Alcamtar

Does anyone still use 3x5 index cards for recording HERO NPCs or creatures? I used to do this with 3rd and 4th Ed. It was just big enough to hold everything I needed during play, and very convenient. My entire creature catalog in a card file, I could just lay them out on the table for reference during a fight. Picking a random encounter was a breeze. Might need to upgrade to 4x6 cards to fit everything on the card nowadays with 6E...

If gods are spiritual leeches, what are they leeching? A leech takes what does not belong to them and thereby weakens the host. If the god does not take your spiritual power, what can you do with it? That is an important question to answer. If your spiritual power is otherwise useless to you, then the leech-god is a symbiont, like gut bacteria. It converts something you cannot use into something useful and life giving. If it is stealing power that you could otherwise use, then it is a leech. Redistribution is only good if it is a voluntary donation, otherwise it is theft. Well, depending I guess on whether you consider Robin Hood a saint or a thief. I think the only thing that makes Robin Hood "noble" is that he stole from the greedy... what if he stole from the poor to give to other poor? What if he stole from mother Theresa to give to beggars? If symbiont/leech gods take power from the living an convert it into useful products like healing spells, and if you consider this to be a good thing, then living a long life would be a religious duty. After all when you are dead you are no longer contributing to the spiritual power pool. Raise Dead spells are self serving as they maintain your power base. Suicide or slaying of the faithful would be a grave sin. Not taking care of yourself would be a sin. OTOH the god might not care if you are slave or free, healthy or unhealthy, as long as you are contributing maximum power for as long as possible. It would be a holy act to slay the followers of a god's enemy, as that weakens the enemy god.

There a notion in the ancient world, where if my city conquered your city then my god was more powerful than your god. So a god's power was measured by dominance and/or unconquerability, which is not necessarily the same as # if worshippers. It could be interpreted that the military and political success of men *determine* the gods power. Maybe the gods encourage warfare as a means of gaining power. There was also the idea that gods could be stolen. If you steal someone's idol your have stolen their god, and now you will be aided by the god and they will not. It is like religion with an OIF. (Inaccessible because you need to set it up properly in a shrine and sacrifice to it, not something done in the heart of battle.)

I think anything that is worshipped and acclaimed a god, is a god. it need not be divine or have any power. A monster god is an animal or creature that is worshipped. An idol is a god that is a statue. A good king is a man that is worshipped. I never liked this idea that a god somehow derives power from its worshippers. Popular idea these days but i wonder where it came from. Very humanist. I do think it kind of works for an idol or a monster god, as it might explain miracles from a thing logically unable to produce them. (See Dunsany's story about Chubu and Sheemish for a fun take.) But for a spirit or divinity it really makes them seem ungodlike, like a poser.

A sign is essentially proof from a god, so it should be something that no mortal is able to accomplish. Amazement or wonder is inspired by the impossible. In a magical world, where magicians can do the impossible, it's tough for a god to get any respect or do anything that will be taken as a sign. A true sign or wonder will be so unbelievable that some NPCs will refuse to believe it. What can Hero System *not* do... or more specifically, what can magic not do in the setting? That's going to come across as miraculous. If resurrection is forbidden or impossible, then it will be wondrous when it happens. Another possibility is the really BIG. That risks having gods come across as super-magicians, as if it's only a matter of who has more active points. Sinking a continent? Magicians can do that in some worlds, but it might be tough in a Hero world to muster that much power. Prophecy is typically the realm of the gods; even spells tend to rely on the divine for foretelling. Coordinating a very complex situation is a wonder and beyond any mortal, but is very subtle and easy to explain away as coincidence. The divine should evoke a sense of otherness, of alienness. Really facing the divine should instill terror, not necessarily the fearful kind, but the dread of knowing you are facing something unimaginable and other and that you are completely helpless before it. A simple ghost is terrifying because it violates our sense of reality; we don't know what it is or what it can do; we cannot do anything about it. You asked for examples not discussion, and I don't have any offhand. There have been times the players clearly knew they were dealing with the divine, but fantasy gamers tend to be pretty jaded and not easily spooked. Offhand I'm not recalling anything where they players felt a sense of wonder.

