D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

[AlHazred]

So, I've been playing a little D&D 4E recently, and they've definitely done a number on the system. It plays much more now like a MMO than a tabletop game, but they've made some good changes as well.

 

One thing they did was to standardize a set of Conditions that characters can bee suffering from, such as Immobilized, Restrained, Stunned, and so on. They also changed the way characters gain abilities. Now you have three kinds of powers based on your class: At-Will abilities you can use all the time, Encounter powers that only work once per encounter, and Daily powers that you only regain when you take 8 hours of rest (called an Extended Rest).

 

I've been toying with converting some of these abilities into Hero terms, but the list is huge -- you choose one power from a list of at least three almost every level. It would be interesting to come up with some general guidelines though; I put that in my "to do" list.

 

Then a buddy sent me this email:

Not looking for formal write-ups, just an off-the-cuff suggestion on how you'd model it in Hero.

 

1a) A silence field *burst* of a limited (1-hex radius) size that also restores END to the user.

 

1b) As 1a, except instead of a silence burst, a small amount of damage that has a chance to stun opponents.

 

2) A passive ability that gives combat bonuses to followers (like a hunter's pets or a necromancer's ghouls).

 

3) An ability that removes a mind-control or -affecting effect (charm, sleep, fear)

 

4) A cannibalism ability that lets a critter consume a nearby humanoid corpse to rapidly regain END.

 

Also, what kind of power limitation would you put on an ability that could only be used once per combat (essentially mimicking an Encounter Power of 4E)?

I thought I'd open it to the floor.

[AlHazred]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

I'll go. I'll assume Hero System 6E for now, but 5E suggestions are also welcome:

1a) A silence field *burst* of a limited (1-hex radius) size that also restores END to the user.

The restoring END ability is merely the second part of a Compound Power, an Aid END. In D&D 4E, most abilities that inflict Conditions on people (such as Silenced) would be "save ends," which means at the end of every round the creature gets to roll a d20 and on a 10 or better, the Condition ends. So, some effects can last all encounter, while others last one Phase. That looks like some sort of Requires A Roll limitation; since ordinary D&D 4E abilities should be modeled without a Skill Roll (i.e., they always go off when used) this is probably worth a -1/2 bonus. Also, in D&D 4E, you have to target each creature in a burst separately for most attacks; this is the Nonselective modifier to an Area Of Effect.

 

So, this power looks like this:

Steal Voice: (Total: 27 Active Cost, 15 Real Cost) Darkness to Hearing Group 2m radius, Costs Endurance Only To Activate (+1/4), Sticky (not standard Sticky - power remains on initial targets when they leave burst zone, no other targets affected; +1/2), Time Limit (5 Minutes; +3/4), Invisible Power Effects (Visible to Magic Sense Group Only; +1) (21 Active Points); Requires A Roll (11- roll; target makes Roll at the end of each Phase or effect ends; -1/2), Nonselective Target (-1/4) (Real Cost: 12) plus Aid END 1d6 (6 Active Points); Only to Aid Self (-1) (Real Cost: 3) END=2

 

1b) As 1a, except instead of a silence burst, a small amount of damage that has a chance to stun opponents.

That would take the above power and replace Darkness with a Blast.

 

2) A passive ability that gives combat bonuses to followers (like a hunter's pets or a necromancer's ghouls).

This is a typical ability for leader character classes in the new D&D. This is similar to the Inspire Talent in Fantasy Hero.

Inspire Competence: Aid OCV 2d6 (standard effect: 6 points), Area Of Effect (32m Radius; voice radius; +1), Selective (+1/4) (27 Active Points) END=3

 

3) An ability that removes a mind-control or -affecting effect (charm, sleep, fear)

One important point: in Fantasy Hero games, I almost always build Mind Control powers with the Can Be Dispelled limitation, as it's much closer to what we see in fantasy stories. If you did that to begin with, this is just a special Dispel Power. Note that this means your Fear powers and Sleep spells need to be built as Mind Control.

