Pegasus40218

On ‎6‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 9:17 AM, Surrealone said:

Since you had two questions, I'll tackle them in order:
1) Yes, character X can abort his/her Segment 8 Phase to dodge in Segment 5. 

2) Yes character Y can attack in Segment 4 and abort his/her Segment 8 Phase to dodge in Segment 5.

 

i.e. You cannot abort after making an attack action in a given Segment/Phase, but you can abort (once) at any time thereafter.  As a reminder, if you abort to Dodge, you are considered to be dodging until your next available Phase comes up.

The second scenario was the one I was most concerned with.  I'm preparing to run a Fantasy HERO campaign, and wanted to be sure how this is supposed to work.  Seemed odd that Character Y would essentially get to take 2 actions (his attack in segment 4, and his aborted segment 8 action) before character X could complete the haymaker.

Thanks to everyone for their responses.

This is probably a simple rules question, but I haven't been able to find any mention of how it works anywhere else on the boards.

So...I've got two characters, both with SPD=3.  Character X has a DEX of 15, while character Y has a DEX of 12.  In segment 4, both characters have a phase.  Character X attacks character Y and does some amount of damage but not enough to stun or seriously effect character Y.  Character Y decides to attack and use a haymaker.  Since character Y's attack won't be completed until the end of segment 5 can character X abort to dodge in segment 5?

Now, consider the same characters, only this time character X decides to haymaker his attack.  Can character Y attack in segment 4 and still abort his next (segment 8 ) action in segment 5 in order to dodge character X's haymaker?

I would also add that it depends upon the SFX and limitations around the teleport and desolid powers as well.  If activation requires gestures or incantations (power derives from magic), then being tied to a chair and/or gagged could prevent their use.  If no such limitations exist, then the power simply works, and the chair is easily escaped by the character.

Low enough that it usually loses to mundane weaponry.

 

 

Well sure, but the OP is having problems with fighters that dominate in a magic-scarce campaign world. So he's either got to reduce the effectiveness of fighters (lower available defenses, weapon DCs, and CSLs), increase the difficulty of obtaining quality gear and training, or bring magic up to a competitive level to counter-balance the supremacy of fighters. Maybe a little of all three. But he's got to do something because his current status quo (magic rare, fighters dominate) isn't working for him.

First question:  What's "OP"?

If you're referring to my earlier posts, I didn't have a problem with spellcasters being under-powered (nobody chose to play a spellcaster).  My biggest problems came from overwhelming defenses and not knowing how to deal with whether or not they "stacked" and the like.  For example...combat luck and armor...Do they stack?  Why / why not?  Combat luck is not simply resistant hardened PD (though that's exactly what it is in terms of game mechanics)...It represents an uncanny knack for being able to avoid or get out of the way of an attack...maybe it's an ability to roll with the blow so as to take less damage...it could be just about anything (though getting players to define special effects when coming from d20 is like pulling teeth)...So, why wouldn't it stack with rPD from armor?  Also, is there / should there be limits on the number of levels of combat luck you can buy?  If you can buy multiple levels and it does stack with physical armor, then you are going to be in a world of hurt trying to find something capable of injuring a heavy fighter in a magic rare campaign.  This is ONE of the mistakes I made in my early attempts to run Fantasy HERO...On the one hand, I WANTED the players to have better survivability than your common peasant...and combat luck seemed to be an ideal way to contribute to that...but I didn't know how to set limits on it...after all, if the characters get a little bit of money/treasure, why wouldn't they go out and upgrade their armor and weapons?  In d20, this is EXACTLY what they do at every opportunity, often having the party pool their resources to acquire better armor, weapons, spells for one member or another of the group...and it's not entirely a bad thing...but in Fantasy HERO, it does make game balance difficult to maintain.

Combat luck is, admittedly, a special case...but it's also difficult to say it doesn't stack with armor since that feels like penalizing the players on something that they paid points for.  My current idea is to redefine combat luck (and it's point cost) with a limitation:  Does not stack with rPD/rED from Armor (or other effects defined as Armor) (-1) [still not completely settled on the -1...could be -3/4, or even -1/2], and would lower the cost accordingly.  This seems like a "fair" approach to me...but I'm still working through it.

Also, in a magic rare campaign, one of the challenges is overcoming high DCV due to the relative rarity of area of effect attacks.  Unless you build some sort of martial maneuver that does a "sweep" of a hex (AoE 1 hex accurate), then you're going to be limited to things like flasks of oil and nets for trying to inconvenience high DCV PCs.  Neither of these (to my mind) will be common forms of attack until you start getting into large organized groups, or groups that are hunting the PCs and have knowledge of their abilities.  (Of course, if there's already a standard maneuver that allows any weapon to be used in such a manner, even with penalties, then I missed it...and would be very happy to have it pointed out to me.)

I'm committed to running a Fantasy HERO campaign with my current group.  My love affair with the system is a result of the system's ability to be organic -- skills and abilities aren't pigeon-holed based upon character archetypes...If a players finds his character or group lacking in a particular area (such as learning a language, learning to pick locks, finding traps, being stealthy, etc.), ANY character can decide to pursue and develop the necessary skill(s).  This creates, in my opinion, greater opportunities for role-playing, character development, and story development.  Now...I just have to figure out how to make it fun for my group!

Yeah doing something fate like should be easy. And yes tying the characters together is a good thing.

Central casting is that dang high?

Yeah I thought about selling Avalon hill RQ too? Those prices are insane.