Player characters are spiritual of course, since they only exist in the mind. i had a setting once in which PCs were unwitting avatars/pawns for gods (the actual players). If a PC died it could be re-incarnated to continue play. The GM of course was also a god. Gods could not manifest in the game-world, since of course they live in a different (and higher order) reality; at best they could be imperfectly represented through their avatars. But of course one could *talk* to the gods.

I'm waiting for this too!

And on the topic of PRICES, the Fantasy Hero 1E rules have always worked well for me: The prices are stated in copper, silver, and gold pieces. The exchange rate used here is 100 copper pieces (cp) to the silver piece (sp), and 10 silver pieces to the gold piece (gp). One copper piece is worth (very roughly) one dollar. COST ITEM 5 sp Adventurer’s Pack 1 cp Ale 30 cp Blanket 1 sp Boots 50 cp Cloak 5 cp Good meal 5-50 sp Horses 2 sp Lantern 10 cp One day’s food, average 20 cp One day’s horse fodder 40 cp Pack (holds 20 kg) 1 sp Rope (30 m) 25 cp Room & board per day, in the country 50 cp Room & board per day, in the city 40 cp Small iron pot 1 sp Travel by ship, per day, with room & board 50 cp Tunic 20 cp Waterskin 2 cp Wine 1 sp Weapons (per DC, so a 1d6+1 sword costs 4 sp) 1 sp Armor (per KG, so a 28KG suit costs 28 sp) 1 sp Wages (per week, if you make a PS skill roll to find a job) Short and sweet, covers all the basics. STARTING EQUIPMENT Clothing A small pack with 3 days worth of food One weapon for each skill level the character has (the weapon must be one of the weapons the skill level applies to; weapon and shield counts as one weapon) A suit of armor, up to 3 DEF A horse if they have Riding skill 1 SP for each Professional skill, if they make their skill roll I really like this, because everyone starts with equipment suitable for their abilities, and everyone starts penniless unless they have some professional skill. Even then they won't have more than a coin or two. Money is a great motive for adventure. FH1 also had a money Perk: Cost of Money CP Money 1 1 sp 2 2 sp 3 4 sp 4 8 sp 5 2 gp 6 3 gp 7 6 gp 8 12 gp 9 25 gp 10 50 gp Money was built into the Focus limitation, for expendable foci: COST PER USE No cost (+0) Cost 1 sp (+½) Cost 2 sp (+1) Cost 8 sp (+1½) Cost 3 gp (+2) This limitation was dropped in 4th edition and all subsequent editions, but it was one of my favorite things about Fantasy Hero.

I was thinking more of the 8c-13c era, before the gold coins and new denominations were (re-)introduced. Maybe that's more dark ages. The "pennies" weren't identical by any means, but similar enough to basically be variants of the same coin. Merchants would use scales anyway, and when a penny is worth $50 a peasant just sees it as "a lot of turnips" or "new shoes" without caring that this one is a half gram lighter or has Olaf's portrait instead of Eadwig's. I actually deleted most of my post after writing it because the OP asked about prices, not coins. I enjoy working up coinage more than prices, but find that players really don't care. In fact they usually simplify even gold/silver/copper down to a single decimalized "money sum" expressed in gold pieces or whatever is standard, and don't record specific denominations. For that reason, these days I tend toward simplifying my coinage, not for lack of interest, nor because it is historically accurate (RW premodern coinage is incredibly complex), but for my own sanity so I won't be frustrated when players completely ignore all the loving detail I put into it. Otherwise my preference would be to use the non-decimal pound sterling system mixed with marks and lots of foreign coins of varying sizes and values. Because players want to decimalize, I choose a "dollar equivalent", which I usually call a penny: a standard coins small enough it doesn't have to be subdivided. If I set 1d = $1, then all other coins are expressed in pence. I have have a 10d silver coin, a 100d gold coin, etc. Players only need to track pence, and how many pence they have of silver and gold (for weight purposes). It's an extreme simplification, but it worked in dark ages England: money was generic silver "coins" the same size and weight as grandfather's coins, pretty similar to Frankish coins from across the water. Lots of money was not gold, it was a hoard of hundreds or even thousands of sceatas/pennies. Having done that, I express all my prices in "d" as a generic economic unit: an equivalent weight of silver. Those 'd' can then be translated into whatever coinage is on hand, and all coins (domestic or foreign) have a 'd' exchange value. A 'd' is probably close enough to gram that you could just list prices in grams, but I avoid using metric in my games and it's traditional to express prices in silver pieces. In terms of price lists, if you want to go with the tried and true (okay, "familiar" and "acceptable if you squint hard enough") D&D prices, I recommend ACKS as a resource. It takes the traditional D&D price list and rationalizes the economy around it, bringing things like wages and commodities into balance, and using extreme standard of living differences among social classes to make treasure hauls fit into the economy without breaking it.

