Superskills and Cost Dividers

[Steve]

A nice thing about Hero is that suggestions for doing things in one genre can have similar uses in other ones. One of the suggested Fantasy Hero magic systems involved characters buying spells by taking a spell's real cost and then dividing it by a number like 3 or 5 to see how much it cost in character points. Has anyone ever considered trying this with the costs of Dark Champions superskills? If this is done, it brings down the points needed for characters to have a few cool abilities.

 

Or am I a heretic for suggesting this?

[CourtFool]

Heretic

 

I do not think you are a heretic for suggesting this. I think it is a very valid point. The reasoning I have heard over allowing the cost reduction in Fantasy Hero could be valid in any genre.

 

I do not think many GMs would allow it though. Personally I question the divide by 3 method for Fantasy Hero. I think the Hero System is fairly well balanced as is and allowing such a reduction in cost gives magic using characters a large advantage over non-magic using characters. This may irk me more than others since I favor non-magic using characters.

 

I also think part of the reason a cost reduction method is 'needed' is because many GMs are trying to simulate the same feel as D&D. Magic is very powerful and easily accessible in D&D. I would argue that it is also unbalancing. I have seen some arguments on the Wizards' board that suggest magic using classes are unbalancing. But then, you could probably find a thread saying the same about any class, really.

 

My point is that I do not think magic in D&D was balanced and trying to simulate it requires some unbalancing. I have never seen a D&D campaign where all of the rules for magic using characters were fully applied and I believe they were there to try and balance things.

 

I, however, am a llama and completely off my pot. In the end, if you want to encourage players to take superskills then, by all means, apply a cost divider. Since all character types would have equal access to superskills I doubt there would be any balance issues.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Superskills and Cost Dividers

 

The reason the divider is necessary in Fantasy Hero is because of the fact that frameworks are not allowed. If you figured out somehow to use frameworks *without* running into the High AP High Disad problem, the divider would go bye-bye.

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Superskills and Cost Dividers

 

The reason the divider is necessary in Fantasy Hero is because of the fact that frameworks are not allowed. If you figured out somehow to use frameworks *without* running into the High AP High Disad problem' date=' the divider would go bye-bye.[/quote']

 

That's always been my understanding. Spells frequently have a high AP cost, and yet are cheap because of the copious amount of limitations they take. Many spells only cost a handful of points, but have high enough APs that the frameworks they would go in would cost a lot of character points, robbing the potential of role-playing.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Superskills and Cost Dividers

 

One option I've mulled is, to base the reserve cost off the number of *real* points available, and the control cost off the number of *active* points available.