Tell of the awesomeness of Hero System

Good to know, thanks!

I'd like to run a Golden Age setting about the first wave of masked heroes set during Prohibition. Preferably the PCs will be at lower power levels, but I know at least one of my friends wants to make a speedster.

Well, lower power levels are the best way to start. The Basic Rules will be enough to decide if you like it

Bumping with links to relevant rulebooks and such found in the archive
mediafire.com/folder/hu1a1vr7jsze0//Tabletop RPGs#hu1a1vr7jsze0

I use Champions Complete. Less than 300 pages but has everything in it. Most notable stories are just the stars aligning to get a character killed via dice magic.

What's the best level of regeneration for fast healing characters?
What's the visual difference between a 3d6 eye laser and a 7d6 eye laser.

It's love/hate. gem of system, poorly presented...best thing is just PLAY it and the majesty will be revealed...supremely flexible chargen, fun tactical combat

It's one of the only systems I know of where f you don't wanna hit the dude with all 6d6 of your sword attack you CAN reduce your attack to 3d6.

>poorly presented
Seriously. Say what you will about the autism within the pages of GURPS, the books themselves look like RPG books. The books in OP's image must have been designed to look like a high school textbook and a particularly dry one at that.

Just because the book looks nice does not magically make the system better than it actually is. Which is 'meh'

i love hero system.
my problem is that an overwhelming majority of players are spoiled entitled brats who have played WAY too much pathfinder so they have no idea how to do math and get mad at GMs who tell them "no"

but man, if i found some decent humans who didnt suck dick at math i would love to run hero system.

I seriopsuly want to get into this

super hero bump

is it easy to run on roll 20 or maybe even mumble by itself?

Favorite system ever.

People complain about the math involved, but I literally started playing in kindergarten.

Killing or normal?

If that's normal damage is the student between a slightly above average punch and a baseball bat.

Killing is the difference between a barbarian swinging a claymore and an antitank weapon.

Visually it's up to the position how it looks on game. The dice is more a measure of efficacy.

>I cannot into reading comprehension

>Judging a book by it's cover art
I miss the big black book of 5tg Ed. The big blue one of 4th was pretty great to.

Splitting the books into 3 was a bit dumb, imo.

It's about the same as any other game over role 20.

I ran a couple games on myth weavers years back.

Dafuq are you taking about m8
Did you quote the wrong guy?

For ease, I'd suggest Savage Worlds with the Super Powers supplement. Think if GURPS was simplified down to the level of 5e, and still managed to be fun. Also, it has exploding dice.

I picked up a copy of Fantasy Hero a while back but never took the time to play it. Don't you use log functions in this game?

>Suggesting anything other than Hero System for super heroes

Not really. The system uses doublings of force every 5pts because things like the strength of an old lady and Galactus would be really annoying to have to measure on a linear scale.

That mostly just applies to strength.

You won't really run into it much in fantasy.

>Suggesting a system not designed around super heroes over a system designed around super heroes
Are you legitimately retarded?

Damn I can't describe how much I love hero system.

Played every genre I can think of. Post apocalyptic, hard sci-fi, study sci-fi, super heroes, gritty gunslingers, fantasy, horror etc.

Ok, so Hero system is better at superheroes, but the advantage of Savage Worlds is that it's easier.

You want to run a full on Super Hero campaign that will last for months? Yeah, go HERO system. But you want to run a supers one-shot and half your group doesn't already know the system? You can read Savage Worlds and bust out a character that does exactly what you want in about an hour.

The power isn't that it does it better, it's that it can maintain a solid system that does what you want without being overly crunchy like Gurps, or too Rules-lite like Risus.

Not him, but since people have thier pet systems.

I'd personally recommend Hero System for just about anything. Except maybe Maid or erotic roleplaying.

>is that it's easier.
If I was doing a one shot, I'd just make pregens. I can knock simple characters in minutes.

If you dislike crunch, you could always use fudge/fate.

Not enough stats and derived values for my taste. Could also use more abbreviations.

>Not sure if serious.

How am I supposed to jot anything down on this? It's way too superficial, it barely reflects anything about a character. And writing out skill names or hit location names is just waste of space.

Use Hero designer pleb.

The character sheet in any system is just crunch and physical description with a few social ties. Backstory has little to do with the sheet.

It's not that I dislike crunch. It's that I dislike rules that are either so vague they depend entirely on narrative for game balance, or systems so obsessed with doing performing in such a way that it gets in the way of actually playing, running, and enjoying the game.

As for pregens, I believe that fundamentally defeats the purpose of Player Choice, but that's just gaming philosophy.

Anyway, I was suggesting the system specifically because user wanted a supers system that was easy to get into, but still fun.

