General Zod Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Just curious if anyone has ever seen or done any city of hero conversions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodstone Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? I know I've helped people work out conversion for Empathy and Force Field Defenders before and I've converted several of my Blasters, Scrappers and Tanks just for fun. Conversion can be really easy or a real PITA. It just depends on how accurate you want to model all the things from that Universe and game system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kali Magdalene Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Literal modelings for most of the powers strike me as problematic, and in some cases just going too far to get a fairly simple result. It might be better in most cases to simply model the concept directly as opposed to designing the powers individually. Did you have anything specific that you wanted assistance with? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alverant Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? I think some things just don't translate period into Hero. Some parts of the game are characteristic of being a first person shooter computer game instead of a tabletop RPG. For example you have how they run END. Without endurance modifiers, some abilities in CoX would cost a dozen or more END in Hero, yet in CoX, everyone has 100 (or 105 with a special reward) END. Powers can cost fractions of an END and are expected to run almost all the time. Then you have the Taunt power. Not sure how to do it in Hero without having it cost tons of points, or at least far more points to make it useful. Kali is right, a direct translation would be inherantly incomplete. It doesn't matter in the computer game how smart or attractive or even how skilled the character is, but it does in the RPG. And it's hard in Hero do have an Inspiration and Enhancement system set up. The best thing to do is just play it by ear and not get bogged down in the details. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kali Magdalene Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? I think some things just don't translate period into Hero. Some parts of the game are characteristic of being a first person shooter computer game instead of a tabletop RPG. For example you have how they run END. Without endurance modifiers' date=' some abilities in CoX would cost a dozen or more END in Hero, yet in CoX, everyone has 100 (or 105 with a special reward) END. Powers can cost fractions of an END and are expected to run almost all the time. Then you have the Taunt power. Not sure how to do it in Hero without having it cost tons of points, or at least far more points to make it useful.[/quote'] Taunt is a form of presence attack, and not even really needed in Hero. The Endurance thing isn't that big a deal, as both games have their own rules for how endurance works - so if you have Knockout Blow in City of Heroes costing whatever it does, and a +12d6 HA costing whatever it does (6 end, I think), that'll work itself out without any issues. I'm not disagreeing, I just think these are areas that aren't too tough to work out. Edit: By comparison, try a literal conversion of Invulnerability to Champions. You have: Passive: Resist Physical Damage (Smash/Lethal) Resist Energy (Energy/Negative) Resist Elements (Fire/Cold) Tough Hide (Defense vs. all but Psi) Toggle: Temporary Invulnerability (Smash/Lethal) Unyielding (All but Psi, -5% Defense to all, protection vs. hold, sleep, stun, KB, immobilize) Invincibility (+Def to all but Psi and +Accuracy, scales upwards with more enemies in melee) Click: Dull Pain (+40% hit points, which also boosts healing rate by 40%) Unstoppable (Resistances to all but psi, boost to endurance recovery; drains all endurance and reduces hit points to 10% when it ends) It appears to offer: rPD and rED - PD Force Field - PD/ED Force Field with Power Defense, Knockback Resistance, probably a bonus to casual strength to escape entangles, probably Ego Defense that only works vs. mind control - Skill Levels that cost endurance and can only be used with the right number of enemies in HTH range - Aid (Body and Stun) - PD/ED Force Field that runs on charges with a duration and has a nasty side effect This is doable in Champions, but it'd be easier to trim a lot of that fat and get a character that's just plain hard to hurt. I'm ignoring that resistances in Champions are percentages (like Damage Reduction) rather than flat subtractions, although mixing that in somewhere would probably make it all a bit more plausible than stacking different force fields. The offensive sets seem to be inspirational for multipowers, though, and some of the support/defense sets seem to lend themselves to elemental controls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodstone Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Welcome to the forums, Kali Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kali Magdalene Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Thank you much. I should admit that this thread got me to mess around with converting my DM/DA scrapper over - some powers transplanted pretty nicely, with some condensing. The character was a bit on the expensive side. I condensed Dark Embrace, Murky Cloud, and Obsidian Shield into