SirWilliam

No this isn't real estate spam, despite the title. I'm finally getting to play in a campaign (rather than run it) and I've found how easy and cheap it is to have a "base". Since we're doing a primarily urban campaign I thought it would be nice to have a house. Now I'll tell you right up front I've never bothered with the base rules because as a GM I just "hand wave" and "Poof!" there's a castle. I don't worry about what it costs, and what it does and does not have. As a player that option isn't really available to me. So for the first time in roughly 15 years of playing Hero system I'm having to actually look at the rules on building bases. First a bit of background on my character: He's your non-typical FH character in that he's remarkably short on combat power, but extremely skilled. His primary function is to be a spy, or to steal things no one else can. He has acting, mimicry, ventriloquism, disguise, etc. Most of his skill rolls are on a 15- and he's very good looking with a good presence. Basically all the various and sundry spy archetypes rolled up into one, but without the combat power (although against a normal human he would hold his own handily). He's got a rep as a scoundrel and a womanizer, but that doesn't seem to hurt his chances with women. He also has 1 point in wealth, so he can afford to look good. His public profession is that he's an actor/bard and he inherited a certain amount of wealth. Now all that being said, here's the base I've got so far. I've already decided I need to make it bigger, but I want to ask questions first. 1 CP = 5 base points DNPC's = domestic staff (Butler, maid, gardener, watchman) 8- Normal 2xDouble 20 base points 25 points total Base: Townhouse Int: 10 (What is this used for and can I sell it back?) Body 6 (4 points) Size 32 hexes (6 points, but I want to raise this one more) Double size grounds (1 point) Vault 2 hexes Def 8 Partial coverage (-1.5 lim) (9 points) Library KS: history 8- (1 pt) Workshop Lockpicking 9- (3 pts) (Is it worth paying 2 extra points to go from 8- to 9-?) Maps AK: World 8- (1 pt) total 25 One of the things I've thought about doing is reducing the size of the vault to 1 hex, coupled with the increase in size would reduce the cost of the walls DEF to 8 points even, which would pay for the size increase. The purpose of this place is not to be my "Fortress of Solitude", but to simply give my character a place to call his own, to entertain guests, and generally live life. So I'm not particularly worried about automated defenses and such. He has associates in the Theives Guild so he isn't particularly worried about being robbed. If I can work it in I might give the house a follower who's the guardsman. I have additional Disads I can give the place to pay for more upgrades if needed. So please educate me on the intricacies of base building. :-)

Re: Your Favorite Fantasy Weapon? I always liked Blazetongue, Bar, and Red Pilgrim from the Coramonde series.

Re: FH Campaign Thanks for writing this up. It's cool to see what other GM's are doing.

Re: When Heroes become Villians Ok, while I don't see anything immoral about doing a commando strike on an enemy encampment, it's also not terribly heroic in the traditional sense. I guess it comes down to this: Are the PC's "heroes" or are the PC's "rich bad-asses that are only concerned with winning at any cost"? IMO a truly Heroic bunch would have awakened the camp and challenged them all to single combat or to surrender immediately. Sure you might have died, but it would have been with style and people would have talked about it for years. Killing all the mercs in their beds might have been effective, but it doesn't really do much to build the PC's reputations except as cold-blooded killers.

Re: FH Grimoire Index I've only use FHG a couple of times, but more than anything I wanted to see the spells split out by arcana and effect. It's all great to see Long spell name X but it would be much more useful to list Long spell name X, Wizardry, mega-scale teleport. I was looking for a "sleep" style spell and couldn't find anything obvious in the index so I made my own. Then I found several when I was just browsing through.

Re: Slayers 5E Writeups

Re: Feminine-aspected Magic

Re: Y R axes better than swords??? Took a long hard look at the weapon chart last night and I noticed something. While swords across the board do about 1 dc less than the equivalent axe, swords across the board are the hardest weapons to break. IIRC Swords have 1 more DEF and 1 more BODY than the equivalent axe. Again IIRC, this extends to hammers, and pole arms. Since I've been thinking of working in shield and weapon breakage anyway this just gives me more incentive.

