Panpiper

Re: Your Version of FRANKEN-HERO I'm sticking with native 6th Edition rules, even things I don't particularly like, like Dex costing two points, even after OCV, DCV and Speed were removed from it's figureds. I like for the work I do to be fully compatible with everyone else and creating 'house rules' makes that work incompatible. That said, I will occasionally add things to the system, like my rule for lucky damage dice: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/76612-Lucky-Damage-Dice

Horrifying shrieks pierced the darkness where Hecate hid, tucked in a hollow of the demon tree, that spot which no one dared approach, save the desperate. The marauders were taking their time, torturing and murdering everyone she knew and loved. Hecate shut her eyes, held her hands over her ears, and prayed. She had been born to terrible omens, her name a reflection of the doom that those omens foretold. Her mother cast her out as a newborn, fearing the signs and wishing Hecate dead. But the village wise woman kept her and raised her as her own, training her in her ways. The children were afraid of her, the fears of their parents being contagious. But Hecate was taught, learned, that by doing good works and keeping a smile in her heart, she could slowly win them over. Hecate learned healing and herbs, and helped the people of her village. And over time the village forgot their fears and came to accept her. Hecate had finally arrived at a point in her life when all was good. And then conquerors came. A great evil had arisen, commanding armies of orcs, foul men and fell beasts. Like a plague they marched over the land laying waste to any that resisted, and pillaging everything else. Hecate's village was not spared. The screaming reached into Hecate's soul, she could recognize the voices! "Gods! Please!" Hecate begged in her prayers. She knew magics, she knew the ways of magic, but the only power she had ever trained was healing magic. Now when her need was so dire, when she needed to be able to fight, to save what she could of the people she loved, she was powerless! "Please! Give me the strength." Hecate's will was intense, she prayed sincerely, desperately. And there was that which was listening. The Demon Tree, a portal to things that should not be... *Power Dangles* Hecate's mind reached for that promise. *Temptation* Hecate needed that power. *Price* Yes, of course there is a price. *Great Power* Hecate lusted for that power. *Great Price* And Hecate hesitated. And more screams echoed. "I will pay the price!" Hecate screamed loud! Marauders looked up, a few moved towards the voice they had heard, more victims for the slaughter. Hecate realized what she had done. In this place where she had hidden, that which listened and would respond to prayer was as foul as it was dangerous. She had done a terrible thing, and the price was her soul. But she had at least gotten what she had paid for and she would silence those screams, and replace them with the screams of the plague that despoiled her people. Hellfire exploded amongst those marauders who had come to claim Hecate as another of their victims. Brimstone burned their flesh and left them smoking sulfur in a scorch mark stinking of Hades. Searing flames erupted from Hecate's gestures, flaying all who stood before her as she walked among the ruins of what had once been her home. Her every footstep burned the ground beneath her, tendrils of malevolence taking root behind her, she was shrouded in a flame every bit as evil as it was protective of her. One by one she cut down the last of the marauders. They died shrieking as unholy flames consumed more than just their flesh. And then she was done, the plague was purged, and she extinguished her flames. And turned about, dawning horror that the ruin she saw of her village was more than what the marauders had done. Brimstone flowed upon the earth, noxious fumes rose, plants were twisted into a parody of life, and the corpses of the fallen, those she had slain, seemed no longer men, dead though they might be. She had done this! She could trace where she had walked, where she had blasted, and everywhere she could see that she had left not just a trail of destruction, but also a trail of lasting hell. She had brought hell upon the earth. In shock Hecate walked through her village, almost thankful that there appeared no one alive to witness what had become of her. Her tears