Edition standard, where you could, for instance, have a 20 STR for 4d6, a Martial Maneuver that added +4d6, 4 Extra DCs with your Martial Arts for a 12d6 attack, and then add all those dice straight with a +4d6 Hand-to-Hand Attack with the Armor Piercing Advantage so you could get a 16d6 Armor Piercing attack when you only paid for the Advantage on 4 dice.

(A while back, I did in fact go on the Hero Boards to ask Steve Long if this very construction was legal under 5th Edition Revised, and he essentially said, 'Yes, but that doesn't mean a GM would let you use it in their campaign.')

Now, when that damage is applied, it's usually applied against a Normal Defense, PD or ED.  In the case of the 8d6 attack that did 34 STUN and 10 BODY, let's say the target has a PD of 8; he ends up taking 26 STUN and 2 BODY.  However, against Killing Damage, the target has to have a Resistant Defense like armor or a force field to resist the BODY damage.  He does get to apply his Normal Defense against any STUN, though.  So a Killing Attack that does 5 BODY and 15 STUN would do the full BODY and 10 STUN against a guy with a Defense of 5, but if said character had leather armor with a Resistant Protection value of 3, his total defense against the STUN would be 8 (and he'd only take 7 STUN) while the armor value of 3 would mean he'd only take 2 BODY.  (This is another change- previously characters with no Resistant Defense had to take both BODY and STUN from a Killing Attack straight.  The new rule allows characters to at least stay up against gunfire long enough to do something heroic, even if they still take lethal damage.)

STUN damage matters because if the STUN you take in a single attack exceeds your CON rating, you're Stunned until your next Phase comes up; your DCV and DMCV drop to ½ normal, any non-Persistent Powers turn off at the end of that Segment, and you cannot take any actions until your next Phase.  Recovering from being Stunned takes a full Phase.  If accumulated STUN goes over the character's total STUN rating, he's Knocked Out until he can take enough Recoveries to get him above 0 STUN.  Each Recovery is usually one phase, but if you're knocked way below 0 STUN they may take longer (-31 STUN is 'GM's option').  Each Recovery restores the character's REC rating in STUN (and END, once he reaches positive STUN).  Taking BODY over one's normal total means the character is dying and will continue to lose 1 BODY every post-Segment 12 (end of Turn) until he either gets patched up or perishes by reaching twice his BODY (e.g. a character with 10 BODY who gets taken down to
-10 BODY dies for good).

There are also several optional rules in this section for adding realism and detail to combat, such as the Wounding rules (character has to make a CON roll to take action if he's taken BODY), the Bleeding rules (character may continue to take damage from an untreated wound until he can get it looked at), Hit Locations for called shots, each doing modified damage (a Head shot does x2 BODY and normal STUN after defenses, or x5 STUN Multiple on a Killing Attack), Disabling/Impairing rules for those called shots (generally a hit location that ends up taking at least half the character's basic BODY score is Impaired and injured for a certain period; a shot that does at least x1 the character's total BODY Disables that location, which will cause long-term effects like brain damage or loss of a limb), Knockdown (an Impairing/Disabling blow can push a target back a few meters) and Knockback.  The last simulates the effects of superhero combat where objects and characters get tossed all over the place.  Thus Superheroic campaigns tend to use Knockback and ignore most of the other rules while Heroic campaigns use most of the optional rules but Knockback.  One can achieve interesting effects by combining the superheroic style with the other optional rules, resulting in something that plays like The Authority.

Next you have Chapter Five: Other Combat Rules & Effects.  So obviously 6E2 is just as concentrated on combat as 6E1 was on character generation.  This chapter goes over miscellany like breaking out of a Grab or an Entangle power, what could happen if a character's shot misses a target, and picking up a target in combat and using him as a club against another opponent.  There are also rules for "interposing" (taking a shot meant for another character) or "sucker attacks" (feinting so as to make your opponent miss you and hit his nearby ally).

