Making HERO have AC!!!

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

A game that runs sorta like D + D is really simple. NOT. The GM wants to add an armor class like system into the game. 6E was used. I was wondering how to do this for a game. I was working out this in my mind, and I came up with this.

 

 

17+OCV-3d6 musts be greater than or equal to DCV+1/4 DEX+rPD or rED (whichever is used).

 

So...

 

a 5 OCV swordsman on average will hit a normal with a 5 rPD armour 17+5-11=11 3+3 (round up for the defender's benefit) +5=11

 

 

with this the swordsman wlll use his 3d6 blade with NO DEFENSE. 

 

9 BODY is dealt.

 

BTW, STUN is a non factor in this game and the damage from Blast attacks are converted in DCs of Killing Damage. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well I don't know why you'd do it, but its an interesting exercise.

 

AC in D&D is basically DCV, its avoidance.  If they don't hit your AC, they don't do any damage or touch you at all; touch spells require hitting a reduced AC, for example.  If the target is hit, they take the full damage (unless they have some sort of damage reduction, then its based on enchantment usually).

[eepjr24]

Yeah, I am working on a 5e D&D conversion and I chose to not try to implement AC since it is too simplistic of a model to handle many effects. If I was going to model it, I would simply get rid of PD and ED altogether, along with the concept of resistant versus non-resistant. That is not the hardest thing to do, really. There are many spells which are completely out of balance for their power level in D&D that don't convert in a linear fashion to Hero. And the whole concept of casting spells with a higher level spell slot is painful. 

 

You can see what I have been doing here, it might give you some insights to some other issues you will encounter:

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Contributions/eepjr24/

 

- E

[Netzilla]

Yeah, if you really want to do this (and I can't say I recommend it), the way to go about it would be to redefine the various armors and whatnot as DCV bonuses rather than PD/ED.  You could then still use PD/ED for various damage reduction/resistance effects from D&D.  Seems like a lot of work for not much gain.

[Christopher R Taylor]

There are many spells which are completely out of balance for their power level in D&D that don't convert in a linear fashion to Hero

Yeah D&D has always had massive imbalance issues with spell levels, which they try to address with saving throws and limits on how often you can cast them.  Doing conversions of them reveal a lot about the point values and equivalent power.  Someone is trying to simulate Sanctuary (a level 1 spell) with Hero and its really expensive to get the effect.

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

Yeah D&D has always had massive imbalance issues with spell levels, which they try to address with saving throws and limits on how often you can cast them.  Doing conversions of them reveal a lot about the point values and equivalent power.  Someone is trying to simulate Sanctuary (a level 1 spell) with Hero and its really expensive to get the effect.

Yeah... I can't really say for the spells. I maybe just thought that AC would be easier to replicate!

[eepjr24]

Yeah, there are a number of expensive ones in the cantrips and 1st level bucket. You can view my attempts at the link above. I think I made a few errors on points as well, going to have to go back through them and re-figure points on some of them. Mostly I just ended up reducing the power levels where possible (sometimes not possible in Hero, although I may end up house ruling some lower level effects as talents). And a few I will probably just make into appropriate Power Skill checks where the effect on the game is minor.

 

- E

[ghost-angel]

AC & Hit Points are a little more abstract that Hero goes;

 

I'd actually recommend ditching the Body Characteristic, removing Resistant Defenses, converting everything to Normal Damage and using DCV = AC and STUN = HP straight.

 

You'll probably save yourself a lot of headache and mechanically it workings are fairly similarly.

 

If you really want to get a two step process: Hit then Damage without worrying about subtracting Defenses;

 

Rebuild all Armor to add DCV, remove PD/ED completely, and adjust damage of spells and weapons (again, no Body, Just total on the dice = Damage, applied against STUN, rename STUN to HP) to better model how fast you want things 'killed'.

 

This does create a series of cascading problems across Hero that aren't too hard to overcome for enterprising groups... But it's closer to the AC/HP Model of D&D that Hero isn't very equipped to deal with.

