Alcamtar

Limitations on the Multipower: Continuing Charges (recover by memorization), Concentration. The continuing charge controls the duration before it expires, and it has an a concentration on the multipower itself. So you activate the multipower, it remains available until the charge ends or the concentration is violated, and then you have to rememorize to recover the charge. These limitations also implicitly limit the powers in the multipower, but the idea is that the entire multipower is switched on or off by them. If you don't want a limited duration, just use a regular charge. It may or may not be recoverable depending on how easy memorization is. If you want END to be a factor, add an attached END reserve to the Multipower. When you cast the spell the END reserve is fully charged, and when it is depleted the multipower ends and has to be reactivated again. These may or may not correspond precisely to the letter of the rules, but they capture the concept and seem balanced to me and are certainly within the purview of the GM to permit it for this one spell. As far as I am concerned, the only reason to stat out the spell is to come up with a point cost so you know how much to pay for it... otherwise you could just handwave it all like D&D.

I don't think it's actually doubled END. There are two END costs in play, one for the power and (optionally) one for the extra strength. So if you have a 2D6 HKA weapon, that is 20 active and it's going to cost you 2 END just activate the power at STR zero. Even at zero strength you can do 2D6 killing for two endurance. The +1 DC for 5 STR is not based on the active cost, it's built into the HKA. So STR 15 character could then apply up to 15 points of strength and bump it up to 3d6, for an additional 3 END (for the strength). It is still a 2D6 power, and the 5 END cost is coming from two different things, AP and STR. That is how it would look if you dropped both the 0 END and the STR min: The same as any other HKA. The 0 END neutralizes the base cost for acting activating the power. So now the character can use the weapon for free at zero strength, and use 15 STR for +1D6 at a total cost of 3 END. The strength minimum effectively applies a limit to how much strength you're allowed to use. So a STR min 10 means you can activate the HKA for zero END, but you must effectively reduce your strength by 10 for the purposes of how much strength can be applied to the HKA. In the example above it means you can bump your 2D6 attack only up to 2D6+1, for +1 END. It's more of a limit on how much you can push then on how much END it costs. But answering your question, it would just be like a normal "power" HKA. The +1 END for +1 DC would not change because that's based on the cost of strength, and built into the HKA itself.

I think there are different ways you can do it.. To me POL implies civilization is focused in small pockets separated by wide stretches of wilderness. It may or may not be low density, the "points" could be teeming cities. It may or may not have a history... Wilderness could be full of ruins or just untamed. People may or may not venture out into it... The key is that it is dangerous to do so. Some examples: the Wilderlands (judges guild), the American "wild west". Europe in the dark ages. I think traveller sci fi is points of light because you can get into backwater worlds where you have no protection except your own wits and arms. POL are settings where everyone carries a gun or sword, and there are no police to call upon. The opposite of POL is a setting that is well settled and tamed. It need not be highly populated but the countryside is safe enough for farmers and settlers to live without defenses or danger. Then modern western world fits this description, as do extensively settled fantasy settings like Harn. I think the term originated from the "thousand points of light" in the first Bush presidency.

I like the first one. It is denser but more pleasing to the eye. The second one is weird because the images are so small compared to the width of the text. Additionally, narrow columns are easier to read, while wider columns are harder. The second is less intimidating, that is true. I just think it scans poorly and the full width text is not so easy to read. Maybe if you enlarged the font, and enlarged the images to fill the page width? Or broke it up somehow? Maybe if the text was on the left and the image on the right...

Awesome thanks. I was pretty sure I couldn't just sit there for 26 years without someone doing something with it. Egad.

Has anyone converted or adapted the old Horror Hero Spirit rules to 6E? I liked that approach as well as the creatures based on it, but the mechanics are for 4E. They could probably be adapted straight across to 6E, but there may be some overlap with 6E powers since things have changed a bit, and costs may no longer be relevant. So before I put any real effort into it, I thought I'd ping the community and see if anyone has already gone down this road.

I would love to see more about the setting as you've developed it. I fell in love with it with FH1e and dabbled a little but never really developed it out. "Hunted by the Demon Princess of Lust" is even funnier when you're not sure if it refers to an actual demon or just an extremely high maintenance and insatiable ex-girlfriend.

Common abyssals are surprisingly mundane! Are they actually tiefling style demons? Love the "Naber" easter egg from FH1e. Ooava Nocte sounds like fun to roleplay.

Very cool, I like it. It's interesting to see different types of weather statted up as well as some very bizarre ideas for environments. Could definitely see using this is a sourcebook for other planes; the idea of magical lands hadn't really occurred to me, I find it intriguing.

YES! Nearly everything in there looks intriguing. Looks like a lot of D&D convertions (which are both useful and interesting to see someone's take on it), interesting sounding original creatures. Shard sounds like something from Shadow World. Rust Slug? hehe Also the Appendices look very cool and useful. Biomes? Useful bits? Chaos effects? Weird skies? All awesome sounding stuff.