This section also goes over Recovery, which is odd given that the previous chapter that details the effects of losing STUN and BODY and taking injuries would be a better place to see how one recovers from such injuries.  Again, one normally takes a Recovery on a Full Phase Action, but this places you at ½ DCV and you can't maintain any Powers, even those that cost no END, unless they're Persistent.  Plus, if you end up taking any damage past defenses, that kills your Recovery.  The game does give you a "free post-Segment 12" Recovery at the end of each Turn (and since the first turn of combat starts on Phase 12, you get that first Recovery right off the bat if you were hit).  The REC stat is also used as the character's base healing rate in BODY per month (a base 4 REC means you recover 1 BODY of injuries per week average), assuming the character takes it easy.  Strenuous activity like combat halves healing rate and unsanitary conditions halve it again.  It is noted in Chapter Four that the GM should try to pace combats in his game so that characters with no access to magical healing or regeneration powers don't get "nickled-and-dimed" by mooks before they reach the climax of the adventure.  Which again is another reason why the Recovery rules should have been in that chapter.

The HERO System also keeps track of Endurance (END) in order to fuel characters' Powers (including natural abilities like Strength and Running).  Even though the END ratio on most superpowers, including magic spells, is 1 END per 10 Active Points of Power, is fairly generous, it's quite possible to run out of END in a long combat, in which case you get to burn STUN for END and actually knock yourself out from exhaustion.  It's also said that: "The GM should feel free to adjust, or even  ignore, END costs. He should never require players to keep track of END unless it's important."  So... up to you, really.
This chapter also has the fun rules for Presence Attacks where the character gets to roll 1d6 per 5 PRE he has, plus various modifiers (an 'incredibly violent action' is +3d6), against a difficulty of the targets' average PRE, in an attempt to cow the enemy, sway an audience, etc.


Chapter Six: The Environment details how the outside world can damage the character.  Or vice versa.  It starts with rules for falling damage (including the variant depending on local gravity of an alien world), what happens to a character who doesn't have food or water (or Life Support to cover such things), how various environmental effects are simulated with the Change Environment Power, and so on.  There are rules for the damaging effects of chemicals, electricity damage, fires, etc.  There are also rules for security devices ranging from the simple deadfall/log trap to the modern retina scanner.  This section also has very detailed rules for adventuring underwater, including effects on movement, combat, visibility, and various Powers.

Chapter Six also gives the rules for Breaking Things, in case you need to stop your enemy from getting a certain item, or you want to use a streetlamp as a weapon and want to know how much damage it does and how much it can take before being useless.  Or, just because you want to break stuff.  In the new game, objects have both PD and ED (previously they had undifferentiated 'DEF') and BODY.  Some objects, like industrial machines and commercial vehicles, have less defense than one would think because of their moving parts and fragile components.
The Environment chapter also includes the rules for using the Concealment Skill on objects, or using it actively in a "Skill vs. Skill" roll to detect someone else's Concealment attempt.  Finally the book mentions the presence of animals in the environment, but only details three examples: The American Black Bear, a Lion, and a Light Warhorse.

Chapter Seven: Equipment is self-explanatory.  In Heroic games PCs don't pay character points for equipment (it costs money like in other games) but you still need to build the stuff so that you can see what it looks like in game terms, especially if someone in a Superheroic game wants to take the "off the shelf" item and customize it.  "Equipment" here also includes Automatons like robots and zombies which are essentially animate items more than characters.  Rules for "programming" Automatons are similar to those for Computers, except that at a certain level you can make artificial intelligences (AI) which are effectively free-willed and have an EGO score.

Equipment also includes Vehicles and Bases, the first being mechanically much like the second, except they move.  Both usually cost 1 character point per 5 points in the vehicle or base.  It should be noted there is some overlap on all these categories; a Base or even a Vehicle could have its own Computer, and a Droid-like intelligent robot would have to be represented with a Computer brain also.

This chapter also gives us the rules for vehicle combat.  Vehicles, like characters, move a certain number of meters per Phase, with their own DEX and SPD ratings.  However, a vehicle's effective DEX and SPD is either its own or its driver's, whichever is lower.  (Essentially, an ice truck turns a lot less quickly than a Formula race car, regardless of who's driving it.  If the character has less DEX and/or SPD than the Vehicle, the controls are too sensitive for him and he can't control it at its full capability.)  Likewise, when using a Vehicle to target something (either with weapons or ramming) it is subject to either its own OCV/DCV values or the driver's, whichever is less.  Most vehicles take a penalty (applied as an OCV bonus to the attacker) for size, but a driver can make a Combat Driving/Piloting role to "dodge" and eliminate that penalty if he does nothing else that Phase but maneuver.

