Love for Non-Casters?

[Matt Holck]

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

 

fair enough

[ghostwolf]

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

 

Well that's your problem right there - you're restricting the Barbarian unnecessarily. Right off' date=' the bat, through [u']axe techniques alone[/u], we've got this:

 

* Drain Running + Leaping (leg attack)

* Drain STR + DEX w/ one arm (arm attack)

* Continuing NND HKA (bleeding wound)

* Stun (blunt side to the head; done with Change Environment now, IIRC)

* AoE, radius or line (charging/sweeping strikes)

* Ranged attacks (throwing the axe)

* Drain HKA (smash claws and teeth)

* Drain Flight (slash wings)

* And many more

 

Could someone explain the Change environment thing in this list?

[Ice9]

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

 

In the 6E APG, it mentions stunning people as a use of Change Environment.

[Matt Holck]

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

 

I'd require that the drains be linked to doing some amount of physical damage past the opponent defenses

[algesan]

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

 

Yep' date=' every week. I solved it by paying points for everything.[/quote']

 

Then you are just playing Champions with a Fantasy backdrop. Which is why the book calls it "Superheroic" power level. You are correct there is no "problem" since your characters all have to pay points to be able to unzip their pants to take a leak..... Well unless you consider that a routine untrained maneuver.....

 

OTOH, I'll be you have some other ground rules in effect for availability/usability/active point max for powers and skills. If not, then I can build a character that will disrupt your campaign. Hero is a toolbox, not a etched in stone system and openly admits it.

 

Exactly. If all players have to build their maneuvers/attacks then it is fair. But making one character type pay for attacks and giving attacks to another type for free is not.

 

NOTE: I'll agree, if you simply apply the divide by 3 rule to "magic" then it is potentially abusive (nope, don't have the Turakian book, just know that is the setup).

 

GAH! I've been hearing this whine from both sides. First from the Hero vet who mentions all the points he spent on weapon use skills at "full price"....with his patented martial art maneuver....and the ability to pick up a new magic weapon and use it at full effect for 1 point (WF:?) if he can get past the STR minimum. Second from the ones only familiar with Hero who whine about the other side to my magic system.

 

Any caster is allowed spells of 20 AP + 5 AP for every 30 character points (or fraction) their character has, not counting disadvantage points. A starting 25 point low power character would have only 25 AP available for spells and when they gained 6 more experience would be able to go up to 30 AP.

 

I'm trying out a mana system for the game I just started instead of using straight END with casters getting for this run. Mainly with INT + EGO for Mana and INT/5 + EGO/5 for Mana REC. Along with RSR, all spells have the Side Effect (-1/2) of costing 1 Long Term Mana each time they are cast, even if they are bought with Charges or 0 END. The results are interesting. The way Hero balances offensive vs defensive power costs, defense spells tend to be bought as single charge continuing charges with larger Extra Time and Increased END limits to make them real cheap since they are mostly to be cast once per day. They may not be Persistent (if the caster is stunned or KO'd, the spell turns off).

 

There are some other flourishes, NCM max skill is 14- (although if you pay to raise your Power skill stat to 28 you would get a natural 15-) and the talent Skill Master may be used directly (+3 to skill) once, which gives a high level a 18- base roll. Some powers are limited in usage (Armor must be bought in an item that actually covers the area, mage defense spells and items of "protection" are Force Fields with protects carried items option). Base general DEF in spells are limited to 5 + 1 per 30 points, although I allow casters to build spells that are more PD than ED or vice versa, up to 10 PD or ED max (if you have DEF 6 available, you could have 6 PD/6 ED, 10 PD/ 2 ED, 3 PD/9 ED, etc.). Mages are not limited in the arms and armor they can wear, but their Power roll is reduced by their encumbrance penalty AND by -1 by every 2 DEF over 1 DEF they are wearing as armor (DEF 3/4 = -1, 5/6 = -2, etc.) which makes it much more efficient to be a cloth wearer. At least if you want to cast higher powered spells reliably.

 

Mental and Power Defenses are limited to 10.

 

The effect of these design choices? The power level of mages parallels that of an early D&D mage, with a lower character point casters being a bit on the wimpy side compared to their melee buddies (who are picking up bonus points by grabbing that 1/5d6K sword (2d6 w/ STR)) early on, but then going past the melees (who cap at ~ 85 AP with a nice magic weapon) on up to a max of 100 AP in magic.

 

I will make note that if I disallowed players commonly having a martial arts style, then I'd be a bit more worried on the cap since Martial Maneuvers are somewhat cheap on their own.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

 

Then you are just playing Champions with a Fantasy backdrop. Which is why the book calls it "Superheroic" power level. You are correct there is no "problem" since your characters all have to pay points to be able to unzip their pants to take a leak..... Well unless you consider that a routine untrained maneuver.....