While I understand that OP is customizing the setting and probably not interested in canonical Shadow World, I wanted to address Law and Chaos in a Shadow World context. It may be helpful and understanding what was intended by the writer of this supplement. (Which I don't know, I can only conjecture.) In my be reading, Law and Chaos don't really seem to exist as concepts in Shadow World, at least not in the "Moorcock" sense. I have found no references to Law whatsoever; and references to Chaos invariably use it as a synonym or descriptor for the Unlife... which in Shadow World is objective Evil. Shadow world has 200,000 years of history--describing ongoing conflict between good and evil. Good and evil are not defined in the D&D sense, and are rarely even named as such. The Lords of Orhan are the good gods, who really don't do much of anything except oppose the Unlife. There is an association of good with morality, but it's a minor theme. But corruption and amorality are strongly identified with Unlife. Avoiding corruption is how you avoid becoming tainted with the unlife or making it stronger, so it's natural that a focus on avoiding corruption is a survival strategy. Since the unlife is the destruction, it's opposite is simply existence. Chaos is identified with unlife and non-existence, therefore law is identified with life and existence. Also since the unlife is an alien entity from outside this universe, and law is the absence of unlife, then if the unlife had never invaded the entire universe would be 100% lawful at all times. That means the universe we live in in the real world would be considered, and Shadow World terms, 100% lawful. So you can see that our ideas of chaos, which include randomness and entropy and things like that, are actually lawful in a Shadow World context, because they are necessary for the continued existence and normal functioning of the universe. Essence is magic but it is also what all matter in the universe is made of, as well as being the source of all life. The unlife is anti-essence, therefore anti-magic. Not in the D&D sense of temporarily dispelling it, but in the antimatter sense of permanently destroying it. That would be the true nature of chaos: uncreation. Moorcock envisions chaos as unordered matter and inconsistent law and pure magic. That would be completely lawful in the shadow world terms, at least as I understand it. Now for interpretation. Since the Law/Chaos gods in question are presented as lesser local gods, the labels of Law and Chaos could be representative of local cultic philosophy. The clear implication is that the chaos gods are aligned with the Unlife, because it seems like everything in Shadow World is defined in its relation to the Unlife. Even if they are not unlife themselves, or consciously aligned with it, they draw their power from it and further its purposes. That is especially clear with the god of disease, since the text notes that that hod is blamed for creating a severe plague at various times in history. The disease known as "The Cralmyk" is an important part of history in this part of the world. Evil gods are sometimes worshiped as a means of placation. The god of corruption could be in this pantheon because they need an altar to sacrifice on to prevent the Cralmyk from coming back, and none of the other gods want to take credit for it. Nobody likes the dragon either and nobody wants to draw its attention... which is precisely why they religiously sacrifice virgins to it.

Nice to see someone using the old Shadow World stuff. I always liked it, probably because it was in a bit different and very high-powered. Are you updating it to 6E? I suspect "wealth" in this case is synonymous with prosperity, plenty, fertility, abundance, blessing. That is different from "commerce," which I see as more of a systemic thing. Commerce would run as a well-oiled system, all things in finely tuned balance. You could also view wealth as greed and could move it into the chaos category. In that case I would see the chaos aspect as imbalance, or rather a complete disregard for balance. Not unlike war which takes what it wants without regard for others, or luck which just doesn't care. Filth and disease to me is simply the concept of entropy and decay, but presented in a way that's meaningful to a common unscientific person. And of course entropy is simply the tendency of all things to move towards disorder. Disease (entropy) is there for the natural opposite of commerce (order). Storms seems to overlap with both luck (misfortune) and war (disaster). It's not easy to pigeonhole these concepts or to treat them as orthogonal to one another. Maybe these "gods" are not comprehensive but rather the subset of things that ordinary people care about, that impact their lives. If they are perceived as beneficial they are lawful and if they are perceived as threatening then they are chaotic.

