Rapier

SPELLS ARE FINITO!! 

At least the entry. There is still some proofreading and such that needs to be done but they are all entered. Phew!

4 spells to go and Illusionists are done! The last 4 are a bit intricate, so I'm going to take a break. Most of these spells are copies from Magic-User spells so there is quite a bit of proofreading to be done still to make sure I made all the changes. I might take off from spells a bit and work on the other stuff. I'm a bit spelled out.

1 minute ago, dmjalund said:

didn't it become 10 yards when you went outside?

Yes, it was truly fubarred. I've been struggling this whole time with their system of measures. The same spell description can talk about 1" (ie 1 indoor mat inch = 10'), 1" (ie 1 outdoor mat inch = 2 yards, iirc it was 'horse sized') 1" (an actual inch), 1' (an actual foot). It's maddening. 

I'll admit that this whole AD&D (1st Edition) conversion is really pushing me. I've found a bunch of oddities in HD that Simon patched, and a bunch of really strange questions. It's actually been pretty enjoyable.

I've done more digging to try and find the answer myself but no dice...so here it this morning's quandry:

AD&D was fond of the total effects (magic missiles ALWAYS hit, some spells are save or DIE!) that Hero doesn't do (which I admit is nice, it always sucked to have a world renowned uber powerful character instantly destroyed for flubbing a single die roll), but there are some effects that do need that kind of total effect to keep the flavour. So I'm working on Phantasmal Killer from the Illusionist spells. In short, it is "cast an illusion that is so terrifying that if the illusory monster lands and attack you die." I started a build with Mental Illusions, but I was concerned that this would require a lot of work on the GMs part to decide on-the-fly what OCV/DCV, damage, etc the monster would have. Us GMs have enough to worry about without having to not only come up with all this but track it. So I was thinking that I could even keep the flavour of the AD&D version by using Transform. At least, right now, that is my intent. I may go back to Mental Illusions as I ponder this.

Anyway, so I've got a 2d6 Severe Transform and every time the 'Monster' lands an attack (with OCV 5) the poor victim takes 2d6 Severe Transform effect and if the 'Monster' lands enough damage to hit the Transform threshold they die BUT this is still a mental attack. So I'm using AVAD Power Defence -> Mental Defence, but I think I might want to also allow Power Defence (since that is how I've defined generic 'Magic Defence'). I guess what I'm rambling on about is that I'm trying to build a Transform that can be defended by Power Defence AND Mental Defence. 

Even if I decide to go back to Illusions for this, I'll need these builds going forward. Since I'm using Power Defence as the "Magic Defence" I'll need to know how to handle EGO attacks (erg, I mean Mental Blasts...I'm old school) that can be defended by either Mental Defence and/or Power Defence.

So how do I build it? How much is it worth? If a character has both Power and Mental Defence, do they add? Do they use the higher value?

Normally, I would just make a decision and move on, but since I'm leaning towards Sourcebook I want to make sure I'm being fair and doing things properly (which means I bug you).

Hope you are having a good day, it's still 0 here and the snow is thick on the ground! Oh and THANKS!

Usable By Other has an option for "Recipient must be within Limited Range of the Grantor for power to be granted."

Does this take the place of a Ranged, Limited Ranged Advantage?

If I'm understanding, I should not need both. Neh?

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah AP works well too if you want them to avoid armor.  In real life a backstab works well because you can place it so well and put all your attack into it, where in regular combat you have to be careful and rarely get a nice, square hit.  How do you represent that in hero?  The surprise helps some, but other than that its up to you.  

 

The only drawback I can think of with the martial arts maneuver approach is the positioning issue and surprise -- how do you limit a maneuver so it only works in x circumstances?

My current back-of-envelope idea is that there will be Maneuvers/Proficiencies/Skills that characters can buy (like AP, Penetrating, etc). There were some introduced in some of the Survival Guides and became more of a thing with 2nd+ edition. Since i can convert whatever I want, my intent was to include this kind of thing in with my conversion. When I start getting to that point I'll look into the current version of Pathfinder and see what they are calling things and what kinds of things are out there.

I have no problem what-so-ever with calling an "Offensive Strike" Backstab and declaring you must be behind someone. There used to be (last time I was around here a lot, like 10 years ago) a thread on creating martial arts as powers. I think Martial Arts are already pretty aggressively priced for their utility. I haven't fully developed Skullduggery as an Art yet, but it may be the only Offensive Strike in the package. If, for some reason, I want another Offensive Strike I'll just make them buy it twice.

When building Sense Powers, there are options for Increased Arc of Perception (from 180 to 240 or even 360).

I'm building a bunch of detects for the AD&D conversion (Detect Magic, Detect Illusion, Detect Weasel [I just added that one for comedic effect], etc). So far I've been using Limited Power and kind of eyeballing the Limitation level. But I was wondering what your thoughts were. I've got a couple Detects that are "10m Line Straight Forward" which is pretty shrimpy as arcs go. I've also got some that are 60 degree cones. I've done some digging through the books, but there is a LOT of material to go through and I'm not finding anything on Decreased Arc of Perception.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject I'm also limiting the range, sometimes to 10m, sometimes to 34m. So I've got the 2m x 10m line straight forward or a 34m 60 degree cone.

Could you lend an eyeball?

FYI, I'm finished with Cleric, Druid, and Magic-User spells. I'm smashing through Illusionist now. WHEW!

I'm just going to assume that silence is agreement.  

I believe option c (above) is the best. I briefly considered putting the mini columns in alphabetical order (casting time, magic skill, range and AoE, DCV, Mana Cost) but decided that was the OCD Demon and not an actual good idea. I'm pretty happy with that layout and it's pretty close to the one used in AD&D. Because of the conversion to Hero I needed to add a couple of fields, but I think this works. At the end of the day, I don't think it REALLY matters. People who use this will get used to seeing AoE at the bottom of the right column and it won't be strange. I'm just obsessing (partly because I'd prefer to get this locked down before I start filling in fields! :)).

I've got the framework (in 2 columns) for the Illusionist spells done and all the description are in. There are only 65 spells (plus the ten magic-user spells) and even a LARGE number of those (eyeballing it says 1/3 to 1/2) are just version of magic-user and a couple of cleric spells. So building should be VERY quick.

I've also started to let me brain chew on the classes and how I am going to handle 'levels' in Hero and I think I have found a pretty elegant solution. I think you will like it. See that teaser? It's to make you come back for more!

I haven't quite gotten to Backstab in my AD&D conversion yet. I'm still working through spells but Classes are next on my list.

So this is my current thinking:

Fighters are like bricks. SUPER cost efficient. You buy some STR and a little DEF and off you go. You don't need to spend all those points on powers. So Fighters (and to a less extent Paladins and Rangers) are going to be swimming in points and probably ridiculous skills just because they have nothing else to spend their points on. So I was thinking was that to really represent their 'Art' of war (see where I'm going here?), I think all fighters should spend points on Martial Arts. This gives them the versatility that kind of cropped up in later editions of AD&D/Pathfinder with Weapon/NonWeapon Proficiencies, Sweep, etc.

To this, I'm thinking that the ancillary combat classes (clerics and thieves) should spend some points on Martial Arts to reflect their skill and focus. So I was honestly thinking that instead of being an extra Skill/Talent/Power that I would just include it as part of the thiefly martial art (called Skullduggery). Offensive Strike: -2 OCV, +1 DCV, +4 DCs sounds a lot like a Backstab to me, +4 DCs is an additional 1d6+1K. That's a good sized chunk of damage. Alternatively, there is always Find Weakness...but part of me likes the simplicity and one-stop-shopping of having all the abilities stacked there on the martial arts tab.

Standard Autofire is 2, 3, or 5 shots. I've got a power that I want 4 shots (that will be in a predefined pattern box pattern), so I selected 5 shots and edited the box so that it says 4 shots. But when it comes to display the power in the it says 5 shots. I can edit the text as a work-around, but this seems strange. I guess this would stop me from purchasing a x2 shots and editing it to say 37 shots, but it seems strange to be able to edit the text and not actually have it display in the build.

