How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

[Utech]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

As I understand it' date=' in heroic games you can spend wealth on getting equipment which can easily equate to far more than 15 points of stuff without putting a dent in your 15 point Wealth. Which is why I wouldn't expect a GM to allow it in the first place. Someone with 15 pts in Wealth in a heroic game could, should and probably would outfit their entire party with the best mundane gear money can buy (probably more than 15 cp each) without it making a notable dent on their wealth.[/quote']

 

This assumes that the characters have access to the best mundane gear money can buy. There are many ways to ensure that Wealth pays off (excuse me) without breaking the bank (I beg your pardon). Some possibilities:

 

• Although the character with Wealth starts in a major city and can purchase whatever he likes, he meets up with the others in an outpost with few things available at any price.
  
• It's easy to find things for the human fighter with Wealth, but there's little for sale for the dwarf (nothing he couldn't buy for himself without Wealth); the elf won't condescend to use human goods; the cleric won't purchase things that aren't made in the "properly religious" way; the palidan keeps giving away his extra money to charity; etc.
  
• The characters can all go shopping together, but then they won't have a chance to play up their other strengths. The thief won't be able to spy on people. The mage won't be able to spend time memorizing new spells. And so on and so forth.
  

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

+13 Dex; Does not affect CV (-1) [39 Active; 19 Real] (Arguably a larger Limitation and less points, though the base cost might be higher in games with NCM)

 

or maybe:

 

Skill Levels: +3 with Agility Skills [15 Real]

 

Well, I guess he also gets the advantage that limited DEX doesn't double in cost when he tops 20.

 

WF: Swords [1 Real] (The equivalent of a simple proficiency with a greatsword; what about the D&D proficiency made a wizard a capable combatant again?)

 

and MAYBE (but not necessarily):

 

+8 Str; Only to meet the Str Min of a greatsword (-2) [8 Active; 3 Real]

 

And the SFX of being immensely strong, but only to weild a Greatsword? He can swing this Greatsword effortlessly, but he can't swing a lighter sword or an axe? Where is the logic there?

 

I don't have much of a stake either way in this discussion, but I can't let a challenge like that go unanswered, at least somewhat.

 

Don't buy him any Weapon Skills at all. That's an automatic -3 to his OCV when trying to hit someone. Or give him a Physical Limitation that gives him minuses to his OCV/DCV (Incurably Clumsy, perhaps?)

 

-3 OCV leaves 5, which hits a 3 DCV on a 13-, or about 80% of the time. That seems pretty accurate to me. And a character described as "Highly agile" strikes me as not being "Incurably Clumsy".

 

CSLs. IIRC (I don't have the books in front of me), you can get a weapon class based CSL for 3 points a pop. So 12 points gives you a +4 with Swords, which should make him a darn good sword fighter.

 

How's that?

 

He's still doing 1d6+1. Like the short spear or the small axe his STR would alow him to weild without penalty. But at least the 4 levels will cancel out his -4 OCV. Of course, he has to sacrifice 12 points worth of spells to do it.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

I don't 'convert' them' date=' everyone has separate and unique tastes, I expect they would be as stiff necked about a lecture on the 'superiourity' of Hero as I would be about a lecture on the superiourity of d20. Both games have advantages and disadvantages.[/quote']

 

Exactly. Rep'd.

[Istaran]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

Well' date=' plotlines aren't really game system specific. I've played in a number of different systems with both good and ok plotlines in each. Really plotlines are more GM and group specific [/quote']

 

a) If I could get that GM to run D&D with the kind of effort and enthusiasm he brings to running HERO I'd probably be quite happy. But as the GM is a person with his own tastes, he wants to run his game in HERO.

 

D&D 3.5 ran away with out of combat abilities (for casters in particular, and to a lesser degree rogue-types) and 4e may have reigned them in too far. The balance in HERO seems to be working for us. Our HERO game has a much more out-of-combat focus than D&D is really optimized for.

 

c) HERO defaults to the GM making all their own villains, monsters, etc. (though you can buy books of pregens to use wholesale or as a starting point). D&D defaults to the DM using pregens from the various monster manuals and such. As such, HEROs guidelines for putting together your own custom bad guys are mostly superior. If a GM wants to build all of the opponents to conform to his personal vision of his personal gameworld, the HERO approach seems to be a more natural fit.

