Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

[steph]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Use a VPP with a knowledge

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Use a VPP with a knowledge

 

I prefer this, in theory, to a MP, but... it requires the player know the system quite a bit better than an MP does.

 

To put it in D20 terms, VPP's work best for "spontaneous casters" like Sorcerers, Bards and the like. MP works great for Wizards and Clerics, while Clerics and Paladins or more specialized Wizards might not want any framework at all. I actually still use EC's for most Paladin or Warmage types.

[phookz]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

VPPs are cool if that's what you have in mind for your system. They also run the risk of slowing down gameplay if the player is not prepared well.

 

With regards to your use of Flash, that's how it used to work in pre 5th, back when it was (I think) 10 points per die. I was just pointing it out because I noticed it was not consistent with the new rules. If that's how you roll with it I can certainly appreciate that - there's been plenty of debate about the best way to do Flash anyway.

 

As for the tactical decisions on the wizard vs the fighter, it doesn't matter what you put up, someone's going to recommend you choose different tactics, so you can't win anyway. I like seeing the example combats - I think they can be fun to read and are also of value to new players to see how it all fits together. I'd still like to see how this one plays out

[Markdoc]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Why doesn't Wizard back up 3" out the door? His biggest drawback is the enclosed space. Now' date=' he can cast Bounce and leap up to 10" away - probably can't go that far in a building, but far enough down a hall/up or down stairs/out a window that he's out of Fighter's range. Once he gets outside, he can Bounce 20" away at a time, and fire off spells from a decent range, or just escape and come back when he can choose the battlefield and have his attack planned out, force field up, maybe have his Summoned creatures already available as a distraction, etc.? You gave the fighter the dual advantages of tight quarters and the advantage of surprise, and he still is far from an auto win.[/quote']

 

Which is the point, really - the fighter has a better than even chance if he can ambush the wizard - I already made that point. Any other situation, the smart money's on the wizard.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

I was just doing my little combat there as a random thing' date=' and to show that, all things being equal, the fighter really does have the upper hand in a straight up fight.[/quote']

 

All things being equal, in this case meaning "Can catch by surprise in a small enclosed space" - I agree, though, that that's really the only way that the fighter can go toe to toe with the mage and have a chance.

 

Keep in mind' date=' too, that usually the party will have a caster or two and then some fighter types working together against a group of NPC's who may or may not include a spellcaster, and in situations that will favor different tactics and skills.[/quote']

 

True - but from experience, that means two things. If the party is all fighters/rogues and meet up with a group that has magic they are hosed. If, alternatively, the party contains both mages and non-mages, the non-mages get stuck in the role of "Keep 'em off me for a few phases and I'll wrap this up". And again, if the game becomes "The Amazing Rialto and his sidekicks" that does not speak well to its longevity.

 

If the Wizard is in his tower and you are on the ground' date=' Wizard has the advantage. If the Wizard is in an enclosed area, and can't easily get out in the open, Fighters have the advantage.[/quote']

 

Not really: you built this particular mage as a non-contact type, but it's trivially easy to build combat mages, who wield swords, wear armour and are scarier than any fighter in HTH ... and also capable of the extra cool stuff. I think (unless magic is intended to be ubiquitous) that it's up to the GM to set limitations to prevent this.

 

The Wizard has less END' date=' less STUN, less BODY, lower CV, and all of his powers require skill rolls and various restrainable actions to activate - incantations, gestures, extra time, expendable foci, etc. So long as the GM is pressing those limitations, the Wizard should not truly "overpower" a similar point, well-built fighter type. Situational advantage can go either way, and what tactics are used can alter that advantage as well.[/quote']

 

In this case yes - but even giving your fighter every advantage, we see that in your example, he's still fighting after a turn. And if the wizard hadn't fluffed his entangle roll, the fight would be over by now - and if the mage makes his entangle roll next time, he'll likely still win. And he's not even fighting very smartly - if he had simply withdrawn after the mind control he could have gained himself the extra space he needed to gain a substantial advantage. In short, as Hugh pointed out, it's far from a sure thing, even though the circumstances are tipped as far in the fighters advantage as possible.