Both are "official." Fantasy Hero Complete is the "replacement" for 6E, since 6E went out of print and the market didn't justify another print run of color hardbacks. Additionally, some people preferred the all-in-one format of the original 3E Fantasy Hero or the 4E BBB, and a trimmed-down set of rules might appeal more to modern gamers. At least that's what I understand the reasoning to be. The actual rules are the same between 6E and FHC. The Complete books are similar in concept to the old Hero System Basic Rulebook. The HSBR omitted some rules to fit it all into one book, and was criticized for omitting enough "essential" rules as to be unsatisfying to play. The Complete books retain the "complete" rules, but reduce the size by stripping explanatory text to a bare minimum, and removing almost all examples. For example Fantasy Hero Complete contains 11 monsters, 13 spells, 5 potions, one staff, one armor, one ring, one scroll, one sword... the emphasis is on giving one how-to for each category of thing you might build, but leaving it to you to do the actual building. It doesn't present anything resembling "enough common stuff to get you started" and makes no effort to do so. Half the example monsters are weird and unique things you'd use once in a blue moon, if ever. Fantasy Hero 6E is the opposite, going into great detail on virtually every aspect of fantasy campaign building. Where FHC has old school black and white line art (and not much of it), FH 6e is full color with lavish illustrations and layout. In presentation and content, it is the pinnacle of the Fantasy Hero game line, probably never to be equaled again. Of course the downside is that it is like finding something in an encylopedia. There is a lot of stuff to wade through to find the details. And it still doesn't include magic items, spells, or monsters... those are in add-on books. FHC is everything you need in one minimalist package, but it's all DIY. FH6E is the ultimate plug-and-play reference, almost no DIY needed. As others have noted, if you have 6E hardbacks you won't find anything new in FHC except a few examples on how to build stuff, and of course the legendary "how to build a fantasy campaign" essays. But if you have an older edition of Fantasy Hero you already have this stuff. Personally I prefer to use FHC, just because it's smaller and easier to find stuff. I do have a deadtree FH6E but almost never use it, because most of what's in there is not useful for my campaign, and the few things that are useful are hard to find... like a needle in a haystack. I don't own the 6E grimoire, but the 6E bestiary is useful at least as a starting point. As far as the 6E rules, I prefer very brief explanations for things like skills or powers, because as an experienced GM I can adjudicate things for myself, and actually prefer not to have to look up some official ruling. (I have a hard time ignoring official rules if they exist.) Also my 6E books were expensive and are irreplaceable, and the spines are already breaking, and I prefer to preserve them as long as possible. I keep them around for looking up picky details or options that are not really covered in FHC, but FHC covers 98% of what I actually need in play. I consider DIY a major selling point of Hero and I'm content with a stripped-down toolkit. Another really nice feature of FHC is a very complete set of reference tables, all presented together on 7 pages in an appendix. All the skills, powers, maneuvers, etc. If you know Hero 6E, these tables are all you need to look up stuff during play. Hopefully this information is helpful in deciding what will be useful for you.

In 6E1 page 178 there is an example of exactly what you describe: +40 STR, Reduced END, Only to Lift Objects. Computed as if it were any other power.

Which PDF? Yours is the first post and there is nothing above it.

i tend to use the original (3e) edition of Fantasy Hero for this, or D&D. For actual play, my advice is to just pick an RPG you're comfortable with and that feels intuitively right, and use it. There is no "hero way" to do it... It changes every edition and is completely absent in FHC Usually i'll end up writing my own document for this sort of thing, so I can give it out to players. My rule of thumb is that a price list should fit on a single page, else it's too long. Also if it's intuitive it is easy to remember and extrapolate, so doesn't need to to be exhaustive. Real medieval prices would be flexible and subject to barter anyway.

Nice witcher write-up.

The only rules Q&A and discussion I've been able to find is on therpgsite starting around post #9

That's true, but the interpretation seems to have changed a bit sometime around 5th edition, at least the way modern weapons like bombs work. It also seems to be inconsistently applied throughout the system. For example +5 pts of running doesn't double your speed.

Ascendant is a new superhero RPG being Kickstarted by Autarch. I don't know about the mechanics since at first glance it appears to be a percentile system with very large numbers, both of which are turn-offs for me. But the art is fantastic and I've been impressed with ACKS, so there's that. Anyway nobody seems to be discussing it and I thought that the superhero fans here might find it interesting. There is a free preview if you are interested in the rules: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/ascendant/posts/2773764 From the preview, it uses a logarithmic point-buy method that I have long felt would be a improvement if it were adopted by Hero. That is each N points doubles the effect, and because of that you cannot just add point values; to increase an effect you convert from points to real world value, adjust he real world value, and then convert back to points. Overall that is not a problem... if the numbers are small! With large numbers you're gonna need a calculator which I don't like. For example, in Hero, a 12d6 of Blast is 60 points. If +5 points were really a doubling, then 65 points should do twice as much damage, but it doesn't. If it were truly logarithmic we'd have 5 pts (1d6), 10 pts (2d6), 15 pts (4d6), 20 pts (8d6), etc. If Joe and Sally add together their 10 pt and 20 pt Blasts, how many points is it? You have to first convert to actual effect (2d6 + 8d6 = 10d6) and then convert back to a point value (10d6 = 21.6 points). Wanting to avoid decimal fractions may be behind Ascendant's use of large point values. Anyway this is an interesting enough approach to be worth looking at, IMO.

All I know is the 375 pt elf in my last campaign was tough as nails.

I like that. I usually think of r[PE]D as "DEF" but "armor" is more intuitive.

I personally use roll high for combat, because combat rolls are always calculated and the arithmetic is slightly easier... but roll low for skills, because the target number is nearly always static and its easy enough just to roll against it. I tell players to roll however they are comfortable. Just tell me the DCV you hit and we're good. I haven't had a new Hero player in ages so teaching is kind of a moot point for me.

Is this for 6e?

I don't suppose you have a reproduction hexmap of Saduria? I am looking at making a better map but the hexes in my copy are nearly illegible.