were dry as she found the village wise woman, her adoptive mother, had been deeply cut, but still holding to life by a thread. Hecate cut her down from where she had been splayed, and held her hands over the wound. Hecate knew healing magics, she could save at least one of them. And with abject horror Hecate's eye went wide, as what happened was not the soothing, purifying light that she used to manifest as she healed. What happened instead was the blackest of shadow, as a rift was torn in the dimensions and from it crawled a hideous demonic spider. The spider immediately leaped for the exposed flesh, as if it were desperate to eat of it, and buried itself inside of the village wise woman. Utterly aghast at what she had done, almost in a panic, now truly weeping, Hecate fumbled with bandages. She grabbed at what herbs she could find to create salves. Desperately she tried to save her, the last of those she loved. She tried, for hours she tried, and then finally despite her efforts, the last of her village died. And Hecate cried herself to sleep, her head laying upon the corpse of her mother. She was awoken by movement. Her eyes opened. Something moved beneath her. Hecate sat up with a shock! Beneath her was the body of her adoptive mother, the dead body, how could she have felt movement? And then spiderlings crawled out from under the bandages she had put on her mother, demonic spiderlings crawling out of the wounds and leaping into the shadows. Hecate screamed! And the dead eyes of her mother opened! She looked at Hecate, and smiled, a sickly sweet smile, that dripped of something not quite right. "Hecate, my beautiful girl, what a beautiful day it is." Her mother gazed upon the sulfuric clouds drifting over the brimstone outside of the hellish shelter she lay in. And Hecate again screamed, and ran, sobbing into the night. End of chapter one... Hecate 10 Str 11 Dex 2 13 Con 3 13 Body 3 13 Int 3 13 Ego 3 15 Pre 5 3 Ocv 4 Dcv 5 3 Omcv 4 Omdv 3 2 PD PD Resistant 2 ED ED Resistant 3 Spd 10 6 Rec 2 30 End 2 30 Stun 5 Total Stats: 46 8 "Hades Made Manifest" "A lingering taste of hell remains wherever and upon whatever, this magic has touched." 1D6 Minor Transform: Partial Cumulative +1/2, Any Area +1, Zero End. +1/2, Constant +1/2, Persistent +1/4, Inherent +1/4, Personal Immunity +1/4 (Nature and time will slowly heal the effect.) Linked to Hellfire&Brimstone -1/2, Two hand gestures -1/2, Incantations -1/4, Delayed Phase -1/4 35 "Hellfire" *A searing, shrieking rent in space seething with demonic fury, burns with sulphuric flame.* 2D6+1 RKA +1/2 Variable Advantage, Half Endurance (3 End) Linked to "Hades Made Manifest" -1/4, Two hand gestures -1/2, Incantations -1/4, Delayed Phase -1/4 33 "Brimstone" "Her own little piece of hell to stand in, as flaming demonic horrors wind and rage about, protecting her." 5PD/5ED Resistant, 5 Point Mental, Power & Flash Defense, Half Damage Reduction Resistant Physical/Energy; Two hand gestures -1/2, Incantations -1/4, Delayed Phase -1/4, Cost Endurance to Activate -1/4, Linked to "Hades Made Manifest" -1/4, Perceivable -1/4 10 "Demonic Persistence" 4D6 Healing, Restore Limbs, Resurrection "A demonic spider is summoned that crawls inside the 'patient' and lays eggs. When the eggs hatch one day later and the demonic spiderlings eat their way out, they heal injury as they leave. Unfortunately, as the 'Hades Made Manifest is active throughout this process, they invariably come back, 'wrong'."Linked to "Hades Made Manifest" -1/4, Two hand gestures -1/2, Incantations -1/4, Delayed Phase -1/4, Delayed Time for Effect: 1 Day -4 10 +5 OCV with "Hellfire" 4 +4 Offensive Penalty Levels on Range Modifiers with "Hellfire" Total Combat: 100 6 +2 Striking Appearance; Extremely Beautiful, Extremely Spooky 3 Conversation 3 Persuasion 1 Lang: Literate 2 Lang: Orcish 2 Culture Knowledge: Orc Culture 3 Scholar 1 KS: Magic Theory 11- 1 KS: Hell Dimensions 11- 2 KS: Herbalism Int 12- 3 Chirurgeon 2 PS: Healer Total Skills: 29 Grand Total: 175 Complications: 5 Distinctive Features, Easily Concealed, "Striking Appearance; Extremely Beautiful, Extremely Spooky" 20 Distinctive Features "Magic Use", Extreme Reaction, Concealable (Don't Use Magic) 10 Extremely Negative Reputation, Small Group, "Good' people who have witnessed her magic, but do not know her." 15 Social Complication; Must for all intents maintain a 'secret identity' when outside of evil cultures.