 

d) As a counter point though, if the GM is constrained on time.. 4e allows you to quickly slap together a ready to run game session rather quickly IME. You could probably do this with HERO with some supplements if you need to.. but the default method of custom building all the opponents doesn't really mesh with a tight schedule. At this point if I GM it will be either D&D 4e or else I'll be running HERO fast and loose, where I don't bother with NPC character sheets and just give them the CVs and defenses I want and have them drop when I feel like they've taken enough damage. If I have a feel for who/what the NPC is supposed to be, I can make them function the way I want without the time and hassle of working up a proper character sheet. But I've done this in D&D 3.5 (and certainly could in 4e as well) so that's not really a point in favor of either.

[Sean Waters]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

I don't why being handed a character sheet by a GM would lead one to assume the GM is familiar with the system. There are other possibilities: the GM could have simply copied the character out of a book; the character sheet could've been created by the GM's friend or mother; or since the player is not familiar with the system, it could be complete gibberish (how would the player know?).

 

The point I was trying to make that by catering to those who want a less complex character creation system, you may end up turning off those to whom the flexibility of character creation would be the major selling point.

 

And finally, to me if you take away the character creation system, there isn't much left but a pretty typical RPG resolution system that is really not that much different than a dozen or so others.

 

It's a "role"-playing game. The characters should be the single most important thing. The rest of the world is just there for the characters to interact with. And in fact, I'd go as far as saying nothing in the rest of the world really exists until the characters interact with it in some way.

 

We may have a bit of a disconnect on definitions. IMO you could have half a dozen players with identical characters and they could role play them just fine; being able to customise what your character can do does not limit or enhance your ability to role play, although I fully acknowledge to the Hero character creation system encourages people who might not otherwise have done so to look at role playing aspects of their character. OTOH I've also seen people who think that a complex and beautifully engineered character who is good at plot-cracking and combat is all you need to role play, and that just ain't so.

 

Anyway, I'm not advocating getting rid of character creation, but I really don't think it would take more than a few pages to come up with a much quicker and simpler character creation system for those who want to go that way in additon to retaining the current 'ground up' system.

 

As to Hero being a reasonably standard RPG system, well, yes, it is now: many of the others are catching up. It is still an excellent system, even if there are other excellent systems too.

[Korvar]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

And the SFX of being immensely strong' date=' but only to weild a Greatsword? He can swing this Greatsword effortlessly, but he can't swing a lighter sword or an axe? Where is the logic there?[/quote']

 

One wonders at the "logic" of a STR 10 person being able to wield a Greatsword in D&D, too.

 

However, the +8 Str, only for Greatsword strength min could represent the training he has undergone to overcome his lack of brute strength. Instead of using brute strength to heave the sword around, he flows with the sword, utilising his whole body and the sword's own weight to direct it where he wants to go. Those techniques don't transfer easily to any other heavy weapon, as they are balanced so differently.

 

Another approach would be to directly balance the effects: at Str 10 wielding a Str min 17 weapon he's down 2 OCV and 2 Damage Classes. So:

 

+2 OCV

+2 DC HKA

Only with Greatswords (-2) 20 active, 6 real

 

I don't have UMA, so I can't recall how to make custom martial arts manoeuvres, but a martial art that gave him +2 OCV with +2 DC with Greatswords would also work.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

And a character described as "Highly agile" strikes me as not being "Incurably Clumsy".

 

He's still doing 1d6+1. Like the short spear or the small axe his STR would alow him to weild without penalty. But at least the 4 levels will cancel out his -4 OCV. Of course, he has to sacrifice 12 points worth of spells to do it.

 

On these two points, I would describe the first limitation as "Flustered in Melee" rather than "Incurably Clumsy".

 

For the second point, skill levels can be allocated to causing more damage. Buy up enough skill levels to do the job. They can be super cheap.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

One wonders at the "logic" of a STR 10 person being able to wield a Greatsword in D&D, too.

 

However, the +8 Str, only for Greatsword strength min could represent the training he has undergone to overcome his lack of brute strength. Instead of using brute strength to heave the sword around, he flows with the sword, utilising his whole body and the sword's own weight to direct it where he wants to go. Those techniques don't transfer easily to any other heavy weapon, as they are balanced so differently.

 

Broadswords, longswords and bastard swords are balanced very differently from greatswords? Why are they a closely related group, then?

 

Another approach would be to directly balance the effects: at Str 10 wielding a Str min 17 weapon he's down 2 OCV and 2 Damage Classes. So:

 

+2 OCV

+2 DC HKA

Only with Greatswords (-2) 20 active, 6 real

 

I don't have UMA, so I can't recall how to make custom martial arts manoeuvres, but a martial art that gave him +2 OCV with +2 DC with Greatswords would also work.