After vehicle combat and stats of some common commercial and military vehicles, you get stats for weapons and armor, which are much more straightforward in that they are Foci (Character Powers built into items).  However, there are special rules for using basic weapons and armor in Heroic games.  Again, Heroic weapons usually require a STR Minimum (which is a Limitation when buying on points), and there are also modifiers to STR minima for two-handed grip (or trying to wield a two-handed weapon in one hand).  Likewise, Armor in a Heroic campaign has weight and Encumbrance values, and will thus hinder a character below a certain STR level.  Weapons and Armor both have the "Real" Limitation, signifying that they will fall apart or lose effectiveness if not properly cleaned and maintained.  This also covers why you can't use a Two-Handed Sword to cut through a jail cell just because you have enough Damage Classes to do so.

Chapter Eight: The HERO System Genre By Genre is intended to display the versatility of HERO System by advertising the various role-playing genres the RPG has been used for or could be used for.  Starting with Champions (superheroes), Chapter Eight goes over the common genre "bits" of a particular setting, character archetypes, subgenres, and (usually) presents sample characters.  For instance, Champions games feature bright costumes, high technology and a properly "heroic" outlook on life.  Dark Champions, despite the name, is not a subgenre of Champions but Hero Games' brand for modern action-adventure stories ranging from Hollywood movies to TV crime shows.  In direct contrast to Champions, Dark Champions stories are realistic (at least on that Hollywood level) and much less idealistic than superhero stories.  Dark Champions archetypes include spies, hackers, combat experts and vigilantes (analogous to some dark superheroes or Pulp mystery men).
Pulp supposedly doesn't have subgenres so much as a particular style applied to various styles including Westerns, although it's mentioned that in Pulp Science Fiction characters usually wear garish uniforms and travel to exotic planets where the natives still somehow speak English.

The sample characters are in most respect straight conversions of the exact same characters presented as genre examples in the 5th Edition Revised corebook, which usually means they require more points to have their stats bought up to where they would have been.  Given that the whole point of breaking the association between Characteristics and their "components" like OCV and DCV was to de-emphasize the focus on DEX and other "god stats" it somewhat defeats the purpose if you have to buy everything back to where it was.  This particular issue has been debated at some length on the Hero Boards.  My position was this: Points are money.  If the game design team (Steve, in this case) wants to up or lower the costs on some traits, then that means they want some traits to be more or less accessible.  If you're paying more to get ultimately the same values on a character, that's point inflation.  Otherwise, if our standards of what a hero's combat stats "should" be have been artificially inflated by years of now-traditional HERO gaming, then published characters should reflect the new paradigm where DEX is not as important.  At least here, that's not the case.

Chapter Nine: Gamemastering starts with a sidebar: "Eight Principles For Interpreting And Applying the HERO System Rules", which should all be seriously pondered regardless of what your game of choice is, including number 8: "Use your common sense."
This is the stock GM advice chapter for a core book, and in HERO System you also have to go over stuff like exactly what genre you want to run as a GM, what the setting is going to be (like, what decade, if it's on Earth) and of course what the players want from the game.  HERO books tend to classify campaign styles in terms of morality (black-and-white vs. 'grey'), realism, outlook, and seriousness.  Again, a Champions game is likely to be much more black-and-white and optimistic than a Dark Champions game, although not necessarily unserious.
It's also stressed that while you need to let the players design their own characters, "leaving it entirely up to the players often invites disaster."  The author says that the character sheet is something of a contract between the player and the GM: The player is saying, "I want to play a character with these traits" and the GM is saying, "I want you to play this character, and I'm going to give you the opportunity to use the abilities you've bought for him."  This also applies to any Complications the player came up with; if the knight is "Hunted by Trolls" and you hadn't thought of how Trolls would fit into your Fantasy universe, this either creates an obstacle to the stories you'd already planned to tell or creates an opportunity to create a new setting element. "(This is why it's often best not to do too much work on a campaign until you find out what the players want to do in it.)"