 

cheers, Mark

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

I would gladly do a play-by-post theorycrafting, using the two characters I posted or new characters we create for the experiment. Someone volunteer to be GM and set the scene, I'll play the fighter, someone else volunteer to play the wizard.

 

Again, I still contest that this should not be that much of an issue if you put some thought into the limitations of magic instead of focusing on the versatility and advantages. In the last FH game I ran, the wizard (the one I posted here) was having a world of trouble, at least partially because most of the enemies knew to "kill the frackin' wizard." The character who really shined was the Naginata-wielding Monk of Doom, especially once combined with the Paladin's "Aura of Extra Damage Classes" power (2.5d6k Naginata with 2" Stretching, Offensive Strike + Aura = 4.5d6k for 2 END, 5d6k for 4 END if pushed.) The Wizard was, as expected, really good with keeping the mooks busy, and dealt fair damage, but the END ran out quick if he wasn't careful.

 

And yeah, if you allow one player to build Driz'st Do'ulden, dual-wielding Falchions with an Astral Llamma follower and a MP custom-built to create the perfect tank-mage, then you deserve the lamentations of those wanting to play a more typical 'fighter.' While the opposite is often true in a Champions setting - Bricks are rediculously powerful compared to more versatile characters if the GM is not careful about things.

 

I built that Wizard I posted, but I asked the player if he wanted to be a 'combat mage' or a 'jack of all trades' or what. He wanted to play the jack of all trades, and gave me a list of spells he would like, then I built the spells and added a few of my own.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

One thing I notice is that several people claim Kraven Kor's example is invalid because "all things being equal" would not take place in an enclosed place. Why would a wide open space be any more "equal" than the small space? One favors the wizard, one favors the HtH fighter, so neither are "equal". If you were comparing a HtH fighter to an expert archer would you say a wide open field with no possible cover was the only "equal" space to compare them in?

[Markdoc]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

One thing I notice is that several people claim Kraven Kor's example is invalid because "all things being equal" would not take place in an enclosed place. Why would a wide open space be any more "equal" than the small space? One favors the wizard' date=' one favors the HtH fighter, so neither are "equal". If you were comparing a HtH fighter to an expert archer would you say a wide open field with no possible cover was the only "equal" space to compare them in?[/quote']

 

No, it's more that it was setting up a situation that plays exclusively to one character's strength ... and noticeable that even so, the fight was fairly equal, with an advantage to the fighter. Which is the point several people have already made. Take these two characters and put them in different settings. In non-combat settings the wizard has more flexibility and options. In a combat setting where the opponents are first encountered at range, the Wizard is clearly stronger and has more options. In a combat setting where the PCs are overmatched and have to escape, the wizard clearly has superior options. In a combat setting where the players are scouting, the wizard clearly has superior options. In a setting where combat is up close and personal, the fighter is somewhat superior.

 

I've already said these are actually quite nice characters. But right now, starting out the wizard is clearly the more "effective" of the two and that difference will only increase as the game goes on.

I agree with Kraven Kor that the GM needs to ride herd on magic users to make sure that don't outshine every other archetype (and to some extent he's done that with the mage he designed: many of the limitatons added to his spells would not affect the points cost - they are just there for flavour).

Which brings me right back to my original point, that if the GM wants different archetypes the GM needs to set up a magic system that hobbles magic users - not worry about the fact that people get gear for free. That latter point is irrelevant.

 

cheers, Mark

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Again' date=' I still contest that this should not be that much of an issue if you put some thought into the limitations of magic instead of focusing on the versatility and advantages. In the last FH game I ran, the wizard (the one I posted here) was having a world of trouble, at least partially because most of the enemies knew to "kill the frackin' wizard." The character who really shined was the Naginata-wielding Monk of Doom, especially once combined with the Paladin's "Aura of Extra Damage Classes" power (2.5d6k Naginata with 2" Stretching, Offensive Strike + Aura = 4.5d6k for 2 END, 5d6k for 4 END if pushed.) The Wizard was, as expected, really good with keeping the mooks busy, and dealt fair damage, but the END ran out quick if he wasn't careful.[/quote']

 

2.5d6 (a lot to begin with) + 2 DC's for Off Strike (halved as it is a KA) = 3d6+1, so the Aura adds 4 DC's. Posit a Wizard with a spell-enhancing field to augment the spellcaster by 20 AP per spell, and I suspect the "main wizard" becomes similarly potent.

