Some advice

[BlueBuddha]

I'm working on a Lord of the Rings FH one-shot. I'm using the LOTR RPG that Steve actually wrote for Decipher as a guideline. I think the rules are basically good, but not balanced well. As characters, I'm converting over the sample characters from the Decipher book. Here's some questions:

What are typical CVs and DCs for the various character types you use in FH? Particularly, a low-powered LOTR-style campaign. Starting off with, I have Menelcar, the Gondorian soldier with a Dex of 11, Str of 15, +2 CVs with his sword for a total of 6 (7 w/ his defensive strike), doing 1d6+1 (or 2d6 w/ his martial strike), and is wrapped in Chainmail (6 Def). His DCV is -1 in his armor (I'm going with a -1 or -2 DCV/Dex roll for mail, and he has 1 or 2 penalty levels to counter it). I'm giving him a shield as well (+3 DCV, I think), giving him a 6 normally, 8 with a block or defensive strike, and 9 when dodging.

Haven't done the others yet, but Gror the dwarf will be a heavier tank, with higher Def and DCs, but similar CVs. Also, not as well rounded. The Archer will be low-Def, and high OCV & extra, conditional DCs with bows, naturally.

As for the magician, I think I'm going to keep the magic light, to fit the genre. I'm taking liberties in allowing men to be mages, but that's the game.

This is draft 1. Does anyone have any guidance on how these numbers will play out? Of course, I want characters to be hit reasonably often, but be able to avoid hits if they try hard enough. Also, I don't want people getting horribly mauled by every hit, especially since LOTR is armor-light.

[Savinien]

You've got your guys a bit higher than mine, but mostly because I try and push less armor. My PCs are 50/50 and can be found at Hero Central at the game Fourth Age of Middle Earth.

[Lord Liaden]

These examples will probably be too high-powered for you, but here are Fourth Edition HERO writeups for many prominent characters from LOTR. They might give you some ideas for what abilities would be appropriate for your characters: http://surbrook.devermore.net/adapta.../lotrchar.html

[BlueBuddha]

Ah, yes. I've seen the Surbrook writeups. I tried this back in 4e, and used them for inspiration. Obviously, the Fellowship is going to be higher-powered than starting heroes, but good to know where you're going.

I noticed that Savinien's PCs are built on 100 pts. I built my guy so far on 150 pts, but could easily trim him down to 100. Do you recommend 100 over 150? I suppose LOTR characters are a bit lighter than a lot of D&D characters, but it's also possible that I will want to go with more experienced heroes, especially for a one-shot.

[Savinien]

Thus far, in my Fourth Age game we've got a Dalesman, Osgiliath Watch, Dwarf of the Glittering Caves, Umbarran Merchant in Gondor, and Asdriag Sword for hire, an Ithilien Ranger, a Rohirrim Lordling, and an Osgiliath Urchin.

Within my (and Mastermind as he co-GMs) estimation, 100 pts is more than enough thus far. All of the NPC builds are modeled off of this, too, though. I've seen big street fights (amongst the guard, urchin, and some rabble), a cove-side skirmish, and a shifting night-fight thus far. I'll admit to being armor light and allowing one level of Combat Luck, but the PCs have dominated in each and every struggle.

No magic (to speak of) in my vision of the Fourth Age, so skills and combat play an equal part. I don't feel the PCs are underpowered at all. If anything, I'm leaning the other direction.

[BlueBuddha]

Well, that's very good to know. I think I might scale them back and see how they look.

I also notice there are a lot of Dex 20 characters. My Champions got me in the habit of making low-dex character (at least in comparison to a lot of other champs characters). I wouldn't likely make a starting human with a Dex 20. I tend to prefer to get CVs from skill levels and martial arts. Unless your concept is an extremely agile, acrobatic type, you're more likely to end up around 12 or 15, with 2-3 CSLs.

Averaging around 6 Dex points, or 18 character points freed up, characters can easily throw that into a wacky "class ability", some more skills, or some martial arts.