In designing characters, the book admits that while HERO System strives for point balance, some games are going to emphasize some traits over others, and so high SPD (for instance) may make a character more effective than the same points spent elsewhere.  Usually the book advises stressing the importance of Skills for a PC, so that not only is he not over-balanced on combat abilities, but has something to do when there ISN'T combat.  The rule of thumb is that a PC should usually spend at least 10% of his points on Skills.  Some of course will spend a lot more than that.

In developing the overall campaign, the GM should decide if the game is Episodic (little continuity between adventures), Serial (very tight continuity with everything leading through an over-arching story) or something in between.  Obviously the second choice requires a lot more planning but can be more involving for everyone.  This section also goes over concepts like the campaign theme and mood, with narrative techniques and little props like music and handouts going a good ways toward setting the desired atmosphere.

After reviewing general aspects of gamemastering, this chapter then goes into analyzing the details on the HERO System itself which may affect a GM's decisions.  For one thing the fact that most combat and skill rolls are on a 3d6 creates a bell curve that means a small modifier can have substantial effects on a character's chance of success, IF the base chance is at the midpoint of the range (that is, around 11 or less on 3d6).  However, if a character has a very high or very low base roll, even a large modifier may not affect his chances very much.  For instance, page 281 gives a table showing what the effects of the difference between OCV and DCV are; if attacker OCV and defender DCV are equal, the attacker's chance to hit is about 63% and if he has a +6 advantage of OCV over DCV, his chance is 99%.  Likewise the book advises keeping characters balanced while pointing out that the other factors mentioned above will tend to create their own balance (you could, for example, plow all your points into super-Strength, but then other characters who have their points in other areas would be able to defeat or kill you easily because they're more likely to hit you than you them- and they will also have the Background abilities to be useful and interesting out of combat).

One new element of 6E, while optional, is the concept of Heroic Action Points.  These were first introduced in Pulp HERO as a variant of the expanded 5E Luck rules, reflecting the feats of daring and "dramatic editing" that are characteristic of the Pulp genre but have also been employed in some form or another in other RPG systems.  In this version, each PC rolls 2d6 each game session to determine his store of Heroic Action Points (HAPs), which do not refresh; each game session he re-rolls and that number replaces the old amount without adding or restoring the last total.  Most NPCs won't get them but high-level NPCs and villains will.  Basically, HAPs will allow you to adjust a roll by +1/-1 for each HAP, although you normally affect only your own rolls or DCV.
When finishing a session or campaign arc, the GM will award Experience Points.  Generally a one-shot adventure is 2 points, +1 for each week the story took after the first.  The neat thing about HERO is that XP are synonymous with Character Points, so that if you have 3 XP banked, you could buy a 3-point Skill, boost STR by 3, or whatever else the GM  thinks is feasible.  (This of course varies; it's usually easier to justify a STR increase if you're a superhero than if you're a 5'2" Thief in a Heroic-level game.)

Steve's Final Advice (in this chapter) is that a GM  should not only trust his players but be able to listen to them and what they're trying to say about the campaign so that you will be able to respond to their desires, and if you can listen to players and execute the campaign elements to the best of your ability, the game will go on as long as you want it to.

Chapter Ten: Changing The System goes over the fact that not only is the HERO System customizable, HERO fans tend to take advantage of that. Especially in 5th Edition days, the game was marketed as a "Gamer's Toolkit" more than a specific setting or focus.  Thus game design intends to allow fun and open-endedness without being so "open" that it's too easy to exploit the system. Thus this chapter goes over some of the assumptions of the HERO System so that a GM knows what to work with in tweaking things.  Most Powers are built on the mechanic of 1d6 of effect for 5 points, namely STR and Blast.  This adjusts up and down; Dispel has limited application and costs 3 points per die, while Drain now costs 6 per die and "Severe" Transform and Killing Attacks are 15 per die.  There are no absolutes like automatic-hit powers or the like.  Usually the defense against an attack is going to be cheaper than the attack.  Corollary to most of this (but not stated) is that given that there is more than one way to design any given attack or defense, there's no "foolproof" Power that can't be overcome.