>The beauty of Hero is that it can handle pretty much any setting and any set of assumptions
>if done correctly
>most recent editions haven't presented the game in a newbie-friendly way
>But if you dive in and preferably have mild autism you WILL be rewarded
Dude, I don't know what you're on, but that sounds EXACTLY like GURPS, right down to the newest edition only catering to the most hardcore of their existing audience.
> t. a GURPSfag

>read that as Steven Schlong

>40 posts
>18 posters
>Half the thread are generic comments about "wow, I just love the HERO system, and I love how great it is for running superHERO games, it's just the best
OP confirmed samefaggot

I like hero system for the opposite reason. It may you do anything you want. Every other system I look at seems to constrained.

I never have any problems with rules getting in the way. Although I think that's purely due to system mastery.

>Player Choice
It's a one shot. There's no point getting attached to the character. You're only going to be playing it for a few hours.

Hero is a lot like gurps.
I tend to think of gurps as Hero System light.

In terms of pure flexibility, I don't think there's another system out there that beats HERO. However, I can't seem to find any reasonably priced copies of the basic set online, and I don't like running games off PDFs.

>Being this butt hurt over nothing
Lol

So what's the difference between editions? Are the compatible?

Yeah. With minimal tweaking.
The shifts from 4-5-6 were basically just making the game more balanced by getting rid of stuff that extra savvy players could use to eak more power out of points.

Even at its worst though, it was pretty well balanced. It's a point buy system, so it requires more GM oversight during character creation then a lot of systems.

>Yeah I agree that HERO's presentation is subpar; it looks like a textbook and that probably scared people away.
>It's sort-of similar to GURPS, but GURPS has more players, possibly due to their RPG books looking like RPG books.
>"Just because GURPS looks better doesn't magically make it better duh!"

At no point was I arguing that GURPS was better than HERO, nor was I arguing the retarded position that cover art affects the game's quality, but that user seemed to feel I was arguing both those points. I questioned his reading ability.

That's what the back of the sheet is for.

I gotcha.

You're pretty much right. As much as I love Hero System, their marketing is pretty bad. Pretty much everyone I know who's played it loved it. But the number of people who've played it is tiny.

Still, my bad; I could have worded it more clearly both in my initial post and my response post rather than use meme arrows.

How would you stat out a power that works along the line of the mark of Caine? Which functions along the line of "All those who deal damage to me take 7x that damage".

That's pretty easy.
There's a power modifier called Damage Shield. It basically makes who ever hits you (or shoots you if applied to a ranged attack),

I don't know the source material, but I'd probably go with a Ranged Killing attack Advantages: Continuous, No Normal Defense, 0 Endurance Persistent, Damage shield. Limitations: Always on, Not to exceed 7x the damage taken.

It would be a pretty expensive power (costing a major chunk of your character's points), depending on how high you want the damage cap to go.

Which edition did you get?
Or was it just one of the splat books?

Never played Hero, but I got this book in a collection I bought. Just wanted to say I can't believe how light this book is.

...

Oh look, it's That Guy.

>It basically makes who ever hits you (or shoots you if applied to a ranged attack),
You left out part of the sentence.

Sorry. got distracted mid post.

>There's a power modifier called Damage Shield. It basically makes who ever hits you (or shoots you if applied to a ranged attack), take damage.

Sort of meant to represent everything from the Human Torch's flame to porcupine spines.

Literally or figuratively light?

Had a Gm that used to bludgeon the players with it whenever they made puns or Monty Python references.

>Hero 5th
> stop bullets

It does not. They tested it on some defective printings.

>tfw your favorite book doesn't provide 3rPD

I'm still sad that they didn't line up ever book they'd printed up to the and see where the bullet stopped.

For reference, I have just about all of 5th ed. Its more than 3 feet thick.

>I have just about all of 5th ed
Nice.
Never really used many of the splat books, since it's all stuff you can do with the core system.

I liked the vehicles though, because I was honestly at a loss for how to stat a tank.

I wonder how would GURPS (3rd or 4th or both) and PF would compare.

I think they've got relatively small core books.

But most systems could stop a bullet, with enough splat books.

Well he said he had all of 5th ed, so obviously the others would get everything too.

Most I bought either on sale or just to support the company. I was making better money back then.

Dark Champions:The Animated Series is probably the worst of them. So much wasted potential.

>The Animated Series
Wot.

I've played dark champions. Is this meant to be a light version of dark champions?

Like Batman: The Animated Series.

But really weak writing and concept work. I was hoping for more of how to run something like TAS, but what I got was a shit knockoff universe.

Started playing HERO in 1983. Never stopped. There is no system that does everything as well as HERO. I have literally thousands of pages of notes, dozens of worlds, countless races and more spells than you can shake a stick at.