 

4) A cannibalism ability that lets a critter consume a nearby humanoid corpse to rapidly regain END.

This is just a (particularly gruesome) Expendable Focus limitation for an Aid END, Only To Aid Self.

Gruesome Renewal: Aid END 1d6 (6 Active Points); OAF Expendable (Very Difficult to obtain; fresh corpse; -1 1/2), Only to Aid Self (-1)

 

Also, what kind of power limitation would you put on an ability that could only be used once per combat (essentially mimicking an Encounter Power of 4E)?

Encounter Powers in D&D 4E last until the end of the encounter or for five minutes. This makes it easy -- buy the Fantasy Hero powers with a 5 Minute duration and call it a wash.

[Cancer]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

This kind of thing has been a back-burner item for me for a while, something that never quite makes it to the active thinking list. (That's been for a series of RL reasons that have been upon me since the beginning of last June.) Part of the reason I'm interested is ... it'd be interesting to see if one could establish a sort of point value equivalence for those spiffy conditions (and other effects like pushing or sliding) and damage. It seems odd that they stopped short of doing that, given they went for extreme MMO granularity in other aspects of the system.

[chrisinpm]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

I'm Al's friend that sent him the email. I've played the system on and off for a long time (I've still got the 1st printing of Champions done on the IBM Selectric typewriter in storage somewhere - bought it in Toys R Us when I was a kid).

 

I actually wasn't trying to model stuff specifically on 4E powers. Sharp-eyed readers might notice that what I'm trying to do is to model some of the racial abilities of the Horde races in World of Warcraft. (I can hear the puking and retching from the grognards already, but try to hang in there. Here, throw up in this bag.) I had some friends from the FLGS ask me on and off about doing something WoW-related, and I've been kicking around what system to use for it.

 

I'm assuming that they're going to want to basically port their game toons over for the tabletop, and therein lies the problem. While there was a 3.0/3.5 D&D rules release for WoW, I found that it doesn't recreate characters from that setting very well in terms of mechanics. So a point-based system seems to be the way to go.

 

(Ironically, 4.0 would have been *perfect* for mirroring WoW, since 4E brought in so many of WoW's elements in its structure. That WoW RPG was basically the right product bolted onto the right system - just one edition too early.)

 

In WoW, there are basically four important factors making up a character - your race, your class, your professions (you get two), and your gear. Gear seems the easiest to handle since it basically becomes the points you're willing to spend along with GM permission. The classes are pretty standard fare, though each class has a "tree" that determines what they do best. Best example is a paladin, that can be built as a healer, a "tank," or a damage dealer. Again, this seems easy to mimic in Hero by just allowing the players to choose powers that match what they can do in the game.

 

Professions in the game can be quite powerful. There's two profession sorts - one are "gathering" professions, the other are "crafting" professions. In a nutshell, you use one to gather the materials you need for the other. So you have mining/blacksmithing, herbalism/alchemy, etc. Because the crafting professions basically require gathering professions, and are really flexible (they can make magic items, buff existing magic items, etc.) it seemed like they should be built with a variable power pool, with a corresponding skill roll requirement. For example, your Alchemy VPP would require a Profession: Herbalist skill roll to represent how successful you were in gathering your materials.

 

Race seemed like the place where, as GM, I should have racial packages for the orcs, goblins, trolls, blood elves, and Forsaken (undead) that comprise the Horde faction, which is the one that the players play in the game. In my mind, the racials for the Forsaken are going to be much more powerful than their other counterparts, because of how much stuff you need to properly model undead (all the Life Support powers and all that) - but in a point based system this works just fine if the races aren't all equally powerful. I played in Al-'s Hero game and he did a great job with race package write-ups, so I'd like to see if it can be done here.

 

So in short, what I'm trying to do is to explore at least how much of the work I could do as a GM up-front, in the form of packages for race and (possibly) professions and classes, to leave the players to focus on fleshing out their characters. I don't want to do too much for them, since that defeats the point of letting them exercise the freedom of point-building characters; but I also don't want to leave them swinging in the wind since they have limited Hero chargen experience (if any) and the process of making a Hero character is horribly front-loaded, especially for newbies.