In "toolkitting" your game with HERO System, this book allows you to tweak things to a great extent.  For example, a Horror campaign could steal from Call of Cthulhu and create a Sanity (SAN) Characteristic that takes damage from exposure to alien phenomena or monsters.  Other examples in the 5th Edition rules include each of the magic systems created for the three Fantasy HERO settings, where you had the High Fantasy Turakian Age setting, in which magic was very common and thus the Real Costs of all spells were divided by 3, making them much easier to buy, as opposed to the Swords-and-Sorcery Valdorian Age where magic was less powerful and took time to cast, reflected in required Limitations that enforced the principle "a guy with a sword gets to move before a guy with a spell."

Chapter Eleven: Concluding Notes reviews the origins and the progress of the HERO System.  Originally created as the Champions superhero game, it was expanded to "heroic-level" titles like the modern-action Danger, International and the Pulp Justice, Inc. under the "HERO System" line.  The problem was that these games did not have a common rules set and did not convert very well; Champions did not have the detailed martial arts of Danger International, and the deliberately weak Powers in Fantasy HERO didn't use exactly the same rules as Champions Powers. Also, the demands of publishing obliged Hero Games' original ownership to work under Iron Crown Enterprises to distribute books.

Under I.C.E.'s editor Rob Bell, Hero did produce the classic Champions 4th Edition, or "The Big Blue Book," which for the first time gave a unified, clear set of rules that would work in all of Hero's genres.  However, the I.C.E. Agreement became less and less useful when that company developed its own issues, and in 1995 Hero Games entered into another publishing arrangement, this time with R. Talsorian Games, during which time original editor Steve Peterson worked with Steve Long on refining the 4th Edition rules. That project got put on the back burner when R. Talsorian used Hero's rules with a mix of its own "Interlock" system to create the "Fuzion" edition of Champions.  We will speak of it no more.

Long's 5th Edition project was in limbo while rights to Hero Games shifted from R. Talsorian to the electronic company Cybergames, which eventually decided to shift away from paper games.  In mid-2001, Long, Darren Watts and others formed the new company DOJ, Inc. and got the rights to Hero Games and the 5th Edition manuscript from Cybergames.  In 2002 DOJ published the first print of HERO System 5th Edition to renewed interest, especially with the growth of Hero fans' online community.  Thus, when Long and Hero Games decided that a sixth edition was warranted, there was a lot of debate allowed on the Hero Games forums, which helped shape the tone for what Hero Games decided to change in HERO System.
After this, you get the Index, which as with 6E1 is a master index for both books.


SUMMARY

So... is 6th Edition any good?

Well, it sure as hell LOOKS a lot nicer than the previous HERO core books.  Not that this says anything.  The physical quality of pre-6th books went up and down a lot, but generally, buying a Hero Games book for its beautiful art and graphics was like watching Deadwood for its heartwarming family message.  But the color layout and lovely art in the 6th Edition books not only makes them easy to look at, it makes them easy to read, since the layout directs the text and the pieces that are supposed to be sidebars are actually highlighted by background color that both sets apart the paragraphs and is still light enough to make the sidebar readable, as opposed to the greyscale of B&W editions (not to mention the 'it's a feature, not a bug' faded yellow tint on the 5th Edition Revised hardcopy).

Moreover there is an effort made to address some of the complaints made (largely by non-HERO players) that the system is too much computation, at least in terms of actually running the game.  You have a lot of the formulas (for the Speed Chart, for example) clearly laid out with graphics, and the sidebars emphasize the basics- again, you always roll under your skill number for everything but damage.  So while the sheer scope of the game might be daunting to initiates, these assists, along with actual play, will make it more approachable.  I also like how Complications (former Disadvantages) have been both reduced and clarified so that the GM and players have a better handle on how they should be used in a campaign.

But as with the D&D corebooks, while I have to give these titles high marks on both style and substance, that doesn't necessarily mean I endorse them wholeheartedly.

