D&D (UGH!)

[Melchior777]

I'm currently in a quandry. Half of the players in my group are belly aching about having to learn a new system for the upcoming campaign, i.e. FH. This campaign is going to be a continuation of a previous campaign that was played using D&D 3ed. After playing under those rules for six months the games became more like torture than play. I know some people are in to that kind of thing, but I'm not. I started looking for alternatives to D&D. When I asked by local game store owner he gave me several options: Rolemaster, D&D 2nd ed, Gurps, Exalted, etc. I was almost sold on Gurps when I noticed this thick black tome in the generic games section right beside the Gurps main book. Fortunately, my local game store owner was very knowledgeable and had played Hero before. We discussed the rules and the play style, after which I bought the book. ( Shameless Plug: The Gatekeeper RULES! Best gaming store in the mid- west. ) Since then I've become a devoted hero convert. I've converted everything to FH and started where we left off in my campaign. What would be the best way to show these guys that FH is far better and easier, once you get the hang of it, than D&D?

[Herolover]

Congratulations on wise choices.

 

First, I have played 3e and I actually don't think it is too bad. That said her is some information for you.

 

1) Can you afford $30.00? If so go buy 10 issues of Digital Hero (look to your right.) This will get you into the playtest and you can download the 709 page PDF of the Fantasy Hero manuscript that will be out at Gen Con. Trust me, you will find it worth it and I am not even counting the issues of Digital Hero which is pretty good itself. Then buy Fantasy HERO when it comes out.

 

2) It can be very hard to break people into the HERO system. I feel you are making a mistake in transferring over a D&D campaign. If it is D&D leave it in D&D. Instead start a new campaign with a new setting that emphasis the things you can't do with D&D. For example new and different magic systems.

 

The main thing is show them WHY Hero is better than D&D. Remember players won't things their characters can do so show them that they can do things with HERO that they couldn't with D&D.

 

Keep it Simple. Don't worry about getting all the HERO rules right. This is something that many people worry far to much about. Don't bog the game down in numbers. Latter, as your group grows more familiar and like HERO more, you can break more of the rules in.

 

I have gone through this and it can be hard, but time and patients do work.

[Monolith]

The very best way would be to make some characters for the players and run a couple of "practice" game sessions. Do not worry about conversions or continuations; just worry about playing the game and getting the players familiar with the game system.

 

I would recommend at least 2 (three would be better) practice sessions. In each session have the players use a different character (ie: Session 1 you play a fighter, session 2 you play a cleric, etc). That way the players will get a feel for what FH offers that D&D might not. Also, when designing these practice characters I would go out of my way to show the versatility of the system. Have an armored battle-mage or a wizard who uses magic only to advance his thieving career. Build a fighter who has some clerical magic skills, and build a cleric who uses a long bow as his weapon of choice.

 

The strength of the HERO System is its versatility. Do not just build D&D cloned characters. Build characters you read about in books or have seen in movies that cannot easily be emulated in D&D. Without using the versatility which the HERO Systems offers you might as well continue playing D&D.

[Guest joen00b]

I would agree with both previous posts: Continuing the D&D campaign by converting the characters into Hero would be wrong. Since you are new to the game (and there is a TON of information to consume to adequately convert the essence of the characters) the conversion will not flush out their characters fully and it could cause problems. Additionally, this is a new game for you all, the best thing to do would be set the D&D mindset down, including all characters and plots, (maybe keep the world and NPC's) to give the Hero system a fair chance.

 

By dragging in the D&D wild card, you're limiting your game and the players experience. Start with something fresh, low key, and all of you can slowly advance into the new game together. I'm sure they'll miss the D&D characters at first as well as the power they wield, but if you allow them to experience the Hero system without the crutches of trying to emulate the D&D experience, I guarantee they'll enjoy it much more.

 

What makes Hero so wonderful is the advantages/disadvantages where characters have to pay for everything, an additonally, offset those great abilities with weaknesses. They won't be the uncaring juggernauts of doom that D&D allows characters to become, they'll be more fleshed out and realistic (or as realistic as a game can be). It gives them a sense of mortality the first time they take a dagger in the gut... facts are, that's deadly, and the game portrays that very well in it's system. D&D does not.