[Savinien]

Normally, I would tend to agree with you, especially as a player. The 4A game morphed into what it is today with a group of three joining with a similar playing (and chargen) style. They brought in the 20 DEXes and later players likely followed suit.

A lot of times, I'd have harped on them to give good reason for it, but I decided to let it go this time. I occasionally still regret that, but it is a small thing in the grand scheme.

[Doc Democracy]

What are typical CVs and DCs for the various character types you use in FH? Particularly, a low-powered LOTR-style campaign. Starting off with, I have Menelcar, the Gondorian soldier with a Dex of 11, Str of 15, +2 CVs with his sword for a total of 6 (7 w/ his defensive strike), doing 1d6+1 (or 2d6 w/ his martial strike), and is wrapped in Chainmail (6 Def). His DCV is -1 in his armor (I'm going with a -1 or -2 DCV/Dex roll for mail, and he has 1 or 2 penalty levels to counter it). I'm giving him a shield as well (+3 DCV, I think), giving him a 6 normally, 8 with a block or defensive strike, and 9 when dodging.

Well, one of the beauties of HERO games is that they are ultimately designed by the GM. You dictate the dynamics of the game far more than most other systems.

If I were you I would look at the main protagonists in the game you intend to run. Orcs, trolls, etc etc. Stat them out against what you think they shuold be able to accomplish against the real world - do you want an orc to be able to break through a wooden door? - give them the STR to do that. Do you want them to be able to behead a normal human with a single blow? - give them the CV, STR and weapon to do that.

Once you have your basic orc then guage your characters against them.

If an orc has a CV of 5, then it will hit PCs with a DCV of 5 62.5% of the time. If you only want the orc to hit 25% of the time then you encourage PCs to have DCVs of 8 or more (be that straight CV or CV plus skill levels etc). Same with OCVs - look at what the protagonists have and then build the PCs accordingly.

You have to do the same with damage. If orcs are regulalry dishing out 6 or 7 BODY and you want the PCs to skip through with only slight nicks here or there then defences have to be 7 or 8 resistant (armour, combat luck etc) to achieve that - only better than average hits from orc opponents will damage them.

Then look at how much the basics cost and give the players however much extra you want to customise their characters.

You can decide to pre-spend points on PCs - generate a few templates for particular character types that players build on - or you can provide guidelines on what the players can expect (such as suggesting DCVs and OCVs in particular ranges if they want their characters to be sufficiently heroic).

It is entirely up to you about what you decide is normal in your game and it si up to you how you want the PCs to balance out versus the generic protagonists in your game.


Doc

[Markdoc]

Doc Democracy is right, but with FH there's a couple of things to consider. The upper limit for most people is 20, so if your "standard soldier" has a DEX of 11 and a STR of 15, all of your players who don't have an elderly or weak character in mind will be at least at that level and probably higher. A Gondorian guardsman will be presumably be higher than this guy and that's likely to be the benchmark for your combat-oriented characters: which means now you are looking at DEX and STR clustering up around 20 to start with.

Where all of these stats sit, is of course up to the GM, but as a rule of thumb, if I am not aiming for a very cinematic feel, I set a relatively poorly trained soldier/guard at 10 points (background skills plus weapon FAM and maybe 1 CSL, with stats at the 10 line) a trained soldier is 25+ (now you start to see some military skills and improved stat.s) and regular, well-trained/veteran soldiers at the 50+ level (military-related skills, multiple weapons FAMs, and CSLs). I don't start kicking things like martial arts into play until we get to elite level soldiers at 100+ points.

That means that your players don't have to spend a lot of points on combat simply to be able to deal with a town watchman, and although it might seem like very few points, a squad of 25 point soldiers with armour, shields and weapons will go through a mob of armed peasants like a knife through butter, so it's not like they "weak". Well-played, they can even be counted on to kill a few weaker player characters in the 150 point range if they have a significant advantage in numbers.

