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What to expect from Fantasy Hero Complete


AncientVaults

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I haven't played Fantasy Hero in AGES (since the early 90's) and saw the newest edition mentioned in a thread on Rpg.net and I have a few questions for the experts as I just bought Fantasy Hero Complete 6th edition to give a go over and hopefully run.

 

1)Has a lot changed since whichever edition that was from the 80's?

2)Just how freeform are characters? Are they similar to BRP for example?

3)I am mostly into old school rpgs and by that I mean D&D and it's derivatives. To this end, I write a blog for that particular field of rpgs with spells and monsters and magic items and gods and such (I am not here to plug it because it is not appropriate to my question, but I will say that there are some ancient vaults and possibly eldritch secrets in its title), how easy is it to convert such material to Fantasy Hero? We are talking Basic D&D level material.

 

Thank you for any and all replies!

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The biggest change for you will probably be the lack of Figured Characteristics.

Characters are completely free-form unless something in the setting restricts them. Hero System us a generic system and there are no class based limitations on what you can buy built into the system, but there often are such limitations built into a setting.

Most D&D stuff can be translated fairly easily, though cost and utility don't always match up across systems. For example, any Feat based on Attacks of Opportunity will be pricey to build since Hero does not have AoO as a default mechanic and you would be building a Power or Naked Power Advantage with a price Trigger Advantage to simulate acting when you normally could not (unless the GM institutes some kind of AoO as part of the setting).

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Obviously there are no Feats in Old School/Basic D&D, so that's a red herring.

 

Converting D&D across is a lot of work, which is why I prefer to use D&D to play D&D. Fantasy Hero works better for different settings. That said, a lot of people have attempted to do D&D conversions, so ignore me.

 

The biggest issue is the magic system, from what I've seen. If you want FH spells to work like D&D spells you have to set the parameters accordingly. Once you do though, you should be able to replicate your work from one spell to another.

 

I suppose you could try converting stuff across as you need it. That would reduce the amount of upfront work. Effectively, you would be creating a "Basic Fantasy Hero" for yourself. Add other stuff as you need it.

 

Balance could be interesting. An Orc is an Orc at one level, and there are already FH stats for most common D&D monsters, but they aren't necessarily going to have the same relative power levels, and then there are the PCs...

 

I'd be inclined to reuse your fluff text, and not sweat the finer details, as much as possible.

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Back in the 90's I converted my AD&D game to Hero without too many problems. The hero system has expanded its options, but the basic chassis is still pretty much the same, so it's not going to be a huge deal. I found that after a few months that I was able to do much of the conversion on the fly (by which I mean take the basic stat block of a D&D monster and just run it in Hero system without converting in advance). Of course this was AD&D, so no feats or similar, which made it easier.

 

My suggestion if you are going to do it is not to sweat the details too much, but aim for look and feel. I found that spells were the most challenging part simply because of the wide range of possible effects. When I converted my game over, I did a fairly faithful conversion without worrying too much about making all the PCs the same points level. Although they all started out the same level, their Hero system points totals were wildly divergent. Over time, I fed the lower-point PCs slightly more Xp per session, so that after a few months they all more or less balanced. If you are not converting an existing game, that's not an issue.

 

So It'd say there's two important things to think about in advance:

 

1) how you want magic to work. For that game I went with a simple system that modeled how AD&D-based casting works (all casters have to prepare spells in advance and you get so many per day), but you don't have to do that. If you don't it changes the game look and feel significantly, but that may not be a bad thing.

2) work out what your power level is going to be. Things like Stat.s translate across fairly easily. Normal humans in Hero have Stat. ranges from about 5-20, while D&D is 3-18, with heroic types going above that range. On the other hand you need to convert defences and hit points to Hero equivalents. Across normal armour ranges, it's pretty straightforward AC to DEF conversion (again, there's a fairly close correlation) but at the higher ends, you need to think about it, because it's easy to make a creature the PCs simply can't hurt. Hit points are a harder translation, because the way Hero damage works means you need to consider physical damage (BOD), plus stunning effects (meaning you need a balance of BOD, STUN and CON). As GM, you can choose how you make this translation and it will affect your game - higher values means that heroes will wade through "lower level" characters like plasma through Jello, while lower levels will make a more gradual transition.

 

As a final suggestion, you might want to look at a recent thread on these boards (http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/88214-impromptu-hero-old-school-adventures-with-indie-style/). If I was doing Hero system conversion of D&D, today this is how I'd do it: a simple reskinning so that I could use all the accumulated D&D materials as-is, without having to convert everything in advance.

 

cheers, Mark

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Since my previous comment has drawn a like...

 

The key idea is a reaction to The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth.

 

Basically there's a Good Guy Fortress/City/Empire that is, well, unvanquishable, save for the McGuffin.

 

Cue a desperate McGuffin hunt, and what does the prophecy mean, anyway?

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Well you could take the basic elements of D&D and just use them for your structure.  57 flavors of dragon by color and metal type, strict alignment psych comps, "classes" that are defined as societal clans or castes which people are picked or select almost without exception, a Vancian magic system of memorized fire and forget and lots of material components, and so on.

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And I guess I should have said I don't want to translate anything too directly from any other game, just the essence of ideas.

I think there are holy wars fought over the internet about what's the essence of D&D. Legions sent forth on the battlefield in the name of Gygax and his prophet Moldvay. Schisms between Otusian and Elmorian branches...

 

The dungeon-y/monster-y part is easy enough. The big decisions are probably all about character creation and what needs to be retained. With basic D&D in mind, this isn't about emulating class/prestige class abilities, special ooph powers and the like, but probably about evaluating core assumptions. Probably the first being how important niche protection is, followed by the assumed power level of a) starting characters and B) characters a few sessions into the game (i.e. the pace of advancement).

 

Personally I cared more about the adventure part than the game part, but then again, I'm pretty much anti-OSR ;)

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@assault-two likes, any time Dunsany is mentioned I am there. My world is a combo of things, including Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith. Mixing the Testament of Athammaus by CAS with The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller with nuances of Idle Days on the Yann for an adventure plot.

@mhd-I am not a member of the osr nor do I participate in edition wars or even rpg wars, whatever game/edition keeps the group happy is the right game for that group. I do run a lot of clones as they are easier to pick up and run one offs and get the players adventuring, but then BoL does that too.

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And I guess I should have said I don't want to translate anything too directly from any other game, just the essence of ideas.

Once you wrap your head around thinking in terms of effect first, then refinement, you'll find it a lot easier to build spells, powers and racial/professional abilities. Between Blast, Ranged Killing Attack, Hand Attack and Hand Killing Attack you can build any power or spell that does physical damage. You then use modifiers to refine specifically what it does, what you have to do to use it, and so on.

 

I know most FH GMs don't use the "Vancian" magic systems common in D&D/Pathfinder, but you can with work build a variant on it -- perhaps as simply as arranging it so that each spell can only be cast once a day. That's a pretty severe limitation, which would in turn enable you to afford more spells (which you'll need!).

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