New Hero Fantasy GM/Player

[iena]

Hi Everybody,

After having approached Hero System 6th edition with "Champions: Complete", my party would like to move to the Fantasy Hero...

The first contact with the "fantasy side" I hope  it's going to be smoother with respect the one with Champions... Now the majority of the rules are clear, we have already done our semplifications and so on... But I'm afraid of the game balancing...I've just bought "Fantasy Complete" but the book will arrive in 1 month... Will I find everything I need to balance the game? Will I find information about how to manage the damage? Last but not least: is there some "self made site" collecting material, resources and other stuff for Hero fantasy 6th edition?? I've found some good site for the 5th edition but none for the 6th...

 

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[eepjr24]

5e has a lot more material available in the public domain. There are some out there if you look. Probably not exactly what you are after but I am working on a conversion of D&D 5e to Hero 6e, so that would provide some basic spell examples, profession, background and race templates. If you are interested in looking at those, you can see them here:

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Contributions/eepjr24/Default.aspx

 

The site I am hosting them on is Killer Shrikes High Fantasy Hero site, it has tons of content and ideas of Hero 5e, many of which are easy to convert for use in 6e as well.

 

- E

[iena]

All this stuff is just... Fantastic!!!! Thanks a lot!!!

My party and me... well basically we come from years and years of D&D (all the editions, including the fourth   ) so for us this approach is the easier!!!

We are still quite far from starting because the handbook will arrive on June (maybe)... Anyway if some interesting development is done iin our sessions, I will share it with you for sure,

 

 

Regards.

[eepjr24]

Sure, always looking for feedback. Feel free to ask questions, explaining some of this will help me see things I might have missed during the conversions.

 

- E

[Christopher R Taylor]

Balancing Fantasy Hero is much the same as with Champions, you just have to think in much humbler terms.  Your damage class output is going to be more along the lines of 6 rather than 12.  30-40 active points is a lot for a spell.  Having 10 resistant defenses makes you very difficult to harm.

[eepjr24]

With money bought items you also need to watch out for overlapping defenses, mages with 6 resistant defenses in magic and another 4-6 in mundane armor are going to be common unless there are some kind of restrictions on it. Decide up front what level and role you want magic to play and balance it across different play styles so that it is a level playing field. 

 

- E

[bluesguy]

Congrats on joining us and deciding to play Fantasy Hero Complete.
 
Asking a lot of questions is a good way to get going.  I also think playing FHC is going to be easier than Champions because the genre will be easier to grasp and the abilities are a bit more manageable (IMO) for a beginning Hero GM.
 
Take a look at this part of my campaign site, which describes campaign norms and standards for my campaign world.  I would specifically recommend looking at

• Characteristics
• Combat Skills
• Magic
• Character Benchmarks - which I stole from someone's site (don't remember whose)

With money bought items you also need to watch out for overlapping defenses, mages with 6 resistant defenses in magic and another 4-6 in mundane armor are going to be common unless there are some kind of restrictions on it.

Not just a problem with mages - someone could buy combat luck at 6 PD/ED and then wear plate armor... Just go with 'no stacking' of resistant defense, whatever is the highest resistant defense is the what counts.  So if the mage has 6 rPD/rED magic armor and is wearing 3 rPD/rED leather armor; the total resistant defense is 6 rPD/rED.
 

Decide up front what level and role you want magic to play and balance it across different play styles so that it is a level playing field.

Absolutely true.  This is something that will affect your game in ways you won't understand until way down the road.

 

For instance I ran a Valdorian Age campaign with a different magic system than the one that came with the campaign.  Magic in VA was extremely rare.  Mages were treated with distrust and outright hatred at times.  The typical 'monsters' were rare and treated as legends (like we treat the monsters from Greek myths).  A very small amount of magic had a huge impact on the campaign and often the magic was subtle and not particularly overwhelming compared to other campaign magic systems.

 

My current campaign, the use of magic happens often enough that people don't consider it unusual (maybe not a daily thing).  There are a fair number of 'monsters'.  The magic and combat tends to bigger and flasher.

