Warhammer Convertion

[Jarreth]

Hiya, new to the HERO system but it seems to be my kind of system. Now, I like the Warhammer setting and would like to combine that setting with the HERO fantasy ruleset.

So anyone done a convertion already?

[Ryhope Wood]

Full conversion here: http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/SystemConversion.aspx



Killer Shrike is amazing.

[Jarreth]

Wow, that was fast. Thank you kindly:)

[Killer Shrike]

Well, thanks Rhyope.

To the OP, let me know if you have any questions.

[L. Marcus]

*insert standard phrase about receiving ten different, all correct answers*

Hi and welcome!

[Jarreth]

Say, Mr. Killer Shrike. Very nice conversion, I hadnt tried it out in real play yet but it seems like you managed to capture the feel of Warhammer.

Have you given any thought into Chaos gifts? I was thinking something like with a power with the restrictions/limitation reducing the cost. But can you have a power with a real cost of zero?

[Jarreth]

*insert standard phrase about receiving ten different, all correct answers*

Hi and welcome!

Thanks, it may take a while before I get HERO. Seems complicated with all that you can do:)

[L. Marcus]

You can do many, many things in Hero, in many, many ways. People on these boards have been known to stat out spoons for fun.

No, really. :straight:

[Killer Shrike]

Say, Mr. Killer Shrike. Very nice conversion, I hadnt tried it out in real play yet but it seems like you managed to capture the feel of Warhammer.

Have you given any thought into Chaos gifts? I was thinking something like with a power with the restrictions/limitation reducing the cost. But can you have a power with a real cost of zero?

Chaos Gifts (or any sort of deific / malefic gifts) are just Powers modeled to suit. You can reduce the cost, but all Powers must cost a minimum of 1 point. You want the actual cost of the Power to be reflected however, as the cost of abilities is how the HERO System measures power. Giving 0 point Powers just unbalances the game. If a character has a 50 point Power, they are likely quite potent or capable, and their total point cost will be reflective of this; setting the cost to 0 artificially just hides their true worth.

On the subject of "Gifts" aka Granted Powers as I tend to call them, there are lots of different ways to skin the same cat. Ill give you a little HERO 101 here. When trying to do something with the HERO System follow this process:

a) what is the effect supposed to do?
b) are there any restrictions or conditions on its use?
c) how many points am I willing to spend on it / how important is it to the character?

So lets say we wanted to model a Daemonic Aura.

Now, for starters, its important that we realize "Daemonic Aura" is just a justification for having a special ability, and ultimately a label. The mechanic we come up with could be reused for some completely different purpose, and conversely we could come up with many different mechanics that would make sense for the purposes of a "Daemonic Aura". In the HERO System this is called a Special Effect, abbreviated SFX.

So, since "Daemonic Aura" is just a concept, we decide what we want that to actually mean in this case. Some possibilities spring to mind:

A Daemonic Aura could...
..do damage to anyone nearby
....direct damage
....vampiric damage (transfer health from victims to the user)
....ability score damage
....impairment damage (impose soft damage like penalties)
..offer protection from harm
....mitigation (subtract from damage)
....exotic mitigation (protection from unusual effects like mental powers)
....avoidance (make the character harder to hit)
....deflection (missile deflection)
..utility / flavor effect
....glow / illuminate senses
....emanate darkness / obscure senses
....do something vs a particular type of foe
....enhance / provide movement
....status improvement (no need to eat, breath, immunity to poisons, etc)


And so forth. Our "Daemonic Aura" could do any one of those things, any combination, all of them, or something else altogether as we like.

This is where the point system kicks in. We could build a power that would do all of the above and more, but because such an ability would be extremely powerful, it would cost a lot of points. In a high power campaign (lots of points) we might do just that despite the cost.

In this case, for such a low powered setting as WHFRPG in particular, we are going to labor under a budget. Based on the scale of the game I'm going to say we can afford to spend 10 points on a generic out of the box Daemonic Aura. Alternately I could just ballpark it and say I want to spend no more than X points and run with that, or I could just design the power I want damn the cost and then shave it down to the point I can actually afford it, but in this case I'm making a generic listed ability in my capacity as GM and so while some characters might have a more powerful personalized version of the effect Im going to make a 10 point one the baseline.