 

One thing I notice is that several people claim Kraven Kor's example is invalid because "all things being equal" would not take place in an enclosed place. Why would a wide open space be any more "equal" than the small space? One favors the wizard' date=' one favors the HtH fighter, so neither are "equal". If you were comparing a HtH fighter to an expert archer would you say a wide open field with no possible cover was the only "equal" space to compare them in?[/quote']

 

I think a fair comparison would evaluate both. In the "enclosed space" aproach, the fact the Wizard adopts a "fight in the room" strategy rather than a "withdraw to reduce his disadvantage" approach. Even with the fighter's preferred field of combat, and the Wizard taking no steps, even easy ones, to mitigate this advantage, using a wizard clearly designed with weakness in close quarters in mind, the fight is not a rout. Put them in that open field, and do you believe Fighter would still be free and fighting after a full turn?

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

No' date=' it's more that it was setting up a situation that plays exclusively to one character's strength ... and noticeable that even so, the fight was fairly equal, with an advantage to the fighter. Which is the point several people have already made. Take these two characters and put them in different settings. In non-combat settings the wizard has more flexibility and options. In a combat setting where the opponents are first encountered at range, the Wizard is clearly stronger and has more options. In a combat setting where the PCs are overmatched and have to escape, the wizard clearly has superior options. In a combat setting where the players are scouting, the wizard clearly has superior options. In a setting where combat is up close and personal, the fighter is [i']somewhat[/i] superior.

 

I've already said these are actually quite nice characters. But right now, starting out the wizard is clearly the more "effective" of the two and that difference will only increase as the game goes on.

I agree with Kraven Kor that the GM needs to ride herd on magic users to make sure that don't outshine every other archetype (and to some extent he's done that with the mage he designed: many of the limitatons added to his spells would not affect the points cost - they are just there for flavour).

Which brings me right back to my original point, that if the GM wants different archetypes the GM needs to set up a magic system that hobbles magic users - not worry about the fact that people get gear for free. That latter point is irrelevant.

 

cheers, Mark

 

I don't necessarily disagree, but there is anecdotal evidence to the contrary from people who have had issues with underpowered magic users.

[Markdoc]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

I don't necessarily disagree' date=' but there is anecdotal evidence to the contrary from people who [i']have[/i] had issues with underpowered magic users.

 

That's actually a fair point: there is precisely one situation where magic users can be underpowered and that's where spells are bought outside a framework (ie: at full cost) and mages attempt to duplicate free gear with spells (in other words, the mage attempts to buy spells that give him an RKA and armour, instead of using the free stuff and buying spells to do what mundane equipment can't). We have actually had a few posts from players who have attempted to do that, but to be fair, they were totally new to the system.

 

cheers, Mark

[phookz]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

That's actually a fair point: there is precisely one situation where magic users can be underpowered and that's where spells are bought outside a framework (ie: at full cost) and mages attempt to duplicate free gear with spells (in other words, the mage attempts to buy spells that give him an RKA and armour, instead of using the free stuff and buying spells to do what mundane equipment can't). We have actually had a few posts from players who have attempted to do that, but to be fair, they were totally new to the system.

 

cheers, Mark

 

I agree with this and the earlier point about hobbling. It's not a requirement for all campaigns, but if you want character archetypes to be balanced your going to have to place restrictions on how magic can be purchased, how it works, etc.

 

It's true that balance is situational. There are going to be fights that are difficult for the wizard character, especially if there are limitations on how they cast (as in Kraven Kor's example). There will be other fights where the wizard will clearly outshine the fighter types. A lot of this has to do with the sheer versatility that the wizard brings to the table.

 

This is nothing new to RPGs, and isn't unique to HERO. It's just that the nature of the universal system that HERO exposes the nature of game system design that is usually taken care of in the base rules by other systems. That's not to say that other systems are well balanced. A high level Wizard in D&D will wipe the floor with a Warrior in most fights, at least in pre 4th edition. I have very little experience with 4e, but it appears to be better balanced between classes.