[NuSoardGraphite]

With money bought items you also need to watch out for overlapping defenses, mages with 6 resistant defenses in magic and another 4-6 in mundane armor are going to be common unless there are some kind of restrictions on it. Decide up front what level and role you want magic to play and balance it across different play styles so that it is a level playing field.

 

- E

Th8s is easy to mitigate. As a part of your spell system, say mages cannot wear metal armor and also cast spells. Thus you will have mages relying on light armors but also stacking magic defenses with them which wont be too overwhelming.

 

How I solved it in my game is I have the Armor encumbrance penalty also affect spell casting rolls. This makes it so mages will run around in the lightest armor they can. My last Fantasy Hero game, the party mage only wore heavy robes (rdef 1) until she got some enchanted robes that provided 5 defense for her. With her Shield spell (10pd, 10ed Force Field) she had a 15 res def, but by that point, it was late in the game and the enemies they faced were quite a bit more powerful so she needed it.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Congrats on joining us and deciding to play Fantasy Hero Complete.

 

Asking a lot of questions is a good way to get going. I also think playing FHC is going to be easier than Champions because the genre will be easier to grasp and the abilities are a bit more manageable (IMO) for a beginning Hero GM.

 

Take a look at this part of my campaign site, which describes campaign norms and standards for my campaign world. I would specifically recommend looking at

• Characteristics
• Combat Skills
• Magic
• Character Benchmarks - which I stole from someone's site (don't remember whose)

Your Strength benchmark for Gawain is off by quite a bit. Gawain had a geas where his strength would increase as the sun rose in the sky. By noon he was as strong as five strong warriors which puts him around STR 25 or more.

[eepjr24]

Th8s is easy to mitigate. As a part of your spell system, say mages cannot wear metal armor and also cast spells. Thus you will have mages relying on light armors but also stacking magic defenses with them which wont be too overwhelming.

 

How I solved it in my game is I have the Armor encumbrance penalty also affect spell casting rolls. This makes it so mages will run around in the lightest armor they can. My last Fantasy Hero game, the party mage only wore heavy robes (rdef 1) until she got some enchanted robes that provided 5 defense for her. With her Shield spell (10pd, 10ed Force Field) she had a 15 res def, but by that point, it was late in the game and the enemies they faced were quite a bit more powerful so she needed it.

 

My point here was not that there are not solutions. My point was you need to think about it ahead of time. That solution works fine. So do a myriad of others, like adjusting the encumberance rules to make it necessary to buy additional strength if you want to wear heavy armor all the time. Or by introducing long term end as a normal outcome of casting. Thus at low levels when mages can cast few spells they may wear armor, but then shed it as they want to cast more because of the LTE. Or you can use fiat and say metal interferes with magic in some way. Or make VPP's have a side effect when you use them in armor. Anyway, just figure out what works for your campaign / magic system / player base and run with it.

[bigdamnhero]

First time I played FH (way back in 3ed), we had a few people who designed their FH characters like superheroes, that is to say with one or two big powers with few Limitations. There's nothing wrong with that approach per se, but things can get extremely unbalanced and it doesn't necessarily feel like fantasy. Giving mages and the like a variety of low-to-mid level powers with lots of limitations (especially initially) does better at capturing the feel of most fantasy settings IMO. Also the superhero genre tends to be Everything Goes, but for fantasy don't be shy about prohibiting any powers that feel like they might be unbalancing or don't fit the campaign feel you're going for - just because it's in the book doesn't mean you have to use it in your campaign, let alone make it available to all PCs.

[iena]

Hi everybody,

 

I'm trying to develop my setting by taking the inspiration from the world of Dragon Age (origin).

I've found an issue from the rules point of view because I would like to build the attack powers/maneuvers as a Multipower Framework.

About this I have several doubt:

 

1) all the slots in the framework would have the same limitations: a) Focus ==> the weapon(s), requires a roll (weapon trickery)

The question is: to what have I to apply the limitation? to the framework or to every single slot?