Re: Balancing Magic and Martial Characters in a Fantasy Setting

Re: Balancing Magic and Martial Characters in a Fantasy Setting I would highly recommend spending some time browsing the magic systems outlined at this web site: http://www.killershrike.info/WorldofGenerica.ashx

Re: Villains Campaign

Re: Divine Magic System: Incarnism Killer Shrike is being overly generous. I think I might have made all of one comment on the development of this system. The work is 99% that of Killer Shrike and 5lippers. And it is a really nice and very simple system that could be loads of fun to play.

Re: How many character points do you think a 20th level DnD character would have? I'd say that Killer Shrike's conversion work is a pretty darn definative answer to the question. All three of the examples there have the characters coming in at very close to 450 character points. First level D&D characters are awesomely wimpy characters compared to starting characters in Hero, I would peg them as 50 point characters myself. Which nicely leads to the notion that a D&D level corresponds roughly to 20 XP in Hero. So give a first level character 6 levels of XP to boost them to 7th level and voila, you have a starting Hero character. And a few of us have already ascribed a starting Hero character as being roughly equivalent to a level 6 or 7 D&D character.

Re: new to hero, looking for some guidance

Re: How do fighters hurt/kill a dragon? See the post I just made on the subject of 'powergaming'. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/76921-On-the-seeming-dichotomy-between-power-gamers-and-roleplayers?p=1943673#post1943673

Re: Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way

Re: "wearable mecha" writeup question Sounds like a vehicle to me.

Re: How do fighters hurt/kill a dragon? There is certainly nothing to prevent a dragon from doing a grab maneuvers. And it is perfectly reasonable to stipulate that it is done with the teeth. One might even come up with some 'martial art' maneuvers unique to dragons for just such tricks. However I do not have access to the mechanics on martial maneuver building, so I can't help with that.

Re: How do fighters hurt/kill a dragon? No. Only one of the three could be used at once, depending on the circumstance. Basically, if the dragon can get two or more characters in it's dragon breath cone, it would breathe fire. Otherwise it would buffet for 11D6 attacking a hex it can reach that happens to contain whomever was doing the most damage to the dragon. If the dragon successfully stuns a character, it would then use it's teeth and claws to attack that character directly. When using teeth and claws, the maximum damage is the 4D6KA, the strength does not contribute to any extra damage. The dragon could be built differently so as to permit multiple attacks and attack stacking, but that would make it far more dangerous than it should be if players are to still have a chance of success. The build above is appropriate for an awesomely huge and powerful creature, without making it magically invulnerable. I do not like the idea of 20resistant defense on anything that didn't come from the planet Krypton.

Re: How do fighters hurt/kill a dragon? It is doing an area effect attack with it's strength, so it is hitting a DCV 3 with an OCV 7. I did think about making the area effect on it's strength larger, but decided that I wanted a player to be able to abort out of the hex attacked. It's breath attack is another larger area effect and hard to avoid. The only attack it would need OCV for is it's HtH KA, which at 4D6 killing, I don't mind having miss. Visually dragons are often seen snapping their mighty jaws at the hero and always just missing. ;-) And of course, anyone is free to make whatever changes they like. This could easily be made much more powerful, or with a little bit of tweaking, even be made a winnable fight for starting heroes. The point for me was to present a dragon that is tremendously fearsome, and yet not utterly impervious to a normal hero.