 

Give the Hero System a fair chance and they won't want to play D&D sytem anymore, I have swayed over 20 people to use the hero system and only 2-3 play D&D instead.

[Old Man]

I think it's actually harder to get D&D vets into FH than it would be to break in virgin players. Playing D&D gives people a certain mindset that limits how they play. They don't realize it's possible to be felled in one blow, and they stop coming up with imaginative things to do in combat, instead rolling dice like automatons or picking some "feat" from the list, as though it were a computer RPG. Encourage them to forget the old system and try stuff that they see in the movies.

[Melchior777]

Thanks for the info

 

First off, thank you all for your insights. I'll be sure to take them into consideration. To clarify slightly, this is a continuation of a Lord of the Rings campaign that was started back when the first movie came out. I used the D&D rules at that time because they were convienent, not because I liked them. The story takes place about six years after the war of the ring. The first section of the campaign was mostly hack and slash, so the D&D rules fit well. However, now my players and I have all read George Martins "Game of Thrones" and they want a more political game, with that kind of feel, while continueing their old D&D characters. I originally suggested that they make new characters under FH, but they didn't want to. I feel that Hero provides a better skill base and attributes for a political game than D&D. I warned them that if we stuck with D&D rules they would be making charisma checks constantly and using Diplomacy where it was inappropriate. To put it simply, D&D isn't designed for the type of game that THEY TOLD ME they wanted to play. Hence the conversions.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Lemme let ya in on a secret about players...

 

They want to play.

 

They may bellyache about learning something new, but the bottom line is, they'll play whatever someone else is running! If you're a decent GM, and they have an opportunity to play in a game instead of running one or going without, they'll play in it.

[Lord Liaden]

Very good advice on this thread.

 

I'm not sure if this suggestion would apply to your case, since your players want to continue the characters they had in their D&D3E campaign, but I have found it effective to awaken awareness in new players of HERO's potential. Ask them what they've always wanted to do in a game that they could never do under their old system: combination of character abilities that the game didn't allow, style of magic that it didn't support, flashy combat maneuvers that the system couldn't handle, etc. Then show them how they can do that in HERO.

[Chris Goodwin]

See if they're willing to play a short "test session" with throwaway characters.

[Guest joen00b]

That is the best idea, start fresh with something else. The entire feel of the game is going to be different, so trying to continue the story may tarnish the campaign as well as the game system. Double downer there. You really need to emphasize the need for a fresh start with the new system before delving back into the familiar.

 

Do your best to explain it would be in their best interest for the game they want to play, if they did not continue that particular story line at this time. Have something ready to go in the flavor they want, but do not allow the conversion to take place, it could very well ruin the great opportunity they have. The last thing you want is to have a fancy looking paperweight that used to be your Hero Systems Rulebook:( .

[Hierax]

Bah,

 

Convert the D&D characters so that the players get all the parts of D&D that they want (hey, D&D ain't all bad).

 

And then show them all the cool things that HERO can do that D&D can't do that they always wanted to do (D&D has many bad parts that HERO can fix).

 

Conversions are only a starting point but they are much too poo-pooed hereabouts, IMO.

 

If you and/or your players want to keep some parts of D&D , then a conversion is well worth it.

 

Take a conversion and use it for what it is an opportunity to get the best parts of both games so that the players get more of what they want.

 

In short, do whatever it takes to improve your game for all involved -- that's all that counts.

 

Jason

[Hierax]

HERO Can Still Gain From Other Systems

 

Oh yeah,

 

Since, you said that your D&D to HERO conversion campaign is "a continuation of a Lord of the Rings campaign", you might also find a LOT of value in other Lords of the Rings games that you can adapt (i.e., convert -- gasp!) to HERO.

 

I don't know about the new fangled stuff first hand, but the old ICE MERP/Rolemaster stuff had a lot of very useful details (even if you don't care for the system).

 

Now, I do think that HERO can depict LotR far better than D&D or RM but there's no point ignoring the parts of the other games that can help your own Middle campaign.

 

Just cause a book isn't a HERO book doesn't mean it can't be useful to a HERO game...

[Markdoc]

I'll disagree with almost everyone else who has posted so far except Jason - I have gone through the "Why can't we keep playing DandD?" and "I don't want to learn a new system" with my players in the past.

