THIS UPDATE IS FOR BACKERS ONLY, SCROLL DOWN FOR BACKER ONLY CONTENT.

The following appears here on my Patreon for public access. Note this will NOT be implemented in HEROIC, but as possible "expanded rules" in a future product of options.

WHY THE LADDER NEEDS MORE RUNGS

In any rank-based RPG, especially one that thrives on cinematic escalation like HEROIC, there’s always going to be a conversation about damage scaling. About when "strong" becomes "too strong." But the problem we’ve been bumping into in playtesting isn’t simply that damage is high—it’s that damage accelerates. And not just incrementally. We’re talking about an upward curve that goes from zero to nuclear in a heartbeat, and once you're at AM50, it doesn’t take much to light the fuse.

Let me lay it out.

Under the current system, damage Ranks increase according to a fairly recognizable curve. From TY06 to GD10, all the way up to CZ5000, the leap from one Rank to another is substantial, and meaningful. But what’s happening at the table is a different story. Once a character hits AM50 base damage, they’re sitting right on the edge of a cliff. And then we hand them every reason to jump off it.

That’s not theory. That’s actual table math. AM50 becomes MG75, then UN100, then SP150, maybe even FN200—all from one dice result. And it feels wrong. Not because the players are doing anything illegal, but because the system itself invites that kind of vertical leap. It’s not cheating. It’s just easy.

And here’s where the danger truly comes in.

Once a character’s HEALTH is gone, any excess damage rolls over into Endurance, and that is where things get lethal fast. If a +4RS strike pushes an attack into UN100 territory, and a character has already taken enough hits to be on the ropes, that overflow damage doesn’t just knock them out—it can instantly kill them. That’s not dramatic. That’s not heroic. That’s just a numbers cascade. And it turns high-stakes scenes into sudden-death mechanics where one bad round evaporates a character.

So here’s the design fork in the road:
Do we limit how much RS can stack? Or do we address the curve itself?

A lot of systems lean into restriction. Cap the RS gain. Limit it to +2 total. Only allow one Talent to apply. Only this perk or that maneuver. But that’s not how HEROIC is built. We didn’t write a game about limiting possibilities—we wrote a game about leaning into narrative momentum. A Red Result should feel like it matters. An All-Out Attack should have weight. A Martial Artist who knows what they’re doing should hit harder than a guy throwing haymakers in the dark. The answer isn’t to slap hands. The answer is to make the ladder taller.

And that’s where the Expanded Rank Ladder comes in.

By interspersing additional Ranks between the existing ones, we soften the exponential slope. AM50 doesn’t jump straight to MG75 anymore. It moves to FN60, then SP70, then MG80. Each +1RS still matters—but now the mechanical distance it travels is smaller. That +4RS burst? It no longer warps the scale. It climbs through FN60 > SP70 > MG80 > LG90, possibly peaking at UN100, and that feels a lot more reasonable than going from AM50 to FN200 in one swing.

The real elegance of this fix is that it’s not just reactive—it’s proactive. We’re not just cutting off spikes; we’re future-proofing the system. We’re giving Judges more flexibility in enemy design, giving players more room to grow, and giving narrative stakes a clearer gradient. This isn’t about nerfing damage. It’s about contextualizing it.

Let me be crystal clear: this is not about reducing fun, excitement, or cinematic moments. This is about preserving stakes. When every Red Result turns someone into a one-shot death machine, then nothing matters. Defense becomes a joke. Tactical choices become irrelevant. We lose the nuance between “strong,” “very strong,” and “absolutely devastating.” The Expanded Rank Ladder gives that back to us. It brings the drama back into range.

And narratively? It’s gold.

Being FN60 is not the same as being SP70. MG80 is distinct from LG90. We now have space to define power tiers with precision instead of big, vague jumps. It lets us draw cleaner lines between a top-tier human (MG80), a metahuman elite (UN100), a mythic powerhouse (AS150), and the big deific guns (DV1000 and above). It adds texture. It adds flavor. It makes it mean something to move up in Rank.

This is not a cosmetic change. This is a structural reinforcement of what HEROIC already does well: tell bigger-than-life stories with mechanical fidelity to narrative scale.

