What skills does a warrior need to be competitive?

[assault]

I've never really gotten into all the finer points of heroic level skills and talents and stuff. I've realised that I don't really know how to build a warrior type who won't be overshadowed by a character built by someone more familiar with the system at this power level.

 

I'm looking at 6e, 175 points.

 

What would a character need to be able to adequately function in a combat heavy game at this power level?

 

(Yes, obviously high characteristics and WFs).

[tkdguy]

I still play 5e, but offhand, give him some combat skill levels and martial arts maneuvers. Combat Luck is pretty useful too.

[Lucius]

 

That's going to vary from campaign to campaign, but items to consider:

 

Martial Arts

 

Combat Skill Levels with Martial Arts or with weapons. Weapon Skill Levels are an especially good buy.

 

Combat Luck (I know, not a Skill) possibly with a Limitation to not stack with armor - talk to whoever is running the game. Some rule it won't stack by default.

 

 

Stealth and Concealment. Yes, even for warriors, there are going to be times you want to not be noticed and there are going to be times you're looking for something.

 

 

Climbing. You get an 8 or less automatically but may want to be better than that if you find yourself in the bottom of a pit.

 

Riding. You get an 8 or less automatically but may want to be better than that if you find yourself in mounted combat.

 

"Paramedics" i.e. First Aid. You get an 8 or less automatically but may want to be better than that if your ally is bleeding and no one has a healing potion or spell handy.

 

Breakfall. For falling into pits, getting thrown from your horse, or just getting knocked down.

 

Tracking and Survival. If you expect to spend some time in the wilderness.

 

Fastdraw & Lightning Reflexes, if you want to make a habit of going first (even against people who thought they caught you unprepared.)

 

A Professional Skill for whatever kind of warrior you are. This could be a very generic one like PS: Warrior or something obscure like PS: Sapper/Miner that could come in unexpectedly helpful if it's a dungeon delving game. How useful this is, though, depends on the emphases of the person running the game, although you can always suggest uses for it.

 

Related to that, whatever other Skills pertain to the specific type of warrior you are. A ranger or barbarian should have Tracking, Survival, Navigation, perhaps Animal Handler. A knight should have Riding and High Society (Courtier) and maybe KS: Heraldry. A mercenary should have Trading to negotiate contracts and perhaps Linguist and a few Languages.

 

If possible, you might want to set aside a few unspent points for things you overlooked that you realize in play the character really should have (I've seen the player of a ninja forget to take Climbing, a barbarian forget to take Survival, etc.)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

You probably won't need Transport Familiarity: Palindromedary

[Ninja-Bear]

You know if you can talk (ahem) bribe the GM weapon element is powerful! Also on Surbrook stuff there is a list of D&D talents that are converted to hero system, skim that for some ideas, or any other site. (Failed INT roll cause there is another nice site which I can't remeber right now)

[NuSoardGraphite]

There are a lot of ways to build a character who is competent to exemplary in combat in Hero.  How you build that character will depend on a few factors:

 

1: What sort of game your GM is running. (Realistic or Romantic.   High Powered or Low Powered)

 

2: What optional rules are active in your game.  The addition of certain optional rules opens up more build possibilities such as Hit Locations, Critical Hits and Impairing/Disabling rules.

 

3: What your characters "Fighting style" will be.  Broken down these can be Powerful (brute strength and damage) Graceful (high combat value augmented with skills) Skillful (Combat Skill levels) or Martial (Martial Arts based).  And of course there are combinations of these styles to consider as well.

 

The consideration of what kind of game your GM is running is important.  In a Realistic type game, you will probably be pretty light on Talents and have no Powers whatsoever (with maybe a couple of exceptions, but this depends on your GM).  However in a Romantic game, your character could have combat abilities that place your character far beyond the norm which can be represented with Talents and Powers.  Obviously the difference between high powered and low powered are starting points, but it can also mean the atmosphere of the game as well.  The stakes may be quite a bit higher in a high powered campaign and your characters abilities will need to match the mood of the game.