 

I'd like to point out that most fantasy fiction is not balanced at all. Gandalf was a plot device, as are many wizards. Plenty of fantasy fiction has the wizard character as the chosen one - the other characters can't really touch them in terms of balance. Han Solo doesn't really stand a chance against a Jedi. This isn't a new problem at all - but in typical fantasy fiction it's a story there is no need to balance the archetypes.

[Blorn]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Comparing fiction to rpg is probably not what we want to do. In a long running campaign, most players won't be ok if you choose one of them to be "the one" and everyone else is ancillary.

 

Balance is not everything, I agree... but every player needs to feel awesome during combat. A fighter type that is limited to non-power combat maneuvers (maneuvers that the wizard has access to should they desire...) is going to feel less awesome (I know I would) than the wizard (martial arts, as written in the BBB, doesn't quite catch the fighter up to a wizard, IMO.). Balance, too, is not just about balancing a one-on-one fight, it's about balancing the "awesome-sauce." Allowing some special martial "powers", like entangle, or something similar to a D&D 4E fighter's ability to mark enemies (marking an enemy in 4E is a way for a character to make it more difficult for the enemy to attack anyone else except him... the ultimate way of keeping the enemy off the squishy wizard) goes a LONG way towards spreading the awesome-sauce around.

 

Therefore, though we are spending a lot of time discussing balance with a magic system, I think equal thought should be spent on coming up with ways to make a fighter type cooler. Markdoc started the ball rolling with some example fighter powers. Just as there could be different schools of magic, there could be schools of fighting styles... an archer could deflect attacks with a well placed arrow, a fighter could have an aura of defence (getting into the enemies face) that maintains the enemies attention on them (mind control? with the special effect being "attack me and not those behind me"), or a mind control to taunt the enemy into a mistake or lose their cool,...

[Lezentauw]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

I think that if you like to play high fantasy campaigns, there is not going to be a balance between the mages and the warriors. The mages are going to be supreme, hence the fact you are playing a high magic style. If you play a sword & sorcery style, then things could easily shift to the warriors advantage.

 

In a s&s style setting, it is common for spells to take an entire segment or an extra segment to cast. The spells are interruptable, if the mage takes damage or if the caster gets knocked down. You can also let the non-casters get a dispel, called distracting blow. Many of these things are items that are common in video games like Dragon Age, WoW, or Guild Wars. You could also make it that each spell maintained, that they add to the difficulty to cast the next spell. LTE also can cause a mage to not be able to constantly cast spells non-stop. Couple increased endurance on spells, and some of the potent spells will be cast with reserve. You really want a mage to feel the END crunch, change how END gets charged for spells. Instead of 1/10 which is the norm, make it 1/5 like the weapon users. Abilities like sprint or charge, which can be +running for double end, can help them out as well. Especially if you do not let mages have fly or teleport.

 

With spells taking longer, a warrior can line of sight the mage. When a mage tries to cast a flame arrow at a warrior, he can keep running behind trees for cover. The flame arrow hits the tree, and the mage wasted some end. The next time the mage decides to through a fireball spell, the warrior is not going to be able to hide from this one, but he can use the dive for cover maneuver. In my campaign, I require fireballs to cost x2 end, as I want combat to be personnal, not a game of constant AoEs being thrown around. The fireball does less damage than the flame arrow, and it costs more end to cast. In a sense the mage has already burned the end for 3 spells. If the warrior can keep finding cover till he closes the gap, the mage will be close to empty once the warrior gets there, and pretty much dead meat.

 

Yes the mage can buff himself up with spells, if that is what he choses to do, while the warrior is LOS him till he closes. But, the mage is still going to be down that much END for the fight. While the mage may have some advantages at the start of the engagement, a defensively played warrior can outlast him. Now if the warrior does not notice the mage, or does not pay attention to him, then yes he will probably get wasted in a hurry. Which is no different than a warrior letting an archer rain arrows down on him.

 

As someone above has already stated, if you let magic have anything they want while limiting what a non-mage can have, then yes the mages are going to rule supreme. If you let the non-mages get some 'non-standard' abilities, even they have been modeled to death in the RPG games, then things start to get a bit closer to even. It is all in what you want, and how you set things up.