It again comes down to my general feeling that the new edition of HERO System would trip up veteran players while not necessarily being easier for non-HERO players to learn.  In particular I think that not only do some things cost more than they should but that some costs are added that didn't need to be there before.  This is why the point quota for starting characters has been increased.  This is basically point inflation - you're paying more to get the same value than what you had.  Or sometimes less.

Why am I so hung up on the matter of point inflation?  Because, generally, the more points a character costs, the more complex it is to design.  In some cases that's a good thing, which is why modern HERO has a lot more Skills and options than write-ups in the old Champions books.  But in order to get those options that are now spelled out in rules, you have to pay points, and spend time and thought on just where those points should go, and each recent edition of the game has required you to build a PC on more points to get what he "should" have for a starting character (mainly on the Superheroic level).  However given that as many Powers were reduced in cost as increased, and Skill Levels increased somewhat but not substantially, and the cost of former Primary Characteristics were reduced to account for their not being a base to other Characteristics anymore, it's clear that the prime culprit in the "point inflation" is the need to buy one's base CV stats in addition
to getting Combat Skill Levels.

Again, it is similar to what was done in Mutants & Masterminds' 2nd Edition, but there it was done on a relatively cheap and simple scale.  I might be less bugged about the new costs if they hadn't decided that "Figured" Characteristics included CV and Mental CV and even then I wouldn't have minded so much if they didn't split them further into Offensive and Defensive values so they have to be bought twice.  Especially considering that OMCV, unlike OCV, is useless to anybody who isn't a mentalist- which means for all effective purposes that stat doesn't exist for most characters, defeating the purpose of the  differentiation.  Of course that's just my "grognard" perspective.  But from the standpoint of the new player, who probably came off an Attribute+Skill system like White Wolf's, they won't automatically assume that Characteristics would have no effect on combat values, and having to buy those values from a separate average is computation that they didn't have to do before.

In other words, there are changes made that didn't merely complicate the game but complicated it unnecessarily.  And if you're trying to keep HERO veterans while trying to recruit new players, the last thing you want to do is make the game unnecessarily complicated.  Which is why I'd said in the 6E1 review that the new edition doesn't require you to learn the game all over again, but it doesn't streamline things for newbies.  It also throws in enough significant changes that when I tried explaining them to my gaming group, they were fairly unanimous in not wanting to try 6E, which means I won't get to test-run it, which is why I said I wouldn't be getting the hardcopy books.

Put it another way, there were a few things I didn't like about HERO's 5th Edition- like how Regeneration was made as a self-only version of Healing, even though Healing has an upper cap and regeneration is supposed to work until the character is fully healed.  But the system as a whole was good enough that I could live with the few things I didn't like.  Here, despite the things I like- and I like them a lot- the things I don't like are significant enough to be potential deal-breakers.

The general feel I'm getting from the community on the Hero Boards is that while most of us are impressed with 6th Edition overall, it has enough issues that some people are going to keep HERO 5th Edition Revised and "port" some of the stuff from 6E.  Or as it's been called, "FrankenHero."  That's probably what I'd do.  Because with all the stuff that did in fact get simplified and corrected, there are enough monkey wrenches thrown in that I don't think I'd take this package as-is.

It's an interesting review. I think that any game that manages to have a combat system span over five chapters is unnecessarily complex. The very core roll in the combat (OCV + 3D6 -11 = DCV), while logical, it still complex in comparison to pretty much every RPG I've ever seen too. And while they tried to counter the criticism with a more streamlined Champions Complete, but even then I found the explanations of rules difficult to follow, as if the editing process had cut out the clarity. It's not far removed from the likes of Traveller 5, to be blunt.

I have the 4th edition Champions game. With regards to Champions 4th, it is more palatable although like most games from the 80s could do with a polish up and facelift. There is, however, still a good game at the heart of it. I get the feeling that the design crew at HERO games may have simply gone the wrong direction in terms of the game's complexity from this point onwards though. I'd be interested in seeing how the 5th Edition may have compared. As it stands, it looks like Champions/Hero may have ceded the 'leading supers rpg' mantle to Mutants & Masterminds around the mid-2000s because of these reasons.