bluesguy

Exactly. In my previous campaign I used the Valdorian Age Hero setting. Here is a link the Game Mechanics I provided to my players. Except for my wife everyone else was new to Hero. Information about how I used magic and miracles in my campaign (this is where I parted ways with the Valdorian Age because of the book-keeping needed to run magic as described in the VA book). Here is a link to the schools of magic that we used. And finally a novice spell list. The difference between a novice and priest is the number of active points available and the limitations. If you are a novice and you miss your faith roll bad things happen to you. Priests don't suffer from that side effect limitation.

Honestly he could take two hits and be knocked out out in my previous campaign. Is Gerhad basically a heavy fighter - right in the thick of a fight? If so he is going to get the snot beat out of him. :-( Personally I think his CON should be 18, STUN 30 (40 would be better), & END 35. I would lower his OCV by 1. Also if you change his DEX to 13 then you can lower some of the DEX based skills to 3pts instead of paying 5pts for them. Cut back on the martial arts maneuvers, as the player gets XP then let them buy them back. They need at least 10 pts worth of maneuvers for martial arts. I would select one of the two defensive ones (dodge or block) and two of the offensive ones (side slash and chop would be my recommendations). 20 points of Mental Def, and 20 points of Power Def. seems excessive. By bumping up his PRE to 15 and making these 10 pts each you should more than likely cover any presence attack or mind control that could cause significant amounts of fear. For instance: He runs into a Greater Dragon (see Bestiary) which has a 40 PRE. The dragon's casual PRE attack is going to average 8d6 (or 8*3.5 = 28 pts). A poor normal with a 8 or 10 PRE is Very Impressed and losses 1/2 a phase. But Gerhad with a 15 PRE + 10 Mental DEF is merely hesitant (must act after dragon). Now lets say the dragon attacks one of Gerhad's companions and knocks out that character in one blow and says to Gerhad "I like dwarves - you are all so crunchy." So as a GM I would say the dragon gets +1d6 for Exhibiting power, +2d6 for very violent action, and +1d6 for soliloquy. So now we are talking a 12d6 PRE attack (or 12 * 3.5 = 42). A poor normal wets their pants and passes out. A character with a 15 PRE is in awe and will lose 1 full phase and be at 1/2 DCV. But Gerhad is merely very impressed and loses 1/2 a phase. And that was with a dragon. Gerhad runs into orcs he laughs at their presence attacks. He runs into ogres he just laughs at their presence attacks. Only the most powerful people and monster's have a chance of causing any level of fear in Gerhad if he has a 15 PRE and +10 Mental DEF/Power DEF vs Fear. And he can always buy more PRE so he becomes way more impressive to his opponents.

In every Hero FH I have run where a 'priest' has the ability to gain miracles from their deity they character sheet still reflects 'purchasing' the power. It just has a number of additional imitations. One being Only when in the favor of the deity. Another might be the requirement to pray for one hour each day in the morning. All the "miracles" you are probably looking for can be found in the Grimoire books. There are "spells" for light, darkness, chaos, law, healing, etc. Just mix and match and adapt them into miracles. As for what spells an initiate can have vs. someone with higher rank, you control that by providing the list of appropriate miracles the initiate can have. If you are an initiate you get these 6 miracles and when you gain this rank (role playing) and XP (game mechanic), then we can talk about the next set.

I never write up common equipment. If someone wants to do something kind of 'fun/crazy' with a piece of equipment then I take a guess. For instance last night I was watching part of a Bourne movie. The scene is where he is fighting another agent like himself. That agent has a small knife and Bourne has nothing until he find a pen on the desk. He then uses the pen as a weapon. If this were a game and Bourne was the PC I would tell them their Hand-to-Hand combat skills would apply and I would say the pen is a 1pt HKA -1 Stun Multiplier with a STR min of 8. After that I let the rest of the game mechanics take over. As neither Bourne nor the agent were wearing any armor that pen can be pretty dangerous - not as dangerous as a knife. Or use their backpack like a club or shield. Maybe give them +1d6 normal to their strength damage but make them track END since that is going to get tiring. My players through me for a loop all the time when it comes to equipment or in Champions to stuff they find where the fight is taking place. I can't begin to count how many times manhole covers have been used as metal frisbees or chain link fences used as 'straight jackets'.

I would like to suggest that you take a hard look at the example character in the back of the Fantasy Hero book. If you go with the standard 175 + 50 in disadvantages then building everything else will be easier. There is an example of a wizard, paladin, dwarf (fighter), elf (ranger), and thief. If you do use the standard 175 + 50, you can use the spells found in the Grimoire books (and HD packs) and the Bestiary and HD packs pretty much as is.

