Unarchetypal Heroes

[Old Man]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

Funny... I was going to mention Durnik as a great example of a "unarchtypal" hero that would be a breeze to do in HERO' date=' but a nightmare in D&D[/quote']

 

 

Tazendra's lackey (Malachai?) from Phoenix Guards would also be quite difficult to pull off.

[Curufea]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

I think it's be pointed out before - literary fantasy characters are possible in Hero - and not possible in D&D, with maybe one or two exceptions. Take Lord of the Rings for example - you could have Boromir as a fighter, and that's about it. Maybe Theoden as well. No one else actually fits in the rules.

[Old Man]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

I think it's be pointed out before - literary fantasy characters are possible in Hero - and not possible in D&D' date=' with maybe one or two exceptions. Take Lord of the Rings for example - you could have Boromir as a fighter, and that's about it. Maybe Theoden as well. No one else actually fits in the rules.[/quote']

 

I think it's been stated before that the entire fellowship would have been wiped out with the first encounter of orcs because only one or two of them wear armor.

[Just Joe]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

Well, my conception of D&D boxes is about 20 years old, so the bowes might be more numerous or larger now, but these characters certainly couldn't have been done in D&D in the "old days":

 

1) An old (i.e. 60+) former mercenary captain, now mentor to a young knight. He was politically savvy and world-wise.

 

2) A young (c. 20 y.o.) son of a famous mercenary leader. He was a womanizing gambler without much direction in his life, hoping one day to be a great warrior but too lazy and too afraid of failing to try very hard.

 

Both are arguably fighters, but were only about average combatants compared to the other PC's, were not very strong, and didn't wear much armor. Each also had significant Agility and/or Intellect skills.

 

Those were characters I played. When I GM'ed two characters that stand out were a merchant and a church bureaucrat. That game was half-way to low fantasy, but the characters were much more capable and interesting than you would think from my minimal descriptions.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

My present campaign cannot be done with D&D. None of the PCs fit into the box.

 

Actually, 3rd (or whatever .x they are up to) edition can do it. It has a slightly bigger box. Not that I'm a DnD advocate, actually haven't played the new game yet.

 

One is a high STR, low INT, laborer with little formal weapons training.

 

I'm thinking this can be done with the Commoner NPC class.

 

 

Next is a scholar who gained his skills through book learning.

 

Easy one: Expert NPC class.

 

Last is a real bard. The singing, non-fighting, non-thieving, non-magic kind of bard.

 

Again, Expert NPC class. It's kind of a catchall.

 

Now, the survivability of the NPC classes will be much lower, but you can adjust the encounters appropriately, and in a lot of cases the PCs will interacting with NPCs of the same group of classes, so within the same power level.

 

I've actually toyed with the idea of doing a low-power game with the new rules.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

Attempting this in D&D will run up against a wall unless you have real hard-core role-players. No one else is going to want to play a Commoner or an Expert if someone else is going to play a Fighter or a full-fledged Bard. PC classes are heavily stacked when compared to the NPC classes.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

Obviously.

[Fredwidge]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

I always wanted to explore to the fullest the gnomish engineer concept who builds trilions of gadgets and bombs without knowing any spells at all. Can't do it in my current D&D game. Kinda like the dwarven smith Captain Obvious mentioned earlier.

[Old Man]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

 

 

I'm thinking this can be done with the Commoner NPC class.

 

Uh, aren't the NPC classes called NPC classes because they are for NPCs not players?

 

I gotta agree with Cpatain Obvious. Even if you cludged the rules into allowing the players to choose "NPC Commoner" none(?) would because it would be stupid in D&D land.

[Guest joen00b]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

As 'standard' as it may sound, one of my players wanted to play a 'stereotypical' Martial Artist from the Silver Screen. Not so much the fantastical abilities to jump over castle walls or things like things like this, but the classic Bruce Lee fight through insurmountable odds.

 

This included things like his second wind: Our hero is down for the count, getting pummelled all over the room and knocked through rice paper walls, BUT THEN! Out of nowhere, he finds the one thing that gives him all the strength he needs to win out the day, and he jumps up full of vigor and vim and slobberknocks the bad guy.

