Lezentauw

Re: Hit Locations for Melee (particularly Fantasy/Mediaeval) combat I am just not sure that the "standard" hit location tables are the best to use. As an example, if you try the get a "head shot" with an overhead slash from a broadsword, you could still hit your opponent even though you missed the head. Perhaps terrain is the reason, as your opponent has the high ground.

Re: Color Spray If you want D&D spell conversions, I would check out Killer Shrike's homepage. If you don't agree with how he does things, that is fine, but I would at least check what he has done already. No need to re-invent the wheel...http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Content/Powers/Spells/Spells.asp?Type=Arcane&Subtype=Wizardry&Category=Illusion

Re: Stone/Bronze Age help I believe you are correct. They had a makeshift barrel on top of a stick, the problem with these "guns" is that they were very unaccurate. They fired these from the hip, and the bamboo did not necessarily grow perfectly straight.

Re: Hit Locations for Melee (particularly Fantasy/Mediaeval) combat I guess you could just use the Special Hit Location "Body Shot" as the default for melee combat with no penalty. And, then use your explanation for what got hit, was the opening that the defender left. To better explain the hands, they could also be hit as the defender was trying to parry the attack. The Body Shot is 2d6+4, for a -1 OCV. If this was the default I would just ignore the -1 for melee attacks. For missle combat the normal hit locations makes sense to me in a fantasy setting. Perhaps in a DC game you may want to use the same Body Shot house rule.

Re: Elves The only time that different sub-races does not make sense to me, is if the race is limited to a very small geographical area or if that race has not been around that long. Over time I feel the sub-races will be the result of evolution to the environment that the race is living in. The one thing I never understood though why a drow had black skin. Yes, I realize it was because they were "evil". But, would it not make better sense that they were all as pale as an albino, due to lack of sun exposure?

Re: Elves The main reason that I only allow Elves to have MAs, is that it is nothing for an elf to spend 60 year of his childhood learning how to "properly" shoot a bow. There was an old English saying that it took three generations to get a good archer with a longbow. An elf can achieve that before they hit puberty... I also view the elves that train to be warriors, similiar to the Samurai, they just have a lot longer to practice... The other reason that I do this, is sort of a campaign explanation. In order for elves to hold of hordes of goblinoids, they have to use better tactics and be better trained. For this racial advantage, elves have to deal with being discriminated against.

Re: What are _____ like in your game? The funny thing, when I use to play AD&D, I would play a human about 75% of the time if not more. The rest of the group would play one of the demi-humans, and would get upset that I did not pick a race that had infravision or some such non-sense as that. Once D20 came out, that group now play humans predominately. The removal of "multi-classing", and the addition of bonuses for humans must appeal to the power-gamer in them... As for Hobbits, thanks but no thanks. I am not too crazy about gnomes either, but I do like to use Dennis McKennins (Spelling) gem-eyed folk.

Re: Elves Since I use the Kalamar campaign setting, Elves are used. Since Elves are suppose to be the masters of combat techniques, they are for the most part the only race that is allowed to use Martial Arts in my campaign. I use this training as one of the reasons, elves are able to hold off the goblinoid invasions.

Re: Ressurrection Spell While the official way to do it is via Healing with the Res adder, there is nothing that is stopping you from making it a major transform instead...

Re: Packages I think that for professions, packages is a bad term. "Templates" would better describe what they represent now. I include stats as powers for races, so that makes them feel more like a package to me. Not only that, the racial packages are less often altered.

Re: Daily Art Findings Thanks for the link...

Re: Daily Art Findings Keith can you post that link?

Re: Make them Pay! When I first went from D&D to HERO, I saw the point system as a method to balance characters. By making people pay point for eq, you can keep the players in pretty much the same power levels. What a great idea... Since then I have come to realize that point balancing is a complete farce. It will do a decent job of getting players to an approximate equality, but in no way will the players be equal even though they have the same points. I can guarantee you, that once you start hand-waving that at least one of your players will start to push the boundary of what has to be paid for what does not. If you think I am mistaken on this, then take into consideration Active Point Limits for a Super-Heroic campaign. Once the GM states the limit for his campaign for attacks, every player will take their powers right up to the limit. In much the same way, the players will want to maximize their characters, and that would mean scrimping points from items "that they should be buying", and instead purchasing other abilities or eq that you will not hand-wave. If you plan on handing out a lot of items to the players, magical or otherwise, IMO you will find that the players will only be able to afford those new items or character development. If you some people that actually do put their points into character development, and others into the eq, you will run into problems. Once characters get enough points, the characters that put all of their points into eq will start to outpace the developmental characters. The reasoning is that the characters with the eq, will in actualityhave a higher active point total, due to all of the limitations on eq. The reality is that you will have only magnified your problem rather "fixing" it. IMO you are better off just using role-playing methods for dealing with these situations, rather than using a system that is full of paradox's and is the product of its own balancing issues.

Re: Make them Pay! Sable, first of all welcome to the boards. As to the paying for eq, read some of the posts from experienced GMs. The problem is that paying for eq does create a paradox. "Sorry guys I cannot climb that rope, as I did not pay points for it. I know that last week, I climbed one..." At some point one of your players, will not pay for standard eq, knowing that you will most likely allow him to continue to use that rope. If you force them to pay for eq without the "Independant" limitation, then they will always have that rope, even if it does not make sense why. If you use the "independent" limitation, when that rope get stolen/burned/left behind they will have to pay for a new one... Since you are going to be using power-skills, I would assume that your warrior will be investing pretty heavily in those. The balance will be the spell-caster buying spells, and the rest buying power-skills. I assume that your players will be new to Hero as well. If they came from D&D, you are going to have a hard sell as to why they have to pay for the loot they get. Experienced GMs tend to agree that paying for eq, is not a good idea.

Re: Make them Pay! Perhaps I need to find that sword to cut all the sarcastic irony from Shadowpup in half....

Re: Make them Pay! If you really are determined to go down this road, there is nothing to stop you. I would then say that your world would be more like "Earth dawn", where you had to bond with a magical item to get the full effectiveness out of it. By doing this, then there should be no "Independent" limitation on the items. There are still problems with doing this. As Killer Shrike has already stated, if you are really insistent of doing this, it would be better if you used the resource point method from DC. As to players acquiring items in the manner that you are mentioning, I find it hard that one player could acquire all of the good magical items. In a campaign where this would be a problem, other characters should be able to detect if something is magical. IMO this really is only a problem in a High Fantasy campaign... The part that really grinds me about the reasonings for this, is the player mentality that you can just switch items without others noticing. For some reason they are using our mass produced society instead of historical facts as the basis that such actions are possible. In most campaigns, you will not find an assembly line nor any form of mass production. Henry Ford and Eli Whitney are the ones that were responsible for these inventions during our history, which was way after the medieval ages. Now taking this into consideration, no two long swords are ever going to look the same, even two made by the same artisan, as items are not mass produced. Artisan’s during the "normal" fantasy period took pride in making their crafts looking different; each one was a piece of art to them. Perhaps if an Artisan was trying to get a perfect balanced sword, he may have 4 or 5 that look the same, as each one represented another attempt at it. But, even then there would be subtle differences between them. So the only person who lets the players acquire all of these items is you the GM. My opinion is that the other characters would be entitled to a perception check when they found a sword, that one of the party members has been using all along on a corpse. There are numerous things that you can do as well, that would add to the rp of the moment. Have the sword rattle around, as the blade is now smaller than the older sword in the same scabbard. Have the blade sticking a couple of inches out of the scabbard, as it is longer than the older sword. Etc...

Re: Make them Pay! I agree with what KS has said here. For me, the creation of magical items is a process of pouring your essence into that item. A magical item that you find has already been bound with another's magical essence, hence the reason you do not need to "bond" with it again. The only exception to this rule, is starting out with a magical weapon...

Re: Make them Pay! Actually "The Hobbit" is a good example of looting. You forgot the following items; Glamdring (The sword that Gandalf took), Orcriss (The sword that ?Thorin Oakenshield? took), Sting (Bilbo's sword/knife). Couple these items with the treasure of Smaug and the one ring, which you already mentioned, and you can see a definate example set for players from just one book. Most D&D players that I know, would consider the treasure of a dragon, 3 magical swords & a magical ring a good hall in any run...

Re: Star Wars - Balancing Jedi with everyone else and heroic vs. superheroic As another possibility, you could use the resource points as suggested from Dark Champions.

Re: house rule for c.s.l. I hate to be Johnny come late into a discussion, but I agree with Old Man on not liking increasing the importance to Dex. I am leaning towards a NCVM of 7 to, no matter how you get there. So if you take that 20 Dex, all of your skill levels are now going to cost you X2 to purchase from there after.

Re: Strength Cost: 1 point or 2 I don't like to change the cost for things. I use a house rule instead, that IMO causes a more realistic build. I ask that for every point STR a character has, that character also has to purchase a point in CON or BODY. If I do see a 20 STR, there will also be a high BODY and/or CON to go with it. Since I give out 25/50 points, 30 points for that 20 STR is just under half the points... If you also ask them where they see their character as visually. That usually helps them put their character in correct point category. The first question I give them when I see a 20 STR, "Do you really see your character as strong as a world class weight lifter?"

Re: Stat Inflation Rather than start changing things, why not look at what having a character with increased STR means? There is two ways that you are going to be stronger than other people. Either you achieved that by physical exercise, or you are bigger. As an example I will take Hulk Hogan & Andre the Giant as two extremes. I would consider both in the 20 STR category. The differences between them are other stats that I consider related to STR. First is Body: Both being as strong as they are, are at least twice the size of a normal person. This means that I would require a person with a 20 STR to buy at least 15 Body. Since Andre is bigger than Hulk, I would require him to be purchased with a higher body than Hulk, say 17. Next is Con: Hulk achieved his high STR through physical exercise, so his Con would be pretty high, IMO. I would require at least a CON of 15 for Hulk, to show the results of continous physical exercising. For Andre, IMO he did not gain as much of his STR through Physical exercise, though it is obvious that he does do some. I would require Andre to have a CON of 13. This is the result, for having a 20 STR: Hulk STR 20, CON 15, Body 15 Andre STR 20, CON 13, Body 17 Either way, the character is spending 30 points to get that 20 STR. The lower your starting points are, the more this is going to stop the most abused stat inflation with STR, as it is no longer just a drop of 10 points. At 50/50 a character could still have a 20 STR & 20 DEX, leaving 40 points for skills. Though at 25/25 or 25/50 you would not see it.... Once a person has increased their Body to show that they are indeed bigger than the average person, then comes the social ramifications; hiding, blending in a crowd, amount of food required, special tailored clothes and armor, squeezing through tight areas... I say if a person wants their character to be that big, let them... But, they should also be willing to take the good with the bad as well...

Re: Walking Past Combatants (Attacks of Opportunity)

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign These are some very good points. To expand upon them, the players are going to buy what you enforce. If you enforce more non-combat skills over combat skills, that is what you will see increased. Work with them during creation, and state that if they dont have the appropriate skill or KS, that you are going to make the assumption that their character did not pay attention to learn or know it. Otherwise, their character would of purchased the appropriate skill. Reward characters that do have family ties. What works real well, especially if you use the "resource points" from DC, is to give them family contact points or perks. Now having a family is something desirable again. If they chose to create a 'master swordsman' during character creation, let them. Then make sure that they go through some combats that do not challenge them. Let that master swordsman rule in combat, almost to the point that he gets bored. I sort of use the rule, that if a character is not challenged in combat they cannot increase their CSLs. What can a person learn, if they man-handled their opponents? They are obviously going to just do the same things time and again till it does not work. So why let them increase their CSLs?

Re: Need feedback on house rules for my new campaign I see where you are going with this. At one point I implemented a rule of 30 for Str and Dex. Once you crossed over 30, when you added the two stats together, the cost for each doubled. It was my way of handling the two most abused characteristics in FH. Now I tend to incorporate campaign penalties, and realistic purchasing of characteristics. You cannot purchase a 20 Str in my campaign without first increasing BODY and CON. The increase in STR must be reflected in any combination of BODY and/or CON. This reflects the size of your character and/or how physically fit that character is. The campaign penalties I incorporate include everything from increase costs in clothing and armor. Increased costs in lodgings, as that character needs a bigger bed. Increased costs in food, the bigger you are, the more you need to eat. I also believe that characters should not be given breaks for not having the appropriate skills. The only way to prevent "Combat" scaling is to enforce the need for non-combat skills. You do that, and the combat scaling will drop back to normal levels.