Re: Dwarf Martial art Thanks. I'm rather pleased with it myself.

Re: Y R axes better than swords??? Repeat after me: All game statistics are inherently arbitrary. Feel better? As far as in real-life goes the whole concept of comparing a short sword to a small axe is inherently an "apples and oranges" proposition. What kind of sword? (gladius, cinquenda, and wakizashi(sp?) would all qualify as "short" but they are very different weapons) What kind of axe? (taper axe, hatchet, and tomahawk would all qualify as "small" axes, but they are different weapons) Under some conditions an the axe may win out and others the sword, it depends on fighting style the type of armor being struck and what is being struck. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of different weapons that fall under the "sword" and "axe" general headings but they can be so radically different in manufacture, style and implentation as to be completely unusuable by someone skilled in one style. For instance, do you think a 3rd century Roman legionaire would know how to employ a zweihander? The answer would be "no" even though they're both swords. Now something I've not seen mentioned yet, is that an axe has one big weakness as compared to a sword - it's handle is made of (in general) wood. This means it can be broken. (most likely by a bad strike as compared to enemy action) A good sword is much less likely to break under heavy use. I've done some basic weaponsmithing, and it's incredible the number of things that impact how a weapon is best employed. The material, how it's made, how it's sharpened (or if it is, some swords weren't). I guess this boils down to: If you don't like a stat, change it, the sky isn't going to fall and I'm sure you could find some justification for it. You could even just flip-flop the stat lines.

Re: Sleep spell - one GM's take Under the Suppress description it says you can suppress "Powers" unlike say Drain where it says you can drain "Characteristics". A minor quibble. I guess you're correct that a tough character will be harder to put to sleep. I guess I just look at that as they're more resistant to this type of magic. I'm ok with that.

Re: Sleep spell - one GM's take This is kind of of a wierd situation for me. I wasn't trying to replicate the D&D spell and really I don't think this is what it does except in a very broad effect. I haven't looked at D&D in over 10 years, so I assure you replicating it wasn't my intent. I thought about an ego attack but I didn't like it because an attack causes stun damage, which has to be recovered normally. That's more like knocking someone over the head with a club than lulling them to sleep. Mind control was been suggested but I don't really see it working "You over there, go to sleep". I don't know about you, but I can't go to sleep on command. Anyway, like I said it's just my take on it. Steve used NND's in the Grimoire to produce a sleep effect.

I really kind of want to give my party's mage a useful, but non-combat spell. So I built this sleep spell. It isn't really useful once combat starts, but it could be really useful to avoid combat altogether. Strictly speaking you're not supposed to be able to Suppress a stat, but Suppress fits my concept that you're sleeping and not knocked out. So you don't wake up with almost no Stun. Now I run my magic system as a skill for a talented individual so my mages don't have to pay their points to use a spell, but they have to have the scroll/book to cast the spell. If I find something unbalancing they'll just lose that scroll. So here goes: Herstel's spell of induced somnolence 9d6 Suppress Stun (45 pt base) Uncontrolled +1/2 Explosion +1/2 Invisble power effects (sight group, hearing) +3/4 1/2 END +1/4 135 Active pts Concentration 0 DCV -1/2 Full Phase to cast -1/2 OIF Expendable (Diff)(handful of black sand) -1/2 Gestures (both hands) -1/2 Gradual effect (5 minutes) -3/4 Normal Sleep (hearing perc roll at -5 to wake up if there is a noise) -1/2 Requires easy skill roll (-1 per 20 active) -1/4 Target gets resistance roll for half effect (Ego roll) -1/4 Humanoids only -1/4 Real cost 27 points Skill roll modifier -7 Endurance 7 The mage will cast the spell and say how much mana (from his endurance reserve) he will put into it. The Uncontrolled endurance pool won't be used until the 5 minutes has passed. Then the pool will be decremented on each of the target's phases (not strictly speaking according to the rules, but that's why I'm the GM). This isn't going to be something that knocks someone out for a while, but it will be nice for simulating those "doze off at your post" incidents for guards, and the explosing advantage will let them cover more than one target at a time.