This being Hero, I like the idea of physical gods that are statted up. If PCs are Indiana Jones, the gods are Superman. Well maybe not killable, They are not killable to starting PCs, but baby PCs grow up to be demigod PCs, and then all bets are off. And even if they are not killable (immortality and all) they are definitely fightable. How awesome is it to go to hell, haymaker Orcus, and while he's recovering from being stunned, grab his OAF wand and get the @#$% out of there... You can't kill him, but you can definitely inflict some knockback! Gods are not physical because it makes any sense. They are physical because Hero makes it possible (and fun!)

I typically just grab a D&D book and use that. It's handy because I have prices for common items memorized, and a decent "feel" for how to ballpark new items. It is also pretty vanilla. I hate price lists with too many coin types (iron pieces??). Real cultures rarely use more than two or three coin types, and sometimes only one (medieval england only minted silver coins). Anyway, you can use D&D and convert gold into silver or whatever. I really liked how it was done in original fantasy hero. 1 sp per kg of armor weight, 1 sp per DC of weapons. So easy! Another good trick I picked up from GURPS (and it might have been used in original FH as well) is to assign a coin value to modern dollars. You already know what things cost in the real world. If a hotel room is $50 that is easy to translate into coinage. You do still need a cheat sheet for fantasy items with no intuitive equivalent (swords, armor, horses). Using modern prices is not realistic, but then neither are our games. The players will probably never notice. Dwarves and magic are going to screw with prices and economies just as much as automated factories do today.

Don't underestimate kids. I introduced my son to Hero back when he was 8 or 9, and to my surprise he had no trouble getting into the rules and making characters. Admittedly, he made some very strange and silly characters, but don't be afraid of the complexity. The worst of it is understanding how the system works and what the balance points are. Now that they've played a few sessions they'll have no trouble with that. Gaming with your kids is awesome. Ain't nothing like it in the whole wide world!

I always teach Hero with an inverted combat roll: 1. Roll 3d6 2. Add your OCV 3. Subtract 10 4. The result is the highest DCV you hit. Easy to grasp, fast to calculate.

This is amusing. Looked up Hero 6E books on Amazon to see what they go for used, and found only two copies of Vol 1... for $9,887.90 and $9,923.46! Is it really that rare? I expect to pay a premium for out of print books, and I also expect to see a few speculators asking princely sums on the odd chance of getting a bite... but that's ridiculous. Why even list such a price? Will people really pay that much? For a price check I tried Ebay and Noble Knight.... nothing. Scarce as hens teeth. The same site (HPB) lists Martial Arts ($101.89) and the APG ($157.29). I was able to find these on ebay for 49.99 and 24.99 respectively, so they are running 2x to 6x overpriced. But even at 6x overpriced that still a whopping $1650 for the book. Anyone manage to snag these recently? Anyone selling one to finance college or anything? (And no I'm not interested... anymore) (finally a good use for those smilies!)