 

2)The damage done with every slot/maneuver should depend by the weapon wield by the character: This is quite logical because, for instance, a warrior executing a special hit with a standard sword should do less damage than the same warrior using Excalibur... what a kind of advantage/limitation should I apply to obtain this?

 

I report here the Multipower I have built for a rogue using the double short sword style... just to make you understand what I mean. The damage done with every maneuver is not indicated because, as already told, it should depend by the quality of the sword wield:

 

Double Sword Maneuvers :  Multipower, 30-point reserve

 

1f ) Whirling Blades: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand, damage XD6+X w/strenght, Area Of Effect (2m Radius; +1/4), Selective (+1/4) (22 Active Points); OAF (Only with 2 Blades; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; Weapon Trickery roll required; -1)  Cost: X

 

1f) Large Swath:  Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand, damage XD6+X w/strenght, Area Of Effect (2m Cone; +1/4), Selective (+1/4), Penetrating (+1/2) (30 Active Points); OAF (Only with 2 Blades; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; Weapon Trickery roll required; -1) Cost: X

 

1f) Rain of Steel:  Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand, damage XD6+X w/strenght, Armor Piercing (+1/4), Autofire (5 shots; +1/2) (26 Active Points); OAF (With 2 blades only; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; Weapon Trickery roll required; -1) Cost: X

 

Please let me know what do you think about this approach to the combat maneuvers... If you think this could be interesting or completely useless (maybe a martial arts with weapon element could be the most logical approach)

 

Thanks for your feedback.

[Tasha]

With money bought items you also need to watch out for overlapping defenses, mages with 6 resistant defenses in magic and another 4-6 in mundane armor are going to be common unless there are some kind of restrictions on it. Decide up front what level and role you want magic to play and balance it across different play styles so that it is a level playing field. 

 

- E

 

Another way to keep mages from becoming tanks is to say that Armor doesn't stack with Spells. Also, spells that use Gestures should also take the penalty to the Casting roll from Encumbrance.

 

Oh In my experience most Fantasy Hero games tend to have the following averages. Dex 14, Spd 3, CV 7, Damage Class 6(~30Active), def 6-8 (rDef 3), Maximums Dex 20, Spd 4, CV, 9, DC 10(~50active), def 16 (8rDef). No PC should be at the maximum for more than 3 categories and should have balanced the maximums with lower than averages in the other categories (ie Pete the Paladin has 16 Def(including 8 defence from his plate Armor, and does DC9 with his greatsword. He should balance that out by having less than average DCV, Dex, and possibly speed.)

[Tasha]

Might I also Recommend "Hero System Martial Arts" which will give more ideas for using powers as Combat Maneuvers.

Also Hero System Grimoire is a great source for spells using different magical traditions.

[Ninja-Bear]

Hi everybody,

 

I'm trying to develop my setting by taking the inspiration from the world of Dragon Age (origin).

I've found an issue from the rules point of view because I would like to build the attack powers/maneuvers as a Multipower Framework.

About this I have several doubt:

 

1) all the slots in the framework would have the same limitations: a) Focus ==> the weapon(s), requires a roll (weapon trickery)

The question is: to what have I to apply the limitati

 

I report here the Multipower I have built for a rogue using the double short sword style... just to make you understand what I mean. The damage done with every maneuver is not indicated because, as already told, it should depend by the quality of the sword wield:

 

Double Sword Maneuvers : Multipower, 30-point reserve

 

1f ) Whirling Blades: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand, damage XD6+X w/strenght, Area Of Effect (2m Radius; +1/4), Selective (+1/4) (22 Active Points); OAF (Only with 2 Blades; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; Weapon Trickery roll required; -1) Cost: X

 

1f) Large Swath: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand, damage XD6+X w/strenght, Area Of Effect (2m Cone; +1/4), Selective (+1/4), Penetrating (+1/2) (30 Active Points); OAF (Only with 2 Blades; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; Weapon Trickery roll required; -1) Cost: X

 

1f) Rain of Steel: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand, damage XD6+X w/strenght, Armor Piercing (+1/4), Autofire (5 shots; +1/2) (26 Active Points); OAF (With 2 blades only; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; Weapon Trickery roll required; -1) Cost: X

 

Please let me know what do you think about this approach to the combat maneuvers... If you think this could be interesting or completely useless (maybe a martial arts with weapon element could be the most logical approach)

 

Thanks for your feedback.

