For those of you who like Champions and Hero, what is your favorite edition?

I had 5eR and got rid of it, as it was way too much like a college textbook. It was a solid system, though.

I also have 4e, which I like quite a bit. I know the rules are pretty similar to 5e, but the presentation is way better, IMO.

I've never seen 1e through 3e. It would be cool to hear opinions of them as compared to later 4e+.

6e has pretty books, but the rules are even longer than 5e, so they are a no-go for me.

Very curious about this. I've only played Champions 4e a couple of times, at a con (back when we actually had cons around these parts), and it seemed, like GURPS, a simple enough system in actual play, with monstruously front-loaded crunchy character generation. This being 15 years ago, I remember being awed by the obviously computer-assisted character sheets.

I'm not sure I'd like to get into Champions right now, my group being fairly recalcitrant to this sort of crunch these days (except GURPS, which we have plenty of history with), but my curiosity is piqued.

What little I've heard jives with dan's post, i.e. that 4e was the last intelligible, non-bullet-stopping edition, and I too would love to know about 1e-3e.

I was a pretty big fan of 4e in college, although I like 5e too, with the exception of the removal of Regeneration into Healing. I haven't tried 6th yet, but am guessing I won't like it for the one of the reasons I loved the older editions- there was very little change between editions (I haven't seen it on paper yet, but I'm guessing that removing figured characteristics is a major change).

I'm with the OP.  4th edition is my favorite.  

As for the other editions:

Champions 1st and 2nd were nearly identical and followed closely on each other.  They were shorter and simpler, but didn't have nearly the range of powers that the later editions had.  

Champions 3rd was an upgrade in terms of clarity.  In the supplements Champions II and Champions III it got the range of superpowers, but scattered over three books.  

HERO System 4th was the first time that it was a universal system rather than a superhero-specific system.  It pulled in ideas from the genre systems like Danger International, Justice Inc, and Fantasy Hero.  The biggest difference was a successful revamp of martial arts, that worked better even for superheroes, in my opinion.  It was long, but still shorter than the 1st ed AD&D PHB + DMG.  

5th edition turned the rulebook into a hardcover brick, nearly doubling the pagecount (340 to 592) mainly by increased detail in the rules rather than any major new rules systems.  

6th edition has made it even longer into two bricks.

Not sure what edition we played but I've played a few Hero games at Gen Con the past few years. A couple of pulp games and a couple of modern super games. I only play Hero at Gen Con. And I have had a blast everytime. I think it helped that the characters were pre-generated and the GM was fluid with his game. I was concerned there would be rules minutiae every step of the way but the GM just had us roll against a stat or a skill.

Of course the combats were the most fun and the speed chart worked well.

I'll always play a Hero game at Gen Con because it is so much  fun.  Not sure if I would ever run hero at home though  because of the front loaded character creation process.

The version I have at home is Champions 2ed (?). it's the Champions game in a box with the Mark Williams cover illustration. It's only 68 or so pages. It doesn't have every power but I don't mind making things up and just rolling with it.  

FWIW.

My first version of Hero System was 5th Revised; my second is 6th Edition.

Overall, in clarity and polish, I'd choose 6th Edition over 5th. I'd prefer something with more brevity, but at least GM's can point to specific spots in the rulebook when the rules-lawyers get going.

Do not like the Basic Rulebook - Some bones are missing.

And yes, you can, at the start, make an OD&D or PHB AD&D character faster - By hand.

That's the negative. Now for the positive.

You really can play any character, any genre, any campaign with it. Including non-cinematic - Add in all the combat options, adjust point ranges, tool down what skills can do, restrict powers and talents/perks bought, enforce some realism in what structural damage a character can do. All of it built right in or part of the basic assumptions of the system.

You learned all of the math involved in Elementary school.

There's also character creation software on a two-year contract which reduces it to point-and-click, if you're not a math-for-fun person (which is not usually me).

The basic mechanics can be reduced to a two-page handout. Don't believe me?

Without background and with background.

...And I can't think of anything more to say.

Except: Righting by me; Art and Layout by Teh Bunneh (or so he goes by on the Hero Forums), who's also the official art and layout guy at Hero. He volunteered himself for that, which was rather nice of him. That's also why there's official artwork on it. No license, free as in air. Just don't claim you made it.

6th Edition. Complications need to be redone on the Heroic Action Point per occurrence basis and the Combat Effectiveness method detailed in Digital Hero 3 needs to be brought into the core as the standard measure of balance (I've a lot of experience as a GM with player concepts that are excellent but cannot be done properly within a set amount of Total Character Points).

Quote from: DeadUematsu;4715666th Edition. Complications need to be redone on the Heroic Action Point per occurrence basis and the Combat Effectiveness method detailed in Digital Hero 3 needs to be brought into the core as the standard measure of balance (I've a lot of experience as a GM with player concepts that are excellent but cannot be done properly within a set amount of Total Character Points).

What is the SFX of "you played your character, so here, have a little bit of meta-game magic"?

Combat effectiveness is not the sum and total of character effectiveness, by any means. Hero, IMO, is too close to there already.

Overall, 4e. There are some bits in 5e I like, but there are also bits I don't like. AFAICS, you can get most of the benefits of 6e just by changing Hand Attack to 5 points a die and doubling the cost of Strength.