I missed the hight tide on OWOD MET. I could have cleaned up selling that at one point.*Shrug.*

Here's what I'm seeing on Amazon:

Condition | Price

Used - Good | $69.99

Used - Very Good | $247.26

Used - Very Good | $293.45

Used - Good | $473.01

Used - Good | $665.62

+ $3.99 shipping.

Crazy.

Not familiar with fate. Sounds like central casting which run several of our characters thru for many game systems.

https://rpggeek.com/rpgseries/2519/central-casting

 

You could build your own with a random chart. 5th edition sidekick had random gen for champions characters.

Be a bit of work but you could do that for fantasy. Say one result spent few years as blacksmith (Strength bonus plus skills). Extra years  more skills on increases in existing smith skills. I'd still make pay points or you could give some eps.

 

HOUSE RULE! If Magic costs endurance(or Mana, endurance based on EGO & INT), the cost is 1 per five active points not ten.

No limitation! No points! Just Base rules! that will help rein the arcanes in. 

FATE (or Fudge) is kind of an interesting system.  The idea behind character creation is that it is a collaborative endeavor engaged in by the entire group -- nobody creates their character in a vacuum.

In a nutshell, the process works like this:

You start by coming up with your character "high concept" and trouble aspects. High concept is very much analogous to HERO's character concept -- it's fundamentally who the character is.  Trouble aspects are very similar to HERO's complications / disadvantages (dependent upon which edition you're playing).

Next, come three phases.

Phase 1:  Your character's recent history.  You write down a few sentences describing your character's first (most-recent) adventure.  A couple of sentences to a paragraph or two are usually sufficient.  Based upon that story, write down an aspect / trait for your character that relates to what happened in the story.

Phase 2:  Your story gets passed off to another player.  Each player adds additional detail to the story by writing about their own character in a "supporting role" of the character whose story the player now holds.  Collaboration with the original player (whose story you're modifying) is encouraged.  Define an aspect / trait for your character related to the supporting role he played in the other character's story.

Phase 3:  Repeat phase 2 with a different player.

Next, you pick and rate skills.  You get 1 that you are "great" at, 2 that you are "good" at, 3 that you are "fair" at, and 4 that you are "average" at.

And that's the basics.  The end result is you have a background, a couple of personality traits, a rough list of skills with varying levels of competence, and some sort of in-game ties to at least two other PCs.

-----

I also took a look online for prices and availability for Central Casting.  For a "new" copy, the prices are ridiculous ($70.00 for a used copy, and a couple of sellers online claiming to have new copies wanting $200+).  Think I'll keep looking though...

Hero can require more work for a GM than other systems. You decide if you allow martial arts , how many combat levels etc.

And if they balk, remind them it is a tool kit system.

 

I'm looking at a system where all mages as part of their package deal define susceptibilities and vulnerabilities(taboos) as the cost of doing magic,

Very thematic of many myths. Susceptibilities cut right thru defenses. I'm also building this into my more supernatural monsters so a fighter who can't beat something physically could use lores to bring something down.

Variations on desolid and damage reductions are good for building tough mystic creatures. Just define the attack that ignores it. And don't make it easy. "The ogre can't be hit most mundane weapons. But a cudgel of rowen harvested and crafted by thy own hands will allow you to defeat it."

You can get away with that in fantasy.

 

Start with all char max except one defining stat that they pick at15. The other one goes to 20.

Look at building a ritual based magic system. They might be able to hang spells for combat. But once that is gone they need a long time to recast. So give Magic users other options in combat.

If Arcane casters use endurance consider ramping it up to Long term endurance.

If you allow divine tie them to charges or endurance batteries that only recharge while (1) they are in good standing with their god and (2) while they do rituals and prayer for their god. Acolytes and priests in RQ(who get reusable divine) owe 50% and 90% of their funds and time to their God. Not a bad idea. It also allows you to say priest you need to go do this.

 

Devise some sort of sacrifice needed to activate found magic items. Don't make them point and click.

Magic should have consequences. Example all summonings are noisy in my world. Any mage in the area can sense them with their arcane sense.

 

Can you post some of the problem character builds?

I LOVE the idea of the "mythic" vulnerabilities...Wasn't there a "Mythic HERO" in the works at one time?  Based upon what little I read about it at the time, it's probably on a much grander scale than I want my campaign to be (at least to start with), but it might have some interesting ideas...

I'm pulling a number of the concepts out of these posts into my "campaign construction notebook" so I don't lose track of them.

Unfortunately, my last attempt to run Fantasy HERO with my group was over a year ago, so I don't think I (or anyone else) still has copies of those characters that I could post.  As for our next foray, I have considered creating the characters myself; but, I also want to ensure that the players get a character they will enjoy playing...So, I'm considering using something like the FATE system's character creation process to create a background and important skills list, then sitting down and trying to build the characters from that.

You could go for 75+75 point characters max 9 total damage classes with an average of 6-7. Max ocv 8 max dcv 8. Normal human maximum for characteristics with no more than 3 above 15 for straight figures. If you start too high there is no where else to go. Keep spells to healing, damage and general purpose (avoid mind control, transformation and aid they can be open to abuse if you don't impose strict controls)

 

Characters at that sort of level will easily deal with guards, goblins and orcs etc but will be fodder for the bigger fish.

 

It also means you can use listed creatures more easily without tweaking them too much.

While I like the idea, how do you go about enforcing it?  I don't see a problem with enforcing the caps, I see a problem with trying to achieve the averages with the PCs...

What style of low fantasy campaign would you like to run, and what about the recommended point levels do you feel are too high? In 6E I feel it would be fairly easy to make 200-250 pt low fantasy characters who are still quite capable -both off and on the field of battle.