I think I would say that a Hero turn is a D&D combat round. The difference is that in D&D, you have to wait until higher levels to get multiple attacks per round. In Hero, every character has a Speed (SPD) that determines how many attacks you can make per round. Some other differences: -- A starting HERO character is much more powerful, equivalent to perhaps a 5th level character in D&D. -- D&D often "breaks down" in various at higher levels (10+). HERO on the other hand is designed to scale smoothly to superhuman levels of ability. -- In D&D everything is already made for you. It is pick-up-and-play. In HERO you have to make it yourself. (This is both a feature and a bug) -- In D&D you can easily run through three or four combats per hour (depending on what edition you play). You often have random encounters and trivial combats to fill up the adventure. HERO combat is much more detailed, and slower. I think HERO works best when there is only one significant combat at the finale of the game session; you might optionally have one or two trivial warm-up combats if they are short, but probably not more than one per hour. I sometimes joke that HERO is for the "combat connoisseur" ... instead of quick junk-food combats, it prepares a five course feast, lovingly prepared in painstaking detail. -- I can roll up a D&D character in 5 minutes, whereas a HERO character is more like 5 hours. This means death is cheap in D&D and characters are often little more than cardboard silhouettes, at least until they've had time to develop in play. It's okay to kill starting characters in droves. HERO is the opposite. Each character is lovingly handcrafted over many hours and well developed even before play starts; you want to go out of your way to avoid killing PCs if possible. This has significant implications for the tone of the game, how adventures are balanced, and so forth. In D&D you can play "iron man" games in which the dice fall where they may and there is no mercy. This style of play is not well suited to HERO. On the other hand, it can be very difficult in D&D to have a story oriented quest where the same cast of characters is expected/required to survive until the end; but HERO excels at this style of play. (Related to this: it is easy to play HERO in a nonlethal mode, where characters get knocked out but take little real damage, like in an action movie. D&D doesn't do this well, and in fact usually can't do it at all.)

I was just thinking about this (and making spreadsheets ) last week. At SPD 3, the default 12m of running is spot-on for realistic human movement rates. (SPD 2 normals are rather sluggish though.) At the very top end of non-super human capability, Usain Bolt would have 16m Running at SPD 3, and only 11m Running at SPD 4. MODE MPH m/Sec m/Turn m/Phase at SPD 3 Walking 3.4 1.5 18 6 = 12m half move Jogging 6.7 3.0 36 12 = 12m full move (a 9-minute mile) Sprinting 13.4 6.0 72 24 = 12m noncombat move Usain Bolt 23.4 10.4 125 42 = 16m noncombat move, Pushed to 21m Interestingly, Usain has +4m running, the same as a Fantasy Hero elf. For a realistic humans, you'd want to vary Running by Speed. An easy rule of thumb is to divide 36m of movement by your SPD: SPD Running Usain 1 36m 58m 2 18m 26m 3 12m 16m 4 9m 11m 5 7.2m 7.5m 6 6m 5.4m 7 5.1m 3.9m 8 4.5m 2.8m 9 4m 1.9m 10 3.6m 1.3m 11 3.3m 0.7m 12 3m 0.2m Note that for SPD 6-12, the "Usain" SPD is slower than standard because of how the Pushing rules work. With 1m of running at SPD 12, combined with a maximum push at SPD 12 you'd be much faster than the fastest human. I think most characters should be within a meter or two of the "normal" rate for their speed, unless they are physically unusual.

And now I misplaced mine! Was looking for it this week prepping for a game.

