Eosin Posted October 27, 2006 Report Share Posted October 27, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion The guys at the Fear the Boot podcast did a fairly in-depth review of the Ptolus business model recently. Not the actual product, just about how it is marketed. Keith "Feartheboot.com" Curtis Didn't find it on the site. Do know which podcast it is in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithcurtis Posted October 27, 2006 Report Share Posted October 27, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion I think it was #4. Keith "Yeah, I just checked" Curtis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted October 27, 2006 Report Share Posted October 27, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion Actually, whether you care for the CONTENT or not, there is no arguing that there is value for the money. 120 bucks gets you nearly 700 pages of sidebared, indexed, well illustrated mapped and diagrammed, densely set content in color on good paper, well bound, with a nice textured and durable cover, plus about 20 or 30 pages of 8 1/2 x 11 handouts, maps, flavor bits, etc, and a cd rom with a bunch of pdf content including a full adventure, pdfs of all the handouts so you can print extra copies, and some extra material. Honestly, even if I don't ever use it for anything, I can't argue that it was $120 well spent. If I stacked up $120 of other gaming material, I could put together a $120 worth of HERO books that rivaled or exceeded the content if I cherry picked my collection (and I have almost every DOJ book), but Ptolus still wins out in the realm of presentation. However if I had to draw from my somewhat extensive non-HERO RPG book collection, I'd be challenged to find $120 worth of content that competed with it. As far as sales go, the buzz Ive been hearing is that the product is moving well. Don't be too quick to judge it sight unseen. I stand corrected -- and am very happy to be. For Cook to be going out on top is far better than for him to hang on endlessly the way Gygax has well past the level of his inspiration. In fact, saying "You have succeeded, Mr. Cook, where Gary Gygax himself has failed!" would be a compliment of the highest order. Question, though: What will happen to the very promising Iron Heroes line? Cook may not have had a hand in its creation, but as the marketing force behind Malhavoc Press his name meant a great deal. What now for that line? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southern Cross Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion Check out http://monte.cook.com for a link to the official Ptolus,Iron Heroes and Arcana Evolved webpages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zindil Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion Anyone have any thoughts on whether Ptolus would easily transplant into the Turakian Age setting, as far as feel and magic level goes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion Anyone have any thoughts on whether Ptolus would easily transplant into the Turakian Age setting' date=' as far as feel and magic level goes?[/quote'] Well, Ptolus was designed around the idea of being a setting where the numerous contradictions of D&D 3.5 are part of everyone's accepted world-view. Which means that how powerful magic is depends on how experienced the caster is, and magic power accumulates at a rate far beyond what Turakian Age mages can manage. One way to simulate this 9although it would probably break TA campaigns, and is extremely kludgy as far as rules go) is that the Magic Multiplier goes up as characters get more experienced -- in other words, the better you at are magic the less in terms of CP spells cost, and thus the more of them you can have. Since even a 6th level wizard has a very large spell book by FH standards, this might be a way to reflect that. The thing is also that the more experienced a FH hero gets, the more he starts to look like a super. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion You could use the maps and basic ideas, but you would need to jump thru hoops to explain away all the magic and the role of magic users. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion For the short term, Im listing character's Ive converted for Ptolus on my Whats New Page. Once I have enough content to make it worthwhile, Ill put up a sub site with its own nav pages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theron Posted November 2, 2006 Report Share Posted November 2, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion Question, though: What will happen to the very promising Iron Heroes line? Cook may not have had a hand in its creation, but as the marketing force behind Malhavoc Press his name meant a great deal. What now for that line? As I understand it, Iron Heroes was never intended to be more than three books from Malhavoc. Mike Mearls has a full-time gig at Wizards and the three books they've put out are pretty much all you need. Malhavoc has licensed some third party products, mostly modules, plus a Battlebox from Fiery Dragon that includes a really keen steel d20. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted November 5, 2006 Report Share Posted November 5, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion The content is still pretty thin, but I got a subsite going for PTOLUS conversions: PtolusHERO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tywyll Posted November 9, 2006 Report Share Posted November 9, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion yes, but it also had a lot of interesting ideas, especially for throwing curve balls at rules lawyers and folks who knew the monster manual and other books backwards and fowards http://empcho.bizhosting.com/arduin_ii_ca.html and for the World of Khaas sourcebook http://www.worldofkhaas.com/ the softcover version of the sourebook is 821 pages I've always been a huge Arduin fan, and hope to get that book for Christmas. Now there is a setting I'd like to see converted to Hero. *sigh* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted November 16, 2006 Report Share Posted November 16, 2006 Re: PTOLUS Conversion Open Discussion Converted the Light Domain from Ptolus. There is also a HD prefab file provided on the Ptolus Content page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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