HERO System 6 Edition Review

Managed over the last couple of weeks to look over copies of the two core 6th edition books.

Things aren't as bad as they could have been I suppose. Most of the rules are intact (it takes all of one page to list the changes, and most of these really aren't except in name). When you do find a change, they are more of the type you'd except in a 5.5 edition instead of a 6.0 with one exception.

That one significant change is the removal of figured based secondary characteristics (replaced with a flat base) together with characteristic repricing. This was a long sought goal of Mr. Long, but frankly it's neither exciting nor interesting. We end up with more point inflation and without doubt it will alter things (slightly negatively) for those who build to defined point budgets. For gamers like myself who build to concept, it's just points and points don't matter.

The planned change to Kill Attacks? You know, the 1d3 for stun multiple instead of of 1d6-1? It's really just a suggestion- the books says you can do it either way. And Hit Locations (what I've always used anyway) still use the old numbers in any case.

Otherwise it's small differences. There are a couple of good ones. Power Pool purchase has been streamlined with a nice simple method that hearkens back to older editions of the game. The Area of Affect advantage has been reduced slightly in cost. And so on.

But by far most of the changes are just the replacing of names. So Energy Blast is now just Blast. Force Wall has become Barrier. And so on.

Long is a well known master of the school of cut and paste publishing- to this he now has added the power of Find & Replace. The world is stunned and God help us if he ever finds the more advanced options in Word.

The goal here seemed to be making the rules more general, i.e. to not bias the reader as to the various purposes individual mechanics could be applied to. But it bleeds the soul out of the game and makes a ruleset that was already dry even more barren. I recall reading the original Champions rulebook and being flooded with ideas of where to take it. Force Fields! Armor! Those labels spoke to someone attempting to model a world. Resistant Protection? Chirping crickets. If 6th was the first edition of the game I had encountered, it would have likely been the last.

Visually the books are horrid. Someone thought orange on blue was a good color combo for the cover. I don't think I have ever encountered something as ugly. The whole book is in color (keeping up with the latest fad) and it hurts.

From the blue headers to the artwork (much of it taken from Champions Online) I just don't like the look of the book. Color is often good, but in this case it gives a comic book feel to everything. Fine for a comic book based game, but not the best choice for a system that is suppose to cover various other genres. There black and white (or less stark coloring) would have been nice.

Also Champions Online for whatever reason has once again changed the look of the Champions setting and background. As but one example, why Defender looks like a dude in tights and a open face helmet instead of an Iron Man ripoff is beyond me- but the change is frankly stupid.

Looking at their releases in the line, it looks to be a reply of 5th edition. So yet once again, I think HERO System will lack their Greyhawk or  Forgotten Realms, i.e. no setting that really takes flight with the rules and becomes a name in the mind of their players. That would have been something worth a 6th edition.


In the end, this is a workable set of rules just like HERO has always been. But very little has been gained with this release except cash flow to Long's pocket. If you have 5th edition, save your money and house rule in a couple of the changes (like Power Pools). If on the other hand you don't have a copy in good repair, well this is better than nothing.

Part II of this review: Hero dumps the Grid