Using the pretty dice

[m.mavnn]

So, I'm considering suggesting a move to Hero from Pathfinder. And I'm not particularly worried about convincing them to try a more flexible rules set, having seen them all get frustrated at (and in some cases try to bend the rules around) not being able to grow the characters to match the story rather than the 'class'. 

 

Which only leaves me with a much more serious issue: they really like their pretty dice

 

Given this'll be a fantasy game, I forsee a lot of killing attacks so I'm considering using dice for the different DCs of KAs. It seems to work fairly nicely, something along the lines of: 1, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10 for the first 5 DCs without skewing the resulting body damage too far. In fact, I think they might even be quicker to pick up than the normal Hero progression ("you want me to roll one and a half dice?!"). 

 

Has anyone tried anything like this before? The numbers start drifting rather more if you start using d12s, and I still don't have a good use for d20s so I'm also all ears for ideas there! 

[HeroGM]

This is from killershrikes site

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah there have been several suggestions about how to use polyhedrals in Hero and they can be done, but its a bit more work.  I do love those dice and have a huge collection but these days all my dice are getting dusty.

[Duke Bushido]

You might find it more practical to invest in some pretty six-siders. 

 

 

 

 

[HeroGM]

40 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

You might find it more practical to invest in some pretty six-siders. 

 

 

 

 

 

Mine are blue with the hero logo. Nothing prettier.

[Spence]

13 minutes ago, HeroGM said:

 

Mine are blue with the hero logo. Nothing prettier.

 

I prefer mine as black with green numbers and Hero Logo

[HeroGM]

9 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

I prefer mine as black with green numbers and Hero Logo

 

I had those, these were free so I'm not going to complain.

[drunkonduty]

The next campaign I run is going to be Hero. And I have worried about this very issue. So thanks for the thread and replies. Very timely.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Honestly while the dice are fun to play with, you don't notice it when you get into play because the mechanics work as is and the dice are cosmetic but irrelevant.  

[m.mavnn]

4 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Honestly while the dice are fun to play with, you don't notice it when you get into play because the mechanics work as is and the dice are cosmetic but irrelevant.  

Honestly, I'm mostly considering it for one player who's first rpg was the Pathfinder game (now into its 3rd? 4th? year) and who has amassed a broad dice collection and likes to pick the 'right dice for the job'. For them it's part of the fun of the game, and I don't see any reason to spoil it 🤷‍♂️

Edited December 15, 2021 by m.mavnn

[Ninja-Bear]

I would recommend to anyone though to pick up half dice. I have the standers D6 with 1-3 printed twice.

[LoneWolf]

While Hero system does not use multiple kinds of dice it is more likely to use multiple dice.  To me there is something satisfying about rolling a whole handful of dice instead of a single dice with more sides.  If you are using normal attacks instead of killing attacks you get to roll even more dice.  In Pathfinder about the only characters that get to roll handful of dice are spell casters.  

 

Rolling few dice with a higher number of sides will definitely have a major impact on the game.  Hero system is actually pretty well balanced because extreme results are a lot less common.  But at the same time when you do get maximum damage the results are usually a lot more dramatic.  In Pathfinder the majority of the damage comes from static bonuses, not the dice.  When you have a +30 to damage the difference between a d6 and a d12 is insignificant.  In Pathfinder the better weapons are usually not those that do the most damage.  A higher critical range or multiplier is often more effective than a larger dice.   

 

The other thing about Pathfinder is that the damage is completely different.  The amount of damage a character can sustain in Pathfinder goes up dramatically as the characters level up. This is not the case in the Hero System.  While your Body and Stun may go up as you gain experience it does not come close to the difference between a 1st level character and a 12th level character in Pathfinder.  In the Hero system you often have characters whose Body and Stun never go up.   
 

[m.mavnn]

@LoneWolf I think you've slightly missed the intent of my question; I'm well aware of the statistics of both games and how they differ, and I'm not asking for help converting damage between the two. In fact, a big part of wanting to move away from Pathfinder is that I'm not keen of the escalating hit points issue and how it forces you to only use "level appropriate" enemies to avoid either overwhelming or pointless amounts of damage.

 

My intent is much more constrained than that; in a low level fantasy game, killing attacks tend to be very common and rarely hit more than a couple of dice (maybe 3) dice of damage, making them much less "reliable" (and with much less of a bell curve) than normal attacks of the same DC. If you crunch the numbers, that means that the spread of results from rolling a 1d10 killing attack isn't too far off rolling 1 1/2d6 killing attack.

 

So basically, I'm thinking of making killing attacks scale by each DC adding a dice size (up to 1d10 for 5 DCs, and then probably going to 2d6). Easy to remember, allows players to use their existing dice, and shouldn't make too much of a difference to the odds in combat. Normal attacks would still be normal attacks.

 

The question was more if anyone had tried anything similar and whether the small differences in results made more of a difference to game play than is obvious from the "theoretical" numbers.

Edited December 15, 2021 by m.mavnn

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I think you've slightly missed the intent of my question; I'm well aware of the statistics of both games and how they differ, and I'm not asking for help converting damage between the two.

 

Well his point is this: more dice is more exciting than a few funny dice.  He explained why there's more dice and how it matters, whereas the one or two polyhedrals actually end up being meaningless

[Ninja-Bear]

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Well his point is this: more dice is more exciting than a few funny dice.  He explained why there's more dice and how it matters, whereas the one or two polyhedrals actually end up being meaningless

Well he showed Polyhedrals  maybe meaningless for Pathfinder but that isn’t the case with all games that use Polyhedrals.  Savage Worlds comes to mind and it’s probably why they make a big deal about static bonuses, +2 is very good.