I decide that I want "Daemonic Aura" to be a form of damage mitigation, and I decide I want it to be pretty comprehensive. However, Chaos is unreliable, so I want it to not work sometimes. Once the aura is turned on I want it to be effortless to maintain, and furthermore I want it to provide protection even if the character is knocked out. This is what I end up with:

Daemonic Aura: Force Field (2 PD/2 ED/2 Mental Defense/2 Power Defense/2 Flash Defense: Sight Group), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (20 Active Points); Activation 11- (-1); Real Cost: 10 points

This offers a little bit of protection vs almost everything, but only 62.5% of the time (Activation 11-).

EDIT: PD = Physical Defense, ED = Energy Defense. Sometimes the two are expressed together simply as DEF when they are the same so 2 PD / 2 ED = 2 DEF, however sometimes things have more PD or ED such as 10 PD 5 ED or vice versa so its useful for them to be tracked seperately. In context, 2 DEF is roughly equivalent to light armor (light armor ranges between 1 and 3 DEF). Mental attacks, blinding attacks, and exotic attacks target Mental (MD), Flash (FD), and Power Defense (PowD) respectively which are considered to be exotic / unusual defenses since characters have none by default whereas everything has some PD and ED. Normal armor offers _no_ protection vs these effects, whereas this Aura does. There are also some attacks, called No Normal Defense (NND) attacks that have no default mitigator but instead must define some reasonably common circumstance that prevents them from working at all and the target having some MD, PowD or more rarely FD are common escape clauses. There are also Attacks Versus Limited Defense (AVLD) that normally work vs PD or ED but instead are defined as targeting one of the unusual defenses.

Now, this power has to be visible in some way to three sense, so I'm going to say there appears to be a flickering and unsettling disruption around the character when the power is on (Sight), that raises the hair on the back of peoples necks / gives them the heebie jeebies (Touch), and is very noticeable to people with Mystic Senses and specific Detects vs. Daemonic things (Special).


If I wanted this effect to be more like a suit of armor and offer better but less comprehensive protection I might define it like this instead:

Daemonic Aura: Force Field (5 PD/5 ED), Costs END Only To Activate (+1/4), Hardened (+1/4) (15 Active Points); Activation 14- (-1/2); Real Cost: 10 points [1 END to activate]

EDIT: 5 DEF is equivalent to chainmail.

Etc.

I could probably design at least a dozen different approaches to this using Armor, Damage Resistance, DCV, Force Wall, Damage Reduction, Absorption with the As A Defense option and so forth before it got overly repetitive, but the Force Field based version works fine and has several good features.

A character that has this Chaos Gift has an edge, and that edge costs them 10 character points.

[Killer Shrike]

Thanks, it may take a while before I get HERO. Seems complicated with all that you can do:)

You don't have to worry about all the things you CAN do, only the things you WANT to do.

[Jarreth]

Thanks, you played HERO for a long time havnt you;)

I bought the HERO 5th edition, the Fantasy book and two grimoires (I figured it would have all the spells I would ever need). So busy trying to figure it all out so there might pop up some weird questions from me:D

[Killer Shrike]

Thanks, you played HERO for a long time havnt you;)

I bought the HERO 5th edition, the Fantasy book and two grimoires (I figured it would have all the spells I would ever need). So busy trying to figure it all out so there might pop up some weird questions from me:D

Yes, about 17 years now total, though I've played several other games seriously in the same time as well.

For spells as such, you can also check out a resource on my site:

Fantasy Effects (http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Content/ActiveFantasyEffects.aspx)

It includes conversions of a couple thousand D&D spells / spells in that same vein, as well as items, feats, psionic powers etc.


However, having said that, for purposes of a Warhammer style game you'll find that most of them are way too powerful (and also are designed to work with a D&D flavored Vancian magic system and would need a little re-work for your purposes).

The formula I provided for the WHFRPG spells works pretty good however, and its easy to take a WHFRPG spell and convert it.

SPELL CONVERSION CASTING NUMBER TO ACTIVE POINTS
Formula: ((WH Casting Number * .625) * 3) = Active Points
Short Formula: (WH Casting Number * 1.875) = Active Points
Example 1: The spell Starshine, which has a casting number of 22 in the source material should have somewhere around 40 Active Points in the HERO System.
Example 2: The spell Claws of Fury has a casting number of 8 in the source material, and thus should have somewhere around 15 Active Points in the HERO System.
It is important to note that due to differences in the game systems, not all abilities will map cleanly in this fashion; some abilities in Warhammer may require significantly more Active Points to properly model in the HERO System than this simple formula can account for.

Some however do require some interpretation / translation.

So for instance, say you had Howl of the Wolf (Lore of Ulric).

The spells says:

"You howl like one of Ulric's wolves and instill your allies with a lust for battle. Until your next turn any allies within 24 yards can attack twice during a charge attack action regardless of their attacks characteristic. A charge normally only allows one attack."