Am just finishing watching the BBC Merlin series on Netflix. Was going to wait to post this until after I finish, but I'm thinking about it now. My sons and I have enjoyed the show a great deal. It has occurred to me over and over that it would be a perfect setup for a Fantasy Hero game, for several reasons: - Small cast of recurring characters. This is ideal for Hero, I don't want to stat up new characters constantly and want to get some mileage out of those that I do put work into. - Location based soap opera. The story is loaded with Secrets, DNPCs, Hunteds, Rivalries, and the like. It is really all about the characters and how they interact with each other. The HERO mechanics are specifically designed or this type of thing. - Generally nonlethal. I am pleased that they avoided the stupid "punching/throwing" combat you often see in fantasy shows, and characters get stabbed, coup-de-graced, and killed. But main characters are also surprisingly durable, they often either recover or are magically healed. Also they are very often knocked unconscious by magic while taking modest damage... looks like a Normal Attack to me! Sometimes they recover their STUN in a few segments, sometimes they remain out for some time; usually they have some bruising to show for it but they are up and walking again in short order. Most people, even villains, seem to have a Code vs Killing unless it's really necessary. Even assassination plots are long winded, elaborately plotted Rube Goldberg devices that virtually always fail, offering plenty of warning. Anyway this seems perfect for HERO. - Relatively few combats. I like to say HERO is a game for the combat connoisseur, where instead of a large number of short junk food combats, you have a single elaborate meaty combat that forms a climax or centerpiece for the session. Furthermore, HERO offers a great deal of tactical texture, and to my thinking this is a feature in the Merlin series. There is a definite pecking order among combatants, and it often seems to come down to the martial arts maneuvers one knows and uses effectively. - The magic seems well suited to HERO. I see clearly identified EBs, RKAs, Telekinesis, Healing, Shapeshift, etc. Merlin apparently has an Aid SPD. The show itself seems to be powers-based, not spells-based. And there are just as obviously powers that are not allowed: healing, teleportation, invisibility, etc. The magic has little ritual associated with it, just a quick incantation; they are a lot like superpowers. Again it's almost like it was modeled on HERO powers. - The show is a tutorial on how to make a villain your players will HATE. Betrayal. Slander. Manipulation. Hitting below the belt. Cold malice cloaked in loving lies. Always getting away with things, smelling like a rose and being praised as the hero when you're actually the villain. You can see them but you can't touch them because your hands are tied. Every attempt to unmask or eliminate them is thwarted and turned back on you. It makes the final vengeance oh so sweet. Has anyone else noticed this? Anyone run a Fantasy Hero game inspired by the show? I have often thought a "fantasy superhero team" would be fun, but wasn't too sure how to go about it. Merlin made me sit up and say "that's what it should look like." It's not surprising; the show is patterned after Smallville, which is supers based. Also not surprising that it seems perfect for HERO, since both Merlin and Hero are drawing on superhero tropes. My concept was originally that all the characters would be supers, like in a silver age comic, they'd fly around and use energy blasts to defeat dragons and instead of spandex they'd wear chainmail or wizard robes or something. That may be cool, but Merlin opened my eyes to a different take on it: lower power, incorporating both supers and normals, but keeping the same tropes. Mixing normals and supers is already standard fantasy practice, so that's a plus as far as capturing the essential fantasy flavor. I'm not really a comic book reader and while I get the basic idea of the city-based team, I don't really understand how it looks in practice. This made me reluctant to bite it off... where to start? How to balance it? How to explain it? Merlin offers are familiar mythos, a familiar setup, and basically a blueprint for how to organize and structure the campaign. I find the structure interesting. There are episodic "filler" adventures that have only minor effects on the story, but the season finale/start move the plot ahead in dramatic ways. Most of the adventure challenges are not powers based, but interpersonal- or mystery-based. That takes balance out of the equation! Of course Merlin can blast a demon to smithereens, but he can't do it in front of anyone, or maybe if he does it will hurt someone he cares about. I never really got this before. I think in pragmatic D&D tropes, not melodramatic superhero tropes. So anyway this was an eye opener for me. Some things I didn't like: - The whole "assassin/monster of the week" gets old. It got better in later seasons, but a lot of episodes felt like filler. - People are always sneaking into (or out of) the castle! The place is like swiss cheese. Don't they ever close the doors? One of my boys commented that if he was king, he'd not allow strangers into the castle and that would solve almost all the problems. Again this rapidly got kind of stale: "who will sneak in this week, and what monster will they turn into?" - There is ALWAYS a spy sabotaging, informing, and betraying. It's a great plot and the show does it expertly, but I could have used a break. No sooner was one spy revealed than another was added to replace them. After a while it seems like the show is entirely about betrayal. More variety needed. - The show kept promising that someday Arthur would allow magic, Merlin would get credit, etc., and it didn't deliver. Well okay so far -- we have three episodes left. But now its too late, even if it happens it will be a pyrrhic victory because then its game over man! This is very frustrating. - There was not NEARLY enough of "wisecracking old man Merlin." I would watch a whole season of nothing but this! The downsides are all well done on their own, they just camped on them too much.