one power (PD/ED/Ego Defence/Power Defense force field), created an AoE damage shield for Death Shroud, and made a big darned multipower for the attacks (Shadow Punch = HA, Smite = HKA, Shadow Maul = 1 hex autofire AoE, Midnight Grasp = entangle, Soul Drain = AoE Stun to Strength transfer, Dark Consumption = Stun to End, Dark Regeneration as two powers - one is Stun to Body, the other is Stun to Stun). It worked fairly smoothly, but I wasn't trying for a literal reconstruction of every power. I also didn't get to her epic pool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodstone Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? I assume you put the DA powers in an EC, probably with Selene's Travel power? My COH conversions have tended to be rather expensive too. The Wife and I play a pair of twins that I did up in Champs just for fun one evening. One is MA/Invul scrapper the other is an Invul/SS tank. Pretty simple concepts to model really, again so long as you don't try to be too litteral. Without getting into all the fine details, I think they came out around 550+ points (almost evenely split between Characteristics and Powers). And this was without really adding many skills or perks to flesh out their backgrounds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? There's been a very small amount of converted material and conversion guidelines posted to the forums: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32537 http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16952 On several occasions people have posted requests like this, and discussed whether and how it would be doable, but not much concrete has materialized yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kali Magdalene Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? I assume you put the DA powers in an EC' date=' probably with Selene's Travel power? [/quote'] Yes, I meant to mention that. DA was in an EC. Also, she came to 750 points - which was more due to a lack of self-control on my part (but hey, I'm modeling a level 50). I could probably trim her down to 500, but it'd sting. My COH conversions have tended to be rather expensive too. The Wife and I play a pair of twins that I did up in Champs just for fun one evening. One is MA/Invul scrapper the other is an Invul/SS tank. Pretty simple concepts to model really, again so long as you don't try to be too litteral. Without getting into all the fine details, I think they came out around 550+ points (almost evenely split between Characteristics and Powers). And this was without really adding many skills or perks to flesh out their backgrounds. Oh, yeah - I completely neglected perks, skills, and talents. I do have some skills, but not all the skills I wanted. I forgot to mention - as a daughter of Selene, the moon goddess, she's a shapeshifter (only approximated through costume changes), she has basic invisibility vs. sight (Cloak of Darkness), and life support - again, for divine ancestry. The shapeshifting and life support boosted her points, and could be cut while leaving what she explicitly has in CoH. All that aside, CoH is a conceptual gold mine for hero and villain groups as well as ideas for character powers. I'd be tempted to port the Malta Group if I were running Champions, or maybe the Fifth Column. Both are good agent groups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warpcore Breach Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? I recently started a campaign with some people and one of them wanted to use her Rad/Rad Defender from CoH. Those Rad toggles are nasty as two Supresses, one a PD/ED and the other a Dex Supress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spidey88 Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? My current character, Phidippus, is a conversion of my City of Heroes Character - but only a loose translation. I was more concerned with capturing the theme and feel of the character than with the specifics - attributes would have to be based entirely on assumptions, for example. I made some minor additions, such as some extra arms, but I wasn't worried about such things as "how far can he jump in-game, and what would that convert to in Hero terms?". Going that far would not be worth my time, but hey - I could see how others might be interested in such things. I also converted my roommates' characters (in a similar fashion) in the event they wanted to join in on the game - one of them has on a couple of occasions. I know of at least one other person here who's done similar things... Paging Great Beyond - Great Beyond, do you read? You have a call on line two... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpydirShellX Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Was wondering if there's any good sites that explain the way City of Heroes characters work to those of us who haven't played the game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kali Magdalene Posted October 30, 2006 Report Share Posted October 30, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? http://www.cityofheroes.com/ Click on "Game Information" Archetypes and Powers will explain the general stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Schultz Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Another issue you run into is the relative plethora of buffs/debuffs in CoX, and their relative dearth in Champions. Attempting to model their acual efficiency for many of the powers is similarly difficult, as CoX uses a percentage-based to-hit system, while HERO uses a bell-curve. Damage is admitadly easier to model, as they're both (more or less) linear. Stacking buffs make things more unbalanced, even moreso than in CoX - while I like buff/debuff powers in that paradigm, in HERO they tend to make the game wonky. Even self-buffs tend to run into this issue - the various damage and resistance caps in CoX would be insane to implement in Champions, due to the way offense and defense interact. Which is not to say you can't have them - rather, if you DO have them, it's going to change the style of play to make it less like a superhero RPG and more like, well, CoH. So...this is my way of agreeing with the "go for concept, and don't get caught up in the gritty details" idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gojira Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? I posted some translations of the Controller archetype a bit ago. Have a look, let me know what you think: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50308 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maelstrom Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? My GM hit us with a Brute-conversion yesterFriday, with a fire-armor damage shield and a big stone hammer. Ouch. And of course my icon is my oldest PA suit, translated into COH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Zod Posted October 31, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? wow, THX for the responses! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrestlinggeek Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Slightly off-topic, but... What ever happened to the CoH table-top game? Has it come out, did it go away, what? I haven't been able to find any information at all about it in a long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gojira Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? My understanding (and I am not following it closely) is that it is still in-progress and is scheduled for release sometime next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Beyond Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Paging Great Beyond - Great Beyond' date=' do you read? You have a call on line two...[/quote'] Heh - I have NO idea what you are talking about! Lets see, so far I've built my Ice/Fire blaster, my Plant/Thorn corruptor, my MA/Reflex scrapper and my Ice/Ice tanker. After looking long and hard at the digital concept and trying to simulate it with the P&P game engine, I'm firmly in the camp of "Go with the spirit of the character, not the specifics". Great Beyond is probably the most straight foward of the lot. The Bitter Freeze Ray (an entangle), Ice Blast (just an energy blast), a fire sword (a Hand Killing Attack), Char from the epic power pool (a cone area effect NND), and Blizzard (A mad wicked area effect EB with lots of armor piercings on it, extra knockback - or knockdown in this case - that lasts one full turn and pretty much takes her out of the fight from the end drain). Give me a little bit and I'll post the stats for these guys and you can take a look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Beyond Posted October 31, 2006 Report Share Posted October 31, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? Ok, here's some links to a quickie geocities site I whipped up: * Great Beyond (Level 50 Ice/Fire Blaster) http://www.geocities.com/great_beyond1138/great-beyond.html * Scarlet Arrow (level 44 Trick Arrow/Arrow Defender) http://www.geocities.com/great_beyond1138/scarlet-arrow.html * Thornbloom (Level 29 Plant/Thorn Dominator) http://www.geocities.com/great_beyond1138/thornbloom.htm * One-Hit Wonder (Level 33 MA/Reflex scrapper) http://www.geocities.com/great_beyond1138/onehitwonder.htm Of the bunch, One Hit is probably the most loose interpertation of the CoH mechanics. She does a whole lot more (and moves a WHOLE lot faster) than the digital version can do. Since I'm actually playing the pen and paper version of GB, there's also all kinds of abilities and skills that the digital version doesnt have. There's been a natural evolution from where she started out. Thorny and Scarlet, on the other hand, are pretty accurate to their digital versions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrestlinggeek Posted November 2, 2006 Report Share Posted November 2, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? My understanding (and I am not following it closely) is that it is still in-progress and is scheduled for release sometime next year. Thanks for the info. Hopefully, by the time it comes out, I'll be able to afford it. If nothing else, it'll be interesting to take a look at it, and get an idea of how they are handling the translation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
input.jack Posted November 3, 2006 Report Share Posted November 3, 2006 Re: Conversions...City of heroes? In order to translate a Tanker character from COH to HERO accurately, buy the character like you would a Brick. Then, convert all but 10 Strength to have the disad "Does no Damage", and then drop all of your defenses down to 5. Now youre just like a COH Tanker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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