The best part? We don’t need to nerf the Red Result. We don’t need to kill All-Out Attack. We don’t need to police the Talent system. We keep everything that makes this game exciting—and we just build better scaffolding underneath it.

So yeah, this is a fix. Not a limitation. Not a cap. A recalibration of gravity. Because in a system built on elevation, we owe it to the players to make sure they’ve got something solid to climb.

And we just gave them more rungs.

BE HEROIC!

Zeenutz!

Here's the March update for you all, hopefully the next one will have some actual layout to show in the update!

BE HEROIC!

Zeenutz!

Yesterday I floated an idea past you all about adding in Ranks, and I must say it was the liveliest conversation we've had in a long time here.

While most of you who responded were in favour of the idea, not all were, which is to be expected. Let me make this 100% clear, IF/WHEN such an idea were to be published it would be either as an expanded rules idea, or a 2nd edition idea. The HEROIC that we will be releasing (soon we hope) is NOT going to have these things in it, as it would cause chaos to the work we've done already.

Secondly, to clarify from a previous update, I made the choice, not the team, to remove the Zenith Universe material from the core book, and make it a separate book. This was to facilitate those of you who wanted to use it, and I have been told of at least 4 people who are, and those who do not, of which there are as many running HEROIC in their own games.

Lastly, and this one I want to make clear, HEROIC is NOT a continuation of Astonishing Super Heroes, nor is it a OSE level clone of Marvel Super Heroes, but is a neo-clone combining many ideas and concepts together to be a unique game.

"A neo-clone in the context of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) refers to a game system that draws heavily on, or is inspired by, a previous popular game system, but attempts to innovate and offer a fresh perspective while retaining core elements of the original."

We have adapted some of the ASH material for sure, and have a deep appreciation for it. There are lessons and ideas to be taken from many games, some not even MSH based ones. That has been, and continues to be the nature of the product. I and the team have said nothing contra to this from day one, but it would appear there is a need to make this clear.

So to sum up;
1] New Ranks or Colour Results is NOT part of HEROIC in this form.
2] The Zenith Universe is an Optional setting and not part of the core book.
3] HEROIC is, and always has been, a neo-clone that combines, expands, and I like to think, improves on many ideas that make it exciting and fun to play.

Hopefully that clears things up, but this being the internet, probably not. ;) 

Look for the March Rules Update next week end!

BE HEROIC
Andrew Collas

Edit: Forgot to add the new Rank progression, see below.

Hey there,

As we have been doing a LOT of playtesting, we are finding that anyone with an Amazing, through use of Karma and maneuvers, can get +3rs or more to their Damage, which means they are suddenly doing 100 to 150 damage in a single shot.

This is the problem with the progression of 50 - 75 - 100.

An old idea we had was to expand the range more, so it would go 50 - 60 - 70 - 80 - 90 - 100, which would certainly fix that issue. Inserting 3 more ranks between 50 and 100 thought, would require a little more thought on behalf of those transferring old MSH characters over, so some are worried that could be a problem.

The big issue for me is that we have clearly stated that this is a Neo-Clone, a term coined by Justin Halliday that means it is not an exact clone of MSH, but an advancement/continuation of the game design, bringing some modernization to it.

How do you feel about this? Would the adding of those Ranks ruin the game for you? Would it be a problem to add a little more granularity, slowing down the power spike that MSH clearly had.

Share your thoughts below, please.

BE HEROIC!

P.S. March update coming next weekend.

Here's what the progression I am proposing looks like; including an extra lower end Rank to accomodate Street Level Campaigns.

Heroic
Feeble - FE02
Poor - PR04
Typical - TY06
Notable - NT08 <---New One
Good - GD10
Excellent - EX20
Remarkable - RM30

Superheroic
Incredible - IN40
Amazing - AM50
Fantastic - FN60 <---New One
Spectacular - SP70 <---New One
Wondrous - WN80 <---New One
Mighty - MG90 <---New One
Uncanny - UN100

Godlike
Astonishing - AS150
Marvellous - MR200
Divine - DV500
Cosmic - CZ1000