 

After a month of FH, nobody wanted to swap back to the old system.

 

I am gearing up to do the same with a Runequest game.

 

Here's my step by step rules.

 

1. Explain to your players that you are trading off some combat monster lethality for more flexibility. Explain that - just like in the movies - you can get one-shotted if someone comes up behind you while you are at dinner and pops you one in the head. DnD does have optional rules to allow this kind of thing, but they were always a kludgy add-on to the system.

 

2. Convert the characters without worrying too much about points. Aim to get the right feel. That way your players will have an "in" into the system, which reduces the apparent complexity. You might have to warn the mages that their "kill everything in a 90 foot radius" spells are going to go bye-bye, because those are a) really expensive to model and one reason for dumping dnd anyway.

 

3. Be a little flexible in the first few sessions. If a FH PC is really lacking in area where the DnD version shone then give him some more points, just don't go over overboard.

 

4. Take it easy in combat the first few sessions. Skills are pretty self explanatory and it sounds like your game will be leaning this way anyway. Combat is more complicated and also more deadly in FH than dnd - an off putting combination the first time you hit it. So let them beat up some underlings the first few session, to get them used to things.

 

5. Run a cool game - this'll get 'em hooked :-)

 

 

Cheers, Mark

[Melchior777]

I tend to agree with Markdoc and Hierax, and not just because they are telling me what I want to hear. One of the main reasons I have for toolkiting things from Hero is that the rules simply don't exist in D&D. The simple answer would be to make something up, adopting a house rule to deal with the situation. The problem that I have with this is that I am a firm believer in game balance, something that D&D completely lacks. Yea, your players are supposed to level up after 13.33 encounters with similar powered adversaries. To bad that the progression for leveling is strictly liniear, increasing by 1,000 xp per level. At that rate you level up after 3.33 encounters of equal challenge rating to your party.

 

After talking with my players and reading over all of your valueable insights I believe I've come up with a plan that will work for everyone in my group. The first step is, that while their characters may be D&D architypes, they are somewhat unique in this setting. I.e. priests are not uncommon, but warrior preists of Tulkas that can fling magic around are extremely rare. The second step is hurling the monsters manual out the window. To many of my players have this particular tome memorized. I can't suprise them with anything out of there. By using hero to create the monsters, then transfering them to D&D, I'm able to create things that they don't expect. ( Sure, it's just another Dragon. Except that this Dragon has completely different abilites from the one in the book. ) I'm also using Hero to create all of my NPC's and castles. The reason for this is that this makes the NPC's more real, by giving them stats for things like social graces and the like. Where as with D&D NPC's were described as AC, Attack Bonus, Special Manuevers, and Saving Throws. As far as the castles go, Hero gives me the rules to make them, something that D&D lacked in all but the vaguest sense. ( Note that I have not read ALL D&D or related books, I'm refering in the above instances to the PH, DMG, and MM, specificly, where the information should be, but isn't. )

 

I do still have a couple of questions for those still keeping up with this thread. First, my rules for D&D conversion are actually for star wars D20. Right now I'm using all stats transfer on a one for one bases up until they hit 17, then they are two points of Hero for every one point of D&D. Skills are simply +1 = 8-, +2 = 9-, etc. Armor Class = DCV + PD + 10. Attack bonus = OCV + CSL's. Does this seem resonable? Any suggestions?

Second, I'm having a little trouble figuring how much xp I should be handing out considering; 1.) I no longer have challenge ratings to go by for all the monsters, and 2.) D&D doesn't really have rules for giving out xp awards for social or investigative victories. I was thinking about giving the players 100 xp for each successful skill roll and 500 xp for each extremely successful (read important to the plot) skill roll. The catch would be that I wouldn't tell them that this is what I'm doing, thus preventing the excessive use of skills just to get more xp. I'd just make a tic mark on my copy of their character sheet. Then tell them the total at the end of the night. Sound O.K.?

[Lord Liaden]

Since you are basing your campaign on the world of Middle-Earth, I thought you might get some use out of conversions of many of the characters from The Lord of the Rings trilogy into HERO System. These are by Scott Nolan (reachable at nolan@erols.com ), hosted by Michael Surbrook on his excellent "Surbrook's Stuff" website:

 

http://www.devermore.net/surbrook/lotr/lotrchar.html

[Melchior777]

Yep, been there. Thanks though.

