The Culture: The Search For Good Hobby Game Manuals: Heroes Unlimited (Part Two)

(Following from yesterday's post.)

Kitting Your Man

AD&D1e: As per PHB p. 35, a Fighter starts play with 5d4x10 in Gold Pieces. I roll a total of 15, for 150 g.p.- not bad. This gives me some options. A Fighter also begins play with four Weapon Proficiencies, and he can act as a Serjeant (DMG p. 31) instead of hiring one to do that job for him.

Taking an eye at my man's future (if I am successful), I avoid weapons that I could not also use as a Thief or Bard; a quick consultation with PHB pp. 19 and 118 puts me at Club, Dagger, Longsword, and Sling. I intend to pick up Shortsword and Dart later on.

I choose Leather and a Small Shield, a Longsword, Dagger, and Sling w/ three dozen Bullets (approx.) for my man. I check with the Referee on Henchmen availability, and some Light Foot are available; I get five and they get Clubs, Slings, and Padded armor. Together we're a skirmisher and scounting unit for hire. I spend some more on vessels to carry shit and we're set- and hungry for paying, profitable adventure leads. No other power choices to make either, so aside from jotting down a description he's done.

HU2e: My man has 5d6x100 in U.S. Dollars to work with (18, so $1800), and only IRL contemporary gear to choose from. He has a 89% chance of owning a car. (44, yes; 1d6 years old, 2 years) He's presumed to have some personal possessions, a part-time/low-paying job, and an apartment.

He'll live in an apartment above the gym he manages, and works part-time at the gym. His car is used BMW, formerly leased by one of his mentors. In terms of fighting gear, he doesn't need it; he'll have a few different knives, usually packing one of them and that's usually the easily-concealable one instead of something like a kukri or a Bowie.

No options for having a (NPC) crew to lead in the manual, so he doesn't have one. No other power choices to make either, so aside from jotting down a description he's done.

Time To Tussle

Now we move to a core gameplay procedure: Encounters and Combat.

AD&D1e: DMG p. 47 lays out the Encounter rate by population density and the frequency by terrain. Page 49 covers Encounter distance and Confrontation. Page 61 finishes up with Surprise and Combat.

There is a distinct and strictly defined procedure here. Check for Encounter; if Yes, check for Distance and (if warranted) Confrontation; check for Surprise; if one side is, they can avoid the Encounter or engage; if the Encounter is hostile, those benefiting from Surprise get their bonus actions before Initiative is rolled and the full procedure begins; Combat ensues until Morale breaks or one side is wiped out- if the former, the winning side chooses to Pursue (DMG p. 67) or not.

My man does Weapon Damage (1d8, usually; 1d12 vs. Large targets with the longsword), averaging 9 damage every two rounds by himself; add in his five men (1d6 each, averaging 7 per two apiece) and this little gang--properly managed--and they can address an orc band with Surprise. (Bring a Ranger to help, Bob.) If he, or they, get banged up they'll be recovering for up to a week of rest and proper attention.

This procedure scales up from Man to Man without issue using Ratio scaling (1:10, 1:20, etc.), and resolves swiftly due to the impact that Surprise and Morale have on it.

HU2e: There is no defined Encounter procedure; Combat happens when the Referee says it does, subject to any applicable skills (e.g. Detect Ambush) or powers. All skill checks are percentile, in the few times that they are called upon. All attacks, defenses, and Saves are d20+bonuses; damage is usually Xd6+bonuses.

The fighting procedure in HU2e starts on Page 63. My man starts at six attacks per round. Every individual actor in the fight rolls d20 for initiative; Sneaks and Ambushes autowin and go first. Six times I roll to attack, the target rolls to Parry/Dodge/Entangle (choose one), and if I still hit then I roll damage; the target may roll to mitigate the damage. Where anything needing a Saving Throw goes is not clear, and Morale doesn't exist.

Contemporary firearms omit attack bonuses for anything but Weapon Proficiency, meaning that you're less likely to hit with guns than melee attacks most of the time. Damage output vs. capacity is wildly out of line, even for a superhero game; mooks are tanky (when they shouldn't be), guns suck compared to melee combat (even in non-superhero games like Beyond The Supernatural), and power estimation is LOLsorandom that it feels like the tabletop version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?

And yes, Uncle Kevin explicit says "Pair everyone off" in group fights. You won't be having anything so much as Jackie Chan's famous Many-On-One brawls, or massive battles like entire syndicates blazing away at each other in the middle of downtown, because this system is terrible at anything but Man-To-Man combat- a misapprehension of AD&D1e (which Palladium is a mutation of) made manifest.

HU2e!Bob does 2d4+29 damage with a punch, 2d6+29 damage with a kick- and that is bare-handed and baseline. Using a firearm is a nerf. Using a knife reduces the variable to the weapon, but makes poison attacks possible by wetting the blade. Furthermore, Bob has superhuman strength and thus can do bare-handed punching throw walls, cars, etc. that makes environmental effects possible; he can't quite do the Droopy Dog on a dude, but he can do a good impression of Bane breaking Batman's back.

Does the manual make this clear? This core function? Yes. All of the not-at-all-uncommon things like specific moves (Leap Attacks, Throws, etc.)? Not so much; a lot of these are easily-overlooked, easily-misread, and not-at-all referred to in the main procedural instructions. But, one big mistake is made and it is noticable by its absence: Movement.

You have to reference the Speed charts to get a baseline movement rate for your man. You then have to account for any skill and power adjustments (yes, this includes non-super Palladium games), and then you have to convert that into a Yard/Meter Per 15 second figure because a Palladium combat round is 15 seconds long. The Referee has to do this for every non-player combatant that he controls also. You then have to divide this distance/round figure by your man's number of attacks to get how far he can move during a single attack. This is not clearly deliniated AT ALL. Major oversight, and a common Palladium error.

If you are coming at HU2e blind, having never played a Palladium game before (or, God forbid, ANY fantastic adventure wargame), this will lead to problems in actual play due to an inability to clearly discern what your man can do and still move in a specific interval (an attack) of time.

This sounds like a silly complaint until you realize that a superhero combat sequence can take place over massive areas, with evolving threats as the engagement progesses (A nuclear missile comes at the city, but first you have to deal with the Satorial Boss of Interdimensional Dark Lords; can you put him down fast enough to intercept the city-killer?), how fast you can move and act turns out to matter at the table.

Having to hunt all over the damned manual to find this information, then have to figure out the math from piecing together disparate elements of the machine in operation to get something that will work well enough to test it, is terrible technical writing and bad game design. You do not get to say "Just wing it" in this hobby; players are expected to earn their wins, not lean on tropes as IWIN buttons (or Referees using them as ULOSE buttons).

This is the first major flaw. We shall go on.