 

I suppose MA would work (an Art specifically for Greatswords) - but you need 10 points of maneuvers to buy martial arts, don't you? And needing UMA sounds a lot like needing splatbooks for d20.

 

On these two points, I would describe the first limitation as "Flustered in Melee" rather than "Incurably Clumsy".

 

For the second point, skill levels can be allocated to causing more damage. Buy up enough skill levels to do the job. They can be super cheap.

 

+4 OCV with Greatswords: 4 2 point levels = 8 points.

+2 DC with Greadswords is 4 3 point levels, or say 4 5 point levels limited to "only to add DC's to Greatsword -2" for 7 points.

 

15 points - 10% of that 150 point character's starting points.

 

In any case, I'm not saying it can't be done. The issue was can it be done easily. Given the multitude of choices, none of which are intuitively obvious/best practices (or we all would jump for the same one), expecting that Hero newbie to pick this up is pretty unlikely.

 

There are things d20 handles well, possibly better than Hero. Bashing one doesn't make the other better.

 

Of course, I'm sure WoTC loves discussions like this on any forum. When anyone compares "their game" to D&D/d20, all they're really doing is reinforcing which one is the game to beat. The leader doesn't need to bash the competition. Anyone remember the "Pepsi Challenge" - an ad campaign based around trying to show we're as good as/better than the market leader? Ever see Coke mention Pepsi in their ads?

 

Play the game(s) you like. Let others do the same. Maybe you should try their game with the same open mind you want them to approach your game with. It's funny how we accept that none of the many different Hero playstyles are "bad" or "wrong", but when someone has fun playing a non-Hero game, they must be idiots at worst or brainwashed drones desperately needing us to show them the One True Light. "Come and let me show you how to game right - you're doing it all wrong" is probably not the best way to encourage new players to approach Hero with an open mind.

[Kdansky]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

The things that don't work well in Hero often involve DEX and STR, for the obvious reasons that those stats are so horribly badly balanced. Also see the bazillions of threads on the subject. I hope 6th will rectify this. If that is the case, D20 will stand no chance against our superiority! We will reign supreme!! ALL HAIL HERO!!!

[prestidigitator]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

And the SFX of being immensely strong' date=' but only to weild a Greatsword? He can swing this Greatsword effortlessly, but he can't swing a lighter sword or an axe? Where is the logic there?[/quote']

 

Who said anything about SFX? We were talking mechanics. Why are you trying to impose your SFX on me?!

 

The SFX can easily be that his practiced skill with the greatsword allow him to wield it as effectively as a strong but only minimally skilled character would.

 

Incidentally, why question the SFX in Hero but not in D&D? How the heck does a weak wimpy D&D wizard pick up a greatsword and use it effectively? I think it is the concept you're having a problem with, not the mechanics. It's just that D&D has devalued the concept so thoroughly that as long as there is a Feat to allow you to do it, no one questions anything (they just go, "Whoa! Look how he gamed the system! Cool.").

[BNakagawa]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

One of the things that turned me off to D&D in general is that abilities come in big packages, and without turning to 3rd party books, you were powerless to break apart the packages.

 

Hit points come with combat ability. You can't be an arcane caster with a lot of hit points. (not a lot compared to fighters, anyway)

 

You can't play a healthy (high CON) fighter with very few hit points. Not by design, anyway. It could in theory happen if you rolled a 1 for hit points at every level, but that's hardly the point.

 

You can't play a good (read MONK) unarmed combat character with a chaotic alignment. (not if you intend to ever level again...) All those goofy Jackie Chan characters - Not allowed by D&D.

 

I have a number of characters who cannot ever be played in D&D because of the nature of the class/level system. Hero supports them just fine.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

The SFX can easily be that his practiced skill with the greatsword allow him to wield it as effectively as a strong but only minimally skilled character would.

 

But those skills have no crossover to weapons identical in all but size?

 

Incidentally' date=' why question the SFX in Hero but not in D&D? How the heck does a weak wimpy D&D wizard pick up a greatsword and use it effectively?[/quote']

 

I didn't make him weak and wimpy. He has an average STR for a D&D character (10 - no bonus, no penalty) and a bit above human norm (of 8) in Hero, but then that average includes a lot of non-warriors. By Hero rules, only a very small percentage of the population can use a Greatsword effectively. If such a small percentage of the population could actually weild such weapons, how would they ever have come into even remotely common usage? Most characters, other than that small percentage of the population with iron-thewed 17+ STR, would be better off with a smaller weapon.