 

Yes indeed, but it does solve those problems. There are many ways to handle this and no single solution is a universal solve. The feel of my Wilderlands campaign (described above) is very different from my Narosia campaign (wherein magic items are a function of wealth, not points, and spells cost 1 pt, just like a WF). You can't consider them in a vacuum and have to be taken in context of the whole campaign feel, goal, and development ideology.

 

What is fantasy roleplaying? RuneQuest is different from RoleMaster is different from Warhammer is different from D&D. How each handles magic, skill, and gain is very different. Fantasy Hero simply supports each of those styles (and more).

 

OTOH' date=' I'll be you have some other ground rules in effect for availability/usability/active point max for powers and skills. If not, then I can build a character that will disrupt your campaign. Hero is a toolbox, not a etched in stone system and openly admits it.[/quote']

 

Absolutely, by design. I know when I convert a d20 module that has a CR 8 creature with +10 melee and 1d10 damage with an AC of 20 what that means in Hero terms and know that that maps to my guidelines for the players equally such that whatever I might equate "level 8" to in Hero results in that CR 8 creature as a target generally requiring an 11- to hit and will stop 50% of the damage.

 

GAH! I've been hearing this whine from both sides. First from the Hero vet who mentions all the points he spent on weapon use skills at "full price"....with his patented martial art maneuver....and the ability to pick up a new magic weapon and use it at full effect for 1 point (WF:?) if he can get past the STR minimum. Second from the ones only familiar with Hero who whine about the other side to my magic system.

 

Not from me, no whining. Each play style is different. I like a system where each player has a balanced character to the other. I also like, and have played Hero this way, random stats and a you find it you keep it mentality. Those are inherently different games however.

 

Any caster is allowed spells of 20 AP + 5 AP for every 30 character points (or fraction) their character has' date=' not counting disadvantage points. A starting 25 point low power character would have only 25 AP available for spells and when they gained 6 more experience would be able to go up to 30 AP.[/quote']

 

That works as I have played with that system, and it works well. Just extrapolate what that means to your campaign at 400 points. If your campaign never gets there, then that's no big deal, but if it will, will that game be different than at 100 points?

[Matt Holck]

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

 

so a warrior can pick up a 3 pt base kill attack and multiply it by ten with strength?

[algesan]

Re: Love for Non-Casters?

 

Yes indeed' date=' but it does solve those problems. There are many ways to handle this and no single solution is a universal solve. The feel of my Wilderlands campaign (described above) is very different from my Narosia campaign (wherein magic items are a function of wealth, not points, and spells cost 1 pt, just like a WF). You can't consider them in a vacuum and have to be taken in context of the whole campaign feel, goal, and development ideology.[/quote']

 

The other guy who runs a game for us just finished up a series of short (5-6 session for most of them) MA campaigns using a sort of low powered super build. We could grab any weapon or armor to wear, but it lessened our characters combat abilities. A lot of mundane items had to be paid for and could be used for non combat stuff like a heroic game. The armor wasn't any big deal, it didn't stand out, but our weapons were usually unique and flashy, so that popping out our signature weapons/attacks brought attention from our adversaries that we probably didn't want. We could also "swap out" items between adventures by simply "dropping" the current one we had paid points for and spending them to "master" the new item.

 

Lots of fun, especially simulating cinematic martial arts shticks. So my super swordsman build (which he wasn't at first, except to peons) spent the first several sessions of the first adventure fighting with a bokken disguised as a baton, just his fists, a plain jane sword and one of the Chinese polearms.

 

Not trying to turn this one into a campaign brag, but I did find it interesting since I've never run or played in a strongly episodic campaign with time gaps. So we would earn 20-30 experience during a run, then for the next episode the GM would buff up the characters another 20-30 points to account for between episode adventures. We progressed from 250 point characters to 500 point characters in a relatively short time.

 

That works as I have played with that system, and it works well. Just extrapolate what that means to your campaign at 400 points. If your campaign never gets there, then that's no big deal, but if it will, will that game be different than at 100 points?

 

That is the main reason I put a "firm" upper limit on spell APs at 100 (I will make exceptions on a case by case basis if needed), which should be hit at 481 (+ disadvantages) character points. The idea is that the caster will eventually get an edge in raw AP. I'm rebuilding my older characters in 5th Ed, both from original character sheets (happened to find them in a binder in a box) from D&D, Rolemaster and FH 1st Ed (when everyone was a caster) and from my 4th Ed sheets where I have them. I'm not seeing a problem yet at a 400-500 point level, I am seeing one for much higher level casters which means my AP formula might have to be 20 + 5 for every 30 character points (up to 100 AP) OR 100 + 5 for every 50/75/100 (haven't decided) over 510. I don't see that happening in a group where we are swapping between 2 GMs running different games that mostly meets once a week for about six hours, unless we start an uber game or I shift over to a more episodic approach. It won't be that slow since I usually toss in an extra character point or two for "free" background skills with most every session.