Superheroic fantasy?

[Michael Hopcroft]

What would it be like ot build a game around the standard fantasry tropes, but with superhuman power levels for PCs?

 

Superpowers would be magic. Characters with extreme Characteristics would have dragons blood, giants blood or be related to gods. If you wnated a magic sword you'd buy it with your character points as a focus -- but that sword could chop through boulders. Only wizards and clerics would be able to cast spells, but they could weave powerful dweamors indeed. The PCs would be the greatest adventurers in the world -- and thus face the greatest challenges. They might indeed be a match for a dragon -- but what if they had to face an ARMY of dragons?

 

And there are many types of power that cannot be represented by character points. Even if a knight is strong enough to win a kingdom by his sword arm, it will take more than his sword arm to keep it....

 

What would fantasy characters built within genre, but at the same point and disadvantage level of Champions beginning superheroes, be like? Even if you give them Normal Characteristic Maxima (and don't give them the points for it), there's a lot you can buy for 300+150 points.

[tkdguy]

How common are epople with superpowers? Where do they get their powers? Do their children inherit their powers? It seems to me that superheroes can carve their own kingdoms. If they can pass on their abilities in part or in whole, you could have dynasties where superpowers are a sign of royal blood. Something like the Birthright campaign for AD&D 2nd Ed.

[Lord Liaden]

This actually sounds rather like a very high-level D&D game. (Gasp! Sacrilege!) In standard fantasy literature that level of power and effectiveness is reserved for "starring heroes" like Conan, characters like Gandalf who mostly provide support to other heroes, or of course the "big bad" that the heroes fight. D&D was the first and still the main fantasy game allowing for groups of PC heroes at that level. Battles with demon kings, gods and yes, armies of dragons are possible.

 

If I were going at this for a FH game, I'd run it mostly as superheroic-level gaming dressed in fantasy trappings. Raise the power of attacks and defenses to superheroic levels, but keep many of the heroic level rules for combat (Knockdown rather than Knockback, Hit Locations, etc.). Allow for quite a few magical weapons and artifacts, but have the PCs pay for them with Character Points. Enforce Normal Characteristic Maxima, but let Hercules-level demigods spend a bucketload of points on Strength or other Characteristics, and let them use weapons that equal the damage from any wizard's spell. Reduce the Limitations on magic spells to make spell casters more efficient in combat. Allow any Martial Artists in the game to buy extra Damage Classes for their maneuvers. If the PCs want to amass vast wealth, carve out new kingdoms or raise armies to lead, let them buy Wealth, Bases and Followers.

 

Well, that's the approach I would take. For the most part I prefer to use the tropes for supers in supers games, and the tropes for fantasy in fantasy games, but of course YMMV.

[OddHat]

Quite a few Sci-Fi / Fantasy books at this level. The fantasy sections of the Amber books come to mind, Gemmells Knights of Dark Renown and some of his Stones of Power books, Elric, and some characters in Pratchett. As Liaden said, high level AD&D. The characters will dominate their environment and likely be more powerful than any but the most powerful NPCs, but can be challenged by huge battles (which surprisingly enough turn on their private match ups with the high power NPCs on the other side), dimension jumping adventures, fighting your way through the Nine Hells...

 

Not a problem.

[Stephen Mann]

Super-powered Fantasy (longish). The

 

I ran two Super Fantasy games a few years ago. Powered people in my setting could be mages, Talented, or Godlings. Mages are self-explanatory, Talented were magical mutants, and Godlings were semi-divine. Mage spells and Talented powers could be suppressed with Dispel Magic, Godling powers could not.

 

PCs were 75+75 characters (so I would get powered fantasy characters, not superheroes with chainmail) with an extra 50 points for skills or powers (so 200 points total).

 

Roughly 2000 years ago, the Elder Gods tried to destroy the world. They were stopped by their children (the Young Gods) and a vast army of mortals. The only survivors were the New Gods (children of the Young Gods) and some mortals. The New Gods stuck around for a while helping recreate civilization, and mating with a few worthy mortals.

 

In the present, the Godlings have lost the last of their Divine Aspect, but retain some of their Divine Attributes. In some isolated villages, they are still worshipped.

 

In most countries, the powerful families had co-opted the mages, Talented, and Godlings by marrying them.