Ok, so we have here a spell that modifies a game mechanic. A meta-mechanic spell, aka a rule-bender. There's this rule that normally applies, and by casting this spell a character temporarily allows their buddies to bend that rule a bit if they should happen to take a certain action in a certain narrow window of time.

This kind of spell is difficult to convert since its modifying the actual mechanics of the original game, and those mechanics may or may not exist and may or may not equate in the new system.

But its not impossible.

In the conversion, I map Attacks into SPD up to a certain threshold, and then as a series of abilities that allow a character to better utilize existing rules for making more than one attack per Phase -- notably the Rapid Attack skill. I could follow that route again here, and just go with a Rapid Attack Usable By Others effect. However, if I did that characters that already have Rapid Attack would gain no benefit from this spell. But it would probably be the most accurate conversion, so lets see what it looks like:

Now, the spell has a casting number of 11 in the source material; the HERO version should have 20 to 21 Active Points based on the formula above...so:

Howl of the Wolf: Rapid Attack (HTH) (Ulric) , LOS Not Required To Maintain (+1/2), Ranged (+1/2), IPE, SFX Only (Fully Invisible; +1/2), Usable Simultaneously (up to 64 people at once; +1 3/4) (21 Active Points); Others Only (-1/2), Costs END (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4), Only Lasts Until Casters Next Phase (-1/4)


Well...that works. I could also get creative and reinterpret the ability but, this can be a useful effect in the HERO System and points out well (in fact I fluffed it a little, raising the UBO to 64 people at once for a really epic battlefield effect).

A weaker version could certainly be allowed as well...

Lesser Howl of the Wolf: Rapid Attack (HTH) (Ulric) , LOS Not Required To Maintain (+1/2), Ranged (+1/2), IPE, SFX Only (Fully Invisible; +1/2), Usable Simultaneously (up to 4 people at once; +3/4) (16 Active Points); Others Only (-1/2), Costs END (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4), Only Lasts Until Casters Next Phase (-1/4)

Which has a much easier target number of 5 (16/3) vs 7 (21/3) under the Magic System conversion rules I provide.

[Jarreth]

Dont think I follow you here. What would be the difference between more attacks using Speed, Autofire and Rapid Attack?

[Killer Shrike]

Dont think I follow you here. What would be the difference between more attacks using Speed, Autofire and Rapid Attack?

Each is a different mechanic and works differently.

Speed allows more actions. Giving someone a point of SPD is giving them the ability to do whatever they like / can do one more time per turn. On the otherhand switching SPD's mid-TURN can be a bit of a hassle and some GM's don't like to bother with it. It can also cause issues if Lingering, Continuous, and Uncontrolled effects are common.

Autofire is an advantage applied specifically to a particular Power and affecting the cost of that Power based on the number of attacks per use, END modifications, and if the Power is a standard attack or not. Using an Autofire ability takes one action, and the number of HITS is based on the to-hit roll. Trying to create a spell that would ADD Autofire to any given Powers a group of characters might have would be a major PITA and way more trouble than it's worth (and expensive).

Rapid Attack interacts with the optional Sweep / Rapid Fire rules which allow any character to take any attack they have and attempt to achieve an effect similar to an Autofire with it as part of an attack action. If it works its more or less the same as a successful Autofire attack, but on the plus side its usable with whatever ability without affecting point costs and it's even possible to chain different attacks together, on the other hand it suffers some penalties and limitations on its use that Autofire does not necessarily suffer from. Sweep / Rapid Fire are normally Full Phase actions, Rapid Attack allows a character to do them as a 1/2 Phase Action. Rapid Attack is a Skill, and Skills can be granted to others as a Power with GM Permission by using the Usable By Others Advantage. Since all it does is allow a character to make a Sweep as a 1/2 Phase action it doesn't have to get into the dirty business of interacting with the actual abilities a given character has, how many Active Points, specifics of build, etc -- it just grants the character another ability that allows them to Sweep more conveniently if they choose to do so.

(The Two Weapon Fighting ability is just a different facing on the same underlying mechanic as well).

There's also Multiple Power Attacks which can be generally better than a Sweep / Rapid Fire, but thats a deep subject and not entirely relevant to this discussion.


There's generally more than one way to skin the same cat in the HERO System.

[gojira]

I didn't read the title of this thread carefully, and I thought it said "How to build: Warhammer Convention" I thought, "hmm, hammer, nails, maybe call around to find a hall or something to hold it in."

Then I reread.

[Jarreth]

I see, thanks=)