I played FH 1e back in college. Ran Affairs of Wizards several times, and once ported it into Mystara. FH 1e magic items book was awesome and I still use it. Lands of mystery is another favorite. Wish I had ask these in PDF as the books are getting old and worn. FH 4e plus companions. Never used the schools, didn't like them. Had shadow world box and several modules. Loved it but never managed to play. The only thing I have left is the FH conversion book from the master atlas... the best part! Had Mythic Greece and used it a little. Also some old Adventurers Club issues with FH content. Used FH 5 for a few games. I mostly use the 1e or 4e bestiaries... The 5e and 6e products are too detailed and too wordy. The simplified monsters in lands of mystery, the the creature combat summary from 1e are my favorites for use in play, and about as detailed as i want to get. Tomb of Rakoss. Kestrel module conversions. I've run/converted the occasional D&D module. Campaigns: middle earth using the old MERP poster map... Saduria (1e)... Mystara... Vortimax (fantasy warlord setting)... And homebrew. Probably Greyhawk too, way back when. Most used: 1e FH, regardless of what edition I'm actually playing. Runners up are 4e bestiary, 1e magic items, and 4e FH which had some cool spells even if I hated the colleges.

I like the idea that subterranean races only have enhanced eyesight (enlarged eyes like deep sea creatures) rather than a magical sense. For a race that could truly see in darkness I'd create a new power, Darkvision, that would be something like Spatial Awareness or N-Ray vision or something. It seems to violate the spirit of the rules to say that +4 PER grants the ability to see in the absence of light. After all anyone can buy 4 levels of enhanced PER (or sufficiently high INT for that matter), and +4 Hearing doesn't grant the ability to hear nonexistent sounds.

Is there an IRC channel for Hero-related stuff?

Wizards can stay as is. If you assume 15 AP power spell level, staying at 0th, then a mere 3rd level spell is 60 AP. Enough for 3d6K area effect, or 4d6K on a single target. That's a tactical death spell for mooks. What's needed is to power up your fighters. They need to be Bricks. Plate armor is 8 rPD and hardly encumbering. Add a level of combat luck and your up to 11 rPD easy. If that's not enough bring out the 12 PD dwarven mithril suit. Power defense to protect against spell damage. Also relax the limits on stats. If a D&D fighter can have 30 hp, why can't a FH fighter have 30 BODY? Or 20 PD? Build characters like low powered superheroes. How about a fighter multi power for combat tricks? Self healing (first aid, a ready supply of potions, catching your breath...?) Martial arts can be very effective for both offense and defense. HERO is unique in that it has the built in tools to solve these problems, but you have to use them. If you restrict fighters to only skills and equipment and NCM they are hamstrung. In D&D fighters are magical demigods, they just use different tools.

Re: Any ideas for a character leveling system based on experience points? I generally assume about 25 XP per level for Fantasy Hero. In terms of making levels more concrete, my suggestion would be to set effectiveness ranges per level. That is, you not only have maximums for DCs, defenses, active pts, etc., but you also have minimums... and these numbers increase with each level. That means a character must dedicate some XP toward meeting the minimum for agiven level. Establishing a range means that levels are indicative of effectiveness in a general way, but also allows freedom to differentiate characters and let them specialize. Another way to make levels more concrete: you can only gain a NEW ability when you cross a level threshold. Otherwise you can only improve existing abilities. Also, when crossing a level boundary, you can buy off or swap disadvantages, or maybe even reconfigure aspects of the character. Finally, you could tie fame to levels. This hearkens back to the old idea that at level 4 you are a "hero" and at level 9 you've arrived at name level. This could be implemented as a PRE bonus, or maybe a Perk. Treat it like free bonus XP. ("Whenever you cross a level boundary, you get a free +5 PRE (or an equal value perk)") Thus as characters rise through levels, their fame and influence increases dramatically.

Re: HERO: Combat Evolved [Equipment Posts & Comments] Posting for anyone who might be mining the Halo stuff like I am.... The Hero Designer files (above) seem to have been originally discussed in the HALO Hero? thread. Besides the commentary, that thread also contains some designs that apparently did not make it into this thread, like Brutes, Hunters, etc. Other interesting threads: A couple of marines A writeup of the Master Chief from Halo 1

Re: Future Guns: Projectile Obsolete? For genre examples of SF projectile weapons: Aliens. Halo. Oh, and there's always this: