RadeFox

Akin to that, it is good to bear in mind when doing LOTR stuff in Hero (or any other game sytem), that the Fellowship members were all paragons of thier race/culture. With the notable exception of the hobbits, who just learned damn quick in the forge of peril, So the Gimli's and Legolas's and Aragorns would be ver far removed from the Hero fantasy starting base of 75+75 or even 100+100. They were the best of the best, who else would wise Elrond have chosen to trust and burden with so important a task. IMO, there were only a handful of elven elders and few remaining istari who would have been more 'Points powerful", but these figures were far too heavily stalked by the Eye of Sauron. In gaming terms then, the members of the fellowship were all those folks just on the brink of major herodom. Folks with mighty, if unsung or untested mettle, who were not yet under the scrutiny of Sauron. in AD&D, Id place them all around 9-10th level at the forming of the Fellowship, with the hobbits trailing in around 3-5th. For Hero, maybe place them around 75+75+150xp. So Nolans not far off.

To get back on Discussion topic, I still think folks are misreading some things. In my first post, I spoke of th GM limiting peoples access to spells. I also mentioned some points values. Then folks said the points aren't enough. I should have left that part out. The thrust of my post was that YOU as the GM have every right and I'd even say the duty to responsibly grant out access to new spells. Even for VPP's. If you have a handle on how much and what kind of magical spells your mages are having access to in game, then there is now way for them 'Go rampant" in power as it seems many GM's posting have had experiences of. Call me old fashioned, but I am really having trouble seeing how in a game, run by an attentive and dutiful GM, any character could develop abilities that cause balance trouble in the game. But thats just my last 2 cents on the issue.

I would not charge to learn to use a magic item, only to learn spells. Items can be taken away, spells cannot, short of some serious mindwiping magic, which I would be abhored to do to any player.

It seems to me that the only way mages can get out of hand in FH if their GM's let them. Whether or not the campaing is using spells as skills, Mulipowers, or VPP's, there is a core truth to magic that Im not wondering if some of the GM's having trouble are forgetting: MAGIC SPELLS MUST BE LEARNED. The GM has every right (and duty) to fairly control access to new magical spells for the PC's. Gods may gift their priests new spells as they continue to serve them well. Mages can either find a scroll or spell tome with one or a few spells in them ready to learn, or they may research new spells on their own. In either case I would always install an abosolute minimum of 1 pt be spent on learning the spell (even for a VPP slot) to symbolize the time and effort spent committing the spell to memory. This cost should be set with regards to the difficulty of magic being learned. I could see a priest being granted a new Blessing while in prayer, and spending only 1 pt to learn the benediction, while at the same time charging 5 pts for a mage to decipher a scroll from an ancient race of dark sorcerors who wielded alien magics in times primeavil. (The above costs were made assuming VPP's) If you are using Multipowers or spells as skills, the costs are preset in game, but that doesnt mean that they have to be accessible. A spell must still be found or researched. Unknown magics deciphered, other languages understood. (IMO, using a spell of Universal Translator would not allow someone to learn a spell in a foregin language. It wouldnt convey the depth of understanding of the words/runes or aid in understanding subtle influences or nuances often portrayed in mystical writings.) So the quest for the spells is what I see most mages being focused on, or learning how to cast ones they have found! How fun it must be to have to summon an elder deamon to help you learn the spell written in the abyssal tongue, one for controlling daemons!....not that you KNEW thats what this particular tome taught. Heehee PS- Dont forget that many mages in literature, and those magi of our own reality almost always kept their personal spellbooks written in unique codes and shorthands, which would not even be readable with a UnvrslTrnslr spell. Hope your mage pc's have been keeping up with that Cryptography skill. And hope they make the roll when copying down that incantation!

Looking over the Star Hero and TE stuff, I dont see any mention of it, nor do any of the ships or drives they have pre-made even use that modifier, so Im at a loss as well. I cant even think of a good explanation on my own that would even begin to make sense, short of say it doubles the NCM speeds, but then why not just buy that normally.

What are the SFX Polaris?? Like I stated above, it is important. If your magic eb/rka is lightening, fire, ice ray, or any of the 'common' magic damage spells, even with it being magically sourced its not likely to do more then mar the paint of a typical spacegoing vessel. For any players of scientific mind, or who are at least interested in space travel in your group, your going to need a new or odd attack form, thats at least plausibly able to bypass standard defenses.