 

The token monotheistic religious fanatic country persecuted Godlings because their powers were non-magical in origin, and everyone knows that magic is the Gift of The One True God. The Godling rebels in this country were Balor (He of the Fiery Eye) and his Merry Men, obvious X-Men knockoffs. My GMNPC was the martial artist/ranger son of Mace, the Merry Men's metal-bodied brick.

 

A southern desert city hired a group of powered people (all three types) as a shield against raids from desert nomads (JLA knockoffs).

 

The various PCs included an elven thief with laser and light powers, a human ranger with enhanced senses, a human super-soldier military man, human elemental mage/swordsman, human earth elementalist, etc.

 

The world had recently started a magical tech renaissance, so normals with enough magical weaponry could go toe-to-toe with powered people.

 

The game unfortunately ended before the final act, which would have revealed the true history of the world and how magic, the Talented, and Godlings worked.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

I won't go into the cosmology of this world, but the Godlings were the descendents of the New Gods, a superhero team stranded on this world during an apocalyptic battle between the original high-tech settlers of this world (remembered as the Elder Gods) and their primitive descendants.

[Killer Shrike]

I've always maintained that D&D is very high level Fantasy and is virtually indistinguishable from the superheroic genre once you get past the cosmetics. "Characters switch their capes for plates". I ran my FH games from 125 to 500+ points w/ 125 being equivalent to "1st Level" and 500 being equivalent to a "20th Level Fighter".Here is the Level to Points conversion I used in my 2nd edition conversion, by character class. The 3e conversion Im working on uses a common chart for all classes, but is comparable.

	AD&D 2nd Edition Classes
AD&D Class Level	F I G H T E R	E X O T I C	W A R R I O R	R O G U E	W I Z A R D	P S I O N I C	P R I E S T
1	125	125		125	125	125	125
2	145	150		140	150	145	135
3	165	170		155	175	165	160
4	185	195		175	200	185	175
5	205	215		190	225	205	200
6	225	240		205	250	225	220
7	245	260		225	275	245	245
8	265	285		240	300	265	255
9	285	305		260	325	285	280
10	305	330		275	350	305	295
11	325	350		295	375	325	320
12	345	375		310	405	345	340
13	365	395		330	435	365	350
14	385	420		345	465	385	375
15	405	440		365	495	405	390
16	425	465		380	525	425	410
17	445	485		400	555	445	435
18	465	510		415	585	465	445
19	495	530		435	615	485	455
20	500	555		450	650	505	475

[Killer Shrike]

The relevance to your suggestion is that Fantasy can be played at "superheroic" point levels. I also used all of the superheroic combat options, including Knockback, generalized damage, and so on.

[Lupus]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

I've always maintained that D&D is very high level Fantasy and is virtually indistinguishable from the superheroic genre once you get past the cosmetics. "Characters switch their capes for plates". I ran my FH games from 125 to 500+ points w/ 125 being equivalent to "1st Level" and 500 being equivalent to a "20th Level Fighter".

Pretty much. I run a D&D game that's strayed into the high levels, and I use superheroic conventions all the time, there. Keeps it interesting.

 

There are resources you can look up, of course. Xena's a great one (in my opinion - some people hate it). If you can find it, a series called 'The Water Margins' is brilliant. It's a Chinese TV series (or is it Japanese?) that went through an extensive dubbing project in the 70s by a British group. Unlike most dubs, this one was actually darn good. I still prefer subtitles, but a good dub is an acceptible substitute. It's based around a group of rebels who have been reincarnated, and many of whom have some sort of superhuman ability, as well as kick-arse martial arts.

 

And, of course, there's European myth. Siegmund is a fantasy superhero if ever there was one.

[Doctor Agenda]

My group is doing a round-robin dimension-hopping superhero game where one of the characters is a mage from a fantasy world where Camelot has endured. In that world technology has only progressed to 13th century levels because of magic and a conservative and powerful church. Grimoire was a member of the Champions of Camelot (because wizards cannot be knights), a group of supers with fantasy trappings, many with connections to famous people from the age of Arthur. The adventure in that world was very much like supers in any low-tech setting, except you never knew when you would run into someone as powerful or more powerful than you. The Champions of Camelot kept powerful individuals and monsters in check, providing for a stable society in a medieval world of supers. If that didn't work, at least all sides had their own super-types...powerful humans are rare, but Fey Creatures are distressingly likely to meddle.