 

When considering the optional rules which are active in your game, this can be important as several of the most commonly used optional rules are quite important for the Fighter type character to consider.  The most common are Hit Locations.  This is when your character can develop "Targeting Skill Levels" which are a type of Penalty Skill Level that removes the penalties for targeting specific Hit Locations which can be quite difficult to hit (-8 OCV to hit the head or vitals!).  Targeting Skill Levels will help your character hit opponents in vital areas which can bring them down much faster.  Alternately, a character with Targeting Skill Levels has an easier time aiming for UNARMORED Locations on their opponent, to bypass that expensive Defense 8 plate armor they are wearing.  Critical Hits optional rule helps characters with high Combat Values in doing maximized damage against unskilled opponents.  The higher the difference between the attacker's OCV and the defender's DCV significantly increases the chance of a Critical Hit (Maximum rollable damage on the dice).  Some GM's may allow a Talent that increases the rate of Critical Hit for the character.  This is purchased as +2 Combat Skill Levels (10) with the limitation "only on a successful Critical Hit (-1) and also maybe Focus (OAF) to represent a weapon, or Requires Skill Roll or other Limitation to simulate specific criteria that must be met before the Critical can be enhanced.  (note: Each +2 OCV essentially adds +1 to the chance to Crit)  Impairing and Disabling wounds are rules that compare the Body damage of an attack to the character's normal (unwounded) Body score and determines if an Impairing or Disabling wound occurs because of the attack.  For Warrior who are acting in the capacity as a Tank to cover the weaker character's in the party, Extra Body purchased to increase the rate at which Impairing and Disabling wounds kick in is a great boon for any fighter to possess.

 

Fighting style is very important.  It basically determines how you spend your points.

 

A Powerful fighting style means your character rely's mostly on brute strength to defeat foes.  You would spend the majority of excess Character Points on augmenting your characters physical characteristics to boost combat survivability.  STR, CON, BOD, PD, ED, REC, END and STUN are your main characteristics to boost.  OCV, DCV and SPD are secondary considerations, but still quite important for your character.  These types don't normally buy much in the way of Martial Arts, but when they do it's all damage based.    Talents which enhance damage potential and/or damage absorbtion capability should be emphasized.

 

A Graceful fighting style concentrates on accuracy and oftentimes on avoidance.  This means the character concentrates their initial Character Points on Dexterity, Combat Value and Speed.  Strength, Con and Bod are secondary considerations.  This type of character will often spend his Character Points on a mix between Combat Skill Levels and Martial Arts maneuvers to be able to facilitate the style.  The character may also spend extra points in skills like Acrobatics and Sleight of Hand, both of which have combat utility.  This type of character can have very high Combat Values and because of this, some GM's prefer not to have these types of characters in their game.  

 

A Skillful fighting style is one where the character has most of his or her point totals in the skill section.  This usually means as many CSL as the GM will allow you to pick.  Skillful type characters also tend to purchase non-combat skills with a combat utility.  Of course Martial Arts is very reasonable for this type of character as well.

 

A Martial type character of course, concentrates a lot of points on possessing Martial Arts, and taking Combat Skill Levels and skills which compliment the chosen martial art.  For example:

 

 

 

Combat Value, Skill and Maneuver synergy:

 

One of the things some people don't take into consideration when they are designing their characters is how the various CSL's, combat utility skills and Martial Maneuvers work together. Example:

Drizzt, our Elven Fighter has a sword fighting Martial Art with the "Fast Strike" maneuver.  He has +5 Combat Skill Levels with swords, a base OCV of 6 and the Acrobatics skill.  He is fighting an Orc Chieftain with dozens of battles under his belt who has a very aggressive fighting style.  Normally Drizzt would probably just put 4 Combat Skill Levels into damage for +2 DC, and use his Fast Strike maneuver (+2 OCV, +1DC weapon strike) and attack with an OCV of 9 dishing out maxed weapon damage (with bonuses from CSL's and Fast Strike) and be done with it, but this Orc looks tough and he is unsure if he will be able to defeat it in one stroke, so he decides to look to his defense.  Instead of using Fast Strike, he uses Defensive Strike (+1 OCV, +3 DCV) putting 2 CSL's in his OCV (achieving that OCV of 9 anyway) and shifting 3 CSL's into his DCV (giving his DCV of 6 a +5 bonus for a total of 11!).  Drizzt performs a probing strike to test the Orc's combat ability.  The Orc takes a cut to the chest, which doesn't even slow him down and launches a furious return blow to Drizzt, which the elf casually deflects with his secondary weapon.  Now that Drizzt realizes his opponent's skill level, he decides to continue fighting defensively, but not adds Acrobatics half-moves into the formula, gaining DCV bonuses as described in the Acrobatics skill description which allows Drizzt to maintain a high enough DCV to avoid the chieftain's blows, but leaves him enough CSL's left to augment his damage to eventually wear down his opponent.

 

As you can see, the combination of Martial Maneuvers, Combat Skill levels and the addition of non-combat skills like Acrobatics and Sleight of Hand or the inclusion of certain Talents and Powers can work together to make a Fighter more potent than he may first appear.  The synergy between these factors is quite important not only to the performance of the character, but to the balance of the game.  It is very easy to pile on the Combat Skill Levels and overwhelm everything via sheer numbers, but this generally REALLY annoys the GM, who will then seriously consider banning CSL's over a certain amount.  However, when you use Maneruver/CSL/Skill synergy, you can purchase smaller amounts of Combat Skill Levels and still perform like Conan.  You just have to know how to shift your Levels around from phase to phase to be the most efficient use of them.  And once you understand how it all functions, it's actually a pretty fun exercise to come up with combinations that bypass your opponents defenses and lead your character to victory.

[Steve]

On the defensive side, one suggestion I would make is one level of Combat Luck. For an additional investment of nine points you could also take 25% Resistant Damage Reduction that Only Affects STUN damage -1/2 and is Nonpersistent -1/4. I dislike having to make a bunch of required skill rolls in combat since it slows down the pacing. Damage Reduction is also particularly good to have in campaigns using hit locations. The character with these two abilities is partially evading the blows.

[Steve]

On the offensive side, a good use of ten points is to pick up Rapid Attack (HTH only for a swordsman or ranged only for a bowman) for five points and then Two-Weapon Fighting (HTH only or ranged only) for another five points. A character can then make two attacks per phase with no OCV penalty as a half-phase action. When SPD is 3-4, that boost in number of attacks really helps.

[Ragitsu]

It is frighteningly embarrassing how often non-magical or even lightly magical fighters/warriors - across a wide spectrum of RPGs - forget to invest in some sort of Climbing skill.

[Markdoc]

If you have flight, you don't need climbing

 

cheers, Mark

[Ragitsu]

By my metric, a fighter that can fly that isn't of a race that inherently can, is one step beyond lightly magical.

 

It is a powerful ability unless numerous countermeasures are in place .

[Markdoc]

And yet, the minimum buy of flight with say, "gestures and incantations to cast" is equivalent to a combat level in terms of cost ...

Hero system is slippery like that.

 

cheers, Mark

[L. Marcus]

This cannot stand! It must be rectified!

[Ragitsu]

And yet, the minimum buy of flight with say, "gestures and incantations to cast" is equivalent to a combat level in terms of cost ...

Hero system is slippery like that.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Ah, shucks. I didn't just have the Hero system in mind. Plus, traits in certain systems are under-priced for the sheer utility they bestow upon your character.

[L. Marcus]

I like the APG1 suggestion of increasing the cost of Flight. Tripled cost ought to do nicely for a low-end High Fantasy game, neh?

[Steve]

On the offensive side, a good use of ten points is to pick up Rapid Attack (HTH only for a swordsman or ranged only for a bowman) for five points and then Two-Weapon Fighting (HTH only or ranged only) for another five points. A character can then make two attacks per phase with no OCV penalty as a half-phase action. When SPD is 3-4, that boost in number of attacks really helps.