 

This was given as a 4d6 simplified healing, self only, 1 recoverable charge per day, only half BODY is healed, activation of 9 or less. This should give him on average 60% of his total STUN back, and about 30% of his body. Nifty ability, bought it relatively cheap.

 

The other ability was when he gets all rip roarin' pised off. He walks into Dojang to find a rival school has decimated it's pristine serenity and has killed his master. Months go by before he sees anyone from the rival school, and when he does, he gets enraged (possibly berserk, but for his character, enraged). He, of course, loses his cool and attacks with an unforseen fury of punchs on the poor rival school member.

 

This was bought as an autofire punch (7 shots), 0 END, only when enraged,a nd the enraged is triggered when a companion 'falls' in combat (knocked unconcious or worse).

 

I don't have the character on me as the Flash Drive files became corrupt, but there were a few more powers that really could only be emulated in the HERO System, and he was very pleased with the results.

[MordeanGrey]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

Mordean Grey was my character in a FH game run by a friend. He was a shadow mage who summoned shadow creatures and bent (or tried to bend them) to his will. All of his spells used special effects related to "shadow" (i.e.--shadow armor, cloak of shadows, shadow movement, etc.)

 

The summoned creatures were custom designed in cooperation with the GM and ranged from tiny "messenger" shadows with little ability other than fast movement at night, to powerful shadow demons which were a major pain to try and control if you summoned one. (Just ask the other players about the night I blew a roll and accidently summoned a shadow demon, and then couldn't control it... the demon demanded a sacrifice before it would leave, and my character (not a fine upstanding moral fellow) released it into an unsuspecting city. Much chaos and murder followed.)

 

In general I feel that Hero handles summoning and controlling creatures much better than D&D. The FH game I ran in the Planescape setting really worked well with the Hero rules. There were so many custom races and characters in the game that we spent a lot of time building racial and cultural packages, etc. In fact, I can't imagine trying to run the same setting using the original AD&D rules.

[Funksaw]

Re: Nonarchetypal Heroes

 

I always wanted to play a Tinker/Archetect in D&D. The guy who wasn't really a good fighter, or rogue, or whatever, but could build stuff. A guy who makes clockwork stuff. An inventor.

 

Eberron came close with that weird class that they came up with, but that really ended up more like a spellcaster class than anything else and you needed to know ALL the rules in all 3 of the PHBs...

 

Let's see - I did want to play a lawyer in Ravenloft - the Bard didn't fit because the Bard is pretty much a spellcaster.

[Curufea]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

I'd really like to see all of these characters, you know. Any chance of putting writeups online?

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

Uh, aren't the NPC classes called NPC classes because they are for NPCs not players?

 

I gotta agree with Cpatain Obvious. Even if you cludged the rules into allowing the players to choose "NPC Commoner" none(?) would because it would be stupid in D&D land.

 

Obviously not obvious enough.

 

Let me make it clear: Your three choices of characters are obviously underpowered weenies in combat. So are the NPC classes. Therefore,the group is just as doable in DnD. There would be no rules cludge. The rules for running NPCs are right there in black and white. (Or brown and lighter brown, as it were.)

 

Suppose you started an adventure with these three guys. The Experts are actually quite capable of adventuring, the Commoner would likely have a decent CON if he's a laborer, so his low hit die wouldn't be that much of a hinderance. You'd probably want to start the group off at about third to fifth level. You'd set the ratings of their encounters to several levels below the PC's level, so that they could handle the ocassional combat.

 

DnD doesn't come with a setting in the core rules. There's nothing "stupid" about running them in YOUR OWN SETTING, because there IS NO DND LAND IN THE CORE RULES.

 

There ARE concepts that cannot be done in DnD. Your characters, however, can be. Certainly not with the depth or detail allowed by Hero or any good generic system (I think GURPS works well for lower level, skill-intensive stuff too.), but it can be done.

 

And if the NPC classes are too weak, there's nothing wrong with the character waking up one day, deciding, "Hey, I'm getting tired of running away from goblins with pointy sticks, I think I need to learn how to fight better," and taking a level of Warrior or even Fighter.