[Rene]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

In standard fantasy literature that level of power and effectiveness is reserved for "starring heroes" like Conan, characters like Gandalf who mostly provide support to other heroes, or of course the "big bad" that the heroes fight. D&D was the first and still the main fantasy game allowing for groups of PC heroes at that level. Battles with demon kings, gods and yes, armies of dragons are possible.

 

That is truer of pre-1960s fantasy literature, I guess.

 

Many later novels from guys like Roger Zelazny or Steven Brust can spark good ideas for this kind of game, though they focus a bit more on guys insanely versatile (the immortal mystically enhanced warrior/rogue type) than specialized powerhouses.

 

Another fine series depicting lots of fantasy superhumans would be "The Malazan Book of the Fallen", from Steven Erikson. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in high-power fantasy. I don't like Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, but it has some pretty powerful characters too.

[hypnotica]

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I don't like Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, but it has some pretty powerful characters too.

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(GASP!!!!) That's bordering on sacrilege not liking this series? Other than Ten books out of 13 being written and the plot taking too long to coalese(sp) what is wrong with the series?

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by hypnotica

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I don't like Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, but it has some pretty powerful characters too.

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(GASP!!!!) That's bordering on sacrilege not liking this series? Other than Ten books out of 13 being written and the plot taking too long to coalese(sp) what is wrong with the series?

The same thing thats wrong with a 18-wheeler whose driver has fallen asleep at the wheel.....a large object barrelling out of control down the highway.

 

Personally, I think Jordan lost his way around book 5 and cant quite figure out how to get back onto the reservation. Just my personal opinion, mind you.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I don't think my idea was fully understood

 

Everybody is talking about peoiple using superpowers in a fantasy setting. That wasn't what i had in mind at all. What I had in mind was having only the stahdard fantasy abilities available, but building characters on 300+150 disads or a smilar point level with Normal Characteristc maxima enforced but not counted against your disads.

 

If you have access only to standard fantasy abilities, how would you spend all those points?

 

The characters in a series like Slayers are built on an even higher point level (I can't see how to build Lina Inverse for under 700 points), but they don't conquer the world. There are a lor of beings as if not more powerful than they are to give them trouble (high-level demon gods, dragons, that sort of thing).

[OddHat]

This was covered in several posts. You'd end up with a 20th level AD&D campaign, which is fine if that's what you're looking for.

[Guest zarglif69]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike I've always maintained that D&D is very high level Fantasy and is virtually indistinguishable from the superheroic genre once you get past the cosmetics. "Characters switch their capes for plates". I ran my FH games from 125 to 500+ points w/ 125 being equivalent to "1st Level" and 500 being equivalent to a "20th Level Fighter".Here is the Level to Points conversion I used in my 2nd edition conversion, by character class. The 3e conversion Im working on uses a common chart for all classes, but is comparable. AD&D 2nd Edition Classes AD&D Class Level F

I

G

H

T

E

R

E

X

O

T

I

C

 

W

A

R

R

I

O

R

R

O

G

U

E

W

I

Z

A

R

D

P

S

I

O

N

I

C

P

R

I

E

S

T

1 125 125 125 125 125 125 2 145 150 140 150 145 135 3 165 170 155 175 165 160 4 185 195 175 200 185 175 5 205 215 190 225 205 200 6 225 240 205 250 225 220 7 245 260 225 275 245 245  8 265 285 240 300 265 255  9 285 305 260 325 285 280  10 305 330 275 350 305 295 11 325 350 295 375 325 320 12 345 375 310 405 345 340  13 365 395 330 435 365 350 14 385 420 345 465 385  375  15 405 440 365 495 405 390 16 425 465 380 525 425  410  17 445 485 400 555  445  435 18 465 510 415 585 465  445 19 495 530 435 615 485  455  20 500 555 450 650 505 475

I maintain my original position. D&D sucks. And sucks BIIIG.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: I don't think my idea was fully understood

 

Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft

Everybody is talking about peoiple using superpowers in a fantasy setting. That wasn't what i had in mind at all. What I had in mind was having only the stahdard fantasy abilities available, but building characters on 300+150 disads or a smilar point level with Normal Characteristc maxima enforced but not counted against your disads.