 

In d20, high Strength provides an advantage using most weapons. In Hero, it's a prerequisite to effective use of many weapons which were in common use.

 

I think it is the concept you're having a problem with' date=' not the mechanics. It's just that D&D has devalued the concept so thoroughly that as long as there is a Feat to allow you to do it, no one questions anything (they just go, "Whoa! Look how [i']he[/i] gamed the system! Cool.").

 

A wizard able to use a greatsword is "gaming the system"? I've seen a lot of posters point to Hero's versatility - enabling characters to step outside the box of class systems - as a strength. I tend to agree, so I don't see a wizard with a sword as "gaming the system".

[Vulcan]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

And the SFX of being immensely strong' date=' but only to weild a Greatsword? He can swing this Greatsword effortlessly, but he can't swing a lighter sword or an axe? Where is the logic there?[/quote']

 

Actually, I can kinda see it. I do a bit of boffer fighting and an axe - even a small one - is often much more top-heavy than a greatsword. And a regular one-handed sword is, well, one-handed.

 

I would guess that this kinda think is about practice. (For whatever reason, he had a greatsword to practice with, not a broadsword. As to what that reason might be... it had better be good!)

 

But that's probably irrelevant to the general argument...

[Vulcan]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

But those skills have no crossover to weapons identical in all but size?

 

Drawing on my boffer experince again (and a little bit of experience fooling around with actual weapons), they are not identical in all but size. Heck, the difference between handling a hand-and-a-half (bastard) sword one-handed or two-handed is pretty dramatic. Comparing a broadsword (single-handed, single-edged, basket-hilted) to a greatsword (two-handed, double-edged for what it's worth, and at best a double ring guard and parrying hooks) is... questionable. The only similarity between the two is that both deliver chopping/shearing blows.

 

If such a small percentage of the population could actually weild such weapons, how would they ever have come into even remotely common usage? Most characters, other than that small percentage of the population with iron-thewed 17+ STR, would be better off with a smaller weapon.

 

YES! The greatsword was a very rare weapon, for exactly the reasons you have stated.

 

The hand-and-a-half sword was developed in part because of advancing armor technology made longswords increasingly less reliable, and in part because advancing armor technology made shields a lot less useful, freeing the left arm up to help strike a stronger blow.

 

And about this time, gunpowder weapons started becoming battlefield weapons, followed by the 20'+ pike.

 

So, the only real battlefield use for a greatsword was for the biggest couple guys in your unit to chop the heads off the opposing unit's pikes. Of course, if the other guys had a couple greatswords of their own, well, some greatsword duels might come out of it, but it would be more efficient just to shoot them...

 

But this is a historical note, not necessarily suited for gaming!

[BNakagawa]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

I believe the real reason that greatswords are rare is that they are hard to make.

 

The window of opportunity between when metalworking skills got to the point where greatswords were possible and the same metalworking skills got to the point where gun barrels became possible, making greatswords obsolete is pretty narrow.

 

Spears, of course, dominated most known battlefields because the technology to make spears predates history.

 

And they're cheap.

[NestorDRod]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

 

Arguing against how Hero does something by applying logic without applying the same logic to the inconsistencies in D&D seems somewhat dubious to me, but, hey, like I said, I don't have a stake in this argument either way...

 

Some people prefer D&D. Some people prefer Hero. I have no problem with that.

 

In my case, I see Hero as a system where I can play anything. D&D is a system where I can play... a D&D character.

 

That's my personal opinion, which I make no effort to impose on anyone.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

Drawing on my boffer experince again (and a little bit of experience fooling around with actual weapons)' date=' they are [i']not[/i] identical in all but size. Heck, the difference between handling a hand-and-a-half (bastard) sword one-handed or two-handed is pretty dramatic. Comparing a broadsword (single-handed, single-edged, basket-hilted) to a greatsword (two-handed, double-edged for what it's worth, and at best a double ring guard and parrying hooks) is... questionable. The only similarity between the two is that both deliver chopping/shearing blows.

 

With this in mind, it seems unrealistic that Swords are treated as a closely related group, doesn't it? The short sword, of course, was made for stabbing and not slashing, so it's really more like a long dagger. And the relation between a great sword and a bastard sword swung two handed seems pretty strong.

 

When I vacationed in Scotland some years ago, a museum attendant pointed out that the "two handed sword" on display (almost 6' in length) was actually used with one hand, but all you did was lower it at your target as your horse provided the momentum - infantry didn't use them. Historical accuracy is, as you say, pretty rare in-game. But that sword did predate gunpowder weaponry.

