A few days ago, certain changes for the upcoming 6th edition of the HERO system were announced. (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73221)
QuoteDuring Steve Long's chat of Wednesday, June 3, Steve revealed several details of HERO System elements which will definitely change, or not change, for the upcoming Sixth Edition. People who were at the chat have responded to individual questions regarding those changes here on the forums, so the information has been filtering out piecemeal to the general community; but I thought it would be helpful to post all of it in one place for people who can't wait until Sixth Edition is published.
None of what follows is speculation. It's all been confirmed by Steve Long as definitely happening, although in some cases Steve didn't elaborate on specifics. As new information comes to light I'll add to or clarify this list. I welcome anyone else who wishes to add data that they're aware of to this thread, but only if it's been confirmed by Steve or another DoJ staff member.
And so, on to 6E:
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The basic 3d6-roll-for-success mechanic remains, and it will continue to be "roll-low."
No changes to the Speed Chart.
Movement will continue to be measured per Phase.
All measurements will be given in meters. There will be no use of "hexes" or any other mapping arrangement in 6E.
Comeliness will no longer be one of the Characteristics. It's being replaced with an optional Talent, Striking Appearance.
All the other Characteristics will remain, but none of them will be "Figured," i.e. derived from other Characteristics. They'll all start with a base value that must be bought up separately. The costs of some of them have been "tweaked" -- no further details yet.
OCV, DCV, OECV, and DECV will become separate Characteristics, not derived from DEX and EGO. They'll start with a base value of 3 and will be bought up separately.
Suggested starting point totals will be raised to compensate for the change to Characteristics -- no specifics yet.
Leaping will no longer be derived from Strength -- it will start at a base amount for all characters, as with Running and Swimming.
Skills will still be calculated from CHAR/5, but there will be an optional "Toolkitting" note about changing that if desired. Other Toolkitting notes will appear throughout the rules -- no further details on those.
Seduction Skill will be renamed Charm.
Some new Powers have been added, and others have been removed. The only one mentioned is Find Weakness, which is being removed. There will be no official way to reduce Defenses below 1/2 as with Armor Piercing.
Adjustment Powers have been significantly reworked -- no further details yet.
Energy Blast and Killing Attack will still be separate forms of Damage, as they are in 5E.
The Stun Multiplier for Killing Attack will become a straight 1/2d6. It will still be possible to buy up the Stun Multiplier with Advantages.
You will be able to apply your Normal Defenses to the STUN damage of a Killing Attack whether you have any Resistant Defenses or not.
Nothing has changed about the way STR adds to Hand-To-Hand Killling Attack damage.
The method of Adding Damage is supposed to be simplified -- no further details yet.
The Multipower and VPP Frameworks will remain, but Elemental Control is being replaced by a new Limitation, Unified Power (no value given).
I've been mildly interested in the idea of HERO, but never played it (as I never met anyone running the game). Can anyone familiar with the game say whether these changes are good or bad?
They are simplifications.
HS2-5: 10 purchased stats, 8 figured, plus movement bases (2 flat, 1 figured)...
Comeliness was seldom used effectively, and even then it as mostly a base for a couple skills. That's why it was cheap. getting rid of it will change very little.
the combat values being separated from stats is going to re-value those stats; dex was 3pts/level because it governed a bunch of skills, OCV, DCV, and SPEED.
None of those decouplings will inherently break the game, if the point costs are adjusted correctly... but it will make character building VERY different.
Shouldn't affect play much at all. Will massively affect CGen.
But I've got 3 editions, and haven't run HS in years, and don't expect to anytime soon... HSR 5 is better than HSR 4. HSR 4 was a nice consolidation, but I honestly had more fun with the separate games under HSR3... Each successive edition has been easier to use, and easier to teach.
I hate Steve Long with the passion of a thousand suns.
From what's there, the changes are stupid and pointless. In the end, they likely won't matter much, because whatever he does HERO is more controlled by how one builds characters and equipment than it is by the construction system itself. A concept that seems beyond his ability to understand.
The only changes that would as a result alter the game would be those not in the construction rules (which is where Long spends all his time, and that is indeed good fortune for us)- but in the rules on how whatever construction is used.
Here's hoping he hasn't touched those much.
In the meantime, don't sell your 5th editions copies. It may be the last good edition of the game depending upon what other evils Long has inflicted.
As an active Hero GM and Player for 15 yerars (no longer a fanatic)....
Fourth Edition was the last good edition. Fifth had no soul and ended up having so many complications (to help clarify things) that it was actually harder to deal with. The game, after character development, was always lighter and easier to use. As long as that does not get touched, the game should work.
To answer the original question, yes these changes are not bad. Some are even "house rules" implimented by gamers (check the web). They can even be slight improvements as long as they are implimented very carefully and balanced. Hero System got lucky. The original designers found magic "sweet spots" for the system early on, and only fixed the two real glitches (Elemental Controls and some missing powers) very quickly. The sytem plays really well. It gives you more freedom than any other system to play (or GM) what you want.
These Sixth edition ideas are still in line with the original game, unlike a lot of things which were being thrown out in the HeroSystem board. (A lot came from what worked for Mutants and Masterminds and Fuzion). This new edition has mostly fan input. They made all these suggestions (and more).
I personally dislike the lack of deriving/ non figured stats/ movement. For non supers games, it made for more realistic characters strong characters became tougher, agile characters were faster, etc. For supers game, it is less of a problem. Unchaining certain things will also change character design so you can augment OCV/ DCV (without levels and a good dex) which can lead to some unrealistic in terms of balance and reflection of reality characters . It will mean the GM will have to pay attention to things a bit more in character development and with experience expenditures to keep a campaign running smoothly.
Still, I will probably get around to buying 6th edition eventually.
I like some of the changes, dislike others and will reserve judgment until I see the final product. However, I doubt I'll switch over - I look forward to the following sourcebooks though.
Quote from: MoonHunter;307658Fourth Edition was the last good edition. Fifth had no soul and ended up having so many complications (to help clarify things) that it was actually harder to deal with.
I agree to some extent on the lack of soul thing, but I feel this was offset by the one book containing everything you need (with a couple of important exceptions), with better layout and indexing.
Once one rolled back a handful of changes Long did- it was still HERO. And HERO was always best when the individual group added their soul to it.
With the changes, I expect I have no use at all for 6th edition.
I've never had the right group of people to play HERO with and so I've never run or been in a good game, but I still consider myself a fan since I own 4th and 5th editions and have spent countless hours dinking around with the character creation stuff.
The changes listed above sound good to me.
Unlinking the characteristics will make it conceptualy easier to build characters. My crew will be able to just write stuff down, instead of trying to reason from the first principles of HERO game logic to reach their conclusion. (By analogy, it's like how D&D is easier without all the classes and levels -- lose versimilitude but gain variety)
Find weakness and the stun multiplier for killing attacks are antagonistic to noobs because they're a deadly exception to the general rules. I'm happy to see them go because I prefer to have more sameness and less rules-fu.
Overall though I'll probably sit this edition out because of the cutsie builds that Steve Long seems to like. HERO is convoluted enough already without doing it convolution for convolutions sake!