Re: Dwarf Martial art Well after much vacillating and figuring I came up with the following: Brotherhood of the Anvil The Brotherhood of the Anvil is a society of Dwarven craftsmen who develop and teach fighting techiques particular to Dwarven weapons (Axes, Hammers, Picks). They have been known to hunt down individuals who assault one of the Brotherhood. [insert more fluff here] Parry - Dwarves frequently band the helves of their weapons with iron or bronze and use this band to turn aside their enemy's blows. Probe - A quick thrust towards the enemy to force them our of attack stance. Bash/cleave - A powerful stroke, typically involving a figure 8 pattern Shove - This move involves the Dwarf stepping into his opponent and heaving them back using the added leverage of their weapon. It does normal (not killing) damage at the dwarf's strength +15. The target rolls his (or her) strength against the shove (damage is applied as normal) and if his result does less body than the attacker the target is moved back one hex and must make a Dex roll or fall down. Leg hook - This move is unique to the Brotherhood. It involves hooking the back of the target's leg and tripping the target. Chop - Designed to follow the leg hook, this is a devastating overhand crushing blow to finish off an opponent. I decided to pass on the weapon breaking move, as I didn't want to go too overboard. For the most part I just took existing moves as written. I only had to create the Shove and the Trip. The Chop is just an Offensive strike that has to follow the trip. For some reason the board doesn't want to render my table right, so it's at the bottom of the post after this big blank area. ManeuverPtsOCVDCVEffect Parry4+2+2Abort, Block Probe5+1+3Strike Bash/Cleave4+20Strike + 2 DC Shove400+15 Str Normal damage Leg Hook3+1+1Strike, opponent falls Chop4+2-2Strike+4 DC, may only follow successful hook

Re: Speed in FH I don't really want to bump up just Str for END use because that's going to unfairly penalize my melee oriented characters. Wizards cast their spells from an END reserve with a slow recovery so they're going to have the same number of phases casting regardless of whether they're going 3 times per turn or 6. Besides the fact that I dislike exceptions (you pay 1 END per 10 Active on everything except strength). Can anyone tell me a logical reason to not modify the phases? The only real effect this will have is that the max speed under this will be 6 instead of 12, and quite honestly I don't see anyone ever breaking that speed 6 level. I like this solution because it doesn't involve any stat changes, it hits everyone equally, and it's easily reversible.

I'm considering writing up a martial art for the Dwarves in my fantasy world. This would be unique to Dwarves because of their unique physiology. I don't need so much help with the actual write-up (I do a lot of hand waving as GM), but I would like some ideas on what kind of cool maneuvers I would be in it. This would be an axe/hammer/pick style since most dwarves don't use swords. Some ideas I have: Break weapon - attack vs the opponents weapon leg hook - opponent falls, penalties to OCV Disarm Sacrifice Weapon pin - opponent's weapon is pinned to the ground, both fighters lose their current weapons. (useful to force a weapon change, or to grapple) These are just my initial thoughts. I'm not overly worried by realism, but I do want some variety.

I have been toying with an idea regarding Speed (SPD) and FH combat. If you have a speed 2 or 3 character they rarely put a dent in their Endurance even over several turns of combat and this really minimizes the fatigue effect that I like so much about Hero system. My thought to "fix" this would be to make every speed act twice as frequently. Since it's FH I can't see any instances where I'd use anything with a speed 7+ I would just make speed 2 use the Speed 4 phases, speed 3 would use the speed 6 phases, and so on. This would double the number of phases they would act between post-12 recoveries and make fatigue a real factor rather than something that comes up after 6 turns of fighting. To give you some perspective, most of my characters are speed 3 with around 15 Str (2 end) and a recovery in the 4-6 range, so they effectively don't take an END hit during a normal turn of combat.