 

Some people prefer D&D. Some people prefer Hero. I have no problem with that.

 

In my case, I see Hero as a system where I can play anything. D&D is a system where I can play... a D&D character.

 

I find I never try to play a D&D character in a Fantasy Hero game for that reason - I can play a D&D character in D&D. Hero is for something different.

[Jagged]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

It's a "role"-playing game. The characters should be the single most important thing. The rest of the world is just there for the characters to interact with. And in fact, I'd go as far as saying nothing in the rest of the world really exists until the characters interact with it in some way.

 

Actually part of the rationale behind GM created player characters is because the characters are the mos important thing. As a referee I find it far easier to create a campaign story that ties in with the player characters if I have created them myself.

 

However going back to the D20 drone question: if the player is they type that gets excited by complex character creation then all you are going to need to do to convert them is leave them alone with the rule book for a few minutes

[Jagged]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

I just noticed the original post is almost 5 years old. Whos the necromancer? Plus I wonder what system they are playing today?

[Jagged]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

In my current game and the last one I played in the PCs were all GM generated. Whilst this might seem like anathema to some, it works surprisingly well. I re-built Monster Girl (the last superhero I played) a dozen different ways for fun but kept on playing the one I was given in the game and the whole campaign was excellent and immensely enjoyable.

 

Why thank you. But you started it

[rjcurrie]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

Actually part of the rationale behind GM created player characters is because the characters are the mos important thing. As a referee I find it far easier to create a campaign story that ties in with the player characters if I have created them myself.

 

However going back to the D20 drone question: if the player is they type that gets excited by complex character creation then all you are going to need to do to convert them is leave them alone with the rule book for a few minutes

 

Maybe, but the other thing to consider is that in many, many cases, the single most important thing to a player is his own character. So, that character should ideally be something he really wants to play.

[NestorDRod]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

I just noticed the original post is almost 5 years old. Whos the necromancer? Plus I wonder what system they are playing today?

 

Who else?

 

The Bubbamancer strikes again!

[prestidigitator]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

In d20' date=' high Strength provides an advantage using most weapons. In Hero, it's a prerequisite to effective use of many weapons which were in common use.[/quote']

No arguments there. I think the weapon familiarity table and the weapons tables could use a lot of re-work, and it is only out of laziness that I haven't yet produced some custom ones for my own games. But I would also argue that those are really source material, not part of the system itself.

 

A wizard able to use a greatsword is "gaming the system"? I've seen a lot of posters point to Hero's versatility - enabling characters to step outside the box of class systems - as a strength. I tend to agree' date=' so I don't see a wizard with a sword as "gaming the system".[/quote']

It DID take a great deal of strength to effectively wield a great sword. They were designed to punch through armor by being massive and end-heavy, and it does take a lot of strength and endurance to swing the things fast enough to have any chance of hitting anything without the target evading easily (and keep doing it for more than a swing or two). Someone training to use one effectively but maintaining an average physique is a pretty unrealistic idea (just by training with the darn thing you're likely to buff yourself up a lot).

 

The point was that: 1.) no one questions the concept when it is built in D&D, because as long as you can legally take a Feat, no one cares, and 2.) everyone questions it when you build it in Hero (maybe because in Hero the way you built it makes it painfully obvious what you are doing). Not saying there's something wrong with building an unrealistic concept, but why is there such a large difference in mentality between building things in the two systems (sometimes even when it is the same person looking at both builds)?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

It DID take a great deal of strength to effectively wield a great sword. They were designed to punch through armor by being massive and end-heavy' date=' and it does take a lot of strength and endurance to swing the things fast enough to have any chance of hitting anything without the target evading easily (and keep doing it for more than a swing or two). Someone training to use one effectively but maintaining an average physique is a pretty unrealistic idea (just by training with the darn thing you're likely to buff yourself up a lot).[/quote']

 

Not so. See here.

[prestidigitator]

Re: How do you guys deal with WoTC drones?

 

Not so. See here.

 

I'm not sure there is anything in that article that disagrees with what I said. He talks about modern fencers and says they exaggerate the weight of real weapons, but really doesn't talk about the strength and endurance it takes to wield even those "featherweight" practice weapons. Even given differences in fighting style, your average person today would not fare very well (certainly not for very long) with a 4-5 foot weapon; I don't care how well balanced it is. There's a reason shorter swords were more common. When we say "heavy" when talking about weapons, it is understood (at least I have always thought) as a relative measure, not the "must weigh 10-20 pounds" misconceptions the author speaks of.