 

As a follow-up on this comment, I forgot to mention another good adder for five points from APG 1 is Defensive Attack. It lets you make a Multiple Attack with only a -2 DCV penalty instead of halving your DCV. So for 15 points (assuming you bought all these abilities HTH only or Ranged only) you can attack two targets at 0 OCV penalty and only a -2 DCV penalty. Combine it with a martial maneuver that adds a DCV bonus (like Martial Strike), and you've just doubled your number of attacks with no penalty.

[Christopher R Taylor]

This is a good place to bring it up: my copy of the pdf of Hero System rules says Rapid Attack is 5 points.  Am I misreading, did that get changed?  5 points is a reasonable price for what Rapid Attack gives you.  10, not so much, seems to me.

[Steve]

Rapid Attack is 10 points if usable for both HTH and Ranged attacks. If it is usable with only HTH or only Ranged, then it is 5 points (from page 87 of Hero System 6th Edition - Volume 1). The same cost structure is used for Two-Weapon Fighting and Defensive Attack. Each of them is 10 points or 5 if limited to either only HTH or only Ranged. You buy the full ability, then apply a -1 Limitation "HTH Multiple Attack Only" for example.

[Old Man]

I like the APG1 suggestion of increasing the cost of Flight. Tripled cost ought to do nicely for a low-end High Fantasy game, neh?

 

1st ed FH replaced "Flight" with "Levitation".  It cost the same, but the caster was DCV 0.

 

Personally I'd not only triple the cost of Flight but put a minimum cost on that first inch.  Flight is just incredibly useful when the majority of your enemies have only melee or thrown weapons.  And it's not hard to combine Flight with an effective defense against arrows so as to become nigh invulnerable.

[Outsider]

There are a few 'spells' that a player could equip his character with that are really very good deals for the points.   Flight is just one of them.   Other examples :   A single point of regeneration per turn (non-persistent, concentrate 0 dcv throughout unaware) is 5 points, and means the character will never remain wounded for long.   Summon 0 (well 5) point basic human (full friendliness, 64x tasks) would be all of 2 points, before any power limitations.   Very nice for causing distractions, carrying some extra stuff, or for ending to set off traps or walking into suspected ambushes.  

[Ragitsu]

There are a few 'spells' that a player could equip his character with that are really very good deals for the points.   Flight is just one of them.   Other examples :   A single point of regeneration per turn (non-persistent, concentrate 0 dcv throughout unaware) is 5 points, and means the character will never remain wounded for long.   Summon 0 (well 5) point basic human (full friendliness, 64x tasks) would be all of 2 points, before any power limitations.   Very nice for causing distractions, carrying some extra stuff, or for ending to set off traps or walking into suspected ambushes.  

 

You might want to buy Summon Therapist to go along with the fully sentient/sapient meatshield that you watch die over and over...

[L. Marcus]

Ah, just call the spell Spectral Servant or something, and have the SFX be a humanoid glowing forcefield. Therapists be damned!

[Christopher R Taylor]

10 points still seems too much for rapid attack.  I'd prefer 5 points, then a limitation on it if it only works on ranged or melee attacks.  It really doesn't give you that much, seems to me.  I even kept the -1 OCV if you half move before you attack from the old editions because it makes sense to me, and made Rapid Attack negate that and 5 points still seems reasonable.  For that matter 10 points for full Defensive Maneuver seems a bit much to me.  Thankfully ambidexterity got reduced to a sane cost level.

[Ndreare]

The defense maneuver is definitely worth the points IMHO.

Never being half dcv is a huge advantage. And doubling attacks for a character with 4 speed for only 20 points is also a big deal INHO.

[Christopher R Taylor]

You can attack with every weapon you have every phase without paying a point for it to begin with, all the skills do is make it less of a penalty, are those reductions worth the cost?  I dunno.  Just feels like an awful lot for not a lot of effect.

[Mister E]

I am going to say 4:

 

Tactics to entail victory,

 

Analyze (Combat Technique) to certify ability,

 

Weaponsmith for the instrumentation of war,

 

[edit]... & Leadership [6E2 300] to guide other fighters.