I'm doing something similar to this. Players can "invest" points in a Divine power pool. This is NOT a VPP in any way, shape, or form. Basically the player "prays" to their chosen diety and asks for whatever. I (as the GM) look at their "investment" and determine if and how such a request would be granted based on the diety in question, effect, and behavior. This way involves a lot of GM discretion and hand waving, but my concept of dieties are not like D&D's. The dieties of my world are immortal and powerful beyond the ken of mortals. They don't have "stats", so I'm not restricted in their powers.

Extreme short notice but... Ok this is extremely short notice, BUT there is a convention within easy driving distance from you in Omaha Nebraska and it's THIS WEEKEND. Starts Friday. Here's the con website: http://www.nuke-con.com I know there is one person running a 5 session Champs game. I know there are other Iowans that come to this con, so maybe you'd make some connections. Bill PS I'm not affiliated with the con at all, I'll just be attending and GM'ing (minis not RPG)

It's been several years since I last ran my FH campaign, and now that it looks like it will be starting up again I am revamping my magic system. The thing I never liked about magic in FH is that mages never had any variety of spells, ever. They had attack spells, defense spells, and maybe a movement spell. It always felt more like superheroes than heroes. I came to the conclusion in the intervening years that the problem was that a) the players always made their own spells and therefore made them as combat-usable as possible which meant minimal limitations, and point a) caused the spells to cost so much that they rarely had more than 4 or maybe 5 spells to start with. I decided that I was going to fix this problem in the new campaign. First, I am going to be the author of all the spells and the list of mandatory limitations is going to be long and varied. Spells can be requested, but I will write them up, and if I'm feeling benevolent they'll get a copy when I'm done. I'f I'm not, I'll use it on them first. Second, I'm going to make spells free. In other words they don't pay any cp's for a spell. This is offset by further points, but it makes me able to make a spell "go away" if I don't like it. Next the characters must buy the skills and talent to use their chosen form of magic. They have to buy a 5 point magic talent that allows them to use spells, and they must buy a spell casting skill, and they have to buy KS's about various forms of magic. To use a new spell that they've found they have to make an appropriate "comprehension" skill roll vs their KS for that type of magic. This roll is modified by the AP of the spell. If they don't have the KS, they can't even roll to see if they understand it. To cast a spell they have to make their spell casting roll (again modified by AP cost). Spell endurance will be paid out of an endurance reserve which will recover fairly slowly. Any spell component requirements are over and above the rest of the hurdles they have to cross to cast a given spell. I think this system will give me the ability to balance things, and yet give them a decent number of minor spells that are generally useful, without them spending loads of points on what they see as "useless" spells. I want to hear some feedback on this idea, please.

There are bunches of maps on the net, but here's a program you can use to make your own fairly painlessly. http://autorealm.sourceforge.net/index.html

Being a fan of a more lethal game system, I'm thinking of changing the weapons charts for my upcoming campaign. Basically my desire is that if an average joe gets hit with a broadsword he stands a better than average chance to get killed. This would mean that I need at least the potential to do (approximately) 10 body with a broadsword being used by joe swordsman. To acomplish this I'm considering raising the DC of all weapons by one. I toyed with bumping them two DC's but I think that would be excessive. Comments? Feedback? Has anyone ever done this?

What does PBP mean? Play by proxy?

I have to say I haven't fully defined my world yet. Currently there is only one mostly mapped continent, which has one small kindom, some open (tribal) areas, one major empire, some city-state areas, and such. In my "world" there is limited exploration going on currently so people's knowledge of grand-scale geography is not even close to complete. This allows me flexibility by allowing me to fill in the blanks as needed.

On the sourceforge page it does mention that a Linux port is/was planned, but the date on that info was quite a while ago.