Re: How do fighters hurt/kill a dragon? The Great Dragon It lives in it's mountain cave, venturing out on occasion to catch a cow or a horse. Rumors have it that treasures have been hoarded over the years as it has captured the beasts of burden of merchants and even on occasion carted away a nobleman or a knight stuck between the dragon's talons and their horse. A few have tried to sneak past the great beast to loot that treasure, but none have lived to tell the tale. A group of starting characters could actually hurt this dragon. Hurt it just enough to piss it off. And that would be bad. However a very experienced group, grown in both their power and tactics, could bring this beast down. It does have it's weaknesses that could be exploited. 55 Str 45 13 Dex 6 25 Con 15 30 Body 20 13 Int 3 18 Ego 8 40 Pre 30 7 Ocv 20 7 Dcv 20 6 Omcv 9 6 Omdv 9 12 PD 10 18/6PD Resistant 12 ED 10 18/6ED Resistant 4 Spd 20 20 Rec 18 80 End 12 80 Stun 30 Total Stats: 285 18 6PD/6ED Resistant Armor 60 75% Damage Reduction Physical Resistant 60 75% Damage Reduction Energy Resistant 30 50% Damage Reduction Mental Resistant 18 -18 Meters Knockback Resistance 7 +7 Meters Reach 2 +1" Running 25 40 Meters Fight, X8 Non-Combat Multiple, Cannot be used in areas without at least a 16 meter clearance -1 8 8 Points of Power Defense 5 5 Points of Flash Defense - Sight 5 Extra Limbs (Wings & Tail) 13 1 Body per Hour Regeneration, Can Regrow Limbs 67 "Fire Breath" 3D6 RKA Area Effect Cone 45 "Teeth & Claws" 2D6 HKA; 4D6 with Strength; Zero Endurance 22 "Wing and Tail Buffet": Area Of Effect: 1m Radius +1/4 for up to 60 STR, Zero Endurance on Advantage +1/2 Total Combat: 385 3 Lightsleep 10 Targeting Sense with Hearing 10 Scent; Tracking Sense, Discriminatory, 5 Nightvision 5 Infared Perception 6 +2 Perception 3 Deduction 12- 3 Tactics 12- 3 Tracking 12- Total Skills: 48 Grand Total: 718 It's armor is not hardened, armor piercing attacks will have greater effect. It does not have defense maneuver, and using good tactics to get behind it, to have multiple attackers can serve a group well. It's flash defense can be overcome and it has no such defense on it's other targeting sense, hearing. It has no mental defense, and while it does have half damage reduction versus mental attacks, a mage with a mental attack will likely be doing more damage than a burly fighter with a great axe. And while it is no slouch in terms of sheer cunning, it can be fooled by illusions and other trickery.

Re: How do fighters hurt/kill a dragon? Yes, and always useful for making really big and dangerous opponents hard to bring down, while still being able to be at least hurt a little bit by attacks characters can manage.

Re: How many character points do you think a 20th level DnD character would have? My quick answer, depends on how fast one is used to leveling in D&D. If one is used to a level every four games, which I expect would be normal for most games, and further assumed that the average XP award in Hero is around 2.5 points per game, then a level would be equal to 10 character points, and 20th level would be roughly +200 points. That sounds about right, as a 350 point fantasy character in Hero is an awesome character, about as awesome as I expect would be a level 20 character in D&D. What throws it off a bit is that a first level character in D&D is very wimpy. While a 150 point starting character in Hero, is already hero material (D&D equivalent to around levels 6-7).

Re: Combat Value Benchmarks In 6E I always use hit locations. So that average shot to the head would do al of 2 body damage to an NPC wearing chainmail. It would however generate decent amount of stun, averaging at 35. The character swinging an axe with a strength of 23 and martial strike, doing 3D6, will do an average of 4 or 5 body and a couple of points less stun each hit. For that reason I would probably be ok with the player turning their RKA into a 2D6 RKA armor piercing attack with experience. Furthermore, given that the axe wielding character has spent only 26 points to get their strength and basic martial moves, and the character who bought their RKA with points has spent nearly twice that (after accounting for the levels in placed shots and whatnot) I would likely let them buy up the attack to a 2D6+1 Armor Piercing.RKA, and still consider it relatively balanced. And of course by then, the axe wielder will likely be a bit more kick ass as well.

Re: Combat Value Benchmarks In 6E I suppose in a game where the hand to hand folks are throwing around 3D6 attacks, this Legolas with his precise targeting would not be imbalanced. And growing the character to turn the straight RKA into perhaps a multipower with various effects like autofire and such might be fun. Certainly Legolas was demonstrating abilities along the lines of a multipower. But that was an older Legolas with a lot of experience.

