AD&D (1st Edition) Conversion - The Thread

[scoolio]

I'm working on something similar to bring my D&D group into Hero Games.

 

With that goal in mind I've done 90% copy paste job into a Trello board to organize my thoughts.  My goal is to allow a D&D Player to drop into the campaign say things like I take my Rogues disengage action and I as the DM do the Hero equivalent math/consult and say OK roll 3d6 and narrate the action. 

 

https://trello.com/b/EFdivqvN/champions-complete-fantasy-hero-6th-edition

 

I made the board public just now.

 

Caveat I'm still in the early capture idea phase and the comments are mainly notes to myself to flesh it out more and more.  D&D and Hero are on completely different ends of the spectrum but I'm committed to my 10 year plan.  Again I've copied and pasted liberally from existing Hero stuff and there is near zero organization on the Trello board but I'm looking for comments on the trello cards with examples and ideas. 

 

The real struggle is that the Hero Mechanics are very balanced and D&D and very imbalanced so things like spellcasters vs a Fighter are hard to 1 to 1 match against the feel of D&D.  

 

This process is helping re-learn and get a feel for Hero again.  I miss it dearly. 

 

[Rapier]

7 hours ago, scoolio said:

 

The real struggle is that the Hero Mechanics are very balanced and D&D and very imbalanced so things like spellcasters vs a Fighter are hard to 1 to 1 match against the feel of D&D.  

 

 

 

That's kind of why I'm going at it from the other side. What I'm doing is, basically, creating a Fantasy Hero campaign that has all the IP/Lore of AD&D. For instance, I looked at things like Backstab. It's a multiple or, in Hero terms, a damage increaser. So I made it part of Skullduggery (the Thief Martial Arts package) and its +4 DCs (must be behind target). I could also build it with some + HtH DCs with Must Follow Suprise (-1/2) and Only from the Back (-1/4).

[Toxxus]

I've been largely doing this on the fly for my D&D group and it would be great to have something more formalized.

 

One of the things I've had to address is the action economy around reactions.  They don't really have that in HERO so I've built out most of those abilities with a  Trigger advantage that can't be reset until the start of your next phase.

 

A pleasant surprise is that the blatantly overpowered spells of 5th edition D&D are all prohibitively expensive in HERO.  AKA - Active Points balance the powers out better than Crawfordian fiat.

[scoolio]

On 3/25/2019 at 8:10 AM, Toxxus said:

A pleasant surprise is that the blatantly overpowered spells of 5th edition D&D are all prohibitively expensive in HERO.  AKA - Active Points balance the powers out better than Crawfordian fiat.

 

My workaround for this to keep the "feel" of D&D is that I am using the Active Points to calculate the endurance cost but I've made the "learning" or "access" to a spell a five point Real Cost skill.  In addition I tie in a Custom talent called "The Gift" and it cost 10 Character Points.  Each 10 CP Spent on the Gift earns you access to another DND level of spells.  So 10 CP get's you access to the Cantrips, and 20 CP get's you access to Level 1 DND spells and 30 CP get's you access to Level 2 Spells, etc.  All spells are powered by a Magic END reserve that grows commensurate to your Gift investment. 

 

I'm going to playtest the cost of the spells themselves.  I'm waffling between 1 to 10 points per spell.  1 CP for a cantrip and 2 CP for a 1st level, 3 CP for a 2nd level, etc.