I like it. One thing though, instead of XD6+X, you usually either buy

 

A) +2DC (or insert value of choice) or

buy as a naked advantage for upto DC of choice.

[iena]

I'm very sorry but I'm too newbie with the hero system to understand the explanation above... without some other clarification.

I've tried to understand the speech about the naked advantage but honestly, maybe due to the tongue, I didn't understand almost anything...

My problem is: how can I build an attack power where the damage is a function of the weapon used by the warrior? When I build a power, the first thing I do is to decide the amount and the type of damage, then if the power is blast or whatever, the area and so on... Here the approach is different: I've established all the elements of the power with the exception of the damage, because in theory the damage could change over the time... By changing the weapon...

[Christopher R Taylor]

The simplest way is to establish a maximum amount of damage someone can possibly do, then put a limitation on it of "only does as much damage as the weapon"

 

However, usually in Fantasy, the weapons have set damage and each one does what it does independent of the warrior.  To put it another way, say the warrior picks up a hammer, and the weapons list says it does d6+1 ka (that's one die six +1 point of damage each roll of killing damage).  That's how much it does when its used, the warrior doesn't need to buy a power to simulate it.  He can pick it up and use it ilke you could, without paying points for it.  He either has to steal it, have it given to him, discover it somewhere unowned, or buy it with money.

[bluesguy]

Here you go:

 

Cost    Power
15    Sword Tricks: Multipower, 45-point reserve,  (45 Active Points); all slots OAF (Knife, dagger, or sword of some kind; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -1)
1f    1)  Whirling Blades of Death: Area Of Effect Accurate (2m Radius; +1/2), Selective (+1/4) for up to 45 Active Points of Killing Attacks with bladed weapons (34 Active Points); OAF (Knife, dagger, or sword of some kind; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -1)
1f    2)  Large Swarth: Area Of Effect (2m Cone; +1/4), Selective (+1/4), Penetrating (+1/2) for up to 45 Active Points of Killing Attacks with bladed weapons (45 Active Points); OAF (Knife, dagger, or sword of some kind; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -1)
1f    3)  Rain of Steel: Naked Advantage: Armor Piercing (+1/4), Autofire (5 shots; +1/2) for up to 45 Active Points (34 Active Points); OAF (Knife, dagger, or sword of some kind; -1), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -1)
Powers Cost: 18

 

So how does this work.  As a general rule putting Naked Advantages inside a multipower is a big no-no.

1. The character with this multipower can use anyone of these powers one at a time
2. The maximum number of killing dice - weapon + STR bonus + maneuver (martial or otherwise) is 3d6 HKA with any of these attacks.
3. The maximum number of killing dice can not exceed the normal 2x killing damage based on base killing damage of the weapon.  So a 1d6 KA sword can only get 2d6 KA (strength + maneuver + skills).

[eepjr24]

So how does this work.  As a general rule putting Naked Advantages inside a multipower is a big no-no.

1. The character with this multipower can use anyone of these powers one at a time
2. The maximum number of killing dice - weapon + STR bonus + maneuver (martial or otherwise) is 3d6 HKA with any of these attacks.
3. The maximum number of killing dice can not exceed the normal 2x killing damage based on base killing damage of the weapon.  So a 1d6 KA sword can only get 2d6 KA (strength + maneuver + skills).

One minor quibble, #3 is actually an optional rule. Very commonly used in FH, but optional. So make sure to talk to your GM.

 

- E

[bigdamnhero]

1) all the slots in the framework would have the same limitations: a) Focus ==> the weapon(s), requires a roll (weapon trickery)

The question is: to what have I to apply the limitation? to the framework or to every single slot?