[phookz]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Comparing fiction to rpg is probably not what we want to do. In a long running campaign, most players won't be ok if you choose one of them to be "the one" and everyone else is ancillary.

 

Balance is not everything, I agree... but every player needs to feel awesome during combat. A fighter type that is limited to non-power combat maneuvers (maneuvers that the wizard has access to should they desire...) is going to feel less awesome (I know I would) than the wizard (martial arts, as written in the BBB, doesn't quite catch the fighter up to a wizard, IMO.). Balance, too, is not just about balancing a one-on-one fight, it's about balancing the "awesome-sauce." Allowing some special martial "powers", like entangle, or something similar to a D&D 4E fighter's ability to mark enemies (marking an enemy in 4E is a way for a character to make it more difficult for the enemy to attack anyone else except him... the ultimate way of keeping the enemy off the squishy wizard) goes a LONG way towards spreading the awesome-sauce around.

 

Therefore, though we are spending a lot of time discussing balance with a magic system, I think equal thought should be spent on coming up with ways to make a fighter type cooler. Markdoc started the ball rolling with some example fighter powers. Just as there could be different schools of magic, there could be schools of fighting styles... an archer could deflect attacks with a well placed arrow, a fighter could have an aura of defence (getting into the enemies face) that maintains the enemies attention on them (mind control? with the special effect being "attack me and not those behind me"), or a mind control to taunt the enemy into a mistake or lose their cool,...

 

I agree - that was my point but it may not have come across that way. There is an inherent difficulty with modeling most fiction due to the fact that the fiction has no need to balance the archetypes. That doesn't necessarily make for a good gaming experience, especially if you're playing the character with the weak sauce.

[dmjalund]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

In a high fantasy campaign, you give the fighters awesome magic armor and weapons

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

In a high fantasy campaign' date=' you give the fighters awesome magic armor and weapons[/quote']

 

So now they get their magic abilities for free while the wizard must pay points for his, and we're back to the "free gear vs points paid" argument.

 

If one character needs 100 points worth of free gear to compete with another character who pays points for all of their abilities, something is wrong with the costing model.

[Lezentauw]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

So now they get their magic abilities for free while the wizard must pay points for his, and we're back to the "free gear vs points paid" argument.

 

If one character needs 100 points worth of free gear to compete with another character who pays points for all of their abilities, something is wrong with the costing model.

 

Perhaps for High Fantasy campaigns, you could have people use resource points for magic items...

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Perhaps for High Fantasy campaigns' date=' you could have people use resource points for magic items...[/quote']

 

A variant of "free points vs free gear". Markdoc makes the very valid point (on other threads) that watching the Warrior strip off his armor so he can keep that really cool magical sword strains verisimillitude greatly.

[Markdoc]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Right, all of these suggestions that "Warriors are weaker, so give them more freebies" can be simply short-circuited by setting up your game so that, if you want warriors, they are not necessarily weaker.

 

cheers, Mark

[Old Man]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Right. Fantasy Hero is fortunate in that it's possible to balance spellcasters and mundanes depending on how you set up the magic system. And by now the game's been around long enough for us to have fairly good data on where the balance point ought to be.

 

At one extreme, you have 1st ed. FH, where spellcasters generally were inferior to warriors. Having to pay full cost for spells meant stacking an absurd (by modern standards) number of limitation on each spell in order to make them affordable. That meant that magic was typically slow, dangerous, and useless in combat--very swords & sorcery. I'm still used to coming up with -5 in limitations for a spell.

 

4th ed. FH introduced the College limitation, which was basically a free -1/2 limitation. That was a step in the right direction, but didn't go far enough balancewise; it just knocks a point or two off the otherwise full real cost of each spell. It also didn't help with some other issues.* Still, I've played far more 4th ed. FH than anything else.

 

5th ed. FH Turakian Age, of course, had the "real spell" 1/3 cost multiplier, which was kludgy, and probably overbalanced the spellcasters, but I haven't seen too many violent complaints from people who've played it. This is a flat 66% discount on all real costs, so it's a big jump over the college lim.

 

At the other extreme is the multipower, which is an 80 or 90% discount on spells depending on whether ultra slots are used. I've played in a couple of campaigns where MPs were the spellcaster framework, and I'm kind of ashamed of myself, because in each of those campaigns, my character was the best in the party at everything with the possible exception of straight melee combat, where they were still hardly inferior. It's just too easy to get an extremely useful 30-40 AP power down to a 1- or 2-point slot.

 

So from this I've determined that the "proper" balance of spellcasters vs. mundanes is achieved by giving casters about a 50% discount on the real cost of their spells. That seems to let them be useful in combat without being quite as good as true warriors, which seems about right to me given that spellcasters can still be extremely powerful outside of combat.** 50% is the cost break an EC tended to give (assuming it had a decent number of powers in it), which is why I've had quite a bit of success running campaigns with that particular framework for magic. But there's been a lot of resistance to using ECs in fantasy around these boards, which I never understood, and it's moot now anyway.

 

 

 

* Chief among the Other Issues was the one-spell-wonder or starcastle, which typically manifests as a "mage" with a ginormous RKA and a forcefield to go with it. I object to these not because it's unbalanced necessarily, but because it's boring. ECs helped to dissuade these as well.

 

** I find that the real game-wrecking spells are not combat spells at all, but things like invisibility, telepathy, mind control, and 0 END flight. All of these can let the spellcaster fast-forward through significant plot points with little to no participation from the rest of the group.

[Markdoc]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Right. Fantasy Hero is fortunate in that it's possible to balance spellcasters and mundanes depending on how you set up the magic system. And by now the game's been around long enough for us to have fairly good data on where the balance point ought to be.

 

At one extreme, you have 1st ed. FH, where spellcasters generally were inferior to warriors. Having to pay full cost for spells meant stacking an absurd (by modern standards) number of limitation on each spell in order to make them affordable. That meant that magic was typically slow, dangerous, and useless in combat--very swords & sorcery. I'm still used to coming up with -5 in limitations for a spell.

 

4th ed. FH introduced the College limitation, which was basically a free -1/2 limitation. That was a step in the right direction, but didn't go far enough balancewise; it just knocks a point or two off the otherwise full real cost of each spell. It also didn't help with some other issues.* Still, I've played far more 4th ed. FH than anything else.

 

5th ed. FH Turakian Age, of course, had the "real spell" 1/3 cost multiplier, which was kludgy, and probably overbalanced the spellcasters, but I haven't seen too many violent complaints from people who've played it. This is a flat 66% discount on all real costs, so it's a big jump over the college lim.

 

At the other extreme is the multipower, which is an 80 or 90% discount on spells depending on whether ultra slots are used. I've played in a couple of campaigns where MPs were the spellcaster framework, and I'm kind of ashamed of myself, because in each of those campaigns, my character was the best in the party at everything with the possible exception of straight melee combat, where they were still hardly inferior. It's just too easy to get an extremely useful 30-40 AP power down to a 1- or 2-point slot.

 

So from this I've determined that the "proper" balance of spellcasters vs. mundanes is achieved by giving casters about a 50% discount on the real cost of their spells. That seems to let them be useful in combat without being quite as good as true warriors, which seems about right to me given that spellcasters can still be extremely powerful outside of combat.** 50% is the cost break an EC tended to give (assuming it had a decent number of powers in it), which is why I've had quite a bit of success running campaigns with that particular framework for magic. But there's been a lot of resistance to using ECs in fantasy around these boards, which I never understood, and it's moot now anyway.

 

 

 

* Chief among the Other Issues was the one-spell-wonder or starcastle, which typically manifests as a "mage" with a ginormous RKA and a forcefield to go with it. I object to these not because it's unbalanced necessarily, but because it's boring. ECs helped to dissuade these as well.

 

** I find that the real game-wrecking spells are not combat spells at all, but things like invisibility, telepathy, mind control, and 0 END flight. All of these can let the spellcaster fast-forward through significant plot points with little to no participation from the rest of the group.

 

Good points, all. Just a couple of comments. We've never had a problem with "Starcastles" because every GM I have played with (and me) would have no problem rejecting such a character as "stupid".

 

I agree that combat spells are not the real game wreckers - in addition to your list I'd add clairsentience, N-ray vision, Mind-link and Teleport, but as a GM, I can live with these. You simply need to be aware that such spells exist and design your game (and scenario) to match. In many cases, this means departure from "fantasy norms" for me. In civilized countries, for example castles are out - tall walls do not give security in a high fantasy world, where heroes can fly, teleport or see through them. A military base in such a country looks more like a cross between a 17th century fort and a modern firebase.

 

As for the spell discount thing, I'd take issue with the 90% cost break for multipowers, since you have to pay for the reserve, and since it is usually difficult to whack all the limitations of a spell on a reserve, the cost break works out typically to around 60-70%. I'm guessing this is where the "divide by three" idea came from, even though it's a dreadful kludge, because it lacks even the balancing weaknesses of a MP. It does seem to have been a problem - one of the online games I played in broke down because the "divide by three" mages so clearly overpowered everyone else and one poster earlier in this thread made the same comment.

 

For Frameworks, my approach has been:

ECs I have used very rarely. The reasons are simply that it's unusual for a mage to have all his spells about the same size - which was required - and I am also wary of a mage who can have multiple powerful spells active at once.

Multipowers. I've used these a lot. The limiting factors I put in place are that spells are almost exclusively built as ultras and not scaleable. So in general, you have a choice of using two or more weaker powers or one big power - meaning you can be nigh-invulnerable or have a good attack - but not both at once.

VPP. I use this almost as much as MPs. Again, however, I require spells to be pre-builds, in most cases. This saves time at the table since there is no buggering about with "configuring your pool". You can have up to your active points running at any one time and the active points are clearly laid out on the character sheet. It's a case of "pick a spell or three". With this approach, characters with VPPs run pretty much like MPs, just with potentially infinite slots and the ability to run several powers at once. However the inability to limit pool cost decreases the amount of raw power they can manage.

 

More importantly, for all the different magic systems I wrote up I set up "rules of magic". By its very nature, magic in my game must take the minimum limitations:

Extra time - full phase, Concentration (to cast) half DCV, Requires a skill roll and Custom modifier: Requires LTE (all spells must require at least END to cast and that END is LTE).

Those limitations mean that magic in combat is a dodgy business - if you have use a full phase to switch slots, and be at half DCV during that process, it severely limits your HTH options. You can still build a very effective combat mage, if that's your thing, but you require some build-up time to get all your buffs running. If you are burning LTE, you can only cast so many spells in a limited period of time. This reduces the use of the mage as artillery support.

 

Further, I tend to build all spells myself (players can and do request new spells, but any player-initiated spell is built as cooperative venture) and thematically limit schools of magic, so it's hard, if not impossible, to build a mage who's "good at everything".

 

As a result, mages are an essential part of any adventuring party, but they tend to be very different. In the current game we have a weather mage and a healer. Earlier we had a warrior-mage. All of these have been a major addition to the party and all filled different roles in the party. In addition, none of them - even the warrior mage - replaced the rogue or the fighters. He functioned more as a specialist, who could harm things they could not ordinarily touch, but wasn't as good against mundane opponents. When it comes to combat, the healer-mage gets out his sword and shield and wades in with a blade. He's not as good as the dedicated fighters, but he's learned it's the most effective way for him to fight. When infiltration is needed, the weather mage can help set things up - but it's the rogue type who actually goes over the wall.

 

cheers, Mark

[dmjalund]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

So now they get their magic abilities for free while the wizard must pay points for his, and we're back to the "free gear vs points paid" argument.

 

If one character needs 100 points worth of free gear to compete with another character who pays points for all of their abilities, something is wrong with the costing model.

But the GM can controll what magic armor is available, and players cannot spend experience on improving them, whereas the mage can (within the rules of magic) adjust, improve and expand their magic as they gain experience

[Old Man]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

Good points' date=' all. Just a couple of comments. We've never had a problem with "Starcastles" because every GM I have played with (and me) would have no problem rejecting such a character as "stupid".[/quote']

 

I agree they're stupid, I just think that the games system should be set up to discourage stupid character designs rather than leaving that to the GM.

 

 

ECs I have used very rarely. The reasons are simply that it's unusual for a mage to have all his spells about the same size - which was required - and I am also wary of a mage who can have multiple powerful spells active at once.