Thanks!

Option A

Option B

Option C

Is there other information that would be important for you to know as a spell caster? I've still got spells broken in "Levels" so there are still 3rd level spells (accessed by either a Perk or Talent purchase with sfx being a specific amount of study or access to training and skill). Would spell level be important enough to include in header? 

One of my problems is that College and Components can be long fields. Some of the Colleges are Enchantment/Charm/Abjuration or Alteration/Conjuration/Summoning. Do I abbreaviate?

I'm kind of leaning towards Option C at this point. College is displayed prominently, Components has an entire row so there is enough space. The left column is casting/targetting information. The right column is effects (DCV, Mana Cost, and Duration). What about having classic AD&D fields (Range, Casting Time, AoE) on the left and Hero fields (DCV, Magic Skill, Mana Cost) on the right? That would have some organisation and still leave me with Duration and Components as full width fields. Or put components under spell name? I just don't know any more. I've been looking at this too long.

I promise. I'll stop spamming now and let you actually have time to think.

EDIT: UGH. Duration doesn't fit in a split column. Had to swap AoE and Duration.

I'll do some tinkering today. If I convert table to text and set columns to tabs it should change pretty easily. Right now I've got this:

It's all in a table so I could easily keep track of column widths. If I go to 2 columns on the page, I can't do three columns of spell headers, I'll have to go to two. But converting to text/tabs I may have to adjust what is displayed where. I've gone back and forth a couple of times on what order/where to display the spell header info. The original text listed the College in the spell title: Animal Friendship (Enchantment/Charm). But I fully intend (as a World Builder) to let casters take Levels with colleges (to concentrate/specialise) so you could take +2 with Abjuration. So I wanted to make the College information more prominent so they would easily know which spells can use which Levels.

Also, what do you think about including the Material components in the Spell Header. I really thought this was great because that way if you want to cast the spell you don't need to read through the entire spell description to find out if you have the goods. It's right in the header. But it takes up a lot of real estate. I would need to have it almost on a row by itself so it could use both columns.

I'm leaning towards the latter. Range, Casting Time, DCV, and AoE are kind of the "Can I cast this now?" details. College, Magic Skill, Mana Cost, and Duration are kind of the effects of casting section. At least that was what I was kind of doing to break them up. I guess it doesn't really matter what order I put them in, I was just trying to group them a bit logically. I think I need to leave College in the header info so that I have that odd number of fields so I can have Components on it's own. What do you think of the order/placement? Would you move some? Where to? As a player, if you were going to be casting the spell, what would be the best placement? Do I put AoE and Duration on the right column?

Gimme some feedbacks!

EDIT: I was just tinkering and I'll have to keep it as a table. Using tabs instead of a table means that if I have a long duration or something it causes the tabs to bump out and I'll have to constantly tinker with the tab spacing. It will just be easier to keep it as a table. Not that this makes a bit of difference, to y'all. It's just a layout thing.

EDIT EDIT: All sample layouts in the next post.

I've got about 5 9th level spells left (and I'm off today and Monday so I do have a bit of time to actually spend on it) and then Illusionist, but there is only about half as many of those as Magic-User and a LOT of them are duplicates.

So obviously since I'm running a Con game, I didn't REALLY need to convert all the spells. While they are battling giants they aren't going to stop to Enchant an item or summon a demon. They also aren't going to be of high enough level to cast a Wish spell. So why go to all the trouble and effort? My thought was that if I convert just the half a dozen spells or so I will actually need they will just be Hero powers with the same name and sfx of the AD&D spell. I initially started with just some magic-user spells and found that I was really all over the place with modifiers. No spells had Extra Time for casting. I had attempted to use continuing charges for duration effects. It was just a mess. I looked at what I had done and came to the realisation that if my goal was to reproduce the flavour of AD&D with the solid mechanics of Hero I had failed. It wasn't even very good Fantasy Hero. So I stepped back and approached it from a World Builder viewpoint. I spent a bit concentrating on how magic worked and came up with a list of common modifiers (which is still on an index card next to my keyboard that I use as a checklist so nothing is forgotten). I read through enough spells that I think I am reproducing the flavour pretty well and I'm actually really happy with 99% of the work. There are a few spells that still don't feel quite right. They might need to be built with a different power, or just hand-waved a bit, or it may just be one of the spots where Hero and AD&D don't quite mesh well.

But now I've kind of led myself down into sourcebook territory. Which I can't believe I never thought of until someone mentioned it. I've been approaching this as a World Builder so that I keep the feel and flavour of AD&D that we all love, while getting rid of the schlocky, heavy-handed shoehorn of balance decisions that always made everyone's eyebrow twitchy. I originally planned on keeping this big book of magic spells myself and copying out the personal spellbook of the caster characters. I figure each caster will have a spellbook of about five pages or so. The entire spell library is pretty meaty, even at 8pt, and the casters won't need all of that extra information (and why waste the paper). I figured that it would be easiest and best to leave it in a single column like a regular document. I thought that would be easiest. But a sourcebook needs 2 columns. SO (this is where I've been rambling towards this whole time), do I keep the spell book as a single column and when proofreading, etc is done create another version that is 2 columns (which won't necessarily be a two minute job because I used tables for organising things). Or do I do it now (before tackling illusionists) and all spellbooks and sourcebook will be 2 columns? I'm kind of leaning towards converting to 2 columns now. We are all kind of used to seeing it like this. And I may actually convert to using tabs insteads of tables for organisation because it will make all the work easier.

8th level spells are done!! Heading for shower! I hope to finish 9th by Friday. I've decided to keep on with the Illusionist spells (since I'm thinking of a source book and it will be easier to do while I'm in the groove instead of starting up again). Sourcebook also means I will want to reformat my layout a bit into 2 columns instead of 1. Won't take very long but it's a bit of a pain in the butt. If I had known I was going to be tinkering with format this much I would have put all the info in a database and done a merge. Oh well. Maybe next time! LOL.

12 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

How about turn to stone being a side effect? I say this because as a player you wouldn’t automatically know if something is 200kg or not so if you cast it on something that you wanted moved but then being too heavy it becomes stone sound like a problem.

That might work well, flub the Magic Skill roll and you just petrify shit. LOL. That could definitely put a damper on your casting.

There were a couple of AD&D spells (Otiluke's Freezing Sphere and Pyrotechnics, come to mind) that had the option of two or three very different effects. I needed to build each individually because putting them into a compound power jacked the costs up so high it was ridiculous. So I created Otiluke's I, II, and III.

So I'm ok splitting it into separate spells if I need to. I've also been adapting some spells because the effects were either just silly or too much of a pain in the butt to adapt. I could very easily just skip the "heavy objects are replaced with stone" and just say that there is a maximum weight and trying to Vanish over that weight has no effect. I could also build it so that every 1000kg is a -1 on the Magic Skill roll. There is 'technically' no upper limit to the weight you could teleport, but effectively anything over about 10,000 kg is going to be impossible to cast. I've used this mechanic with some of the juicier spells (Speak with Dead, Resurrection, etc).

This is one of those spells that really makes me wonder if ol' Gary wasn't fond of the wacky tabacky. It's a little weird. Cast this spell to teleport something to you, but if it's really heavy it gets moved to another plane and replaced with stone. Where does the stone come from? Is it the exact same dimensions? 

Drawmij's Instant Summons (another 7th level spell) will bring an object to the caster, but requires you to pre-cast on the item so that it can be recalled at a later date. Vanish takes an object and sends it to wherever you want. It seems to be, basically, the same spell just slightly different (and so slightly different I wonder why there are two spells anyway). With the amount of 'borrowing' ol' GG did I wonder if there was some book or something he read that had this particular spell and he thought it was neat and stole it.

At any rate, I'm leaning towards just saying that anything can be teleported to the caster's desired location, but there is a modifier of -1 per 200kg (after the initial 200kg, so 200kg is -0, 400kg is -1, etc). When the item disappears from it's current location it is replaced with an exact stone replica (with some kind of warning that the stone version may be much heavier and hijinks could ensue). The 'move it to the ethereal plane' is a bit wonky and IMO unnecessary. 

Last of the seventh level spells and I'm not sure how to do this one. There was a spell a bit ago that allowed a magic-user to summon an object to himself. I built it as a Summon since that seemed easiest. A Transform didn't seem right since the object would have to disappear in one place and show up in another. Maybe a MegaScale TP would have been better?

In this case, Vanish:

Quote

When the magic-user employs this spell, he or she causes an object to vanish. The magic-user can cause the object to be teleported (see Teleport spell) if it weighs up to a maximum of 200kg. Greater objects can be made to vanish, but they are simply placed into the ethereal Plane and replaced with stone. Thus, a door can be made to disappear, and it will be replaced by a stone wall of ⅓m thickness, or equal in thickness to the door, whichever is greater. The maximum volume of material which can be affected is 10m3. Thus, both weight and volume limit the spell. A Dispel Magic which is successful will bring back vanished items from the Ethereal Plane.

Summon? TP? I'm leaning towards making both spells TP, MegaScale with a Floating Fixed Location.

Thoughts?

6th level spells are done! Going to bed.

I'm still plugging away. Back to school this week, and I started tutoring a new student so I've been a bit busy and work has slowed to a crawl. This weekend doesn't look good for progress either. Mum's bday is this weekend and we've got some work around the house. I'm still trying to squeeze in a couple spells where I can, but it's hard and slow going.

I've also been thinking about the Sourcebook and I think I'm going to do it. I'm thinking of doing a few Nostalgia Hero things. Try and tackle some conversions from other favoured games and/or settings.

My standard Modifiers for spells are:

Gestures

Incantations

Focus

Extra Time

Concentration (for the spells with > Full Phase Extra Time)

Time Limit (duration)

Costs END Only to Activate (necessary for some Time Limits)

Limited Range (pretty common)

Requires a Roll

But I was thinking that on many of these, I should be adding Beam to the list. I haven't built any with Beam yet, but a mage shouldn't be spreading/bouncing these attacks and I don't think it would make sense to use them at less than full power.

Also wondering how I will build spells for characters. It seems overly punitive to make them spend the real cost for spells. It will make them ruinously expensive when compared to warriors. I was thinking that maybe a VPP. It would still be pretty pricey, since some of the active costs on these puppies is up into the triple digits. Something that I'm letting roll around in my head while I do my conversions.

I accidentally made an edit to the display text of a HUGE compound power. I read through it a couple times but can't seem to find the edit (but it's blue). Is there a way to refresh the description back to the default?

I would really rather not have to recreate it, if I can avoid it.

6 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

If you are going to have conversion notes or "how to convert" type sections, there may be.  Sorry, but I haven't researched that. 

 

If, however, there is no "how to do D&D in HERO, there shouldn't be.  If you rename things a bit (fog of stench; reeking vapors- that Sorr of thing) and pitch it as Dungeon HERO or perhaps the Fantasy HERO old school companion-

 

I would think you'd be safe.  If, however, you are going to do it as a sellable, a bit of research into "parody" or "homage works" is likely cheap insurance. 

 

I'll definitely have to think about this some when I get through this slog. You have given me much to ponder.

45 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Rapier:

 

It's absolutely not my business, but think a out the amount of work you have in thus: what you have done already, and what you intend to do before you're finished. 

 

You have a source book, my friend. 

 

Wrap it up all nice and neat and do something great with it. 

 

Again, just a suggestion.

That actually doesnt sound like a bad idea. Provided there isn't any issue with IP. But do you really think anyone else would actually be interested in something like this?

