Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

[Fred Lang]

I'm new to Hero 6E. I'm searching for a system to convert the '80s RPG Skyrealms of Jorune to, so I'm asking if Hero 6E is what I'm looking for.

 

I have dabbled in the conversion with Burning Wheel and GURPS 4E, but I've found issues there that keep me searching for a system to call home for Jorune. (Burning Wheel's pre-planned, scripted combat turned me off. GURPS 4E, though similar in many ways to Hero 6E at face value, seems to not go quite deep enough into the mechanics of things to make me perfectly happy with a Jorune conversion. Jorune's energy-wielding powers are hard to convey with GURPS' rules--I felt that I was still being given clumped, modular answers that I could not crack open to really create what I wanted there.)

 

Thing is, Jorune is a deadly place. It's not an Indiana Jones movie, where everything is cinematic and the bad guys shoot at you a zillion times and you shrug it off / they all miss you. Jorune is gritty--a single blast shot or good slice with a sword, and you're out for a while--if not worse.

 

Hero 6E's origins as a "supers" system makes me wonder if I've found a great system that allows me to build from scratch what I need, but then lifts everything into that dramatic realism frame of reference that steals away the consequences that I'm looking for in a Jorune conversion rule set.

 

I was happy to read in the 6E introduction that there are optional rules that deflate that sense of "action film / super hero" flow in favor of a more gritty feel. Is there a place online somewhere that describes these more dangerous optional rules in a way that a person new to the system would appreciate--some collection of options that make Hero 6E less...er..."super"?

 

I do love that I can really dig in deeply to constructing from the bottom up what I want when creating the races, monsters, weapons and energy (magic) systems in Jorune--but I don't want undefeatable heroes who are just knocked unconscious in battles--I need a system that can describe the exotic, dangerous nature of Jorune before I commit to a conversion.

 

Thanks for helping out the new guy. Let me know if any of my suppositions are ill-informed. I'm here to learn.

[mayapuppies]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

I use 6E for my gritty, low-fantasy setting of Kamarathin. I can guarantee you it can be deadly.

[Lucius]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

I'm new to Hero 6E. I'm searching for a system to convert the '80s RPG Skyrealms of Jorune to, so I'm asking if Hero 6E is what I'm looking for.

 

I have dabbled in the conversion with Burning Wheel and GURPS 4E, but I've found issues there that keep me searching for a system to call home for Jorune. (Burning Wheel's pre-planned, scripted combat turned me off. GURPS 4E, though similar in many ways to Hero 6E at face value, seems to not go quite deep enough into the mechanics of things to make me perfectly happy with a Jorune conversion. Jorune's energy-wielding powers are hard to convey with GURPS' rules--I felt that I was still being given clumped, modular answers that I could not crack open to really create what I wanted there.)

 

Thing is, Jorune is a deadly place. It's not an Indiana Jones movie, where everything is cinematic and the bad guys shoot at you a zillion times and you shrug it off / they all miss you. Jorune is gritty--a single blast shot or good slice with a sword, and you're out for a while--if not worse.

 

Hero 6E's origins as a "supers" system makes me wonder if I've found a great system that allows me to build from scratch what I need, but then lifts everything into that dramatic realism frame of reference that steals away the consequences that I'm looking for in a Jorune conversion rule set.

 

I was happy to read in the 6E introduction that there are optional rules that deflate that sense of "action film / super hero" flow in favor of a more gritty feel. Is there a place online somewhere that describes these more dangerous optional rules in a way that a person new to the system would appreciate--some collection of options that make Hero 6E less...er..."super"?

 

I do love that I can really dig in deeply to constructing from the bottom up what I want when creating the races, monsters, weapons and energy (magic) systems in Jorune--but I don't want undefeatable heroes who are just knocked unconscious in battles--I need a system that can describe the exotic, dangerous nature of Jorune before I commit to a conversion.

 

Thanks for helping out the new guy. Let me know if any of my suppositions are ill-informed. I'm here to learn.

 

As it happens, I'm working on a Skyrealms of Jorune conversion right now. Possibly we could collaborate?

 

As for making the system deadlier, do you have Volume 2, Combat and Adventuring?

 

My suggestions for making the game less "super" -

 

Use Hit Locations.

 

Use the Impairing and Disabling rules.

