Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

That would be an indication to me that this player is currently more focussed on the "Game" aspect of "Role-Playing Game" than he is on the "Role-Playing" aspect. It sounds like he wants to play a particular ability set rather than a particular character concept.

 

So that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. By switching to a half-giant, he's now matched up a character concept to the ability set he wants to play. That will work out much better.

 

(Note: I'm not bagging on this, or saying there's anything wrong with wanting to play an ability set instead of a character concept. Although I usually build my player characters around the character concept, I freely admit that there have been times when I've built a character around an ability set instead. And I've often built bad guys around ability sets.)

 

Not so sure about ability set characters coming from a 'game' focus. I mean, if you initially envison the person, but not how they became that... then often, what they can do comes ahead over what they are.

 

"Game" is when you go 'I want STR 30', true. Often, race shouldn't define who a character is.... enough so that it can be the easiest thing to change.

 

Also, it can be easier to _pick_ one concept if you let power be your guide. That way, you don't have to weigh up all your possible ideas, but can just go with something that won't lead to frustration and narrows down your possible characters enough to make making a decision easy.

 

(if sense this does not make, my lack of sleep doth explain it)

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

I had this happen to me. My response? "Sure. But your speed can't go over 2 and your dex is going to suffer horribly!" (I think we settled on 11 with the understanding that he could raise it in time to 13.)

 

It's all about balance, if you have someone who does a lot of damage, they act slower. If they do little damage, they can be much faster and have a higher speed.

 

...so no half-giant martial arts masters?

 

Pity. The more I think about, the niftier the concept gets...

 

(Gentle Giant, prolly, so not violent. Fairly passive, so not dominating out of combat. Not maximally effective, because needs to be goaded. Ooh... cool.)

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

...so no half-giant martial arts masters?

 

Pity. The more I think about, the niftier the concept gets...

 

(Gentle Giant, prolly, so not violent. Fairly passive, so not dominating out of combat. Not maximally effective, because needs to be goaded. Ooh... cool.)

not to far off of one of my player's character design. My world has a "half giant" race, the Ardach (gaelic for High Man, roughly) who all follow a rigid martial religion that protects their souls from their inherently "chaotic" nature. There is a Heretic sect that follows differning, but no less strict precepts. He chose to play a Heretic Ardach who was basically a celtisized Zen archer and healer. Great frelling character.

[HewhoisMatt]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

For 4th edition FH, one of the heros I ran was a 1/2 giant bard. He was a real hoot to play.

[Ner0Sputnik]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

...so no half-giant martial arts masters?

 

Pity. The more I think about, the niftier the concept gets...

 

(Gentle Giant, prolly, so not violent. Fairly passive, so not dominating out of combat. Not maximally effective, because needs to be goaded. Ooh... cool.)

 

haha! No, that'd be fine... actually, that'd be really COOL! The guy that played the character was a healer and fought with a staff. I wouldn't mind a martial artist, it would just take more collaboration with me to make it work in balance with the campaign.

[John Desmarais]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

Warning: This kind of restriction can easily backfire.

 

I mean, what happens when someone goes "fine! I'm playing a half-giant!" and can actually justify a stupidly high STR score?

 

The last time I played a half-giant in Fantasy Hero he had a STR of 35 and was a pacifist (had to make a EGO roll just to enter combat - fun character).

[Rick]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

Eh, artificial balancing techniques like this never work for my players. We as a group tend to be very concept oriented and are happy with the 20 NCM (varied depending on race of course). I just balance my villians against them, it's not hard in hero to challenge powerful P.C.'s sometimes it's harder in fact to avoid having things to difficult in combat. I'm a bit spoiled I'll admit, if I say to my players we're starting this game of as 100 pt characters they immediatly get in that mind set without any grousing.

[Trencher]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

PC's to have better than normal stats' date=' but don't want them to be that much better than compotent NPC's built on 50-75 points (i.e. Town gaurdsmen, Local priests, or goblin warriors). Where I want the PC's to shine is the range of skills, talents and perks they have compared to the Average NPC. [/quote']

Tell them this on before hand, they might be wanting to play heroes who can kick serious ass.

 

 

1. Strength costs 2 points instead of 1.

You are tired of your players buying up to twenty in speed for no reason? Again telling them what kind of characters you want might get better result than making a rule.

Other than that go for it I think str is to cheap in fantasy anyway.

2. Players can spend no more 60 points on statistics.

This works just fine.

3. NCM limits for base stats are set at 15 instead of 20.

That is an interesting twist if str cost 2 point per point then a warrior with 20 str will have to pay 30 points

My hope is that each player will chose one or two base stats that are "signature abilities" for his or her character that will be bought higher than fifteen while other stats are kept in the 10 to 15 range.

Again just telling them what you want might do the trick, tell them you want them to be like the early xmen who had one talent each and had to work togeather as a team.

[cndblank]

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign

 

I do think you are hitting STR up twice if you make it cost double and put a NCM of 15. I would likely do one or the other.

 

You might want to allow each character to have one stat based on character conception at an NCM of 18 (Perhaps only 17 for Dex).

 

I don't find high Str's for fighters to be that bad. I mean you spend several hours a day working at moving in full armor, swinging a sword, carrying a shield or pulling a long bow and you get every every good at it.

 

Legionaries could march long hours carrying a heavy load and still make a fortified camp at the end of the day.

 

I don't know if they could bench press 400 pounds but they could fight all day long. Have you seen the size of the Legionaries' shield? They are huge.

 

Knights were suppose to be able to leap in to their saddles.

 

They found the skeleton of an English longbowman and the bones in his arms were like the bones in a Professional Pitcher. All the working out had built up the thickness of the bone to support the muscle.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that they may not have looked like body builders, the part's they needed would have been pure wirey muscle.

 

How are you going to handle magic and the fact everyone usually gets stunned and knocked out before they can meet a glorious death in battle?