 

If you have access only to standard fantasy abilities, how would you spend all those points?

 

The characters in a series like Slayers are built on an even higher point level (I can't see how to build Lina Inverse for under 700 points), but they don't conquer the world. There are a lor of beings as if not more powerful than they are to give them trouble (high-level demon gods, dragons, that sort of thing).

Actually, if you look at my post, Im not talking about doing superpowers in Fantasy, Im talking about playing fantasy at point levels comparable to the superheroic genre.

 

As far as what to spend the points on, Im feverishly working away at generating substantial content for FH. Ill release it all when its closer to completion.....

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by zarglif69

I maintain my original position. D&D sucks. And sucks BIIIG.

Gee....not wanting to play D&D.....that must be why we are playing the HERO SYSTEM. OMG, imagine that..... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[OddHat]

Re: Re: I don't think my idea was fully understood

 

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

As far as what to spend the points on, Im feverishly working away at generating substantial content for FH. Ill release it all when its closer to completion.....

 

That sounds promising.

 

What to spend it on is mostly world and restrictions dependant. Since we're not really talking enough points to play most of the higher-powered humanoids from the bestiary (no Ghosts, Vampires, Were-Bears, etc.) without re-writing them and/or watering them down, I'd say you'd just spend the points on more of the same for whatever your specialization happens to be. Lots of spells for the spell casters, maybe buy yourself a small country for 200 or so points (wealth, head of state, base, followers, other perks), wizards tower with all the fixins, your own undead army, a cursed sould-drinking sword, etc., etc.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Re: Re: I don't think my idea was fully understood

 

Originally posted by OddHat

That sounds promising.

IM me and I might give you an advanced look

[Blue Jogger]

Re: I don't think my idea was fully understood

 

Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft

The characters in a series like Slayers are built on an even higher point level (I can't see how to build Lina Inverse for under 700 points

 

I could probably build Lina in 300+150, the hard one would be squeezing in Dragon Slave, but not with Megascale, that shouldn't be too hard. Toast city but leave most of the people alive (but wishing they weren't)? That's 4D6 Kill, Area Effect Radius, City-wide Megascale. (135 Active) Granted, that was just the side-effect of the spell, the main part was probably 7D6+1 Kill, Area Effect Explosive (137 Active)

 

Excuse me, I was drooling on my keyboard.

 

I could probably do it without using a Power Framework, but I would opt for a Multipower. I'd have to watch the series again, she seemed to have some amount of detection powers and some sort of defense.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Example Character: Lina Inverse

 

Lina has a TON of spells in addition to her "sure-kill" Dragon Slave. She has a whoel array of attack spells -- Fireballs, Flare Arrows, Dil Brando (causes the ground under the target to explode, propelling them high into the air -- naturally what goes up comes down hard so ti does damage twice!), Freeze Arrows (an Entangle that does cold/ice damage), you get the idea. She also has a whole bunch of little spells (like a spell to attract fish to her fishing line and bait -- I'm surprised fish are not an endangered species in any area Lina passes through, as she loves fish and catches them in huge quanitities).. She also posees healing magic that she can use both on herself (to heal wounds as long as she's still consicous) and on others.

 

There are several possible ways to construct Lina. A very large Multipower with numerous Ultra slots is one (teh effectes of the spells are rather predictable within the range of the dice). Another is to buy the big spells separatelky or in a multipower and give her a VPP to represent her encyclopedic knoweldge of the spellbooks of evergy mage she has ever come across.

 

I'd like to see someone try a 450-point line, especially if you can find a way to fit the Giga Slave (a spell that can slay gods but has Side Effects so severe that casting it risks world obliteration). This would represent Lina at the beginning of the Tv series. She earns 40-50 experience or more per season of the TV series (or 2-3 Experience per episode, plus I'd award her an experience bonus for defeating an enormously powerful foe like Shabrandigdo, Copy-Rezo or Hellmaster Phibrizzo). The end-of-TRY Line woudl easily be worth 600+ points because fo her earned experience and has learned many more spells.