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, m.mavnn said:

The question was more if anyone had tried anything similar and whether the small differences in results made more of a difference to game play than is obvious from the "theoretical" numbers.

 

 

I have not.  I toyed with the idea, and after a couple of realizations, I did not proceed.

 

If you are interested, I can tell you why I didn't.

 

 

That's really all I have to offer.

 

[m.mavnn]

24 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

I have not.  I toyed with the idea, and after a couple of realizations, I did not proceed.

 

If you are interested, I can tell you why I didn't.

 

 

That's really all I have to offer.

 

 

I'm all ears!

 

... Well, apart from the bits that aren't. But I'm definitely interested in the realizations.

[Killer Shrike]

The main thing to consider about using polyhedrals for DCs instead of some # of D6's is linear results vs a curve. But, if you don't mind the swingyness of the ranges, it's doable.

 

Personally, before COVID I was transitioning to a Cortex Prime hack of mine which has similar character building expressiveness to Hero but looser resolution. It uses all the poly's from d4 to d12 in a single dice pool per action / reaction type of resolution. Individual traits (aptitudes, powers, etc) are rated as d4, d6, d8 whatever. For a given action or reaction a character forms a dice pool by taking the die for up to one relevant trait from each set of abilities they have and rolling all the dice. Two dice are chosen and added together as their total result, and a third die is chosen as their effect...the step of the effect die determines the magnitude of what they achieve...thus an effect die of d4 would be marginal while an effect die of a d12 would be extreme. Various stunts (called SFX "special effects") interact with these basic dice pool semantics...for instance the Area Effect SFX allows the inclusion of more dice in the pool and the keeping of additional effect dice to apply to multiple targets, other SFX allow a third die to be added to a result in certain circumstances, or the effect die to be stepped up to the next higher die step under certain circumstances, etc.

 

I love the Hero System, and have brought many groups into using the Hero System to replace / migrate away from a D&D or other more mainstream game engine. It can be a worthwhile endeavor.

 

However, if one or more of your players just love them some polyheedz and you want to explore some free form adventure driven by what makes sense to the characters, the setting, and the emerging narrative of your campaign you may find some value in trying out my Cortex hack...

 

http://www.killershrike.com/Cortex/Heroic/Fantasy/

 

Most of the sample characters I provide for the hack are actually conversions / re-imaginings of Hero characters from one of my Fantasy Hero campaigns from back in the day. For instance, the warrior blacksmith Saemund in my Cortex hack...and a version of the original player character from back in the day in 5e Hero. And the cantankerous obermancer Kjar in my Cortex hack...and a version of the original player character from the 5e Hero days. 

 

If you do end up going the Fantasy Hero route though, maybe you'll find something useful among the Fantasy Hero resources still up on my site...

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/FantasyHERO.aspx

 

 

Good luck...

[Greywind]

Buy them some pretty d6.

[dmjalund]

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The main thing to consider about using polyhedrals for DCs instead of some # of D6's is linear results vs a curve.

 

This is one of the main flaws of d20/D&D type games: I hate the single die resolution

[LoneWolf]

There are so many ways in the Hero System to increase damage that it is pretty easy to get enough dice to make the game quite deadly.   A normal person usually has a body of around 10 or so.  Some characters may have more but for the most part you don’t see the high numeric value you see in Pathfinder.   A 3d6 killing attack is usually enough to severely hurt most creatures.

 

There are also a lot of ways to increase the damage in the Hero system.  Unless you are using something like a dagger it should not be that difficult to get the damage up to a decent level.  Using a decent weapon with some skill levels and a martial art you should easily be able to get the damage up to at least 3d6.  Throw in Weapon Master or Deadly Blow and you are looking at 4-6 dice.  Unless you are fighting Giants or Dragons that should be deadly enough.

 

If you use some of the optional rules like critical hits and hit location combat becomes extremely dangerous.  Using those rules a Orc getting a lucky hit can take out a extremely high point character. The impairing and disabling rules allow you to do more than Just straight damage.  That is something that games like Pathfinder complete ignore.  When the only way you have of taking down an opponent is to do damage the amount of damage becomes more important.  

 

Removing the bell curve is going to make combat even more unpredictable.  Your chances of rolling above a 10 on 2d6 are about 11%., your chances of doing that on a d12 is 25%.  This completely alters the balance of the game and not in the players favor.  Anything that increases the damage across the board impacts the players more.  Most opponents are single use so if something bad happens to them it does not affect the game that much..  the players on the other hand are the focus of the game so when one of them is taken out it has a much greater impact.
 

[Ninja-Bear]

@m.mavnn, since know one has really done it the best advice I’d give is just have some basic mooks and monsters and just have a few rounds of battle. Nothing serious. 100 pt slap dashed characters versus lowly goblins with maybe a simple dungeon crawl -4 rooms tops. See how that plays out. Single dice rolls are swingy but some people see that as a feature. And if you’re group likes it? Go for it. 

[m.mavnn]

Thanks @Ninja-Bear , and yes I think I might give it a few trial battles. Especially because I'm still planning to have the bell curve kick in fairly quickly (hence not planning to use d12s; in the progression I'm planning, the 1/2 dice step is the only step in which you'll be rolling less dice my way than the official way). I'm also planning to let people choose one or the other way of rolling as they prefer - as the DM I was just going to use the standard rules given it's convenient to always use the same dice and I know Hero well.

 

That said, I'm sure the excuse to buy a bunch of pretty d6s will not be missed by the dice loving section of the players .

[Ninja-Bear]

Btw, let us know how it goes. The good and the bad.