I really like what you've done with 6E. I made SO much sense to get rid of FF and Armour because (as you've said) they were just other powers with modifiers and it made no sense to clutter up the rules with silly things. I really like the changes. However (you knew a however was coming, didn't you?), there is one problem (and it's not a Hero problem but more of a problem with HD).

I'm building a Shield Spell (basically a Force Field). So instead of buying FF or Armour (like in the old days), I have to build a Compound Power. Then I have to add PD, add Resistant, Gestures, Incantations, IAF: Turtle Shell, Extra Time: 2 Phases, 1/2 DCV Concentration, Costs End Only to Activate, Time Limit: 5 Minutes + 1 Minute/Success, Requires a Magic Skill roll at -1, No Range, AoE: 4m Radius.

THEN I have to add ED and do all the same again. Not only am I finding that it can be difficult to keep track of all the modifiers and make sure they all match, it REALLY sucks up some real estate on the character sheet to have to have double the modifiers listed.

I honestly, love the concept behind the change to 6E but in this one instance it is a HUUUUUUUUGE pain in the tuchus. I don't expect Simon to go off and start coding things to make my life easier, but this has GOT to be something that is bothering others. Would it be at all possible to work in some kind of DEF power that is just a short cut for PD/ED (or if you wanted to go totally crazy and add Power DEF/Flash DEF, but those are rare so PD/ED are the real problem) so that they could be purchased in the same power and have the same modifiers applied without going through all the hassle of a compound power?

I know that when building a character you normally purchase PD and ED together and they usually have the same modifiers, and if you wanted to purchase them separately with different modifiers you could still do that with the current structure. It is just that I am constantly building PD/ED armour/force fields builds and the current implementation is really sub-optimal.

I figured it can't hurt to ask. The worst that can happen is you say no.

EDIT: Response

Well slap my ass and call me Sally. That is EXACTLY what I wanted. I just KNEW there had to be a way to do it, it was just WAAAAY to cumbersome otherwise. I'm going to go hide my head in shame for missing the obvious now. Don't mind me, nothing to see here, move along. 

There are a couple of cloud spells (ie Stinking Cloud, Cloud Kill) that have non-standard areas. They aren't quite radial areas but more like a squashed sphere. Instead of being a 6m Radius, they are 8m radius on the group and only 2m high. I really wish there was a 'flattened radius' option in AoE so that you could have a wide radius at ground level but only have it extend 2m tall instead of the full radius. So I tinkered and found that (at least for 8m) Radius and Any Area, Fixed Shape are the same cost. So that's what I'm doing.

My shower thoughts occur throughout the day, but I was thinking that while I had initially intended to give all the characters SPD 2, you guys have convinced me that is normal guy SPD. So I'm thinking maybe 3s or 4s, which will make a big difference with the whole 2 phases or 1 turn quandry. And since I am only doing this for GenCon I don't need to worry about them spending XP and such. However, I can't just ignore that aspect of these conversions. So when I'm done I'm going to type up a little 'the wonders of the conversion' document that kind of explains my methodology and intents (so that someone else can use this mess) so that if someone actually wanted to do a campaign using this stuff that would be possible. My OCD is pinching me that maybe I should do Illusionist spells (so we will see about that). I've already started creating a couple of the characters. Right now I'm got a dwarven warrior (of course), but I'm considering fighter/cleric. I've got a human ranger but he might end up half-elf. I haven't started her yet, but I'm thinking I cant not do a halfling thief (and one of my favourite combos is the magic-user/thief. I don't need to worry about the downsides of multiclassing but I do need to be careful on points. So I'm thinking that even with a 'multiclass' character that one of the classes will be pretty limited. The magic-user thief is not going to have many spells and those spells will kind of be chosen to assist in the thiefery. I was thinking about an elven magic-user but in my head he ended up being some crotchety old human. I've got 6 characters over two game sessions so I think I want to prepare 12 characters. We will definitely need to cover the bases (at least 1 cleric and 1 mage, 1 ranged fighter, 1 thief) but I was thinking of giving the players the option to pick their character from a brief summation/background.