 

This gives a good overview of the Horde racial abilities. http://www.wowwiki.com/Racial_trait#Horde

 

- Christian

[Karmakaze]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

Packages are probably your best bet.

 

Though it depends a bit on whether you want to just recreate existing characters, or also recreate the leveling up path. If the character already exist with WoW stats, but are going to use HERO experience thereafter, it might be easier to do a one-off conversion and work from there.

[AlHazred]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

I played in Al-'s Hero game and he did a great job with race package write-ups' date=' so I'd like to see if it can be done here.[/quote']The PDF with all of the race packages can be found linked here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/entry.php/1471-High-Fantasy-Races-Part-2

 

I never bothered to make all of the Hero Designer package deals available, since only a tiny subset of the available races were going to be used, but they're somewhere on my hard drive if you want them to start with.

[chrisinpm]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

Packages are probably your best bet.

 

Though it depends a bit on whether you want to just recreate existing characters, or also recreate the leveling up path. If the character already exist with WoW stats, but are going to use HERO experience thereafter, it might be easier to do a one-off conversion and work from there.

 

I like your avatar

 

My experience with Fantasy Hero thus far has been that it differs significantly in one place compared to level-based systems - the sense of progression and advancement. When playing FH it felt like the character you were playing after one session wasn't significantly different from the one you played ten sessions later. On the other hand, there's a pronounced difference between, say, 1st and 4th level PCs in D&D. In FH, starting player characters are much more competent; conversely, it felt like they didn't have too many places to improve.

 

That isn't necessarily a bad thing, and is probably desirable for a short-term campaign. But that difference makes me think that modeling the characters and planning for the leveling path is probably a bad idea. Better IMO to let them envision the level of power/ability their characters would be in the tabletop, and let them go from there.

[AlHazred]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

I deliberately slowed down the progression since you guys were starting out as Very Powerful Heroes. You can easily do something to give a feel more of level-based progression -- give the PCs 4-5 XP per adventure. If you get 12-15 points saved up, you can pick up significant abilities rather quickly.

 

Running a game based on WoW, you're going to have to plan for a really, really high level of power at the end of the campaign. Plan ahead -- build the packages the characters are going to buy early.

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

I've been working on a similar project on-and-off since 4e came out. So far, I have all the races from PHB 1 & 2, the skill list, some baselines for converting damage, and a workaround for opportunity attacks. I haven't playtested them yet, so they might be a little rough.

[AlHazred]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

I assume what you're going for is something like this?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]37983[/ATTACH]

I've got a HD package deal for it here.

[chrisinpm]

Re: D&D 4E Powers as Fantasy Hero Powers

 

I assume what you're going for is something like this?

 

Basically. In this specific example, the invisibility would have the extra limitation that the character must be motionless (since you don't play WoW to my knowledge i wouldn't expect you to know that, but that's how the power works in game), and I wouldn't bother with Wisp Form at all since that's something specific to the MMORPG experience (the "corpse run" back to where you died so you can auto-resurrect and keep playing), but yes.

 

Also, the Blood Elf Arcane Torrent ability (1a in my email) doesn't linger; it's more along the lines of an instantaneous interrupt of any adjacent caster, rather than an actual zone of silence a la D&D. I'm not sure how to model the ability to interrupt something since Hero's action sequence is staggered. Maybe a Trigger, although it would need to be one that the player could opt not to activate when the conditions for setting it off are met.

 

Speaking of AoE's, it's worth noting that in the game, ALL spells are the Hero-equivalent of Selective; there's no such thing as friendly-fire damage in the game. I'd be inclined to give it to free to everyone (for good and bad guys alike) but I could see that as being pretty crazy in certain circumstances; there wouldn't be much point to not buying only AoE spells/effects and never buying up OCV, since you'll never need to do anything beyond hitting a hex.

 

- Christian

 

- Christian