Divide by 3?

[GoldenAge]

I'm a long-time Champions player who’s just starting to play in a Fantasy game. Everyone involved is new to Fantasy Hero.

 

I was wondering what the "Divide by 3" rule for magic in Fantasy hero is. Can someone help?

 

Are there any other special rules out there that we should know?

[Vanguard00]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I'm a long-time Champions player who’s just starting to play in a Fantasy game. Everyone involved is new to Fantasy Hero.

 

I was wondering what the "Divide by 3" rule for magic in Fantasy hero is. Can someone help?

Determine the cost of a spell as you would any power construct within Hero System, but divide said cost by 3 to give you the Actual Cost as charged to players.

 

In other words, a decent Ball of Fire spell might be 60 Active Points, but it only costs the character 20pts (60/3 = 20) to buy it. It's a way to balance the cost of characters so that spellcasters aren't completely overshadowed by more physical characters.

 

Are there any other special rules out there that we should know?

Heh...probably. That's a rather vague and open-ended question.

[John Desmarais]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I'm a long-time Champions player who’s just starting to play in a Fantasy game. Everyone involved is new to Fantasy Hero.

 

I was wondering what the "Divide by 3" rule for magic in Fantasy hero is. Can someone help?

 

Are there any other special rules out there that we should know?

 

Vanguard00 has the what, here's the why: The divide by three rule is for settings like Turakian Age where (powerful) magic is common but power frameworks aren't used. By making the spells cheap it encourages spellcasting PCs to spend points on wierd, interesting spells that potentially only have limited usefullness but lots of flavor.

[GoldenAge]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

So, does the "divide by 3" rule supplant frameworks?

 

If you build a framework can you still use the "divide by 3" rule?

 

I'm assuming that the DB3 rule is applied to active points and limitations can still be incorporated further reducing the power's Real Cost. Yes? No? Sometimes???

 

Thanks for the help!

[mayapuppies]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

The divide by 3 rule assumes that there isn't any power frameworks.

 

The final cost (after applying advantages and limitations) is what is divided by 3

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

Divide by 3 is better than just about any Framework set up. It absolutely cuts the throat of Elemental Controls outright, and beats out most VPP and MP's.

 

 

Personally I dont like the divide by 3 method at all, and don't recommend its use.

 

 

As an aside I've put up over a dozen Magic Systems here:

 

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

[austenandrews]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

"Divide by 3" cracks me up. It's like totally throwing out all the complicated frameworks and then saying, "Oh, to heck with it. The system's not balanced for fantasy, so just forego 2/3 of the cost of spells."

[Old Man]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

Personally I dont like the divide by 3 method at all, and don't recommend its use.

 

As an aside I've put up over a dozen Magic Systems here:

 

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

 

 

I like using the Limitation "Magik Spell" (-1)

[Rapier]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

Well poo. I was all ready to help and my dumb old internet that isn't connecting well these past couple days has beat me to it.

[Labrat]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

Actually it seems to balance things pretty well. The GM can usually tell how and when powergamers can abuse this, but in the hands of responsible players it ends up being ok.

 

It's not the 'divide by 3' rule that conquors other archetypes, it's the equalizer. The balance for this rule is the penalty per 10 active points for the spell roll. The rule of thumb is a -1 to Spell roll/10 Active Points in the power. So you may buy a 60 pt Fireball for 20 points, but you also have to buy the Power Skill under the title of 'Fire Magic' for 3/2 points to use it. Then you have to buy the levels to make sure that your 60/10 = -6 penalty doesn't get your roll too low. Add this to Side Effects and/or expended OAF for a failed roll and you can see where the balance truly is. Also there is a 'Spell' limitation (refer to the index in FH to find the page number) that doesn't allow you to use offensive powers other than as described (no Spreading EB's for example).

 

The Wild Mage is popular for some PCs where you skip both the OAF and the Side Effect, but that just raises the overall cost. It's all pretty balancing. I think Steve did a good job thinking it through and it's not all that arbitrary if you look a bit deeper and trust your players to not horde combat-only spells.

[Curufea]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

That's the beauty of the Hero system - it's easy to make changes to affect the entire flavour of the simulation. Can you imagine redefining every spell in another system this way?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

Actually, what I like about the replacement of frameworks with Divide by 3 is that it encourages spells that have dirrerent AP's. If I have an "attack spells" Multipower, especially a highly limited one, of attack powers, with that 12d6 FireBolt, I'm likely going to set all my attack powers at 60 AP. If I move an attack up to 70 AP, I'll probably move all the others up to 70 AP pretty quick as well.

 

With "divide by three", I'm much more likely to decide 8d6 of Flash is enough, even though my 3d6+1 RKA Explosion Fireball is 75 AP.

[hancock.tom]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I like the divide by 3 method. Sure, there are other ways to do magic using various frameworks to help with cost reduction, and /3 isn't my favorite, but its a perfectly valid way to do things and best of all its simple, fast, and fairly balanced depending on how you do END costs.

[austenandrews]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

Yeah, I don't mean to sound like I disapprove of DB3. But when I look at the extensive, in-depths debates on this forum over the balance or imbalance of some little complex detail in the system, it's funny that something so simplistic and sweeping can achieve the same effect.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I personally use a VPP model built on a simulation of the d20 level structure, since the VPP by its nature doesn't charge the players for learning new spells - it's just a limitation on the VPP.

 

Using that method there's a great deal more book-keeping involved, since players have to memorize spells in advance. IIRC, dividing by 3 simply gives the player a Spell as a 'power' and forces them to a) use END, and Requires a Skill Roll (as Labrat mentioned).

 

I do not recall this: Is it AP/3, or is it RC/3? For some reason I remember it being Real Cost/3, which renders it all quite, quite cheap.

[hancock.tom]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I do not recall this: Is it AP/3, or is it RC/3? For some reason I remember it being Real Cost/3, which renders it all quite, quite cheap.

 

Its real cost /3 but the price you pay isn't as much in the character points as it is in the end cost and tougher RSR with a high AP spell. The character points are a factor and they add up faster than you think but that cost isn't really what keeps the wizards from becoming much more powerful than the other members of the party. Really, the character point cost just serves to reign in too much versatility, or too many really powerful spells, and the RSR adjustment for AP and the end cost system you use reign in the combat effectiveness balance.

 

/3 seems a little ham-handed at first, but once you really get into it, the simplicity of it has a great appeal, and the balance works out surprisingly well for something as "blunt tool" as /3. I used it, along with the grimoires, in a turakian age campaign that only lasted one session, but it worked really well, much better than I thought. It might not work for your campaign, or for your group, and there might be magic systems more precisely tailored to a given setting, but I think that as far as having a simple central magic system for the turakian setting, /3 is very good, and I would recommend it to anyone just starting on fantasy hero.

[Lisa Nadazdy]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

Something that's come to my attention- dividing by 3 may not be the best route to cost savings on spells. For instance, the Real Cost of Lightning Bolt (pg 66 of the Grimoire) is 16 points (and when divided by 3, costs the player 6 pnts). However, the Master version of the spell has a Real Cost of 18 points, which means that when divided by 3 it has the exact same cost as the basic spell...

 

So, how to deal with this? Two possible directions- in game control or a slight mechanical change to the divide by 3 rule.

 

In-game is simple; simply don't allow access to certain 'advanced' spells unless you (the GM) allow it. They can upgrade the basic spell to the Master version in some in-game fashion, even though the point cost won't change for the player.

 

The mechanical solution would be a variation on the Power Pool idea- For every point spent on the Spell Pool Talent (or Perk, or whatever you want to call it), you get 3 points to spend on spells (players can 'bank' leftover spell pool points). In practice, it makes the cost of spells slightly cheaper when a player buys a large number of spells, simply because the round off works more in the players favour, but they'll end up spending those savings when they go to 'upgrade' those spells.

[Labrat]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

Something that's come to my attention- dividing by 3 may not be the best route to cost savings on spells. For instance, the Real Cost of Lightning Bolt (pg 66 of the Grimoire) is 16 points (and when divided by 3, costs the player 6 pnts). However, the Master version of the spell has a Real Cost of 18 points, which means that when divided by 3 it has the exact same cost as the basic spell...

 

So, how to deal with this? Two possible directions- in game control or a slight mechanical change to the divide by 3 rule.

 

In-game is simple; simply don't allow access to certain 'advanced' spells unless you (the GM) allow it. They can upgrade the basic spell to the Master version in some in-game fashion, even though the point cost won't change for the player.

 

The mechanical solution would be a variation on the Power Pool idea- For every point spent on the Spell Pool Talent (or Perk, or whatever you want to call it), you get 3 points to spend on spells (players can 'bank' leftover spell pool points). In practice, it makes the cost of spells slightly cheaper when a player buys a large number of spells, simply because the round off works more in the players favour, but they'll end up spending those savings when they go to 'upgrade' those spells.

 

Personally I LOVE the way that Steve, et. al. made different variation options for each spell. I also love how one spell description has different names and a different 'feel' just by adding or detracting a few points. The difference is in the penalty to cast the spell if you are using RSR's (as recommended by TA magic rules).

 

This is the only place where I use an Old School DnD-esque rule (I've never even seen the d20 treatment). I'll allow a mage-type to have only up to his INT or EGO (whichever is greater) in RPs worth of 'non-Apprentice' level spells. Not the number of individual spells, but RPs. That usually guides the player towards getting more lower-point spells rather than only a few higher-power (and higher-cost) spells.

 

Also on the side of equality, every spell 'college' has only a few offensive spells, so to get both the powerful lightning bolt and powerful fireball the player has to invest points into the respective Power Skills ('Air Elementalism' and 'Fire Elementalism' respectively in this case).

 

I still think that the factor of 3 isn't all that imbalancing, even if in some cases you get more for the same price.

[Lisa Nadazdy]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I quite agree; I like how Steve built the Fantasy Hero rules, too. I prefer using an in-game method to what spells the players have, but I wanted some alternatives to the divide by 3 method.

[hancock.tom]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

If you want alternate systems, try www.fantasyhero.com it has numerous systems, all of which I have tried have been very good.

 

Regarding two versions of a spell "rounding" to the same cost, I think you'll find most players will tweak the spells a little bit anyway once you get them in HERO designer or on paper, and so any assumptions about how things round are subject to change. For example, I had one player who wanted her wizard's magic to be more connected to his staff than is typical for Turakian style magic, so the limitations changed, the cost change, and the rounding changed.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

If you want alternate systems' date=' try www.fantasyhero.com it has numerous systems, all of which I have tried have been very good.

Um, yeah, thats my site, which I referenced above. Glad you like the systems though.

 

Here is a document that compares them all to each other:

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/shrikeMagicSystemAdvisor.shtml

[austenandrews]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I don't care for RSR as a balancing factor, because I don't care for RSR as a ubiquitous limitation. In my experience it just slows down combat with yet another roll and serves only to rob spellcasters of random Phases.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

RSR is a form of Reliability Control. It has its place, but I agree that it is far too ubiquitous in the esteem of most HERO players.

 

In the almost 30 variations of Magic Systems on my site, 5 require Skill Rolls at casting time (though several of those can circumvent it w/ Trigger), and several others require Skill Rolls to learn abilities or create Magic Items but not to cast, and a goodly number don't require any Skills whatsoever.

[Labrat]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I don't care for RSR as a balancing factor' date=' because I don't care for RSR as a ubiquitous limitation. In my experience it just slows down combat with yet another roll and serves only to rob spellcasters of random Phases.[/quote']

 

At which point I would agree that a /3 rule would be a bit generous. RSR isn't as limiting in the games I play in. As a matter of fact it can add quite a bit of color to counteract some methods of powergaming that seems to arise if left unchecked.

 

In the end it's all about varying milage.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Divide by 3?

 

I personally use a VPP model built on a simulation of the d20 level structure, since the VPP by its nature doesn't charge the players for learning new spells - it's just a limitation on the VPP.

 

Using that method there's a great deal more book-keeping involved, since players have to memorize spells in advance. IIRC, dividing by 3 simply gives the player a Spell as a 'power' and forces them to a) use END, and Requires a Skill Roll (as Labrat mentioned).

 

I do not recall this: Is it AP/3, or is it RC/3? For some reason I remember it being Real Cost/3, which renders it all quite, quite cheap.

Agreed (I don't know about the, "simulation of the D20," part; that is only one limited example of using VPPs for spellcasters). The difference between Heroic warriors and Superheroic warriors is that the Heroic warriors have to pay to be able to (effectively) use their Attack Powers (and sometimes Defense Powers), but (for the most part) they don't have to pay for the Powers themselves.

 

Why shouldn't it be the same for spellcasters? A VPP allows the spellcaster to be able to use spells without the need to make them pay for each spell (at least in Character Points--there's no reason you cannot make them, "pay," for spells in the same sort of ways other characters must, "pay," for equipment: through time, adventuring, money, etc.).