My recommendation would be to get a copy of the Enchanted Items book. Here are three examples that I would use for a 'common' magic sword from the Enchanted Items book: Enchanted Short Sword Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1 ½d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (37 APs); Independent (-2), OAF (-1), STR Minimum 4-8 (-½) plus +2 OCV (16 APs); Independent (-2), OAF (-1) Enchanted Long sword Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 2d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (45 APs); Independent (-2), OAF (-1), STR Minimum 4-8 (-½) plus +2 OCV (16 APs); Independent (-2), OAF (-1) Enchanted Bastard Sword Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 2 ½d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (60 APs); Independent (-2), OAF (-1), STR Minimum 4-8 (-½), One-And-A-Half-Handed (-¼) plus +2 OCV (16 APs); Independent (-2), OAF (-1) Enchanted Great sword Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 3d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (67 APs); Independent (-2), OAF (-1), STR Minimum 4-8 (-¾), Two-Handed (-½) plus +2 OCV (16 APs); Independent (-2), OAF (-1)Each of them does more damage than their regular counterpart, they don't have the real weapon limitation (won't rust, unlikely to break), STR Min has been significantly lowered (4 - 8 STR for a Great Sword?), and they all are easier to wield (+2 OCV). If I were to modify these I would put the STR minimum back to their normal weapon counterpart and only give +1 OCV (in addition to any pluses a normal weapon of this type has).

My current gaming group is made up of people who didn't know how to play Hero. I taught everyone of them. Now my son is GMing a game. And one of the other players wants to run his campaign. when he told me he had some 'mish-mash rule system' I told him "I will only play Hero." Now he is trying to figure out how to make the $s to purchase the books (he is a teenager).

I hope you continue to work thru and document this concept. I could easily see it as a way to walk into a gaming store during 'game night' and see if anyone wanted to play a pickup game of Fantasy Hero based on the concepts you have outlined.

I have a hex/square map that we can draw on with markers. I have also purchased a large number of pre made maps and all of those are squares. And yes we use minis.

Excellent post. Exactly. And for some characters it means "Nah Nah Nah you can't hit me" and for other characters it means "Clang you just hit my shield and it didn't hurt one little bit".

Here are some tricks that I have developed over the years for running Hero Combat. If you are running a 'sandbox' style game then you do have to do more preparation because you have to build up a 'bag of encounters/places' ahead of time. But that would be true for any game system. Heroic level games - which should work for most Fantasy, Space, and Modern type game where the characters are basically highly skilled humans.Have a set of generic bad guys I can whip out whenever I need them. Using Hero Designer & many of the expansion packs available this is an easy process. For instance in a fantasy campaign I will have varying kinds of bandits - easy to kill, kind of tough, and good for one on one or two on one fights with PCs. I would do the same for varying kinds of monsters. You can do the same thing for a space or modern game as well Superhero gamesI can't help you as much here because I run very episodic Superhero games so there is a villain/event/encounter per adventure. It isn't a sandbox at all. But if I were to do that there is even more material for this because there are the three Champions Villains books, plus organization books as well.

One other thing that might help you as a GM (self promotion here) is Hero Combat Manager, which can be purchased from the Hero Store. You can find a description about HCM at my site.

Very cool.

I would suggest http://rpgmapshare.com/

I created a spreadsheet to help in developing the kingdoms. It was a way to manage what I am doing and how far along I am. So I took that spreadsheet and made it into a template. You can find it here http://www.herogames.com/forums/files/file/69-%7B%3F%7D/

In the world setting I am putting together there 17 specific kingdoms/empires and three races which don't have kingdoms/empires but do have civilizations. Of the 17 specific kingdoms/empires there are 14 which are outgrowths of humans spreading across the world. The other three are made up of humanoid races. And the final three are not human or humanoid (well I guess the giants are). The planet is significantly larger than our world (25%). I expect the players will be playing in one general area but they may come from any one of the 17 specific kingdoms/empires. I am a big believer in there are no pure "good/bad guy nations". There are some nations that are more aggressive than other nations. I am not detailing out each one of these kingdoms/empires/civilizations. I have boiled it down to the following information for each one: Race Nationality Nation name Name of Capital & Location Name of Major Cities & locations Religion(s) Form of Government Title of Ruler(s) Economic System Language Resources Known For Weapons Technology Transportation Technology Power Technology Brief history Kinds of Magic I will detail out the one or two areas where I expect the players to start out at and then work on more detail as time goes on.

Communication is the key to dealing with lateness of any project. Even communicating that you are running late and why is often enough to keep stakeholders from getting very mad. For instance I am backing a couple of Kickstarter projects and they are very late. But the people doing them have been clear in communicating on occasion about what is going on.

Personally I would go with assigning certain weapons, maneuvers, and spells as having extra time - full phase, 1.5 phases, 1 turn, etc.

I am designing a new campaign setting and that also means a magic system. I have three basic premises associated with the magic system. The first is that the magic is specific to individual races and/or cultures. Each culture has a 'power level' (maximum active points) for different types of spells (offensive, defensive, sensing, movement, etc.) The second is a character with a talent for magic (i.e. they pay for a talent) can get a VPP which allows them to have a wide variety of spells. The talent has to be part of the character creation process. For other characters it is possible to learn a spell or three - but they can't be bought in a framework and they have some extra limitations. My intention is to insure that there aren't generic magic users in this world and that there is plenty of people who have some minor magic as well.

If you want some humor with this read Villain and Able or listen to it Villain and Able.

Since my whole family games together we often find ourselves "Thinking in Hero". This is especially true for my son and myself.

I would go with an cumulative EGO drain + Mind Control.

I love this idea!