The Wargamer, The Deck Builder, & The Role Player

[RandomCasualty]

1126535404[/unixtime]]
3. Because of its desire to be able to generally recreate any power or ability the GM must sitdown and figure out several important character creation limitations for his game to get the feel he wants. You will have to let the players in on the man behind the curtain to an extent and I know some folks don't like that.

How does this differ from other point based systems? The main thing I'm wondering is why someone would necessarily choose HERO over GURPS, BESM or some other point based system out there. Much of what you said about HERO seems to apply to GURPS just as much.

I'm reasonably familiar with GURPS, so I'm curious as to what HERO does better than GURPS and how.

[Crissa]

1126671082[/unixtime]]I'm reasonably familiar with GURPS, so I'm curious as to what HERO does better than GURPS and how.

Mmm...

I'm a big GURPS fan, here. I have literally a hundred GURPS books, not including duplicates, or Fourth Edition (which faces some of these shortcomings).

I also have nearly a dozen BESM books, including four differrent versions of the game.

...And I have three of the four revisions and at least two varints of each for HERO (Champions).

I like point based games - they allow me to put game rules to a setting which came out of a book, the silver screen, or my head.

---

Specifically answering your question: Hero has combat rules which are much more detailed, and yet less detailed than GURPS.

GURPS combat is very binary - you get shot, you die. There's a few hitpoints, but they merely represent whether you're bruised, or are missing large chunks of your physical body. Abilities are skill based more than ability, and the Supers/abilities were made in a version long ago - and never updated or rebalanced. This was an achilles heel for the game.

HERO is based up the precept that hitpoints - Fatigue - represent your effectiveness in the world, rather than whether you've been obliterated or not. There is two or more hitpoint systems concurrently, and all of the defaults set to not doing permanent damage. The standard barroom brawl leaves nothing but emotional scars, Joe Average has a good chance of surviving. Abilities scale nonlinerly. However, their skills either rule or suck, and several of the stats don't really do anything.

GURPS balances the world based upon what a human can do or know; HERO balances the world upon the basic 'Blast' ability cost and effectiveness. All Abilities in HERO are based on this... So there isn't really a way to make one set of plusses and minuses turn out to be 'more efficient' than another.

Any further questions?

Oh! And HERO is all about making the deck ahead of time: Once characters and settings are built, playing the game is really easy: All the math is already done. Unfortunately, deckbuilders aren't happy unless they can make their charges based combo character who breaks so rule. *sigh*

-Crissa

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

Crissa does bring up another limitation in HERO. The lethality index is kind of low in the game due to it's Superhero roots. People get knocked out a lot in the base system, but killing them is a good bit toughter and in certain genres can be too tough. The optional hit location and wounding rules help up the lethality, but folks looking for something very realistic like a Western genre will have to tweak the rules some IMO to get a viable lethality index.

I'm reasonably familiar with GURPS, so I'm curious as to what HERO does better than GURPS and how.

I'll have to let somebody else tackle this as I haven't played enough GURPS to give you an informed and detailed differentiation between the two systems.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

Although I disagree with Crissa on this statement:

. . . and several of the stats don't really do anything.

There is one stat that is somewhat mechanically worthless and that is Comeliness which you get at 2 points per 1 character point. So 4 whole character points is what it takes to be as good looking as any of the comic book characters.

I could see maybe CON as well, but it does into multiple figured characteristics (Endurance, Recovery, Stun, and Energy Defense) plus is a good Requires Skill Roll target for toughness based powers.

Other than those two the characteristics are all used regularly throughout the game.

[Fwib]

Why can't HERO work just fine in a high-lethality Western situation?

A low number of points, normal characteristic maxima, no superpowers, hit-locations and your enemies wandering around carrying OAF RKAs sounds like high lethality to me.

I admit that from my reading of it a few years back, I liked the GURPS skill system more, except for languages, maybe.

[Josh_Kablack]

1126664987[/unixtime]]You forgot permit applications.

That's because I consider myself a rogue deckbuilder

[Crissa]

1126706360[/unixtime]]

. . . and several of the stats don't really do anything.

Intelligence, Comliness...

I was thinking of tweaking intelligence somehow to make the points mean something more than one every five (maybe figuring it into ego combat?); and adding comliness as a lesser part of the base Presence.

It kinda has the old-game over statting that many systems had.

Old West works great in GURPS - as it's all skills and speed; lethality is already there.

HERO does Old West alright; you need to have standard gadgets, and the lethality being low adds to the length of gunfights - which is very similar to the real world, in which these things don't kill you immediately. Bleed out rules just need to be added.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1126700406[/unixtime]]
HERO balances the world upon the basic 'Blast' ability cost and effectiveness. All Abilities in HERO are based on this... So there isn't really a way to make one set of plusses and minuses turn out to be 'more efficient' than another.

I'm curious what exactly this means, and how it's untrue in GURPS or BESM, but true in HERO.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

1126742781[/unixtime]]
Intelligence . . .

So nobody in your HERO games ever make Perception rolls or use about half of the skills in the game?

Interesting.

[Crissa]

1126791166[/unixtime]]

1126742781[/unixtime]]Intelligence . . .

So nobody in your HERO games ever make Perception rolls or use about half of the skills in the game?

Of course they do.

But points into Perception and Intelligence Skills is cheaper than putting points into Intelligence; and only one out of five points matter - If you have five points, that's a boost. Six points? No change. Four points? no boost.

Now, what is this 'everything is balanced upon Blast?

ENERGY BLAST
Standard Power/Attack Power
Instant
Range (5" x Active Points)
A character with Energy Blast can attack at Range, doing Normal Damage. Examples of Energy Blasts (EBs) include a superhero's force blast, many types of blunt throwing weapons, a wizard's bolt of mystic energy, rubber bullets, or a Galactic Trooper's blaster rifle. Each 1d6 of Energy Blast costs 5 Character Points.

Okay.

This is the most general of general attacks. It's you throwing a rock.

Every other attack is balanced to this one effect and cost - if it is more effective, it costs more, etc.

HERO also has a rule or table for just about every basic combat maneuver, because of twenty years of experience behind it...

-Crissa

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

1126803718[/unixtime]]
But points into Perception and Intelligence Skills is cheaper than putting points into Intelligence; and only one out of five points matter - If you have five points, that's a boost. Six points? No change. Four points? no boost.

Depends if you want both though. If I want good Perception and several good skills then it makes more points sense to buy up your INT. If you just want PER it does make more sense to just by + X PER as a power, but unless you're only buying an INT skill or two or aren't a skill based character then INT is not a total waste.

As for the playing the edges of the characteristics, all of them have that. DEX is an even bigger culprit since it determines your OCV and DCV.