Scion Hero - Urban Fantasy

[BhelliomRahl]

I looking to run a Scion game for some friends. Never really liked the White Wolf (WW) system and neither did my friends, ended up converting to the Fate (Dresden Files). Was good fun, however I want to use Hero 6th Edition to run it and was looking for some suggestions on converting it.

 

I have already decided to create a Legend Characteristic (permanent & temporary) which I use as each point in the characteristic = +1/-1/1d6. This will be used in situtation to determine if fate effect them. The Temporary will be used as Hero Action Points. The characteristic I will control it increase, however character can choose to lower it.

 

A key part of WW Scion is the Epix Characteristics. These gave automatic successes to tests and addition points in Offense/Defense. They were limited by Legend and the Normal Characteristics.

Was considering creating a series of Talents for each Epic Characteristic which provided bonuses. Each talent can be bought multiple times but could not exceed the Legend Rating of the Character.

i.e.

Epic Strength - +1 to all Str related Skills/Tests, +1DC Damage & +5str for feats of Strength.

Epic Dexterity - +1 to all Agility Skills & +1 DCV (must be aware of attack)

Epic Constitution - +1 to Con Skills/Tests

Epic Intelligence - +1 to Int Skills/Test

Epic Ego - +1 to Ego Skills/Tests

Epic Appearance - Striking Appearance by another name

 

The Epic Talents would also act as limits/prerequistes to certain powers. i.e. Damage Reduction would need levels in Epic Constitution. Also Epic Talents would raise the limit on Characteristic, each point raises it by 5 (Normal Mortal max strength 20pts, Scion with 2pts Epic Strength max is 30pts).

 

Power Selection - Each Character has a patron god/goddess who they channel power from. Its easier to channel energies that are related to the Patron. Was thinking on introducing a cost reduction on powers that full within concepts of patron.

i.e. Zeus - Concept: Sky - Powers: Weather Manipulation, Lightning Bolts, Flight, etc.

I will use the perviews/concepts from WW Scion.

 

Magic: Was planning to use a Virtual VPP. Players buy a Talent: Magic. They gain spells by learning them in play with a cost of 1pt per spell at the end of learning period. They can cast any spell they have knowledge of.

However all spells have limitations: Requires a Roll (-1 per 10AP), Gestures, Incarnations, Extra Time (range: Full Phase to Days) and Side Effect (Only if RAR Fails)

Spells can replicate most Powers but take longer with the chance of failure and mishap.

 

What are peoples thoughts? Am I over complicating things, should I just treat it as a Superheroic game.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Scion Hero - Urban Fantasy

 

I completely agree with you on pre-packaging all of the standard / flat abilities as scaling Talents; this is exactly the approach I would take when converting most WoD / WW material.

 

However on the Epic Characteristics set, consider just giving a flat +5 points to each characteristic (stat and maxima); the skill bonuses will derive from there. Dexterity of course will screw this; you might consider exercising the option to divorce Initiative determination from Dexterity to reduce its cost to 1 point per point (Toolkitting: Changing the Cost of Dexterity, pg44 6e1); this option makes it MUCH EASIER to normalize the characteristics for a set up like this that gives flat bonuses as power-ups (or that relies on templates a lot, etc). Characters can instead buy Lighting Reflexes to improve their initiative, and it puts Dexterity on an even footing w/ the other characteristics for purposes of Epic-ness.

 

You might also consider rolling up the patron powers as scaling Talents. If not, you'll need to decide if you are going to allow open ended Power construct usage, or try to shoehorn the various abilities into a common structure.

 

 

As to the Magic purview...hmm. It's been a long time since I skimmed some of the Scion material at a brick and mortar, so my memory is fuzzy. However I vaguely recall it as being a sort of grab bag of somewhat minor effects, more of a toolbox / utility set vs raw power.

 

Practically speaking, in HERO terms it should cost about as much to model the Magic purview as any other purview, to avoid disparities in characters that are supposed to be the same general power level in Scion terms. So, you want to avoid any overhead costs that other purviews don't incur. Figure out the general cost range to convert the more direct purviews, and that is how many points your magic conversion will need to fit into...work backwards from there.

 

Off the cuff my first approach would probably be to first get a Multipower solution to work, and then do a variant using a VPP. I would then convert a few characters with and without the Magic purview that I knew to be comparable in Scion terms, and see where the points ended up at.

 

If the Magic purview consistently cost less I would start to add in overhead costs like access / unlock talents, skill(s) or familiarities for known "spells" and what not as necessary to "tune" the cost towards a desired barrier to entry.

 

If the Magic purview consistently cost too much compared to other purviews I would look for ways to impose some limitations, or to amortize the cost somehow.

 

If I can't get the cost down to where I think it should be, as a means of last resort I would instead get the Magic purview modeled out as cheap as I can get it without it losing its semblance, and then start to carefully power up the other purviews to bring them up to or very near to that power level. I don't like to do this as it up-powers the whole campaign and makes normals / mundane gear / etc comparably weaker, but in this case - modeling a game about the descendants of gods - there's some wiggle room on the upper end and this might prove to be a viable option if you can't land the Magic purview conversion.