 

Aristocrats and Experts are pretty close to playable as PCs without any modification. You could go with an Aristocrat for the scholarly type (access to education, and he gets some decent combat skills out of it), an Expert for the Bard, and a Commoner with high STR and CON for the Laborer, and have a halfway decent group.

 

Or have you actually read that section to know why and how the NPC classes function and to see the suggestions for using them as PCs? Because, although not recommended, those suggestions are there. Or are you just dismissing a post out of hand because it challenges your assertion?

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Nonarchetypal Heroes

 

I always wanted to play a Tinker/Archetect in D&D. The guy who wasn't really a good fighter, or rogue, or whatever, but could build stuff. A guy who makes clockwork stuff. An inventor.

 

Eberron came close with that weird class that they came up with, but that really ended up more like a spellcaster class than anything else and you needed to know ALL the rules in all 3 of the PHBs...

 

Let's see - I did want to play a lawyer in Ravenloft - the Bard didn't fit because the Bard is pretty much a spellcaster.

 

I think you put your finger on the biggest problem with DnD: The game seems to be designed so that access to magic at higher levels is a necessity. And the skills system, while better than previous editions, lacks a lot of depth. 3rd Edition added a bit of flexibility, but it's still far from a generic system. Hero just does a lot of stuff better.

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

DnD doesn't come with a setting in the core rules. There's nothing "stupid" about running them in YOUR OWN SETTING' date=' because there IS NO DND LAND IN THE CORE RULES.[/quote']

 

I agree with everything you said about using the NPC classes. However, D&D does come with a "standard" campaign - Greyhawk.

 

As described in Thirty Years of Adventure : A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons, the Dungeons and Dragons books (at least the 3/3.5 ones) operate under the assumption of Greyhawk as the default campaign setting. Thus, the Gods described in the DMG are the Greyhawk gods. The Monsters described in the Monster Manual are the Greyhawk Monsters (thus the need for a Monster's of Faerun type book). The races and classes are the races and classes of Greyhawk.

 

Just to keep the facts straight. (And these are the facts to the best o' my knowledge.)

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

The default setting for those areas of the books that need to make an assumption on the setting is indeed Greyhawk. Now, tell me everything you know about the Greyhawk setting based on a read-through of the core books. That's a bit harder, since we only have some monsters, the names of some dieties and some spells named after Greyhawk mages. You cannot construct a Greyhawk specific scenario out of the core books, because you have no history, no geography, and no people to populate it. Therefore, you have no setting that amounts to anything other than some flavor text.

 

Granted, the rules are structured as such that the game is expected (espcially at the higher levels) to be played in a Greyhawk type world full of powerful magic, strong monsters, and all the rest that goes along with the DnD flavor of fantasy. And it's hard to seperate the rules from the style of play. But, for lower-key play, with lower level encounters, it's not impossible, just not ideal.

[The Hyborian]

Re: Nonarchetypal Heroes

 

I think you put your finger on the biggest problem with DnD: The game seems to be designed so that access to magic at higher levels is a necessity. And the skills system' date=' while better than previous editions, lacks a lot of depth. 3rd Edition added a bit of flexibility, but it's still far from a generic system. Hero just does a lot of stuff better.[/quote']

 

 

Your on the right track, but the "problem" with D&D is that in its heart and soul its a highly abstract combat sytem intended to support miniatures. Any role playing is tacked on afterward. The classes are balanced for combat utility (well, in theory, please lets not have a subthread about clerics). D&D works best with a group of people who want to fight the orc, get the pie, and move to the next room.

 

Not that there is anything wrong with that. I have played a stupid amount of D&D in my life and it can be fun if you have the right expectations going in. But the support for non-combat gaming is mininmal. The skill system is very basic. Its basically about getting to the dungeon (dungeon being the castle/magic forest/ruined tower/moist hole in the ground) surviving the dungeon, and healing up aftward, hopefully on a big pile of loot and ale mugs.

 

As a side note, in 3/3.5 DnD the best shot at a "out of the box" character is usually the Rogue class. It gets the most skill points. You could do the classic fantasy thief, but also a merchant, a diplomat, a prospector, a spy, etc. All you have to do is rationalize why they have the sneak attack ability.