[Spence]

Originally posted by Melchior777

Second, I'm having a little trouble figuring how much xp I should be handing out considering; 1.) I no longer have challenge ratings to go by for all the monsters, and 2.) D&D doesn't really have rules for giving out xp awards for social or investigative victories. I was thinking about giving the players 100 xp for each successful skill roll and 500 xp for each extremely successful (read important to the plot) skill roll. The catch would be that I wouldn't tell them that this is what I'm doing, thus preventing the excessive use of skills just to get more xp. I'd just make a tic mark on my copy of their character sheet. Then tell them the total at the end of the night. Sound O.K.?

 

Awarding experience was the hardest thing for me to get the hang of when I went with Hero (Champs back then). Generally at the end of a session the PC's will only get 2, maybe 3 xp all together. And that's if they played well, in character and were successful. The most I have ever seen awarded to a single PC was 5 pts. The average is 2. The 5 pointer was in a StarHero game were the PC's were trying to plan how to infilterate a pirate base. The PC's got into an arguement and the players roleplayed so well the GM was able to sit back, only having to cough up the ocassional piece of computer data or die role.

 

On the other hand we had a theif in our party who in three sessions had Dame Unluck on his shoulder and never made a single successful role. He still received experience because people learn as much from failure as success.

 

My method is to award points as follows:

 

Awsome, in-character roleplay = 3pts

Good solid, if uninspired character play = 2pts

Was there, but has difficulty with the "in character concept" = 1pt

Entire concept of roleplay is "me hack kill" = 0pts

 

 

+1 pt for a significant in character contribution by a single PC.

+1 pt to the PC who won/solved the session/scenario.

 

A thief picking locks isn't doing anything that is too special, for a thief. Now if the party is slowly being driven back by the mob of townmen and peasents who are "not right" as indicated by green glowing eyes and the tendencey to continue to attack regardless of small inconveniences like missing limbs or tripping over their own intestinal track. Noting the cloaked and chanting figure to the rear of the mob, he hurls his sword (the intelligence of this still being debated) hitting the priest shattering his concentration (er..that was the plan, sure...) causing the mob to drop like puppets with the strings cut. This followed by the benevolent and immediate gifting of two daggers, a throwing axe and a particularly nasty bolt of magefire (from a really pissed off mage who had just spent not one, not two but three gold Guilders on new and fashionable robes, now bloodied and torn). This was worth an additional point for the warrior.

 

All in all, Hero XP is more an evaluation of the PC's overall performance rather than rewarding individual actions. Just my opinion of course, but I don't think I'm too far off the path.

[Polaris]

Help convert another D&D group?

 

Melchior,

 

You mentioned that you converted your D&D world to Hero. I am in a somwhat similar situation. My group is very big into Fantasy genre, and plays D&D 3E. We used to play Champions Super Heroes, but now they are experimenting with M&M (a d20 Supers game) so the games would use the same basic system. With the soon to be released FH, and the superiority of Hero for Superheroes, I would like for us to switch to FH for our fantasy game, and stick with Champions for our supers. The problem is that our world is in d20, and they have D&D characters they are not inclined to give up.

 

Would you (or anyone) be willing to share your system for converting from D&D/d20 to Hero?

 

Thanks!

Polaris

[Polaris]

Got the post

 

Melchior,

 

Please disregard... I hadn't read your post about how you did the conversions...

 

Polaris

[sbarron]

On Saturday, my character failed his Fortitude Save (I rolled a 5), and well...he died. Circle of Death, I think. It wasn't a particularly fun or heroic way to go.

 

I never did like saving throws. Fantasy Hero can't get here fast enough!

[Tom Carman]

Originally posted by Melchior777

I do still have a couple of questions for those still keeping up with this thread. First, my rules for D&D conversion are actually for star wars D20. Right now I'm using all stats transfer on a one for one bases up until they hit 17, then they are two points of Hero for every one point of D&D. Skills are simply +1 = 8-, +2 = 9-, etc. Armor Class = DCV + PD + 10. Attack bonus = OCV + CSL's. Does this seem resonable? Any suggestions?