Force Fields should be universally effective. A field of interposing energy is sound in both magical and scientific models. So it would be a decently common defense for any NND's or other stuff you choose to use. It would allow for the same kind of stuff as star trek, the sheilds go down, and the then your teleports and transports start up, or other magical effects could be used. Your biggest challenge will likely be making the magical weaponry at all effective. After all, a science based vehicle is going to be well armored vs vacuum and pressure and impacts. Be totally insulated vs electricity and hard raditation, and intense heat/fire and Ice/cold. Doesnt leave much for the standard arsenal of magic attacks to cling too to effect the Thorgan ships.

The END cost must be paid on every phase in which he may take an action while the power is in effect. Should make it a pretty short lived spell, since he wont be able to take a recovery except for post 12, and he'll be burning 32 END plus his base Speed x 8 in END too.

Pretty simple, really. The TK'r rolls 8d6, and counts the Pips, the gun wielder rolls 1d5/5 Strength. Whoever gets the most pips, wins. Ties go to the defender (Gub Guy). Remember, though, the TK'r ,must hit the Gun with his TK, which I'd say is the Gun Guys DVC + 3-5 depending on your own judgement.

I dont think we ever used that. I'm pretty sure in more then one Chaosium product, it said that you used your Base Power for spells, to attack and resist, not your current. I may be wrong, and the GM was using house rules. The only times Current Power was used, was in resisting things like torture/interrogation, or some creatures drains.

How do you explain/prevent mages from buying their VPP's thus: 20 RP poll +5 adder 40pt pool +5 adder 60 pt pool +5 adder 80 pt pool +5 adder 100 pt pool +5 adder 120pt VPP! so now for 45 cp, a mage could have an 120 RP limit VPP. Not too mention, now he could increase the base with 1 xp and net a gain of 5 pts in the Pool. Or they could just keep on buying the doubling adders. Sounds very abusive to me. Mages with VPP's are hard to balance in almost any magic system incarnation in hero. But I agree, a VPP is the most 'normal' wayto handle the kind of fantasy magic wielders most of us are used too. Im still looking for the perfect blend of playability ease, Balance, and wonderous effects for my own world a brewing.

Where do you find these great gmae images Enforcer?

Disads for this game are EASY- Watched- By the Guy in Charge of the Nexus- MoPow, All the Time, Punish Nexus Crew Member- Heck, the poor PC's have almost NO support structures in place when they arrive on mission sites. Much like Star Gate. This would easily be a 15-25 pt disad, imo, every pc could take. Nothing like going in blind to a potentially hostile world every few days, with no say in the matter. Psych Lim- Wants to go home (likely a common one in the game) all the time, total/strong

Oh lord, someone HAD to bring up the DUCKS. The lamest, and biggest mistake RQ ever made. I think someone must have spiked their pop that month. *groans* And, I agree, as well, Multi-Spell and massively stacked spells weren't the best. We usually had several house rules to prevent people from getting Mulitpsell-4 or SpeedDart-4, etc. You had to be extremely dedicated to rise above the -2 level of spells. Sorcery was powerful, but it had serious drawbacks if done well. It was incredibly hard to learn, teachers were amazingly scarce. If tGM'd right it would take a character most of the campagin to even come close to being an Adept. Which, imo, is how it should be. In most of our games, Sorcery often dealt with dealing with cthuluoid beings to get access to some magics. (Our Glorantha, besides having no Ducks, was a dark place, that still remembered in dreams the shadows of the Old Ones arrival.) In fact most of the God's of Glorantha became such in their RuneQuests to overcame those foul eldritch horrors from space. I too would be very interested in seeing the world you did on converting RQ over to Hero.

Maybe if Steve got the rights to BK with the rest of the old stuff, and he doesnt intend to publish it, he might allow Ben to post that PDF in the Free Stuff??? That would be a great resource!