[Old Man]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

DnD doesn't come with a setting in the core rules. There's nothing "stupid" about running them in YOUR OWN SETTING, because there IS NO DND LAND IN THE CORE RULES.

 

I think you misunderstood my comment. What I meant was if you got a group of strangers together and told them they were playing D&D, what are the chances they would pick the previously stated NPC classes? Would a standard adventure run smoothly if half of the party were made up of such characters?

 

Generally in most D&D campaigns it would be foolish to run such a weak character if other players were running the standard classes. I just cringe at the the thought of trying even a high level group of Commoners in something like The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth or the The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun.

 

And if the NPC classes are too weak, there's nothing wrong with the character waking up one day, deciding, "Hey, I'm getting tired of running away from goblins with pointy sticks, I think I need to learn how to fight better," and taking a level of Warrior or even Fighter.

 

I think that's pretty cool, and am glad they can do that now.

 

Or have you actually read that section to know why and how the NPC classes function and to see the suggestions for using them as PCs? Because, although not recommended, those suggestions are there. Or are you just dismissing a post out of hand because it challenges your assertion?

 

I'm not dismissing anything, just find it odd that the solution involved NPC classes. I was honestly surprised/confused by such a suggestion.

[Old Man]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

I just cringe at the the thought of trying even a high level group of Commoners in something like The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth or the The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun.

 

Well, Tharizdun is just insanely hard for the stated levels. But yeah.

[Curufea]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

I like the idea that no mutilation is a good thing.

 

If you find yourself mutilating your character ideas to fit the rules. Or find yourself mutilating the rules to fit your character ideas - you're using the wrong system.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Unarchetypal Heroes

 

I think you misunderstood my comment. What I meant was if you got a group of strangers together and told them they were playing D&D' date=' what are the chances they would pick the previously stated NPC classes? Would a standard adventure run smoothly if half of the party were made up of such characters?[/quote']

 

I don't think you'd possibly be able to do a standard adventure, but I was looking at it from the angle of your own story, where your players picked totally unexpected character types, which were unconventional. I'd think you'd have adjusted your game to compensate, as well.

 

Generally in most D&D campaigns it would be foolish to run such a weak character if other players were running the standard classes. I just cringe at the the thought of trying even a high level group of Commoners in something like The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth or the The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun.

 

Actually, that might be amusing. =) Of course, with DnD, you'll get standard classes as choices most of the time, and anything non-standard has a fair shot at being munchkiny. Of course, with Fantasy Hero, players are encouraged to build something more or less from scratch, so you get happy accidents like your example group.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not dismissing anything, just find it odd that the solution involved NPC classes. I was honestly surprised/confused by such a suggestion.

 

 

Sorry about that comment. I thought it sounded very bad when I read it later, but I didn't edit it out b/c I had to run to work.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Nonarchetypal Heroes

 

Its basically about getting to the dungeon (dungeon being the castle/magic forest/ruined tower/moist hole in the ground) surviving the dungeon, and healing up aftward, hopefully on a big pile of loot and ale mugs.

 

I think that quote sums it up quite well. The dungeon crawl can certainly be fun. The new edition seems to really encourage the tactical/wargame approach to using the minis a bit overmuch (though I think you could ignore some of that altogether and still be left with a playable system) for my tastes as well. But the bottom line is the game is designed for powering up to be able to take on the next biggest dungeon, not for what has become roleplaying in the intervening years since its release.

 

One thing that always annoys me on other boards when Hero is mentioned is that so many people think it's a rules lawyery game. The first time I saw the Disadvantages side of a Champions character sheet, my only thought was "WOW! These guys have built a game mechanic to help you roleplay!" Ars Magica was the next game out that did something similar, then Amber DRPG (that I picked up, that is.) BUT, Hero was there first (IME), with rules built to encourage players to get into character. Now all the rules-light gamers out there, whose games are very much inspired by this aspect of Hero/Champions, denegrate the game on the grounds of it being rules-intensive, when a huge chunk of the rules are a roleplaying aid. Not to mention that 4th Edition Champions had one of the best sections on roleplaying I've read in any game book. (Sorry, Steve, but I'm going to have to admit to having glossed over the similar material in Fifth. =)