Of course, for a one-off game you may wish to play at a higher point level with more experienced, fellowship-level heroes, in which case this is not so relevant.

cheers, Mark

[BlueBuddha]

Savinien:

Makes sense. Maybe if you reset the campaign or start over, but I agree, its not worth making a fuss over as long as it all still works fine. When my Champs campaign converted to 5e, everyone lost about 5-6 points of dex, and the GM still has to convert published NPCs and villains when we go against them.

I think typical soldiers will have a Dex of 8-11, exceptional ones going to the 15 level, but only heroic characters will go above that. PCs will be similar. I think you can easily get you butt kicked by the veteran soldier with battle-worn and slightly arthritic joints at Dex 8, who still has 5+ CSLs and +2 or more DCs with his chosen weapons.

Doc Democracy:

Some very useful advice. I'll get to work on statting that out. A while back, in 4e, I statted out some orcs at the normal, competent, and heroic levels, and I'll set the PCs to these levels. I'm starting off with a one-shot with pre-generated characters, so I'll be to blame for any balance issues.

Markdoc:

I see things similarly. There's nothing extraordinary about someone who simply decided to join the guard or army, he just gets training. So, once they'e whipped into shape, they end up with stats around 10, but start to gain CSLs. Live long enough, and you're a 100- point captain, famous throughout the land.

[Doc Democracy]

While reading Markdoc's post something else came to mind.

People coming from D20 style games often fail to recognise the increasing value of bonuses to DCV or OCV.

A +3 advantage in Hero is FAR more significant than a similar advantage in D20.

In Hero someone CV3 fighting someone CV6 is at a huge disadvantage - only 25% of their attacks hit and they get hit 90% of the time. That means that the CV6 opponent can regularly sacrifice accuracy through manoevres and translate that into extra damage.

In D20 a +3 advantage provides an extra 15% chance to hit and a 15% chance less to be hit. Not nearly as significant.

This is an area of differentiation that people tend to gloss over and be surprised at when they see the numbers.


Doc

[Savinien]

I scale my NPCs about where Markdoc suggested. That's why the PCs seem to wade through things. Of course, this is an online game centered about an urban area (Osgiliath) and only recently shifting further into Emyn Arnen. It's not really about combat. Even so, buggers on the other side of the sword hilt are going down in droves when the PCs show up (and they're spread out with no more than 3 in a single group!)

Good thread and good luck BlueBuddha!

[TheQuestionMan]

Lord of the Rings - Characters
http://surbrook.devermore.net/adapta.../lotrchar.html


Enjoy


QM

[BlueBuddha]

People coming from D20 style games often fail to recognise the increasing value of bonuses to DCV or OCV.

A +3 advantage in Hero is FAR more significant than a similar advantage in D20.

I'm aware of this, and it's precisely my GM lowered DEX across the board in our Champs campaign. While normals with guns still can't hurt my tank with their puny bullets, they can hit more often, and if one gets a hold of a VIPER blaster, they can be remotely dangerous.

I want the same thing in my FH. I don't want a mob with pitchforks to be completely irrelevant to a starting, or even moderately experienced character. Of course, one or even a dozen villagers with spears will probably be no challenge to a prepared, armed, and armored experienced fighter. I think if you assume normals have a 3 OCV, 1 with a weapon they're not proficient with, they're not gonna hit a warrior very often, even if he's weighed down -2 DCV in their armor, but enough rolls, and one will get lucky. A green soldier will have OCV 3 with his sword, and can hit a DCV 5 or 6 starting hero enough to be a threat.

Orcs will be built similarly. One of the horde of faceless orcs might be CV 3, having minimal training, but a squad of moderately trained soldiers can outclass a gang of orcs easily enough. Mostly their fury and lack of fear make them dangerous. (side-note: I play up this factor when I've run LOTR. Orcs live such miserable lives in fear of Sauron and their commanding orc that nothing the PCs can say really can intimidate them. Death is almost welcomed by them).