 

She'd be a perfect candidate for some sort of Dependent PC disavtantage, but she would not get point sofr it because it is earned during play (it becomes obvious after a while hat she is in love 9and denial) with Gaurry but assuming the TV series is an active campaign this is a disad she picks up no points for.) Possible disads are Physical limitation: fast metablosim 9she burns a lot of food and thus has an enormous appetite), Psych Lim: greedy, Hunted: the Mazoku Race (Mo pow, harshly Punsih, 8- at the start growing to 11- as she becomes more of a nuisance to them), Psych Lim: various phobias (Luna, Slugs, Naga) 8- (they don't appear very often individually but a single one of the phobias could occur every so often.)

 

Alternatively, since the mvovies and OVAs come before ther TV series is Slayers continuity, the 450-point Lina could be the one who avdentures with naga and she';d have about 40 points of experience to spend by the time she meets Gaurry.

[Mr. Negative]

Re: Superheroic fantasy?

 

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread here, but I was out of town then and missed it, so....

 

 

Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft

What would it be like ot build a game around the standard fantasry tropes, but with superhuman power levels for PCs?

 

What would fantasy characters built within genre, but at the same point and disadvantage level of Champions beginning superheroes, be like? Even if you give them Normal Characteristic Maxima (and don't give them the points for it), there's a lot you can buy for 300+150 points.

 

Well, one of the things that you could do in this is "rethink" the Normal Characteristic Maxima system and raise the bar on it. One of the many complaints about HERO has been that individual scores don't mean much, since they are divided by 3 or 5 for most actual uses. Accepting that (for this argument) as a criticism, let's try to emulate GURPS in this manner, and make it so that your Attribute Roll, rather than your attribute, is the limiting factor in characteristic maxima.

 

Thus, you are limited to a characteristic roll of 20, instead of a characteristic of 20. This means that your characteristics can range up to 55 and still be considered "human". Of course, I would "re-key" STR so that lifting capacity increases directly, rather than doubling every 5. Your maxima for figured characteristics could simply increase to the maximums attainable with maximum primary characteristics (so PD/ED are limited to 11, END to 110, etc) or you could work them otherwise.

 

It's important to "re-conceptualize" your FH game if you do this. A 20 STR isn't hugely strong anymore, it's a 13- roll instead of a 11- roll. It's 2 more dice punching damage (which anyone could get with martial arts anyway).

 

Doing this allows your characters to replicate the feats seen in action movies and the like more easily (a strong barbarian can easily knock someone unconscious with a single blow, and can shrug off even phenomenal punches and kicks). It also allows characters to have more of a niche, as it takes a lot more points to be at the top of the game. Instead of most characters having a DEX near the high end of the scale, it would be a rare and impressive fighter/thief/acrobat/whatever who actually shelled out 135 points for a 55 Dex (and their resulting 18 CV would allow them to do the sort of ridiculous stunts that DEX oriented supers like Bullseye/Spiderman/Daredevil are so fond of).

 

I haven't actually tried this myself, but (other than the Strength lifting charts), there is nothing in HERO that overtly commands you to limit attributes to the 10-20 range, or even the 10-30 range. It might be an interesting experiment.

 

Conceptualize the deadly assassin with a 55 DEX, or the barbarian fighter with a 55 Str, 55 Con, and 55 Body (either clocks in at 135 points). That fighter has 11PD, 11 ED, a 22 REC, and 110 Stun. He CAN take on hordes of lesser opponents and win. He can attack a huge dragon with a sword and stand some chance against it. I'm not sure it would be interesting in the long run, but it could be fun change of pace.

 

As another idea, I'd look at the "non-powered" powers in the Ultimate Martial Artist and Ninja Hero. A lot of those replicate, very well, the cool abilities of heroic fantasy.

[tetsujin28]

I've been working on converting WW's Exalted to FH, and was thinking of changing the normal CHA maximum based on what you were: 15 for everyday humans, 20 for Dragon-blooded, and 25 for all Celestial Exalted. All the PCs would be Celestials, so that would cause stats to feel less generic.

[Roland]

Greek mythology could serve as good inspiration for a superheroic fantasy campaign. Jason's crew on the Argo included a number of demi-gods with superhuman abilities. This site lists all the Argonauts:

 

http://www.greatdreams.com/jason/jason.htm