I'd like to run a low-magic / magic-rare campaign.  (I get tired of seeing games devolve into the party wizard or cleric "solving" every problem.)  I want the players to rely on skill and strategy to solve problems and defeat opponents rather than simple brute force.  Unfortunately, my group is coming from a D&D / Pathfinder background and the players have a tendency to completely min/max (not entirely a bad thing), but only when it comes to combat capabilities.  Very little attention is paid to character background -- in my opinion because the GMs typically run "canned" adventures / adventure paths where the PCs backgrounds simply don't matter.  Character building tends to be a purely mechanical process, and outside of combat, the characters do not have any sort of defined personalities.

I'm relatively new to HERO (played in a Champions campaign back in college -- liked the system but didn't play a complicated character so didn't really explore and discover the ins and outs).  I've read the books (6E1 & 6E2, Advanced Players Guide, and HS Martial Arts, among others), but quite frankly have difficulty identifying where / how to define limits for a campaign.  Our first foray into Fantasy Hero was a disaster -- mainly because the players decided to be assholes to each other and try to kill each other off...and we struggled a bit with the mechanics (which is very different from d20). 

Next, to try to get a better handle on the mechanics, I decided to "take the gloves off" and give a full-blown 400pt Champions game a try.  That went a little better, but again we struggled with the mechanics.  Also, the players didn't put any effort into creating backgrounds for their characters...and any time a character was discovered to have a weakness, instead of accepting that the character might actually be vulnerable to something, they immediately started buying up defenses against that opponent with either extremely weak justification or no justification at all.  Bottom line -- they didn't want to put any thought/effort into their characters.  They just wanted to show up and play.

This continued into our next Fantasy HERO game (which went a little better than the first, but not much).  The problem I ran into was that the players had figured out a little bit more of the system, and built characters that were so maxed out in combat that they couldn't be hit, and completely maxed out damage.  The mentality of the group is such that pretty much every character was using a weapon capable of 2d6K, and had CSLs and/or martial maneuvers to add DCs on top of that.  OCV was such that the PCs would almost never miss, DCVs were such that they generally couldn't be hit...and when they were hit, their defenses pretty much ensured they suffered no damage...and much of this was accomplished through Martial Maneuvers (buying just enough martial arts to get the maneuvers to give them these bonuses)...and as a relatively new GM, I didn't see it until it was too late...and the players refused to tone the characters down when the problem was pointed out to them.  This made it impossible for me to use "stock" creatures without heavily customizing them to make them more challenging -- and since I work 50+ hours most weeks, I simply don't have the time for that...And remembers:  these are the capabilities the characters STARTED the campaign with...If they'd built up to that, it might have been better...but just starting out? 

And this was with 175 (125+50) point characters.  I found it extremely frustrating and eventually had to just end the campaign.

So, yes, in my experience working with players coming from typical d20 gaming systems, 175 points is simply too much.

I've even tried cannibalizing things from other systems to make things (in my opinion) "better".  For example, using the FATE character creation system to generate something of a background story for each character and have all of those characters tied together already in the story...but even that tended to fall flat.

Yup, that's how I envision high adventure cinematic heroic role playing - protagonists who either flee from everything or get slaughtered.

 

I think it's important to ensure the players and GM have a common vision in this regard, or conflict in game takes a back seat to conflict out of game.

While I understand and agree (to a point) with the sentiment here, I also think that the PCs should be faced with the occasional opponent they can't (or at least are unlikely to) beat.  If every opponent is simply there to be killed in a stand-up fight, all the PCs will ever do is engage in stand-up fights against everything (because they'll know they can beat it -- otherwise, it wouldn't be there).  That said, the GM has an obligation to give the PCs enough information before beginning the fight that they're unlikely to win, so they will at least consider alternative actions.

Quite frankly, that's one of the problems I've had with the group I game with.  Virtually every encounter is a combat encounter, and generally speaking the odds are stacked heavily in the PCs favor.  In the few encounters where the PCs have been outclassed, there was no indication before the fight started, and once the fights started there was no escape (the party couldn't outrun their opponents, and there was no reason for the opponents to allow the PCs to flee).  It was, most definitely, NOT a good experience for the players.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't necessarily see a problem with there being a rarity of energy attacks that would go against ED in a particular campaign.  Simply put, players will see a lack of utility in purchasing ED, and won't (in their opinion) "waste" points on it.  As the GM, this gives you some options to put them against something that, while not overly powerful (simply based upon points) is a real threat simply because it uses attacks that go against weaker defenses.  If you've played a supers game, it's like throwing a mentalist at the brick in the group.  The players will have to adjust their strategy rather than simply trying to use brute force as a solution to everything...Of course, this could go one of two ways:  1)  the players make adjustments, expand their thinking, and the game is enhanced, or 2) the players refuse to adjust and you risk a TPK.

My usual question to the "my players build only for combat effectiveness" is "why would that be?"

 

Are you as GM not balancing challenges between combat and non-combat solutions, so they can see value in their non-combat skills (that is, they feel they are being required to spend points on abilities that are, or will be, useless in your game)? One example of this is where social interaction is resolved by the player's cleverness, eloquence, etc. rather than the PC's skills? Maybe it's one of those games where it doesn't matter that you have 23- Charm - I've already decided the unshakeable viewpoints of every important NPC, or where your knowledge skills are useless because where you look for info will be the sole determinant of what you find.

 

Are they sending the message that they WANT the game to focus primarily or exclusively on combat? Is there a disconnect in your and their preferred game styles?

 

Do they feel the opponents are so powerful that they have to pump virtually all of their points into combat in order to survive?

 

This isn't a lot different from D&D games where players never take Craft or Profession because they never have any in-game benefit, or never take social skills because the GM never lets them have any impact - they're only useful for background flavour, or ignore Knowledge skills because it's acceptable to just memorize the Monster Books themselves.

My gaming group appears to be one that is at least slightly larger than average based upon most of the material I've read (which seems to assume about 4 players) -- we have 7 members (1 GM and 6 players), and we rotate the GM role every couple of months.  Most of the campaigns that are run are "canned" adventures, and with relatively few exceptions, and just about all of the rewards seem to come from combat.  So, regardless of what type of game ​I ​want to run, the players' experiences in every other campaign in the group has driven them to develop combat-oriented characters.

To avoid having nothing but combat monsters in the game, when we make our next foray into Fantasy HERO, I'm going to be generating characters for the players.  I don't particularly like this -- I would much rather the players create the characters they want to play -- but, I have come to the conclusion that it's the only way I'm going to end up with characters that aren't going to be completely unbalanced to start with.  Unfortunately, I don't have enough experience with the system to be able to "spot" problem characters with a simple character review.  I'm more experienced with the system than my players, but it's not difficult to create a character that unbalances things in play -- and harder for the GM to spot if it's done with CSLs, martial maneuvers, or other power combos.

As others have mentioned, I've come to the conclusion that for the style of campaign I'd like to run (low fantasy), the "heroic" point levels recommended in 6E1 are simply way too high.  Since we primarily play D&D (5e) and Pathfinder in my group, I'll be watching this thread as the details emerge, in particular, paying attention to what did and did not work.

Great suggestions, all!

One other thing that's worth pointing out to new players and GMs (and BDH more or less made reference to it above) that is very different for those coming from a Pathfinder / D&D background:  armor in (fantasy) HERO is not about not getting it, it's about not taking damage.  It functions similar to damage reduction in those other games.  It requires a bit of a shift in perspective to think about it this way.

Game balance is the bane of all new Hero GMs and is tough to pin down till you get experience with the system. But you will get there eventually.

 

My suggestion when it comes to Fantasy Hero and other Heroic level games, is treat it like D&D. This means your players shouldnt be designing their weapons from their own pool of points. Use the default weapons, armor etc out of the Fantasy Hero books. Players spend points on their characters characteristics, skills and Talents/powers (spells or magical gifts etc)but with a strict active point AND limitation cap at least at the start of the game. And all special Talents and magical powers must follow the characters theme or background (no special abilities just cause) and be approved by the GM. If you must, limit the starting points to 50+50. (I use 75+75) extra points arent needed specifically because characters arent paying points for weapons and armor. It has worked for me for quite a long time. If you havent tried running in that fashion, I suggest giving it atest run to see if you like it.

Yeah...My first few attempts have been using the "Standard Heroic" point guidelines (125 + 50) specified in 6E1 and normal characteristic maxima, etc.  Maybe it's too many points...maybe the player builds have been too powerful, or powerful in ways that aren't necessarily immediately apparent (unless you know what to look for).  For example, my players tend to focus (almost exclusively) on combat capabilities.  As a result, if I set a CV range of 3 to 7 to start, I'm going to wind up with 6 characters with base OCVs of 7 and DCVs of 7 (my original understanding of what that cap meant)...Then they'll start adding in the skill levels and martial maneuvers.  What I end up with is a party of characters using the Defensive Strike maneuver (+1 OCV, +3 DCV) almost exclusively, along with 2 2-point CSLs (+1 OCV) giving them an effective OCV and DCV of 10...and trying to use "stock" critters out of the Bestiary such as Orcs or Ogres (OCV 4, DCV 4) means that the players will only miss on an 18 (1/216), and their opponents will only hit on a 3, 4, or 5 (10/216) -- so it becomes significantly more difficult to create challenging combat encounters without having to do a lot of "customization" of the creatures.

Now, over time, I suspect that most GMs will develop some quick and easy templates that they can apply to "stock" critters to toughen them up a bit and keep things interesting.  A starting GM probably won't have done this -- the expectation being that stock critters from the book should be sufficiently challenging for "new" characters.

So, in my experience, truly understanding the "effectiveness" caps and ​everything that can contribute to them is critical for someone just starting to run the game.

This times 100. The more experience you get with Hero, the more you will be able to fit it to whatever type of game you want. The actual secret to this is getting away from standard superhero gameplay, which is a lot of players "comfort zone" with Hero....so when they try to emulqte other genres, they do so from the perspective of building supers but try to shoehorn those conventions into a heroic fantasy mold and it doesnt work well....then they assume hero isnt good for fantasy. The failing isnt the system, but their approach to it. It merely requires adjusting how one thinks about the system and basic character design and interaction for all the pieces to begin to fall into place.

I've been running (more correctly, trying to run) HERO for a couple of years.  My biggest problem hasn't been the suitability of the game system for running fantasy.  My biggest problem has been understanding and maintaining game balance, in part because my players don't seem to understand or want to maintain game balance.  Other game systems used with my group -- such as Pathfinder and D&D -- have the game balance mechanisms built in.  If, in your D&D games, the players focus was all about combinations of feats to maximize DPS (damage per second), then you're likely to run into similar issues with HERO, but you - as the GM - have to be able to recognize and impose the limits necessary to keep the game in balance.  If your players are more focused on story rather than maximizing power, you may not have this problem...but many D&D players don't have a self-limiting mentality, so you have to watch out for characters who can't be hit, or whose defenses make them virtually immune to damage.

Adding "Nerf Darts" to my Christmas wishlist...

OK...So I've now got two more gaming sessions under my belt, and I'm still having some struggles with the characters and the system.  Here's the latest update:

First, after reviewing the characters again, I realized that my "swordmaster" character was built on 100 pts while everyone else had been upped to 125.  After adjusting him to 125, he was significantly better, but still not where one would expect a true swordmaster to be.  I discussed it with the player and we agreed to downgrade the character's status to "aspiring swordmaster"...So that went well.  This is one of the few players who is actually trying to make the game work.

I'm still having trouble with the "Marv" type character being virtually invulnerable to damage without resorting to something that's a threat to kill just about everyone else.  I think I'm going to wind up reducing his PD, or eliminating combat luck entirely.

The "bard" build is still underpowered, and I'm looking to tweak the "music" build.  The player really wants something more akin to limited mind-control rather than simply something that simulates raising / lowering morale...I'm still trying to decide how that would work/fit with the type of campaign we're trying to put together.

The player of the ranger-type character is still a problem for me.  At this point, he's pretty much just "along for the ride".  His only interest so far seems to be turning his character into a DPS monster.

The cat-burglar seems to be going OK...maybe slightly under-powered, but developing.

In the last game, we had 1 combat that consumed pretty much the entire session (about 4 hours).  The PCs were down a man (one player chose to have his character elsewhere, while everyone else pursued the current objective).  They began by ambushing a slaver's river barge by swinging down to it from a bridge crossing the river it was traveling down.  They quickly took out a couple of the crew members, knocking two of them off the boat and injuring a third before the guards could engage.  Three guards joined the fight as the rest of the crew tried to get out of the way and to safety.  After neutralizing one of the guards and injuring a second, the party split up with two character going into the "cabin" on the barge while the other two were left to finish off the two remaining guards.  A couple of bad rounds for the party later, and two party members were seriously injured, one of the remaining guards was dead, but the third was largely unwounded.  The two characters entering the cabin engaged with the captain and first mate.  The captain was fighting the "Marv" type character and was pretty much taking him apart with a 1d6K AP attack (increased to 7DCs with additional strength & skill levels).  The captain's armor (5rPD) was pretty much neutralizing most of the damage the "Marv" character was inflicting (coupled with a lucky attack that did almost Max damage.  The first mate was engaged with the aspiring swordmaster, and the two were pretty much stale-mated, neither able to gain any significant advantage.  The first was still going on when the session ended.

So a couple of comments / questions:

1.  We've been using hit locations.  I'm thinking that eliminating hit locations will help speed up combat.  An awful lot of the hits ended up doing 1/2 damage due to location...while a very small percentage did extra damage due to location.  Will eliminating using hit locations help prevent a fight from running for 4+ hours?

2.  Which is generally the better way to go for a challenging, and entertaining fight:  a few "tough" opponents (roughly equivalent to the PCs), or a large number of "mooks"?  Which type of fight do most players find more enjoyable?  FYI --The fight described above was intended to be the climax of the current story arc...but I hadn't intended or expected it to take up an entire game session.

3.  Martial arts...I think of martial arts as something that should be somewhat "special" -- highly specialized combat training...Not every warrior should have martial arts.  However, in many of the supplements I've read (mostly material created for 5th Ed -- not that I think that matters), almost every warrior type has some sort of martial art.  Am I thinking about martial arts wrong?  If so, what are martial arts supposed to represent?  What are some of the best ways to increase a characters combat effectiveness without giving them martial arts?  Two of the PCs already have martial arts, the other three are already talking about adding them...What are some ways to counteract the effectiveness of martial arts (without resorting to giving all NPC opponents martial arts as well)?

In the Hero system, is there any point to a character with a relatively high (with Normal Characteristic Maximas in play) STR to use a fist load / brass knuckles?  In the books, they are listed as a 2DC weapon, which would mean that they would cap out at 4DCs using CSLs or STR about the STR minimum.  A character with 20 STR (at the normal characteristic maxima) could do more damage without the fist load and using CSLs or combat maneuvers...Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks for the reply.

Since I created the characters based upon the concepts the group came up with, you'd think I'd remember their complications!    And, yes, I'm aware that several of them are short on complications -- something I plan to rectify over the weekend.  The link to the list of suggested complications is going to be helpful.  I also realize that, when I posted the character builds, I didn't really provide a whole lot in the way of the background materials that the players developed as part of the character creation process.  I'll try to get that information posted this weekend as well.  I think that will clarify the ties and backstory that the players came up with...That said, the only reason I even have what little background as I have is because I forced them to do this for an entire session.  The process is supposed to give each character ties to two other characters so you wind up with a cohesive group as a whole.  Unfortunately, I'm finding the ties they created aren't all that strong, and I'm having trouble getting the group to come together as a party.  Even when I have the entire group present in a scene, if the event (such as a brawl) is initiated against one character, the players aren't getting involved to help him out...In fact, they've pretty much gone out of their way to pursue their own agendas rather than trying to function as a group / team...And since they don't have any obvious reasons to go against the organized crime families (P3 - the cat burglar - indicated that the families might be aware of his activities and thus are watching, but he hasn't run afoul of them yet), I'm having to try to create scenarios in game to make the players want to take on organized crime...But, since they're not pulling together as a team, I can't rely on any action targeting one character bringing anybody but that character into conflict with the families (and since they're not functioning in any way shape or form as a group, I can't simply target the group...at least not yet.)

I plan to talk to them before tonight's game about whether or not this is really the story line they want to play, since only one of them really has any significant hooks into it, and two others have tenuous (at best) hooks for it...we'll see how it goes.

I highly doubt this.    Every time he steals something, if it's not actual cash (and, given that he's a cat burglar, it most likely won't be) he's got to find somewhere to sell it.  Enter organized crime.  Have you never seen a heist movie?  

 

He stole something from the wrong person.  He stole the wrong thing.  He sold it to the wrong person.  Someone else wanted it more.  He misrepresented it.  It was something more than he thought it was.  Someone was home when he thought the house was empty, and they panicked, or he did; an innocent person ended up dead.  

 

Organized crime means there are gangs, and there is turf, and whoever is in charge of a piece of turf always wants more; more money, more power, more turf.  Is he playing one gang against another?  Did he steal something, for one gang, from another gang?  Did he steal something from a house in a disputed territory, that changed hands while he was in there?  

 

And then there's the possibility of witnesses.  

 

Edited to add:  I'd ask the player some questions.  What was the last thing you stole?  Who did you steal it from?  Why did you steal it?  Where is it now?  Once the player answers those four questions, I'd say to him:  "Okay, those four questions you answered?  You gave me the answers as your character believes them to be true.  At least one of those answers is not correct, though, but I'm not going to tell you which..." and tie it into The Organization that way.  

Therein lies the problem at this point...Nothing in the characters' backgrounds has them running afoul of a criminal organization...yet.

You are correct, I need to ask some questions, but I think the expectation the player has at this point, is that I'm going to come up with a scenario that has his character running afoul of the criminal organization(s) in game.  The problem I have is that doing that for each character -- particularly since the characters are so very different -- is going to consume several game sessions...so we'll be several sessions in before I'll be able to get the entire party hooked in to the main story...the story that THEY said they wanted to play during campaign creation.  Furthermore, since the characters aren't being played as if they have any sort of real ties to each other (even though the creation process involved them creating ties to each other), I'm going to have to try to hook them all individually...I can't throw out a hook for one character and have any expectation that the player(s) involved will attempt to involve anyone else...and if that happens, I'll have one or two players having fun while the rest are bored...so I'll have to run a multiply split-party session, which is a royal pain.

Anyway, I've clearly got a lot of work ahead of me to make this campaign work...Thanks for the advice...Our group gets together tomorrow night, so I'll probably have some updates over the weekend.

I'm guessing a moo-moo with moons, stars, and comets embroidered on it is NOT what you're looking for. 

OK...So I'm in the early stages of a low fantasy Fantasy HERO campaign.  My group consists of me and 5 players.  My players are accustomed to playing mainly d20 systems, particularly D&D and Pathfinder.  They also tend to min-max everything in those systems.  Nobody in my group, including myself, has much experience with HERO system.

To avoid them completely min-maxing the characters and so that the characters have some background (as opposed to being nothing more than a collection of combat statistics), we tried something different this time around.  We spent our first couple of sessions using the FATE system's campaign and character creation process.  The end result was this:  The campaign is going to be centered around fighting "organized crime" in a city state set in a vaguely early iron age / very early medieval time period.  Additionally, there's the looming threat of war with a neighboring city state.  The setting is low magic -- magic exists, but it is very rare, time-consuming, and complicated -- you're not going to see anyone hurling fireballs or lightning bolts every few seconds in combat.

I'd like to run a fairly "gritty" campaign where the PCs don't completely outclass everything they face.  For example, we did some play-testing of my first draft of the characters (with only 4 of 5 characters) and they faced four City Guards (from the back of the Fantasy HERO 6E book) armed with spears, swords, shields, and chainmail.  It was a tough fight, but the City Guards eventually won when they managed to knock out the toughest of the PCs and the rest of the group decided to surrender (it was just play-testing and it was toward the end of the evening)...And this is the type of feel I want to have.  I don't want the PCs to look at an equal number of city guards and assume it's going to be a cake-walk.  I want the threat of defeat to be real. 

Next we developed the character concepts and some background material.  Anyone not familiar with FATE's character creation process, you start by coming up with you character concept and one "aspect" that complicates his life.  Then you write a short story (a paragraph or two) from his background that demonstrates some of his abilities.  Based upon that story, you define another "aspect" of the character.  "Aspects" should generally be double-edged swords:  helpful in some situations, problematic in others.  Then, you hand your back-story off to another player, who then writes their character into your backstory...and in so doing, they define an aspect of their character, while you do the same on someone else's.  The idea is to create in-character ties to the other player's characters and create an interesting background that helps define the character you want to play.  You do two rounds of writing your character into someone else's background.  Next, you identify skills and abilities that your character should have and at what level (one at "great", two at "good", three at "fair", and four at "average").  You also define three "stunts" (think special maneuvers/traits) that your character will use from time to time.  I then took this information and attempted to build HERO characters from them. 

Here are the basic campaign guidelines we're working with:

Characters are being built on 125 total points (75 base points + up to 50 points from complications). 

Normal characteristic maximums are in effect (normal max = 20)

Speeds will normally range from 2-3, max in campaign = 4

Combat Values will be in the 2-6 range (average around 4)

Damage classes will be in the 2-8 range (average 4-5)

Skill rolls will generally be in the 8- to 12- range

Defenses/rDefenses will be in the range of 4-8 / 0-6r with expected average being around 6 / 2-3r

I'm still on the fence about whether or not Combat Luck will stack with armor.

Part of the reason I'm posting this is I'm not particularly happy with the builds I've put together...most of them are simply too vanilla and don't show much in the way of creativity on my part.  Some of this stems from a lack of experience with the system; but one of my objectives in trying to run HERO with this group is to explore and demonstrate it's flexibility and adaptability...and with these initial builds, I feel like I've fallen well short of my own expectations and haven't done much to demonstrate the capabilities of the system.  Any advice and suggestions on how to improve these characters will be appreciated.

So, here's how I'm going to approach this:  for each player, I'm going to give a brief player personality assessment based upon at least 3 years of gaming with the player on a weekly basis.  Then I'm going to present their character concept.  I'll also attach the PDF (HERO Designer export) for the character I created based upon what the players indicated they wanted for their characters.  Due to the points budget, I wasn't able to build everything that was requested for every character.

"Player1" --  This player is one of the better role-players in the group.  He's one of the few actually willing to put effort into developing background material.  He's one of the few I don't have to worry too much about going all munchkin on me with his character.

He wants to player a character who is a member of an elite group of sword masters.  These sword masters don't have official law-enforcement powers, but generally their presence helps to keep the peace.  In addition to peacekeeping, they provide combat training to members of the guard.  The organization only allows ten people to hold the title of "sword master" at one time.  To become a swordmaster, you must either defeat a current swordmaster in a duel (not necessarily to the death), or you can compete to fill the slot of a retiring swordmaster.

Skills:  Great:  Sword; Good:  Defensive fighting, Courtly;  Fair:  Weaponsmith, Acrobatics, Persuasion; Average:  History, Dancing, Seduction, Law.

Stunts:  Disarm, Subdual / KO (club weapon [sword])

"Player2" -- This player is the least experienced player in our group.  He's bright, but somewhat awkward.  He's relatively good with numbers, with a strong tendency toward unbalancing characters.  To his credit, he tries to roleplay, but his attempts tend to be somewhat ham-handed and overly-simplistic.  He also tends to have an unrealistic expectation about the effectiveness of certain skills and abilities...For example, if he made his skill roll "by enough", he'd expect to be successful at using a Persuasion skill to convince a dragon to simply walk away from its treasure hoard ("Hey, I made the roll!").  This player also can't handle adversity.  If something doesn't go his way, he tends to throw a bit of tantrum and turn all sulky.  He's one of the many rules lawyers in the group.  He also has to be the center of attention...When I'm running a scene which his character is not involved in, he routinely interrupts and tries to come up with some excuse -- no matter how far fetched -- to introduce his character to the scene...And the leaps of intuition he tries to make (most of which tend to be wrong) using player knowledge instead of character knowledge are simply...astounding...

This player basically wants to play a bard.  My initial challenge with the character backstory and concept is that I really have nothing that I can use to motivate him to fight organized crime...yet.  What makes it harder is that if I try to motivate the character by inflicting some sort of adversity caused by organized criminals, I run the risk of the aforementioned tantrum.  His concept (basically the "face" of the group) is fine.  But he expects skills to basically have the same effect as some form of limited mind-control powers.  He originally indicated that his character would have NO (zip, zero, nada) combat capabilities, but I refused to go that route, because I know my group...There's going to be combat, and a fair amount of it...and I don't want one of my players sitting on the sidelines bored (and complaining), when I can avoid it.

Skills:  Great:  Performance; Good:  Persuasion, Subterfuge; Fair:  History, KS:  Music, PS:  Bard;  Average:  Dagger, Perception, Craft - Instrument, Diplomacy

Stunts:  Feint, Distract

"Player3" -- Player 3 is one of the more experienced players in the group; however, he tends to not be fully engaged in the game, often playing games on his laptop or smart phone.  Like the rest of the group, he tends to min-max characters, though not to the extent of the others.  He's very rational and tactical, and role plays very well when you can get him engaged.  He also likes to explore unusual concepts but tends to focus strictly on advantageous abilities / powers -- and once he has them, he'll go out of his way to use them.

This player's character concept is a streetwise cat burglar.  I'm faced with a second character who currently has no reason to go against organized crime; so, once again, I have to build an in-game story just to get the character involved with the main story.

Skills:  Great:  Burglary; Good:  Streetwise, Acrobatics; Fair:  non-lethal combat,  Perception, Evasion; Average:  fencing stolen goods, fast-talking (player didn't provide the other two skills, nor did he provide any "stunts").

"Player4" -- Player4 does not engage in role-playing.  While not exactly a power gamer, he pretty much prefers to play fighter types and mainly enjoys combat.  This player openly dislikes HERO because "there's too much math."

This player's character concept is basically a ranger who makes a living as a guide / caravan guard and generally doesn't like or trust other people, but can't not help someone truly in need.

Skills:  Great:  Bow; Good:  Tracking, Stalking; Fair:  Land Navigation, Skinning, Haggling; Average:  Longsword, DCV/DEF, KS:  Wilderness, Cooking.

Stunts:  none provided by player.

"Player5" -- Player5  is another decent role-player, but he also has strong tendencies to min-max characters and almost always focuses on enhancing combat abilities above everything else.  He does OK at developing character backgrounds, though generally, he tends to try to use background creation simply to justify over-the-top combat capabilities.

This player's character concept is basically a streetwise urban tough (brawler) who can dish out a fair amount of damage, but can generally absorb a ton of punishment (think Marv from the movie "Sin City").  His current occupation is as an "enforcer" / "collector" for an organized crime family (though he's trying to get out of the business).

Skills:  Great:  Toughness; Good:  Brawling, Seduction;  Fair:  Streetwise, Athletics, Perception; Average:  Haggling, Subterfuge, Strength, Romance

Stunts:  Roll with Punch, Uppercut, "Bedroom eyes"

Note, the attached character sheets are basically the 2nd or 3rd revisions of these characters.  After play-testing two combats (since my group tends to be combat-centric), some adjustments were made that didn't necessarily match the original character concepts.

So, since I'm asking for help improving the characters, here are some of the things I'm struggling with along with my own critiques of the builds:

Base OCV/DCV vs. Combat Skill Levels.

Most of the builds in the books tend to favor base OCV / DCV instead of skill levels.  I tend to think of CSLs as combat training; but, because they're cheaper and more flexible, I had a tendency to load characters up with CSLs even when they don't have any real combat training.  I also probably over-used martial arts in the character builds.

Player1's character is woefully under-powered for a swordmaster.  That could be entirely the result of the points budget, but I think I should be able to get more capabilities for my budget than I did.

Player2's "mood music" ability needs some adjustment.  What I was after was the ability of the character to alter the mood of groups of people through his music / performance (given time to perform).  This isn't any ability that would be used during combat, but might be used just prior to "gin up" the troops.  It originally started as an idea to increase a listeners presence, only for purposes of resisting fear effects / presence attacks; but given the ability of music to affect a range of emotions and take a person from laughter to tears, I wanted to make it more general...Maybe I should build it as multiple abilities, rather than trying to lump it all into one...not sure.  Other than this one ability, the character is pretty plain and ...well...boring.

Player3's character is OK...just a bit "vanilla".  I'd like to spice the character up a bit.

Player4's character is also OK, though the player feels that 4DC RKA is under-powered.  I'm willing to make adjustments, but I don't want every fight to be a foregone conclusion.  He's also pretty vanilla.

Player5's character seems over-powered for the campaign so far (and is the reason I'm considering ruling that Combat Luck doesn't stack with armor).  In spite of this, the character is pretty "vanilla" as well.

Player1.pdf

Player2.pdf

Player3.pdf

Player4.pdf

Player5.pdf

I'd like to see something akin to a "Game Master's Guide" -- something that goes beyond defining the core rules of the system and gives more detailed advice on how to apply those rules.  The examples in the core rule books are decent, but often only hint at the things a GM -- particularly one new to the system -- should know in order to set up and run a successful campaign...And the core rule books are HUGE...too much to absorb quickly.  Having the information a GM needs distilled and well-indexed would be invaluable.

...

As for the unhittable Kobold, one must be prepared to exploit the myriad other ways to hit and hinder a target: AoE (dust thrown in the face could be ruled an ad-hoc AoE Flash attack if necessary), multiple attackers, attacks that target the mind, Presence Attacks, etc. You gotta get creative. And if necessary, put tighter limits on base DCV and combat skill levels. As for reasonable campaign limits, I'm pretty sure every version of the core rules and every genre book I've ever read has sections devoted to the subject.

There have been a number of good suggestions regarding the "unhittable kobold" problem.  One of the challenges that I faced in that particular campaign was the fact that I was trying to run a low-fantasy (magic rare) campaign...so, apart from things like nets, AoE attacks were going to be extremely rare.  The only way I could bring multiple attackers to bear was to completely outnumber the party -- and the opponents would have to be tough enough to keep the rest of the party occupied for at least a couple of phases.

But, that campaign is long past...We're in the process of building characters for another run at Fantasy Hero, but this time, we're taking a bit of a different approach.  Once the characters are built, I'll probably post them to the forums to get some feedback.

And, I think we've spent enough time on the "unhittable kobold"...I almost feel like, in addition to being an in-game problem, it has developed the power to hijack forum threads!

Well, I've started bumping into several GMs who start out "Nobody can use X" Because it's so wrong/abusive/evil/liberal...etc... Active caps tend in that direction as well...

 

One example (a pet peeve as it were ) is Weather control, nowadays that runs off of Change enviro, reasonable enough...but wait! Lets tack on a load of mandatory mods that make basic "cool" weather control run 90+ points. Toss in some lims, and it's (barely) affordable, but that exceeds the Cap! So NO to something that is more window dressing than game busting. It's an experience I have over and over.

 

This thread is almost an example. A suggestion of having a reserve be large is met with disagreements based on how it "could" be abused, not how it Is broken. It's not a matter of the rules stopping you it's the No's that ring out none the less...CC seems like a step in the right direction. I've read parts of 6Th, and it seems chocka- block with long passages of how this way is "right" and any other is "wrong".

 

The current group I've just met. They seem like cool guys, but within 10 mins I got a story about how Damage Reduction is so broken, and should never be allowed, and you should just buy more defense. I disagree with the conclusion, and can express my disagreements just fine. But I certainly perceive a "culture of NO" .

 

Disclaimer: I really like DR, and use it all the time. I find excessive defenses to be far more troublesome in play.

Part of the problem is probably how the gaming culture has evolved of late.  IMHO, much of the "problem" (if you will) has to do with the prevalence of computer and console RPGs and MMOs.  The VAST majority of players in those games focus on DPS -- and they tend to bring the same mentality to pen and paper games as well.  As a result, many GMs HAVE to worry about how a build can be abused, because it WILL be abused.  This is probably part of the reason why you're seeing the development of a "culture of NO".

I'm trying to get my current group of D&D / Pathfinder players to give HERO a try, but if I don't set limits somehow and say "no" to some builds, I'm going to wind up with PCs with 15 OCV & 15 DCV doling out 12 DCs (4D6K) in a fantasy game where the AVERAGE OCV/DCV is in the 4-6 range and average defenses will be in the 8-10 range with maybe 4-6 points of resistant defense.  If I let them, they'll all buy 5 levels of combat luck and be running around with 15 rPD/rED all the time -- next to impossible to hit, and virtually impossible to damage if you do hit them...and they'll see nothing wrong with this.  The mechanics "allow" it.

So, yes...I'm part of that culture of "No".  I feel like I have to be.