Does that include printing things that were only released in PDF?

Don't have any of those...I think. I'll have to check when I get home.

I was referring to GURPS and PF with that.

>GURPS has a thread.

Not a particularly lively one. On average, it takes five+ days to reach its bump limit.
It seems to be more of a token "we're not dead yet! people still play this game!" general than anything else.

Close to the same. Love hero sysrem.

But...I ad to give up my stuff sometime around 4e. A few years ago I got back in to rpg and bought 6e. Now I have most everything for it.

But if I could do over I would have just bought 4e stuff from eBay.

Why not 5th? Closer to 4th than 6th, and it has a lot of the rules cleaned up or added from outlying supplements

Anyone have a link to champions lore books? Kinda wanna read the Book of Destroyer.

4th I think is just more easily picked up. Could just be fond memories of course.

I hear that. Played 3, 4, and 5.

5th is my go-to system for anything. So long as no more than one person at the table doesn't know the system well.

Nice. Been playing for "only" 22 years.

Either of you use Hero Designer? It might be cool to swap character sheets that way, for a bunch of pre-made characters.

I've got some files somewhere. Not sure if destroyer is I've if them.

Damn I've been here 8 years and this is the first HERO thread I've seen. I've played it my whole life but once my IRL group broke up I literally never met anyone who heard of it again.

As far as I'm concerned it's the king of crunchy generic systems. GURPS is alright but I don't like the 10 million splatbooks and special-case rules.

But ignoring the 'generic' aspect... best Superhero game. Period. Nothing else I've tried even comes close.

6th edition getting rid of figured statistics was the right choice, but I like the 5th edition art and book layout a lot more- 6th is just too much information- the Powers don't need to take up that much space imo.

But man... these two are dead on.
It's so easy to play and even teach people to play, but just picking up the system on your own with no prior experience?

Good luck parsing what you need to know and not getting lost in the details...

I ran a superhero game for a bunch of newbies on Roll20 and it was great- just held their hand through character creation. One even made a Variable Power Pool and did fine.

>6th edition getting rid of figured statistics was the right choice
That's my opinion too.

Played Hero from 5th to 6th almost exclusively for a decade before deciding to actually expand my and my group's horizons. I still have a retardedly high powered DBZ campaign that is has been going on since 2009 (we have rotating GMs).

Hero has its appeal and it has its flaws but it deserves greater recognition in the greater RPG community regardless.

6th is so thick because of the thick paper stock, it is loaded with rules examples, and it has years of 5th edition rules clarifications written into it.

I agree with many of the changes though (Decoupled Figured CHAR, Removal of COM, etc). Were you there when they let forum members make propositions and discuss what they want to see in 6th edition?

What is your stance on COM?

I was there. Hell, I survived Cybergames.

COM can go. Its better represented by Perks, Talents or other specific abilities

>GURPS has a thread.
Most of us remain perplexed about this.

I can see you are a man of integrity like me.

Death to pro-COM scum.

First timer to RPGs as a whole?

Not a hardliner. Its also a nice place to throw a leftover point.

Like HERO, GURPS sort of needs veterans to teach newbies (or at least it helps a lot). That's basically why the general exists. There's not a lot to argue about, and most storytimes happen in other threads, so we're a pretty slow general.

There are a few Anons (myself included) that think a permanent persistent general is unnecessary, though. I'd prefer it to go back to how it was with a thread that asks a question about GURPS becoming the general until its 404s. At the same time though, I can understand why some want the general to be a regular thing; you can't grow the community if you don't publicize. You guys should make HERO threads a more regular thing; at the very least, you're making an actual thread that will push a trollthread off page 10. After you start to pick up steam, maybe graduate to a full general?

"Be the change to wish to see on the board"
--Some faggot user.

>"Stat Me /hero/"

I'd like to see more hero generals too.

I'm not sure what all would be discussed though. Maybe didn't ideas on how to build or stat weird characters.

Really liked the write up for the worm characters.

meh, ICONS is much better

>ICONS
What?

It's amazing how much ink was spilled on the disappearance of COM in 6th. It's such a small change in the big picture really. Also, I like the change. Now I am free to say that my character is incredibly attractive, for zero points, with the proviso that this will have no effect on gameplay. Or I can buy Striking Appearance, and have an effect. Striking Appearance is more flexible than COM, too - it can be Striking in multiple ways not just degrees of "good looking". I can have "Striking Appearance - only affects X group who dig that look" if I want.

I could do it when I was 8

>I'd personally recommend Hero System for just about anything. Except maybe Maid or erotic roleplaying.

>Not wanting to use a Variable Power Pool for your arsenal of sex moves

Get the fuck outta here, ya jabroni!