tancred

Re: Living in PA-radise

Part of one of Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" novels is set there. It's one of the early ones, E or F I think.

Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game)

What Lucius said, plus my geek take on it.

When I run into something like that, I usually end up writing myself a program to automate it. (It's good to be a programmer and a gamer.)

It can take a LOT of hours to create but once you're done it saves a lot of time and makes it really easy to use your system during a game.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

Very odd. I've read many posts in this thread regarding the downside of Fantasy Hero being the extra GM effort involved. I find this amusing as the primary reason I (as a GM) use Hero is that I'm lazy - too lazy to learn any other game system well enough to be comfortable running it.

This is why I do Hero for everything. I know it WAY better than I will ever know d20 or any other system.

As for a pre-generated setting, my players had a blast in Turakian Age. Close enough to D&D to feel familiar, but still with the unique flavor of Hero.

I did a lot of adding on to what was in the book and the 5th ed. Grimoires, but that was mostly stuff I wanted, not absolutely had to have for the game.

In the process of writing up prefabs for my players for spells and so on, I went ahead and did conversions of things I had done for 4th edition. Added new spell colleges and a lot of new spells to existing colleges.

I really do like that magic system. Again, similar enough to D&D to not confuse my players, but unique enough to show that it isn't exactly the same.

Haven't done anything with it lately, though. Painted myself into a corner with my PA game (the players love it too much to let me stop) and now it's taking all the time I have for gaming.

When I'm not running Hero Glupii or our other GM usually run d20, though Glupii will run Hero when he has the time to prepare the setting.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

This is a good idea. And not just for fantasy' date=' but for all genres. Recommendations and suggestions for how to balance encounters, things to think about when building your foes (what's the difference between foes with CVs lower than the PCs and those with CVs higher?), exp rewards, handling different types of adventures and/or genres, and so on. In fact, a book such as this would benefit from having numerous authors contribute material and ideas. For my money, I'd like to hear from Scott Bennie, Darren Watts, David Mattingly, teh bunneh, and others with their ideas and opinions on making a game run well and be fun for all.[/quote']

 

Despite all the years I've been running/playing HERO, I would still buy this. Every time I read about a campaign someone's running (in any genre) I get new ideas.

This would be more of the same only better.

Re: The Professions of Arms

Here's the generic jobs stuff I had put together for my old FH campaign.

None of it is very campaign-specific; most of it is swiped from The Fantasy Trip and adapted.

Re: The Professions of Arms

We never did follow up on this idea did we?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks I need to follow up on laundry. We're out of saddle blankets.

The old RPG "The Fantasy Trip" had a system for earning money during off time.

It didn't have professional skills, of course, but the various professions did have skill requisites.

You made a roll for every week you worked at the job with a chance for a major success or major failure; consequences of those depended on the job.

I had actually started adapting it to my fantasy game before I switched to running PA.

Re: Star (Trek) Hero Racial Templates

I had missed the Send to Compressed Folder; not where I had looked at all.

Edit: Woops; even with send to compressed they're both too large; the FASA Trek is 1.65 MB and the TNG Hero is just under 8 MB.

Have to find a way to compress further.

Edit 2: Tried 7-zip; both are still too large to pass the upload filter.

Sorry for the delay; I only get back on the boards about once a week now.

Annoying how life gets in the way of gaming.

Re: Star (Trek) Hero Racial Templates

I have several PDFs from the old StarHeroFandom site.

Here is the TrekHero.pdf.

Unfortunately, the other two are too large to upload, and I don't have a copy of winzip anymore.

Re: I need more Star Hero equipment.

If you can find a copy of Traveller Hero, it has a lot of converted equipment.

Send a PM to Shadowcat if nothing else.

Re: Your Top Ten Science Fiction Writers, and then some.

No love for John Ringo (with or without David Weber)???

For shame.

Re: Character: Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter (SPOILERS!!!)

That is good to hear.

I rate Elizabeth Moon as one of the 3 or 4 best authors still actively writing.

I've enjoyed every one of her books I've read.

Re: Jeffery Keown's Chronicles of Amber

I've just finished reading your PDF, and I'm practically drooling on the keyboard.

MORE!!!

Seriously, this is an excellent beginning for a campaign.

I can't wait to see what you add next.

Re: Jeffery Keown's Chronicles of Amber

Let me echo that request.

The (first) Amber series was one of the first fantasy novels I ever read, and I still love it to this day.

I have more than once thought of running a game set in Amber, but haven't made any effort to do any conversions.

I would very much like to see what you have.

Re: Fantasy Hero Resources page

CTaylor, nice job on this excellent resource. I already ran one of your adventures (The Tomb of Rakosh) and my players really enjoyed it.

We have an all-day Saturday game upcoming, and I plan to run another one then.

FYI, the US: The Final Enemy link seems to be broken. At least, it says the file can't be found.

This is NOT a complaint; I just want all of your excellent work.

Re: Traveller Hero

Thanks anyway, even if it is late . I guess I was looking for more of something of a hybrid between the two (something like Traveller20 tried, although that was a bit hard to follow at times).

 

Having the books in hand did help, as it's a lot easier to flip back and forth between the pages than doing it in the pdf files. I'm not sure how I'll do it if I can get the campaign going, but for nostalgia I'd thought about rolling up the old first edition way and taking it off from there. Just because I used to love the way characters were created. You had a history before you started.

Having the history was exactly why I came up with a system for converting existing characters; I love the backstories you could create that way. Shadowcat and Eodin took it and ran with it, and dramatically expanded the list of skills to convert. (I had used only Classic Traveller, as it's the only one I own; they added the later versions to it.)

If you do roll your characters in your Traveller system of choice, make sure you use the package deals anyway. Reason being, Hero has a lot more skills than Traveller, and a character that you just convert will tend to not have all the skills he really should. The package deals point you at all the skills someone in whatever the profession is should have. Adding skills from the appropriate package deal(s) will make your character much more rounded.

Re: Traveller Hero

I haven't been online much lately, so sorry for the late reply.

Badger, the character generation in TH was written with either of 2 options in mind:

1. Create the character in Hero just as you would any other heroic-level game.

-or-

2. Roll the character up in your Traveller system of choice and convert from there.

The system is a little biased toward option 2 since that's the system I submitted, but Eodin and Shadowcat did a good job of expanding on the existing Star Hero packages to make option 1 completely viable, too.

Hope that helps.

Re: Polar Wyrms

Does anyone know, is there anything like the old D&D Remorhaz (AKA the Polar Wyrm) in MMM or Bestiary? Or is there a link to a conversion online somewhere?

 

Thnx!

You mean, like this?

Re: Skill Trees (A New Framework?)

Well said, Thia, as usual. (I'd rep you, but you must spread, blah, blah...)

In my Turakian Age game, I've allowed the mage player to use the Expert Skill Enhancer (from Dark Champions) to partially offset the cost of his Power Skills (mages have to spend a LOT of points on Power Skills if they want to be proficient at multiple arcana).

I also suggested Expert Alchemist for all his Alchemy Skills, but in his case it isn't cost-effective because he also has Scholar for his numerous Knowledge Skills. But any NPC master alchemists will have that.

In short, what Mark said about Expert seems to me a good way to go.

I used the Expertise Limitation back in 4th Edition, and early on when I began converting to 5th, but it does seem overly complex. And with the Cost Multiplier rule for Turakian Age, Expertise often doesn't give you a cost break either, means it's extra complexity for not much benefit.

So for my game at least, Expert is what we're going to use.

Re: When the heck does this spell end?

Technically, doesn't this spell ALSO end if the caster is Stunned or Knocked Out?

(In addition to losing Line of Sight, of course.)

I've always played it that way, since it's NOT Persistent (it can't be Persistent if it costs END), therefore it ends at Stunned or Knocked Out.

That always seems to me to be somewhat of a balance factor.

If you need a strictly defined Duration, the FH Grimoire uses Uncontrolled for that.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Last week's Turakian Age game.

The player runnig our group's mage has been looking through all the Turakian Age books, and has found the Grant Wish spell (FHG, page 241).

During the pre-game conversation, this player mentions the spell, and that it only costs 4 points.

Then he asks if I'll allow him to take it, grinning because he knows the answer.

For some reason, what came out of my mouth was, "You can pretty much plan on kissing my goblin butt before you get that one."

Have NO idea why I said that, but ALL the players cracked up.

Re: Turakian Age Questions

Tomasina, good luck with your game.

I'm running the Turakian Age right now, and having a blast with it.

I second the call to get at least the first Fantasy Hero Grimoire; it contains the vast majority of the spells that you will want to use.

It also contains some magic items, which will be helpful. If you want a LOT of magic items, order the Enchanted Items book; it has a ton of them, all designed specifically for the setting.

I had forgotten the bit about divine casters only having to buy a single Power Skill; we haven't used any divine casters yet.

That does sound like a bit of a balance issue, since arcane casters have to spend so many points on Power Skills if they want to be proficient at multiple arcana. I will clearly need to look at that further.

One thing I've allowed in my game is to allow my (so far, one-and-only) PC caster to use the Expert Skill Enhancer (from Dark Champions) on his Power Skills. That gives him a break of 1 point each off the cost of them. Not a huge savings, but it does add up.

And yes, it is a little tricky to get used to the divide by 3 factor, as the costs shown in the books DON'T include that.

If you're doing the spells up in Hero Designer, you can turn on the option for Cost Multipliers and put in 0.3333333 as the Multiplier and it will calculate the cost correctly for you.

(If you bought the Turakian Age HD pack, it has that already entered for the spells.)

Re: Dilema...

Ok' date=' what to do today? Look for a job or learn more on the rule system, working on campaign ideas? hmmmmm...[/quote']

 

I'm having trouble with that one, too.

Looking for work is hard work.

 

And certainly less fun than working on Hero.

 

And what makes it worse is all the nice shiny Hero books I got for my birthday and Christmas.

Still haven't read Post-Apocalyptic Hero, and have only skimmed the Ultimate Energy Projector, Enchanted Items, and Worlds of Empire.

 

Not to mention all the work I need to be doing on my Turakian Age game...

Re: Revamping old campaigns

From 4th Edition, we had:

Crystalmancy

Electromancy

Kleptomancy

Sonimancy

And someone wrote one called Vivimancy, spells dealing specifically with living things and changing/altering them.

Re: Hello...

What is this, an epidemic???

I'm looking, too.

It will work out for the better for me, 'cause I didn't like where I was anyway. And being first quarter, this is when everybody's hiring, at least in my field (programming).

Re: Hello...

One thing I have noticed as I read more of the rules' date=' is its flexibility. So much so as it may require me to bring the third brain cell online.[/quote']

 

Welcome, Rohaun!

 

Yeah, you'll find Hero will stretch your brain. You'll be sitting there, calmly watching a movie, and suddenly find yourself wandering, "I wonder how many Skill Levels HE has?"

 

Can't believe Thia hasn't already said this (guess he's still distracted from all the shiny gadgets), but take a look at buying Hero Designer.

For $25, you get the best character generation software ever created. It makes it INCREDIBLY easy to stat out anything in Hero terms.

 

It's especially helpful if you're new to the system, because it's designed to enforce the rules. Yes, you can override it, but by default it won't let you build anything "illegal," which is a big help starting out.

Does all the math for you, not that the math is really that hard anyway.

 

And once you pick up HD, the character packs for it are a pretty good deal, too. In particular, the Hero System Bestiary pack, at only $6.99, gives you all the creatures in the Bestiary book already written up in Hero terms.

In 5 minutes, you can take an existing creature, customize it, and voila, monster of the week.

 

No, I don't get anything for getting anyone to buy HD (other than the satisfaction of seeing someone else enjoy it, too).