Re: Combat Value Benchmarks In 6E Page 85, Volume one: "1 +1 to offset a specific negative OCV modifier with any single attack" I probably should have written: 8 Offensive Combat Penalty Skill Levels w Placed Shots to the Head with RKA. Technically this is legal. Whether I would allow it in a game I was GMing is debatable. This was just a for fun design to illustrate a way of building an archer that could use their bow effectively in melee. The conversation we had been having referred on several occasions to Legolas, so I decided to build Legolas while displaying the build for the bow. Given that Legolas constantly demonstrated his ability to unerringly place arrows smack between the eyes of everyone he shot at, it was necessary to include it on his character sheet. Stun multiples on locations have not changed. But I can find no reference to any sweep maneuver. Legolas is simply really good at hitting what he shoots at.

Re: Combat Value Benchmarks In 6E As far as I know, yes. In truth, I do think Dex is overpriced and it should be one point per instead of 2. But if Dex is lowered to one point per, what then would be the cost of lightning reflexes? In any case, it is now written in stone, Dex costs two points, despite the fact that all it does is boost your stealth skill. For combat, all a high Dex does is determine who gets to act first, the first time round. After that in my opinion, all that counts is speed. (Yes, having the first shot is nice, but either you 'win' that war and buy enough Dex and combat reflexes to do so, or you've wasted points. And spending 20 or more points just be be able to get the first shot, and still not even being able to be sure of it, seems to me to be a big waste, at least in lower point games where 20 points represents 10-20% of all the points you've got.) Any player character I create from here on out, unless I am trying to be very faithful to a conception and willing to literally waste large numbers of points to do so, will have a very low Dex. If for some reason I want to be able to act first, I'll buy lightning reflexes. If I have a few Dex skills I want to boost, I'll buy levels (3 points for +1 to a tight group). That's a darn sight cheaper than spending ten points to buy Dex up by five.

Re: Combat Value Benchmarks In 6E Your calculation is a good one for benchmarking, for a starting point when doing a conversion. It neatly takes the points that were in Dex and attributes them to OCV,DCV and Speed. It however also leaves the character with a baseline Dex 10 which costs 2 points per to raise, and for some characters, a decent Dex is fundamental to their conception, even if it does not figure into combat value or speed. That's where the extra points for starting characters come in. As a test, I took a 5th Ed. character I posted on another thread recently and converted it to 6th Ed characteristics, to see how the build would turn out. They follow: A very young Legolas 5th Ed. 10 Str 20 Dex 30 13 Con 6 13 Body 6 13 Int 3 10 Ego 13 Pre 3 Com NA 3 Pd 1 3 Ed 4 Spd 10 5 Rec 26 End 25 Stun Total Stats: 59 3 +1 Striking Appearance (Girl Magnet) 8 Combat Luck 6 PD/6 ED Does not stack with armor -1/2 21 2D6 RKA, 1/2 Endurance +1/4, Weapon of Opportunity -1/2, Beam -1/4 ("Quiver of Infinate Arrows", Arrows are a 'special effect' only.) 8 Offensive Combat Penalty Skill Levels w Placed Shots 6 Offensive Combat Penalty Skill Levels w Range Penalties with RKA 6 Penalty Skill Levels w Sight Range Modifiers 10 +5 OCV with RKA 7 +3 DCV Only in Hand to Hand -1 1 Longevity 200 Years (and climbing) 3 +1 Perception 3 Stealth 3 Concealment 3 Tracking 2 Forest Survival 2 PS: Ranger -12 -6" Running 17 +7" Flight, No Turn Mode +1/4, Invisible Power Effects +1/4, Only In Contact With A Surface -1/4 (Must move along some at least exceedingly, remotely plausible surface.) Skills & Powers: 91 Total: 150 A very young Legolas 6th Ed. 10 Str 18 Dex 16 13 Con 3 13 Body 3 13 Int 3 10 Ego 13 Pre 3 6 OCV 15 6 DCV 15 3 Pd 1 3 Ed 4 Spd 20 5 Rec 1 25 End 1 26 Stun 3 Total Stats: 84 3 +1 Striking Appearance (Girl Magnet) 8 Combat Luck 6 PD/6 ED Does not stack with armor -1/2 21 2D6 RKA, 1/2 Endurance +1/4, Weapon of Opportunity -1/2, Beam -1/4 ("Quiver of Infinate Arrows", Arrows are a 'special effect' only.) 8 Offensive Combat Penalty Skill Levels w Placed Shots 6 Offensive Combat Penalty Skill Levels w Range Penalties with RKA 6 Penalty Skill Levels w Sight Range Modifiers 10 +5 OCV with RKA 7 +3 DCV Only in Hand to Hand -1 1 Longevity 200 Years (and climbing) 3 +1 Perception 3 Stealth 3 Concealment 3 Tracking 2 Forest Survival 2 PS: Ranger -12 -6" Running 17 +7" Flight, No Turn Mode +1/4, Invisible Power Effects +1/4, Only In Contact With A Surface -1/4 (Must move along some at least exceedingly, remotely plausible surface.) Skills & Powers: 91 Total: 175 Note that absolutely nothing in the Skills & Powers have changed and the stats were kept as close to identical as possible. The higher point 6th edition character is virtually identical to the 5th edition character except for having a base OCV/DCV one lower than the 5th edition version and a Dex of 18 instead of the 5th edition character's Dex of 20. So yes, 6th edition characters are lower powered than 5th. Not by a lot mind you. But if in doing a onversion one attempts to maintain the same base OCV/DCV, one is going to have to do a LOT more fiddling with everything else on the character to make it fit. My advice is when doing a conversion, ascertain that the Skills & Powers match, then match up Characteristics, all except Dex and Speed. Take whatever extra points remain (from that bonus of 25 or whatever it was depending on the power level of your game), add that to the points previously spent on Dex and Speed, and spend those remaining points on Dex, Speed, OCV and DCV. The character will not have the combat value they used to, but if all other characters are subjected to the same process, they should all match up at roughly the same proportions that they used to.