 

Use Critical Hits and Fumbles

 

Use the optional Bleeding rules

 

Use the Environmental rules. Even if starvation and exposure don't kill a character they may soften the character up for whatever DOES kill them.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Don't use a palindromedary

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Just set low defense caps for PCs, particularly in terms of Resistant Defenses.

[gojira]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Just set low defense caps for PCs' date=' particularly in terms of Resistant Defenses.[/quote']

 

Yes, this. Deadly campaigns have low armor and lots of killing attacks. That combo will put some folks on the ground.

 

Keep the armor levels "realistic" (not super or even heroic), disallow Combat Luck and use plenty o' guns (or whatever is the deadly equivalent in your game world).

[Robot_Nixon]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Do you want them dead-dead or dying a lot? If you want them to go from EEG/ECG active to flatline in a single shot, house rule the dying rules. Instead of body under 0 before death, make it death at zero or half or quarter body below zero.

 

As far as the above suggestions, all are good but the easiest is the high active power total vs. the low defense option. (i.e. 50-60 KA AP vs. >8 rPD/rED)

 

be warned though, you're going to need a full pad of backup characters.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

I'm not familiar with the system/setting, but I suspect that the lethality comes either from armor being rare, or armor being of limited effectiveness. That's pretty easy to transport. Hero SYstem tracks STUN (knockout) and BOD (killing) damage separately. A character with 6 defenses, none of which are resistant (the norm if they have no armor in a gritty fantasy setting) struck by a skilled swordsman is probably looking at 2d6 BOD damage with no defenses, minimum, so about 7 per hit. Use hit locations - a head strike will average 14 (doubled) which will take many characters to "bleeding to death". The Body stat starts at 10, and a 20 is extremely high, so combat becomes quite lethal, quite quickly.

 

Restrict healing abilities. Hero is very well set up to do so. Without special healing abilities, recoverry of Body is typically measured in months.

 

So I echo the comments above - you can easily set game parameters that make combat lethal.

 

Lucius mentioned above that he's working with the same system - he'd be an excellent source of information on what is working and what hasn't worked so well.

[Greywind]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Do you want them dead-dead or dying a lot? If you want them to go from EEG/ECG active to flatline in a single shot, house rule the dying rules. Instead of body under 0 before death, make it death at zero or half or quarter body below zero.

 

As far as the above suggestions, all are good but the easiest is the high active power total vs. the low defense option. (i.e. 50-60 KA AP vs. >8 rPD/rED)

 

be warned though, you're going to need a full pad of backup characters.

Why do that when you can just as easily cap body at a lower level.

[Fred Lang]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Great stuff so far--I'm very hopeful based on these early comments.

[phoenix240]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Check out Bleeding and Impairing/Disabling injuries too

[Robot_Nixon]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Why do that when you can just as easily cap body at a lower level.

 

Re-read the first line of my post if you really want an answer.

[Greywind]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

I did. I quoted it. Notice also that my statement ended in a period. Not a question mark.

[Robot_Nixon]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

I posted a way to have less chance of a character in a dying state as opposed to completely dead. My suggestion of 0% is still well below your suggested method.

[Greywind]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

You first.

[Thag13]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Hey folks, this is an official "cool it" warning here.

 

Play nice or not at all...

THis is a nice thread and I dont want bickering to force me to lock it....

 

have fun...be nice...

[Lucius]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Lucius mentioned above that he's working with the same system - he'd be an excellent source of information on what is working and what hasn't worked so well.

 

Thank you, but given that Strongbow already knows and loves the setting I'm sure there's a great deal he can tell me as well.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary doesn't understand isho at all

[ideasmith]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Another Option: Increase Weapon Damage. Adding 5 dice to Killing Damage and 15 dice to Normal Damage would have characters out for a while or worse from a single hit.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Another Option: Increase Weapon Damage. Adding 5 dice to Killing Damage and 15 dice to Normal Damage would have characters out for a while or worse from a single hit.

That would definitely make it more deadly. Wow.

 

Personally, I would start everybody at base 5 or 8 stats, keep build points low, keep maximum Def lower than maximum DC, and use all those rules listed above (bleeding, hit locations, impairing/disabling wounds, etc).