Spirit Magic, and especially Divine magic from RQ will, essentially be a Stop Sign power (and in some cases illegal) for Hero. This by no means, you should avoid it. Magic in the RQ world was a very special thing. It was at once common and pervasive, while still being relatively low powered. Almost everyone had access to magic, and very, very few folks of the adventurer class had no magic. Low level enhancements such as Bladesharp, or Protection were exceedingly common, which I always found a nice spice to RQ. In the same thread, even a Sorceror or Shaman, whose main focus was magic, was still quite tame by many RPG standards for magic. True, they might have a spell or two that could kill a man in one shot, with good damage roll. But the massive spells you might see in D&D or Hero were quite absent. The mightiest of magics, imo, were the Divine spells known by the devout priests. These spells had a lot more OOMPH to them, but they were one shots. The priest couldn't get the spell back until returning to his temple, and spending time in meditation or service to be granted the boon of the spell. Vera Cool, all around! I've always kinda held the idea of using an RQ magic style if I ever run a FH game. So I may delve into my storage unit someday, dig out my RQ collection and convert some stuff. Will be eager to see how this thread develops. I think there are a lot of us old RQ folks around.

Elayna Arianya Arya

I follow two printed guides for the most part. Campaigns and Catacombs book for AD&D 2nd, and the Aria worldboook. using these as guidelines for what needs to be at least thought of, if not flushed out some, gives me a pretty solid base on which to plan and build a both believable and manageable world.

Rook, you're gonna needa a REAL solid reason why Goblins are not running the world, as it were. With a birthrate like that, and quick maturity rate (immortality aside), No other typical fantasy race would have any chance at all of being able to hold its own, let alone flourish in such a world. Goblins would over run every area they could reach, and have unlimited resources. They would never run out of soldier, miners, or tradesfolk. Granted, in only a year, they would not be very skilled, but 1,000 golbins with 6 months of training is more then a match for 1 adolescent from any other race.

Ideas for you Spider Mans Aunt Supermans Mom Ms Gordon of the New Batman stuff, where the former batgirl is now the Police Commisioner or mayor. I even think theres a pic of her in that role on the WB website for the show.

Very Late Cretaceous, Earth, Planet of the Dinosaurs - Lura couldn't convince the Most Pre-eminent Hunting Pack of Matters Scientific that Asteroid Archeo was not going to "just pass amazingly close to Earth" but was going to collide. Her predictions showed a high probability of extinctions on a massive scale, that the Sapeoraptor race itself and all its technological achievements were in peril of being blasted back to the Stone Age. She wept bitter tears thinking of the fate that would befall her daughters; if there was only some way to spare them the ensuing horrors of the asteroid's deep impact. Then it dawned on her there just may be. With the help of her mate Jor-ek, she conceived of a desparate plan to save her daughters and the quite possibly the whole Sapeoraptor race itself, create a chrono-ark to send her brood into the future with enough supplies to start over. Moments before Archeo's fiery entry into Earth's atmosphere, Lura powered up her chrono-ark using psi-scanners to pin-point the brain waves of the highest concentration of survivors in the future. But wait, what's this?!? The scanners aren't finding any survivors. She widens the search in space and time. A faint signal coming from...65 million years in the future. As the blast wave hits, desparate Lura praying to Great Mother sends the Last Daughters of Earth into an uncertain future. This is vera cool. Kudos!

Was looking for one called Meta World or somesuch, it had Reborn in the title too. It was a whole system of charts and tables for things like heat, falling, and other environmental stuff, as well as materials, I think. Im pretty sure its a site that gets a lot of use, but my google searches arent turning up squat. I know there are a TON of great Campaign pages, and pages by GM's who arent linked on the HeroLinks page, and these are the ones Im seeking.

Very slick and nice, Monolith. I like!

Simulationist- 70% Gamist - 15% Narrative - 15% Cool posts, neat way to explore folks gaming styles! I like the narritive ideas, but I always want them to be within the bounds and limits of the game and world as established.

I recently had to battle a trojan horse virus on my PC (I kicked its arse, finally), and one of the files it destroyed was my bookmarks. This included my many, many great hero games links. I figure others out there also used these great resources, so heres my request, post your favorite hero games resource sites, fan sites, or campaign websites. I can go through them and find the ones I lost, and likely many others will find new ones they like too!! Sounds like a good Win-Win situation! Thanks in advance for helping me (and others out!) Kelly