Re: Combat Value Benchmarks In 6E I must admit that the characteristic changes came as quite the shock to me, and for a while I was not sure what to think. I had long been aware that Dex was too cheap and that ideally things aught to have been structured somewhat differently, but I was also very comfortable and familiar with the way things were. Creating characters was quite intuitive, and the first step was defining their dex to set their baseline OCV/DCV. With the new characteristic costs, things are not so clear, so I welcome your question Vondy. I've been doing a lot of sample character building, monster designing and what not over the last few weeks, trying to get a grip on things. And I have found that I am often leaving base OCV and DCV either at their base levels or just above, relying instead on martial maneuvers, levels, equipment and powers to get OCV & DCV up to respectable heights. That said, those heights are not what they used to be and the goblins of today are no match for the goblins of yore.

Re: Ranged attacks while engaged in melee I don't know if most people posting were aware of that, certainly some were. I was myself. The contention was that half DCV for an archer actively engaged in melee, is being extremely generous to the archer, that realistically the archer should be more like zero DCV and half OCV 'if engaged in melee with a bow'. It was however correctly pointed out to me that Hero is not trying to emulate reality but to emulate the movies, novels, comic books and whathaveyou. And it is quite correct that in that context, half DCV might well alone, be appropriate.

Re: Wolves Lair Blastick was the son of the last of a long line of ne'er-do-well lordlings, his father having wined and wenched away the last of what little remaining wealth he had while Blastick was still an infant, then in a drunken duel, got himself killed. Blastick's mother, who was not born of the nobility, took what work she might but Blastick was largely raised in poverty, despite his inherited title and lineage. Frequenting court was not even a dream, as Blastick could barely afford shoes as a child. The rough and tumble of street life and the harassment of children who took great glee in tormenting him, hardened Blastick and ultimately led him do hone his fighting skills. He grew into the career of a warrior, an armager. His title has served him little except for gaining access perhaps to a bit more training opportunities over the years. Now grown and seeking to make his fortune in the world, Blastick is starting to look the part of a noble, wearing the armor of his trade, though he has yet to learn much of the comportment of one. 3 Noble Benefits: Fringe Benefit: Lordling, Writ of Carriage