I'm in a D20 Star Wars games right now, but I don't have enough experience with the system to guess how well that maps to Hero.

 

In place of a direct conversion, you might consider a re-creation of the characters in Hero System. This would involve the players producing descriptions of their characters as if they were in a book or movie. Flesh out the backgrounds, determine the knowledge and skills, perks and talents they should possess. Determine strengths and weaknesses: physical, mental and social. Then construct the characters so described with as many points as needed.

[tiger]

While I have to agree that it wouldn't be a good idea to just switch them to the Hero system an carry on, I will say you can use thing from D&D with work.

 

I personally love the Forgotten Realms world and background. When I run FH it is in that realm. I have been slowly converting different thing to Hero and add in my own creations and those of Hero Games as well.

 

I mean as a GM, how can you not love Undermountain

It's such a ball to throw at people

[tesuji]

Originally posted by Melchior777

The simple answer would be to make something up, adopting a house rule to deal with the situation. The problem that I have with this is that I am a firm believer in game balance, something that D&D completely lacks.

 

OK a few observations...

 

balance doesn't exist in HERO, at least, not on its own. if you are having a problem with making up your own rules, then you need to realize that practically the only effective balance in HERo comes from the GM saying NO and the Gm scripting the scenarios to balance the characters in play.

 

For 150 points its ridiculously easy to fit in +10 CV with three favorite weapons like maybe militia weapons of sword bow and spear. If you want them, you have to decide what they are. That also means taking into account area attacks, mental attacks, and if you want flexibility and such, a wide variety of limited CV levels.

 

What about spells? IS a beginning mage with a 15/15 force field OK? What if that spell can be cast on others? Can a mage's mage armor force field be cast on a fighter and "stack" with the fighter's plate armor? The rules say yes. If you dont want it too, how much of a limitation is this worth in your game?

 

How do your mages buy spells? is it buy them individually with tons of limitations you never intend to really use played off against their cost? is it a multipower with new spells being a slot? Are spells going to run vs character end (tactical limits only, fully recovering in a few minutes), mana (assuming you invent a mana system) so that they do have a slow recovery time between fights? Does the godly magic of clerics differ at all from the wizardly magic of sorcerers? if so how and how is this balanced in your game?

 

If you are at all worried about making up your own rulings and balance, then you should be more worried about the looser less defined game world where you are REQUIRED to determine balance and the whats and hows at every turn.

 

Do not be fooled into believing that the points provide balance. They don't. Look thru the core rulebook and you will see reference again and again to how the GM must decide about this power or that power and what campaign limits to put in play.

 

So, my best suggestion is that before you decide that moving to hero is the thing to do, try and design your campaign worlkd. Figure out how magic works, how you buy spells, how you learn things. Can a simple char woman with no special talents wake up on thusday and decide to become immortal for 5 cp? Can she decide to learn how to heal wounds for 5 cp overnight? If the answer is no, then why is it no? What other "no's" are there.

 

Once you have your world, once you have your "yes" and "no" lists complete, once you are satisfied that you can generate characters you and they will like, and once you are satisfied that balance is yours to understand and decide... then start dragging them over.

 

Otherwise, you are likely to bring them into an unfinished, half-conceived and worse undefined and possibly unexplainable "do what thou wilt" non-campaign. You cannot define a campaign, no matter how many people here want you to believe, by "how its not DND." You must define it by what it is, show them its own strengths and its own advantages and even its own weaknesses. You must show them how interesting this new world you build with hero is.

 

The most often major problem i have seen posted around here and in other conversations about FH is the "how do i get magic to work right" where devising your own magic system just keeps not coming out and where balancing mages seems very tough (finding individual spells purchased at full price to be too weak and finding VPPs and multipowers too potent and not much room mechanically in between.) There are a lot of people here on the boards who can offer their insights, their experiences and help you. The new FH book will be out in a few months and it can help too. But even after all this input, you will need to spend som serious time on devising your system and part of that includes adequate spells and sample characters to illustrate your world and options.

 

You have a lot of work to do before you should even think about dragging your players in. matter of fact, i would have done the majority of the work before even mentioning it to them.

 

but i still come down to the basic notion that, if you are worried that your own decisions will create balance problems in a defined, proportioned classed system like DnD, then your should be terrified of the same issues in a game with no such controls in place, where you are constantly defining classes on your own. I would better recommend an uncertain GM use a few simple scoped changes to DND, a class change, a new skill definition to cover whatever inappropriate diplomacy checks are being called for, and so forth.

 

My main suggestion, if you do not have current experience with hero, is to go back to your store owner and get him to put you in touch with an existing HERO group, preferrably fantasy hero. Play in some of their games. if they do not have room, explain what you are wanting to do and ask to sit in as a spectator. You really need HERo experience before you get into its higher level functions such as designing magic systems and setting good balance benchmarks and so forth.

 

HERo is going to have a learning curve when you bring over your players. This will be compounded exponentially if you are still working things out and the complex target they are trying to hit keeps changing as you figure things out.

 

If you just absorb book stuff, you will likely be stumped by questions like... Why is a +2 cv fighting array (i get +2 cv when fighting near my brother after spending actions to focus) officially worth 24 cp when +6 dex (provides the same +2 cv and more even when bro' is elsewhere) is only 18 cp? You need experience to answer that question when your player asks it.

 

Your need to know you can make the world you want work under hero before you ask your players to fork over the bucks for the hero5 plus possibly fh tomes, right?

[Killer Shrike]

D&D 3e and the HERO System have a lot of similarities under the hood; the main difference is that D&D 3e still allows absolutes, whereas the HERO System by default does not (FH Playtest covers variations on this however), AND the HERO System exposes the "guts" of how things work whereas D&D 3e does not, which results in increasingly arbitrary power balancing the longer the game exists.

 

IMO having played and run several 3e games, the system falls apart past 10-12th level. Up till then its fairly fun and mindless. Past that point, disparities in character strengths and weaknesses renders the characters incredibly powerful/overbalanced in some directions, and shockingly fragile in others. They become cariacatures essentially. This can happen in the HERO System too, but only by the choices the player makes when spending his experience points; in 3e its built right in to the class & level structure.

 

 

Having done a 2e AD&D to 4e HERO System conversion in the past, which was run by multiple GMs over the course of several years of long-running campaigns, I know from personal experience that the "D&D feel" can be captured in the HERO System so long as players are willing to give up on their absolute/arbitrary abilities and accept that thier characters are not without flaw. IME the hardest sell to new players is on average the Disadvantage concept. Many players have never played anything but D&D and the idea of building "flaws" right into a character is an alien and ofttimes repugnant one to them. My suggestion for that is to ween them into it, modeling some of the arbitrary limitations built into D&D that the players are already used to/accept as a given as Disadvantages and stick them in some "class" and "race" package deals. The points from these Disads count towards the characters limits. Fill the remaining points with personal Disadvantages like Psychological Limitations that define the way the character has been played in the past. Frex; if a particular character has a oft-used battle cry uttered as he charges into battle, make that as a PsyLim "Vocal Attacker, (VC, Strong)", which forces the character to make an EGO check to NOT call out a battle cry or similar. If a particular character hovers around the edges of fights and seems to have trouble commiting to a fray, give a PsyLim: Timid in Battle (VC, Strong), same deal. If you have that rare creature, a role-playing oriented D&D group, use the same logic for the characters idiosyncratic tendencies and behavior out of combat. In other words, ease the players into the idea of Disadvantages as more definitional traits/quirks/flavor. As they become more familiar with the system and eventually make thier own characters anew in the HERO System, they will discover the width of Disadvantages more fully.

 

 

As far as stats, its pretty strait forward. In 2e AD&D to 4e HEROs you took the AD&D stat and added 2 to it, and based BODY off of (hp/10 + 8), then calculated the Figured normally and "flavored to taste" by spreading some points around in the Figureds (or with GM permission primarys). 3e to 5e HERO however is much more direct due to the elevated stats in 3e. Just take the 3e stat as is. STR -> STR, DEX -> DEX, CON -> CON, INT -> INT, WIS -> EGO, CHA -> PRE. Just set Comliness to whatever is appropriate to the characters appearance; it has almost no game effect regardless . For BODY, the hp/10 +8 should still work, but it tends to flatten the advantage of high hit-die classes like barbs at lower levels (not much difference between 12 hp/10 + 8 and 4 hp/10 +8 in the HERO System, but a huge difference in D&D). A variant, more complicated method to calculate this is to base it on hd and levels on the D&D side, but that also erases any "bad rolling" or "good rolling" that has occured for a given character as they leveled. Since HPs are a class feature and not a characteristic in D&D, and BODY is a characteristic (which is bought up, not freely aggregated), there is not an exact correlation. Also, some of the function of HP is covered by STUN in HEROs. Im thinking of trying this method when I start running my 3e to FRED conversion soon: ((Character Level/2) + (HP/20) + 8), rounding in the characters favor at each step. Thus a 5th level Wizard with 20 hp (with a CON bonus) would have ((3 {5/2 = 2.5}) + (1 {20/20 = 1}) + 8) = 12 BODY, whereas a 5th level Barbarian with 50 hp (almost certainly a CON bonus) would have (3) + (3 {50/20=2.5}) + 8 = 14 BODY, and a 10th level Cleric with 75 hp would have (5) + (4) + (8) = 17 BODY. A really powerful character at say 20th level with 220 hp would have (10) + (11) + (8) = 29 BODY which is really high (almost unheard of in an NCM game) in the HERO System, but that seems about the same level of durability between the 2 systems; both qualify for "Hard to Kill" status in both systems.

 

Theres more, but I must run now....late for work

[Killer Shrike]

Another point, when people talk about "Fantasy HERO", they arent all always talking about the same thing, and its something that you need to be aware of.

 

The HERO System is extremely flexible, can be played at many different point levels, and has a lot of optional rules, particularly combat rules.

 

Most "Fantasy HERO" games are in the "Heroic" point range, meaning sub 250, typically around 125-150 starting or on average. Further, they typically use the hit location rules, which are more lethal typically than generalized damage; one good head shot will finish most characters with a quickness. Further, Magic is usually much more restrained. It tends towards the gritty side of things in my experience.

 

D&D on the other hand is definitely a "High Fantasy" millieu. D&D Characters are tanks, able to go go go all day long. D&D damage is generalized. Magic is copious, and wizards have lots of spells, including spells like FLIGHT and FIREBALL, which make a spellcaster very similar to a superheroic "Energy Projector", In many ways, D&D characters are superheros that have swapped thier spandex for plate mail. All of the superheroic archetypes with the possible exception of the Metamorph are meta-archetypes for D&D characters; Almost all characters have a little bit of Weapon Master, Martial Artist or Brick layered on them, Gadgeteer/Power Suits are less prevalent at lower levels, but by mid to high level almost all characters have nifty magic toys and augmentative clothing/armor; Menatlist, Mystic, and Energy Projectors exist across classes and prestige classes. Though few go so far as to run super fast (the Monk does, of course, and the Barbarian slightly, but otherwise most characters have the same exact land-velocity as all the others), but many classes combine some of the basic elements of a Speedster, particularly the Rogue and Monk oriented classes. Etc etc etc.

 

My advice is to run your D&D Conversion like a Superheroic game, primarily using the superhero combat options, including no hit locations. I would also recommend trying the Knockback rules too, but if you find it to be too excessive you can either switch to Knockdown, or increase the number of dice you roll to determine Knockback (by +1d6 or more, or even just double the dice, making Knockback possible but rarer).

 

Personally, I like to start "1st level" at 50 base and up to 75 points of Disadvantages (125) to capture that 1st level suck factor, and for my 3e to FRED conversion Im working on Im considering equating "levels" to +20/+15 points even/odd. Thus a 2nd level character has 125+20 = 145 points, and a 7th level character would have 125+20+15+20+15+20+15 = 230 points. Thus an 8th level Wizard/Fighter/whatever is the equivalent to a Low-powered Superhero and a 14th level character is roughly equivalent to a Standard Superhero. To deal with multiclassing, Im considering increasing the Disadvantage limit for a character by 15 points at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th levels so long as they are in Package deals. That would allow a 20th level character to be from between 460 to 535 points, which is really powerful. The leveling is only really relevant for a) Converting material into HEROs, as a rough measuring stick to compare between the two systems, and c) for spell casters that want to perpetuate the X per Caster Level/shtick in some of thier spells.