Both. Any Limitation that all the slots have in common - in this case, Focus and Requires A Roll - can also be applied to reduce the cost of the framework itself. (If you're using Hero Designer - which I highly recommend - add it to the Framework as a Common Modifier and the program will copy it through to each slot.)

 

As a general rule putting Naked Advantages inside a multipower is a big no-no.

Well it requires GM approval, which isn't quite the same thing. Putting Special Powers inside a Framework can get munchkiney if you're not careful, but in my mind it's less of a "big no-no" and more "GM should look at this closely to make sure it's not unbalancing." If misused, it can just be a cheap way to get powers with no drawback. But I use frameworks builds like this all the time and have never had a problem with them, so I think you're on solid ground here.

 

...for up to 45 Active Points of Killing Attacks with bladed weapons...

Just to expound on this a bit for iena's sake: the cost of the Naked Advantage depends on the cost of the base power you're applying it to, in this case Killing Attack HtH with bladed weapons. As iena pointed out this will vary from character to character and weapon to weapon, so you typically customize the cost for each character. Heroic Henry has a longsword (1d6+1K), a 17 STR (+1 DC => 1 1/2 d6K), a Martial Strike that adds +2DCs (2d6+1K), and two CSLs that can be used to add another +1 DC, so his max damage is 2 1/2 d6K. That's a total of 8 Damage Classes, or 40 Active Points. If you added Armor Piercing (+1/2) to a 40 AP Power, it would increase the cost to 50 AP; therefore the cost of buying Armor Piercing as a Naked Advantage is 10 AP (50 - 40). That Active Cost is then reduced by Limitations, the Framework discount, etc. Note that the character does not HAVE to use the full 8 DCs all the time; the cost is based on the max he can do. If he later picks up a magic sword that adds another another 2 DCs, you can buy up the cost of the Framework based on 10 DCs, or else rule that the most damage he can do while using the Framework maneuvers is still 8 DCs, so for example he wouldn't be able to put his Skill Levels into damage while using those maneuvers.

 

Hope that helps.

[iena]

bigdamnhero you have been great!!! You have been really clear, much more clear than the handbook (Steve Long, please forgive me!!)... This is a important step forward for my setting.

 

Please don't misunderstand me, Hero System is great but my feeling is that the system is great for the superheroes campaign but less effective if applied to other settings... 

[Lucius]

 

Three things:

 

First, consider carefully the use of "Requires a Skill Roll." It takes a penalty based on Active Points.

 

Second, if you buy a Naked Advantage for, say, 40 Active Points, and the character DOES happen to acquire Excalibur, then Excalibur used with these tricks performs as an inferior sword - the Naked Advantage doesn't cover the increase in points. Maybe the warrior needs to train with Excalibur for a while (spend more points on the Naked Advantage) to use it to its full power.

 

Third, you can get similar functionality without using a Multipower. Buy "Variable Advantage" as the Naked Advantage, and you can switch out between any possible set of Advantages adding up to the number you buy it for. This is even more flexible but also more expensive.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Fourth, a palindromedary

[NuSoardGraphite]

bigdamnhero you have been great!!! You have been really clear, much more clear than the handbook (Steve Long, please forgive me!!)... This is a important step forward for my setting.

 

Please don't misunderstand me, Hero System is great but my feeling is that the system is great for the superheroes campaign but less effective if applied to other settings...

Its incredibly effective when applied to other settings. Its all in how you approach it.

[eepjr24]

Its incredibly effective when applied to other settings. Its all in how you approach it.

To a certain point. I think once you get down to gritty heroic settings it can get stretched thin because it scales less well downward than upward. You can balance it around a lower baseline but at that point you are definitely into home brew or GM fiat, which works fine in Hero but also works well in many systems.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Hero System is great but my feeling is that the system is great for the superheroes campaign but less effective if applied to other settings

 

 

I've found it very fine in all settings I've tried, personally.  It just takes some understanding how to make it fit and function in each settings, because there are a lot of "dials" and "switches" you can use to add optional rules, remove others, and alter fine points of the game.