[eepjr24]

Yup. If you think of it in media terms, it's like crayons versus chalks. Neither one is right all the time, neither one is best at every task and they both can emulate what the other does, with enough work. =P The amount of work depends on whether the project lends itself better to that particular media.

 

- E

[womble]

Why bother? Just keep using DnD/Pathfinder/whatever; it's already set up that way. Converting out of one system into another that has to be jimmied so it's exactly the same as the one you're coming from seems like a serious waste of time.

[ghost-angel]

Why bother? Just keep using DnD/Pathfinder/whatever; it's already set up that way. Converting out of one system into another that has to be jimmied so it's exactly the same as the one you're coming from seems like a serious waste of time.

 

Most of the time I agree with this.

 

But sometimes you're looking to combine certain aspects of each game; the D&D AC/HP system is incredibly simplistic: I roll, if I hit I do damage, that is directly subtracted from the targets hit points.

 

Compared to Hero, this is incredibly simple at the table; Hero's fantastic system of tracking not only how how it is to defend, but how much any given defense helps if you do get hit, then how conscious and alive you are... it's a bit more complex.

 

On the other hand, Character's in D&D are a straight jacket with one loose strap, there's some wiggle room but you're pretty stuck into whatever path you've chosen. Hero: not so much. Armor Clad War Mages are totally a possible thing in Hero. Harder (or nearly impossible, depending on version) in D&D.

 

So I can see a group wanting to grab both elements and see if they can make it work. It's not easy, and will probably end in tears, but better to try and see if you can get exactly what you want than to walk away. This is the Ultimate Toolkit after all.

[Tasha]

Keep in mind that Hero and D20 have quite different combat scales. D20 assumes that a round is a bunch of swings, dodges etc. The roll is about the Best of the attacks in that round. the round tends to be ~a Minute long IIRC.

In Hero we are looking at 2-4 seconds between attacks. An Attack is THE attack of that character's phase, the one swing etc.

 

OCV vs DCV of the hit is similar enough to the ToHit vs AC that most D20/D&D players pick up on it quickly. That Armor directly prevents damage from effecting the target is also something they are used to with some of the magical armors and weird alloys.

I would recommend running the combat as Written in Hero. Point out the time scale differences. ie instead of multiple attacks in a round a Hero PC has, a higher SPD score reflects how many things they can do(Attacks, movement etc) in 12 seconds.

[Tholomyes]

That actually changed in 3e. A round, in 3e and further, has been defined as 6 seconds. More time than in HERO, but not substantially more.

 

Though I would agree that trying to kit HERO to use AC as anything other than a refactored form of DCV (fairly easy to accomplish: if OCV + 3d6 >= DCV + 10 it's a hit, thus DCV + 10 is "AC". Or if you want to keep the "roll low on 3d6 rolls" consistency that hero has, it'd be OCV - 3d6 >= DCV - 11, where AC would be DCV - 11). D20 is D20 and HERO is HERO, and they have completely different assumptions from one another about how damage works. Whenever I see an attempt to toolkit HERO, simply for the sake of making it more D20-esque, I have to wonder 'why?'. A lot of the time, it seems the answer is that either the players or the GM or both would just rather be playing D&D with slightly different variations.

[Ninja-Bear]

It sounds to me many people are overly complicating this. Since the OP stated that all normal damage is converted to killing then just don't worry about resistant defenses. Armors add to DCV just like shield already does. Keep body as body, it already represents hit points.

[Alcamtar]

fairly easy to accomplish: if OCV + 3d6 >= DCV + 10 it's a hit, thus DCV + 10 is "AC".

 

That is what I do. Just like d20, only with 3d6.  AC=DCV, BAB=OCV.

 

I've considered reworking skills to fit this so I have a unified mechanic, but that's more hassle than it's worth.