 

Just a nitpick, ECs don't require that mages have spells that are all about the same size. True, it's more efficient if they are, but they don't have to be.

 

 

Further, I tend to build all spells myself (players can and do request new spells, but any player-initiated spell is built as cooperative venture) and thematically limit schools of magic, so it's hard, if not impossible, to build a mage who's "good at everything".

 

This to me looks like what is actually preventing spellcasters from dominating your campaign--you, the GM, not the rules. Given your MP or VPP setups, if you let me design my character's spells and didn't impose thematic restrictions on powers, my character would easily be competitive with purpose-built combat mundanes and would dominate the game outside of combat. For the one simple reason that I'd have most or all of the powers list on my character sheet. Your required limitations mostly only apply in combat and, while they matter, they're not enough to offset the ludicrous versatility that the MP cost breaks or VPP provide.

 

Looking at MP costs more closely, supposing I go with the usual 40-point MP with 1.75 in limitations, my mage spends:

 

8 points on INT.

17 points on magic skill, so that all the skill rolls are 16- or better.

15 points for the MP reserve, again at -1.75.

15 points for 15 different 40-point powers. (This is conservative, by the way; usually if I'm trying to minmax an MP I'm shooting for 20+ slots.)

 

= 55 points for 600 points' worth of powers. Now admittedly I can only use or activate one at a time, but I hardly need more than that when I have access to much of the powers list, and 40 points of anything in fantasy is usually pretty good. And this is what I'm trying to avoid--the swiss army knife character. Sneak into the castle in broad daylight? Sure. Interrogate a prisoner? No problem. Fly over to the next continent? Okay, I'll even pick up dinner on the way back. One point apiece.

 

Kudos to you, by the way--I was always too lazy as a GM to build the whole grimoire myself or otherwise go back and forth with the player about what we should or should not allow his character to be able to do. I'm much more the "here's the system, go make a character, let's play" type. And I've played with many powergamers, and I am one myself, so I tend to want to preempt that kind of behavior up front. MPs and VPPs don't really help me, and I've found them abusable (by me), so I'm inclined to steer newer players away from those frameworks for fantasy spellcasters.

[Markdoc]

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them?

 

This to me looks like what is actually preventing spellcasters from dominating your campaign--you' date=' the GM, not the rules. Given your MP or VPP setups, if you let me design my character's spells and didn't impose thematic restrictions on powers, my character would easily be competitive with purpose-built combat mundanes and would dominate the game outside of combat.[/quote']

 

Absolutely! That's the point I have been trying to make. Don't waste time worrying over "the problem that doesn't really exist" of free gear. As a GM, worry about how you are going to prevent magic users taking over your FH game. Then set up your system to prevent it, if you don't want "All mages, all the time".

 

At the metagame level, Hero has been tuned to allow characters with different power sets to balance off against each other, and in general it does it reasonably well. If everyone has access to the full power list (ie: Champions), or alternatively everyone has access to the same sections of the power list (ie: Dark Champions, Western Hero, etc) characters can be different, but balanced. However in some genres (most especially Fantasy Hero) where some character archetypes have access to a wide range of powers and others do not, you have introduced an external imbalancing factor.

 

It is up to the GM to address that, because the rules system as set up, can't. You shouldn't expect it to, in fact, because by adopting the rule that only some archetypes can use certain powers you are deliberately making a major change to the rules.

 

Kudos to you' date=' by the way--I was always too lazy as a GM to build the whole grimoire myself or otherwise go back and forth with the player about what we should or should not allow his character to be able to do. I'm much more the "here's the system, go make a character, let's play" type. And I've played with many powergamers, and I am one myself, so I tend to want to preempt that kind of behavior up front. MPs and VPPs don't really help me, and I've found them abusable (by me), so I'm inclined to steer newer players away from those frameworks for fantasy spellcasters.[/quote']

 

I put together a thing called "the ultimate grimoire", long, long ago. It was a fair amount of work (it contains a lot more spells than the published Grimoires, though I have those too) but it was worth it. You can get it here, with handy Herodesigner templates courtesy of the nice folx here at the boards. The spells are indexed by type, which means I can avoid back and forth with the players by saying "These are the schools of magic available. Here's a list of what they can teach."

 

cheers, Mark