Ryhope Wood Posted July 27, 2010 Report Share Posted July 27, 2010 Wow! The PDF looks simply amazing - I can't wait for the hardcopy of the book to come out. I'm really looking forward to reading this one. There is a lot of new stuff that I think will go a long way to helping people like me converting from D&D or converting stuff from D&D. Well done Steve! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tasha Posted July 27, 2010 Report Share Posted July 27, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions It's really great. I love how we now have a way to write up powers with cooldown. It's called Delayed Use, so I now have a bunch of spells to rewrite The book is really pretty. I love the layout! Good work all around. Tasha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted July 29, 2010 Report Share Posted July 29, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions So far I have to agree about the great layout and visual design. I am near the beginning of the book in terms of reading it through, so much of it is repeated theory from the last edition. Still good stuff, but nothing new there. After reading Tasha's message, I went looking for Delayed Use (not hard considering it's a PDF ) and I like. Looking forward to getting into the more "crunchy" bits later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragntyr Posted July 29, 2010 Report Share Posted July 29, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I am totally excited about this product. I have a project that I was working on, a 3.5 D&D world conversion that was converting to 5e Revised but placed it on hold once 6 Edition was announced, because of the streaming lining and some of the rule changes that was announced. So far I like most of the changes in the 6th Edition, and I am looking forward to see what changes the fantasy rule set has in store. So that I can finish the conversion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted July 29, 2010 Report Share Posted July 29, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I love how we now have a way to write up powers with cooldown. It's called Delayed Use Just to be clear -- that's pretty much copied straight from APG 144, so it's not entirely new. New to many people perhaps, but it has been in print for nearly a year. Don't want anyone to think I'm trying to foist off old stuff as all-new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted July 29, 2010 Report Share Posted July 29, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions Just to be clear -- that's pretty much copied straight from APG 144' date=' so it's not entirely new. New to many people perhaps, but it has been in print for nearly a year. Don't want anyone to think I'm trying to foist off old stuff as all-new. [/quote']Context, however, makes all of the difference. The APG, for better or worse, is a book of hypothetical rules and mechanics presented without a lot of context. Fantasy HERO provides that layer of context where the average Schmoe like me can relate to it. I say this because the only thing that I immediately remember from the APG was the Resource Point rules (lifted almost word for word from Dark Champions 5th Edition). And feel free to provide context for even more of those rules by including them in future genre books (as appropriate). In the meantime, I need to go back and skim through APG for more goodies that I might have overlooked. I delved into it a bit further this morning (through the racial and professional templates and into the Powers section). Even though it feels like a lot of the material has been reprinted, enough of it has been changed to give it a more polished feel. I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those books that see a lot of use. If it were a dead tree version like my 5th Ed copy, it would be just as beat up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tasha Posted July 29, 2010 Report Share Posted July 29, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions Just to be clear -- that's pretty much copied straight from APG 144' date=' so it's not entirely new. New to many people perhaps, but it has been in print for nearly a year. Don't want anyone to think I'm trying to foist off old stuff as all-new. [/quote'] Also, APG is treated as "Optional" rules by many groups. Having the Rule in the Genre book gives it more an air of being "Official" and therefore more acceptable. To be honest, I read the APG and totally missed it and I think a ton of us also missed it in APG. Otherwise we would have been refering people to that work when questions about cooldowns. So thanks! The one thing that I thought you had missed in the Core books was actually in the APC. Woot!! thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson-Hawk Posted July 29, 2010 Report Share Posted July 29, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I love the new, full-color layout of the book itself. The artwork blows my mind, although I wish we could have kept the old illustrations for Drudaryon's Legion and colored them, but that's just my own personal opinion. Steve added a metric ton of illustrative quotes to this edition... it adds some literary air of authenticity to the book and are quite welcome. Perhaps one quote per section header would have been enough, though, because the quotes seem to overwhelm the main text at times, particularly in the first couple of chapters. Outside of that, this book is an excellent port of the 5E material into the 6E kingdom. The full-color beauty of the book makes it worth the buy over the 5E edition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndianaJoe3 Posted July 29, 2010 Report Share Posted July 29, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions Let me echo the compliments that Hero is receiving for this, especially regarding the artwork. If 6e got an ENnie honorable mention for the artwork, this should get a nomination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narf the Mouse Posted July 29, 2010 Report Share Posted July 29, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions The interior art so far is excellent; my only complaint is I prefer a more "serious" look to my art. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndianaJoe3 Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions The interior art so far is excellent; my only complaint is I prefer a more "serious" look to my art. I'm not sure what you mean, could you give an example of what you would consider serious? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I'm not sure what you mean' date=' could you give an example of what you would consider serious?[/quote'] Well, like you know : religious warrior cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narf the Mouse Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions Yeah, more like that, to an extent. Or the exterior art. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndianaJoe3 Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I see your point, although I don't think it would have enhanced the book significantly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narf the Mouse Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I see your point' date=' although I don't think it would have enhanced the book significantly.[/quote'] The interior art so far is excellent; my only complaint is I prefer a more "serious" look to my art. I think it would have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions Steve added a metric ton of illustrative quotes to this edition... it adds some literary air of authenticity to the book and are quite welcome. Perhaps one quote per section header would have been enough' date=' though, because the quotes seem to overwhelm the main text at times, particularly in the first couple of chapters.[/quote'] I have to admit, I had the same reaction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narf the Mouse Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I liked them. I got more out of the quotes, theme-wise, than out of the descriptions (On average). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I liked them. I got more out of the quotes' date=' theme-wise, than out of the descriptions (On average).[/quote'] Oh, don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful book... certainly the most colorful and attractive HERO book ever. But, I did feel that in early on the large sections of quotes overwhelmed the core text just a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mallet Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions After seeing the previews and reading the reviews here, I can not wait for Star Hero! It's a whole year away though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narf the Mouse Posted August 1, 2010 Report Share Posted August 1, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions Page 78, top-right paragraph, near the bottom - Words placement error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torchwolf Posted August 2, 2010 Report Share Posted August 2, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions pdf looks teh awesome. Layout style, graphics and font choices makes me realize something: The 6E lines of new books have a more distinct style to everything that made me go more "aha" after looking through the FH - each definitely plays to their respective genre. The 5th edition books for different genres are more generic in general appearance. I expect this same idea to hold true for Star Hero etc. Very clever and effective, IMHO. About the numerous quotes: it's a very nice way of bringing up samples from the myriad subgenres; definitely inspirational for world building details, at least to me. I think it's a brilliant way of doing genre / concept overviews (since fantasy is so indefinitely broad as a genre), as well as prompting me to check out some stuff I've missed. Plus, since the quotes are clearly distinguishable from the rest of the text, you can easily skip over them at first skimming if you want to check out the crunch first. This is the first fantasy genre book that's been released in a long long time, that all by itself beckons me into wanting to start up something fantasy again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions So I've had a chance to read quite a bit of the PDF, though of course I haven't read it cover to cover. I'm pretty happy with it. As others have stated, the graphics and layout are huge improvements over 5th, which was... hard to read.* Contentwise FH6 is more of an incremental improvement, but there wasn't as much room for improvement in this area to begin with. I can even live with the melee weapon table. I really have to reach to think of things that could be improved. Still, it does seem to me that the campaign-customization fluff kind of gets in the way. The magic system section is fifty pages (!) of maybe-you-could-do-it-this-way discussion, which is great, but it makes it hard to find the one paragraph in there that details the default magic system. Were I a new player trying to figure out how to build my wizard character, it might help if the campaign customization stuff were at the back of the magic section, with a note up front explaining that hey, FH supports a lot of magic systems, check with your GM. Were I a new GM, I'd probably be less interested in advanced customization issues and more interested in the example magic systems; that section could benefit from a table up front that briefly summarizes the magic systems, their flavors, and their power levels. The other suggestion I might make is that FH is getting really, really big. It's all good stuff, but it seems like things like the Fantasy Civilizations, Enchanted Items, and Magic Systems sections could be scaled back at least, and other sections could be condensed somehow. I worry that potential players might be intimidated by a phone book-sized rulebook. * Some of you may recall me ranting in here about how FH5 was laid out worse, and harder to read, than many of the technical documents I deal with for work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narf the Mouse Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions Hey, now, that's uncalled for. There's bigger phonebooks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted August 5, 2010 Report Share Posted August 5, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions The other suggestion I might make is that FH is getting really' date=' really big. It's all good stuff, but it seems like things like the Fantasy Civilizations, Enchanted Items, and Magic Systems sections could be scaled back at least, and other sections could be condensed somehow. I worry that potential players might be intimidated by a phone book-sized rulebook.[/quote'] Since it has probably been years since most of them have used phone books as opposed to online directories, they won't notice. The current phase on marketing RPG books to the retail channel is the bigger the better. The Pathfinder core rules and its supporting books are an example of this. Gamers will pay a premium for bulk if it gives them lots of crunchy goodness in return. Still, just about all the Hero books of this edition, aside from the Basic Rulebook and the APG, have been darned big. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shinobi Killfis Posted August 5, 2010 Report Share Posted August 5, 2010 Re: Fantasy Hero 6E - initial impressions I am curious in the magic section is it more general ideas on how to implement a magic system or doe sit have some fairly well fleshed out examples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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