[Lucius]

Air Conditioning: (Total: 31 Active Cost, 7 Real Cost) Change Environment (-3 Temperature Level Adjustment, Alterable Size), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Persistent (+1/4), Area Of Effect (32 2m Areas Explosion; +3/4) (31 Active Points); OAF Bulky (-1 1/2), Extra Time (20 Minutes, Only to Activate, -1 1/4), No Range (-1/2) (Real Cost: 7)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary asks, shouldn't that be a Life Support bought for a Base?

[eepjr24]

Air Conditioning: (Total: 31 Active Cost, 7 Real Cost) Change Environment (-3 Temperature Level Adjustment, Alterable Size), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Persistent (+1/4), Area Of Effect (32 2m Areas Explosion; +3/4) (31 Active Points); OAF Bulky (-1 1/2), Extra Time (20 Minutes, Only to Activate, -1 1/4), No Range (-1/2) (Real Cost: 7)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary asks, shouldn't that be a Life Support bought for a Base?

Might need Burnout in Southern climates, but I am not sure how the charges would work for that.

 

- E

[Wardsman]

Yeah... I can't really say for the spells. I maybe just thought that AC would be easier to replicate!

As others have pointed out, In D&D Platemail makes you harder to hit instead of reducing damage. In my mind it makes no sense.

But to each his own.

It is one of the many reasons I left AD&D back in the days of yore.

I dislike classes and levels as well.

That why I gravitate toward hero and BRP(chaosium).

[Ninja-Bear]

I believe the intent of harder to hit meant harder to score a wounding blow.

[Christopher R Taylor]

AC and Hit Points was always an abstraction of combat instead of blow by blow, like a wargame.  Hit Points in particular was described as being luck, dodging blows, etc as well as life force (didn't explain why it took so long to get back).

[Ninja-Bear]

Chistopher Taylor you never heard of luck running out? Perhaps it takes time for luck to run back?

[NuSoardGraphite]

A game that runs sorta like D + D is really simple. NOT. The GM wants to add an armor class like system into the game. 6E was used. I was wondering how to do this for a game. I was working out this in my mind, and I came up with this.

 

 

17+OCV-3d6 musts be greater than or equal to DCV+1/4 DEX+rPD or rED (whichever is used).

 

So...

 

a 5 OCV swordsman on average will hit a normal with a 5 rPD armour 17+5-11=11 3+3 (round up for the defender's benefit) +5=11

 

 

with this the swordsman wlll use his 3d6 blade with NO DEFENSE.

 

9 BODY is dealt.

 

BTW, STUN is a non factor in this game and the damage from Blast attacks are converted in DCs of Killing Damage.

How experienced is your GM at running Hero?

 

If they are wanting to change things just to be closer to D&D, you might as well just play D&D.

 

Hero has its own quirks, advantages and difficulties. If you learn how the default Hero system works before trying to change it, you may find it works better than D&D for a lot of situations.

[Lee]

Hero has its own quirks, advantages and difficulties. 

 

Shouldn't that read "Hero has its own perks, advantages and complications"? 

 

Hmm, let's see...

 

HERO System:

Perk: Universal Roleplaying Game (20 pts)

Naked Advantage: No Levels (+1/2)

Naked Advantage: No Classes (+1/2)

Naked Advantage: Armor reduces damage (+1/4)

Psychological Complication: Complicated System (Infrequently, Barely Impairing, 5 pts)

 

(Sorry, just couldn't resist   )

 

Lee

[Christopher R Taylor]

Physical Complication: Requires Elementary School-level mathematics (Rarely, Barely Impairing)

Psychological Complication: perceived as being difficult math (Common, Severely)

[eepjr24]

Physical Complication: Requires Elementary School-level mathematics (Rarely, Barely Impairing)

Psychological Complication: perceived as being difficult math (Common, Severely)

Unfortunately, elementary school mathematics is not as common as it should be. Even when I was in high school it was lacking. I worked in a fast food place and we had register problems, the software would not allow them to boot up. When that happened there were only 2 people in the store (me and the manager) who could count change fast enough to run a register. Just sad.

 

- E