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Another Option: Increase Weapon Damage. Adding 5 dice to Killing Damage and 15 dice to Normal Damage would have characters out for a while or worse from a single hit.

 

Perhaps Body damage only. If STUN damage was included in that, all you'd really accomplish is making everybody buy craploads of Lightning Reflexes because He Who Goes First Wins.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Another thing; disallow Combat Luck and Defense Maneuver over level II. I would be more concerned about Defense Maneuver as it eliminates Multiple Attacker bonus and Attack From Behind bonuses for enemies the character cannot even perceive. Potentially one of the most powerful abilities a character can get for the cost, IMO. There is also some vagueness to the wording that worries me. A competent Rules Lawyer could probably squeeze even more utility out of it. For a mere 10 points, it allows a player to remove two effective tools from the GM box of tricks. I would call that a caution sign ability at least.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Perhaps Body damage only. If STUN damage was included in that' date=' all you'd really accomplish is making everybody buy craploads of Lightning Reflexes because He Who Goes First Wins.[/quote']Not to try and pick nits, but any setting where there will be a high probability of instant death or incapacitation will make the players want to be first. Even at Hero standard lethality, I see a lot of people buying up Dex and Lightning Reflexes for the opportunity to go first. Often it is just to Hold and adjust to the tide of battle, but I have rarely ever seen players go for the lower end of the initiative scale.

[Lucius]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

In my observation, when players realize that every combat entails a significant risk of getting killed, they start trying really hard to avoid combat whenever possible.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Weapon Familiarity: Palindromedary Mounted Weapons

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Not to try and pick nits' date=' but any setting where there will be a high probability of instant death or incapacitation will make the players want to be first. Even at Hero standard lethality, I see a lot of people buying up Dex and Lightning Reflexes for the opportunity to go first. Often it is just to Hold and adjust to the tide of battle, but I have rarely ever seen players go for the lower end of the initiative scale.[/quote']

 

Yes, but at standard HERO lethality, 'going first' does not equal 'instant win'. Potential advantage, certainly, but adding 5d6 to Kills and 15d6 to Normal attacks with stun included will mean if you go first, and hit, your opponent is either dead or knocked out. More lethal or not, combat needs to be balanced, not just a game of rocket tag.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

In my observation, when players realize that every combat entails a significant risk of getting killed, they start trying really hard to avoid combat whenever possible.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Weapon Familiarity: Palindromedary Mounted Weapons

 

Whenever I ran a campaign where lethality was high (Danger International, Western Hero, Pirates & Swashbucklers, or just Grim-&-Gritty Anything) I had the players create one or two replacement characters while they were creating the first. That way there wasn't as much of a delay while the group traveled to the next destination where they might logically find a new party member.

 

On the downside, there was a strong incentive to rework the replacements every time the player thought he had a new insight into the game mechanics (not necessarily munchkining, but close). This led to the player doing astoundingly stupid things trying to kill his "old" character and replace him with "Johnny Fine-Tuned, which I would inevitably relent to. This was often followed by a further insight that Replacement #1 wasn't as well-defended/armed/equipped as he might have been, and the cycle continues. It's really quite fun to watch once you learn that in the end, the only thing that really matters is "Did everyone have fun?"

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

 

Whenever I ran a campaign where lethality was high (Danger International' date=' Western Hero, Pirates & Swashbucklers,[/i'] or just Grim-&-Gritty Anything) I had the players create one or two replacement characters while they were creating the first. That way there wasn't as much of a delay while the group traveled to the next destination where they might logically find a new party member.

 

On the downside, there was a strong incentive to rework the replacements every time the player thought he had a new insight into the game mechanics (not necessarily munchkining, but close). This led to the player doing astoundingly stupid things trying to kill his "old" character and replace him with "Johnny Fine-Tuned, which I would inevitably relent to. This was often followed by a further insight that Replacement #1 wasn't as well-defended/armed/equipped as he might have been, and the cycle continues. It's really quite fun to watch once you learn that in the end, the only thing that really matters is "Did everyone have fun?"

 

This is a big part of why I prefer less-lethal or non-lethal games. You get one character, you know you're going to be playing it for a while, so you have reason to invest in, and focus one, just the one. In my experience, the higher the character turnover rate, the less time and effort a player is willing to put into a character. Why spend more time designing it than playing it?