bluesguy

Re: Do you use Teamwork?

My players are already looking to buy teamwork. They see its value. They went up against four bricks in one game and they started complain - we hit them with everything we've go but we can't keep them down.

Re: Strange Background Complications

I think learning Hero in a Superhero campaign - especially for D&D players - is a good way to go. There is such a huge break between the goals in D&D and Superhero.

I would highly recommend a Silver Age style campaign to reinforce the move away from D&D. Do Not go Dark Champions because they will fall into the D&D mode "See enemy. Kill enemy. Take loot." (I exaggerate).

Re: Conduct Codes

Bushido - Code of the Samurai can be found here and here. Sometimes it helps to ask the player what they believe the 'code' means. If that doesn't match the GMs then it is up the GM to explain what it means in their campaign.

In my superhero campaign, which is a Silver Age campaign, every hero has code vs. killing (total). I have explained to the players that means that if the choice is kill the villain or letting them get away today, they will let them get away today. They are expected to 'ramp' up their attacks - don't start with your biggest attack on a villain. And their powers have been built around that idea. They all have 0 END attacks which have lower DC than their full power attack.

What has been great is that they players have naturally fallen into this mode. In every combat they have been very careful with their first attack to make sure they don't kill anyone by accident. In the last session the villain (martial artist) was getting away so the brick picked up a display case (AoE) and threw it at the villain which knocked out the villain. They had a couple of choices but those other choices were a lot more dangerous and deadly. Plus it was sooo comic book.

Re: Do you use Teamwork?

The way to balance this, in a superhero game, is all in the setup. For instance if the superhero team is made up of 4 superheroes and you don't want them to use Teamwork have them face 4 supervillains are 'balanced' against that team. In that scenario the players aren't likely to use Teamwork just because of how the combat breaks out.

In a scenario where the same team is facing a single master villain then of course they are going to use Teamwork to overcome the master villain. Will always work? No. There are some many variables for it work - need to hit, make teamwork roll, roll damage, etc. There is a darn good chance that only 1/2 the team makes their to hit & teamwork roll.

As I GM I would probably cap the Teamwork roll to 11-.

Re: My Campaign Is Starting to Flesh Out... I Need Help!

I'll look into this. Is it a standard Fantasy World? Most of the players really want a setting that has most of the standard tropes associated with Fantasy...

Well Valdorian Age is a Sword and Sorcery world (think Thieves World, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Conan, etc) which means few monsters and 'low magic world'. But that doesn't mean you have to use the product that way. The Valdorian Age has a very unique Hero Game System Magic system - which looks cool in theory but it appeared that it would become a book keeping nightmare.

If you were to buy the Valdorian Age get it for Elweir, which is about 70% of the material in the book. With that book you can run months of adventures without having the players leaving town. There are thieves, sorcerers, slavers, political intrigue, lost ruins under the city which might be accessible via the sewer system, etc. There are villages around Elweir that probably have regular caravan runs. Plus there are Bandit Lords nearby.

Re: Paladin Martial Art?

I guess it depends on when you expect they could use the martial arts.

For instance in my campaign there is a dwarf who has 'brawling' as a martial art. In armed combat he wears heavy chainmail and a shield. He doesn't even try to brawl in that situation. He just throws his heavy ax at this opponent (2.5d6) and then chops them to bits w/ his sword ... He is also the bouncer at the inn the characters own and the occasional brawl happens. Having that brawling skill comes in handy in those situations.

I think appropriate martial arts for a knight/paladin do include boxing, wrestling, and combat styles/skills that include throws and flips. I have seen those movies where the knight flips his opponent onto the ground and then tries to stab him with his sword.

And of course you have sword fighting and weapons combat in the martial arts list.

Re: My Campaign Is Starting to Flesh Out... I Need Help!

What I would suggest is a city based adventures. By having the adventure in the city you can have 'changing' party members from session to session. Also you can easily grow or shrink the opposition depending on the group of players.

Here are some good adventure ideas: Murder most foul; Committing/Preventing theft; Spying on a noble (find out who his mistress or her lover is); Deal with an evil under the city; serial killers; shopping trips (really great role playing opportunities); bounty hunting; Commit/Rescue kidnapping; Tenement building on fire; Crazy mage; Crazy monster; Circus comes to town and the 'animals/monsters' get loose; etc; etc; etc...

Sorry but getting orcs, ogres, giants, dragons, and a bunch of other 'standard' fantasy monsters would be hard with city adventures but that is the price you and your players get when you can only schedule 2-3 hour sessions every other week w/ minimal commitment.

I would also suggest that you have everyone create 2 characters (and make them very different from each other). So lets us say that Joe, Alice, Mary, Mark and Steve show up week but don't quite finish the adventure. But the next time Joe, Alice, Ted, & Trudy show up... Now what are you going to do? Well if Joe and Alice have a second character they can team up with Ted & Trudy's characters for an adventure. You would also have to let Joe, Alice, Mary, Mark & Steve that they have to commit to a session to finish up otherwise there might be a GM fiat decision about what happens (haha just kidding).

I would encourage you to look at the Valdorian Age. Elweir is an extremely detailed and complete city. You could play in the city for months and barely scratch the surface.

Re: AoE Damage Sink defensive power

So Joe wizard shots his 10d6 6" radius fireball and Simon Earth Guy. Simon Earth Guy uses his power and the earth (this is my imagining) flies up into the area to partially fill the 6" radius of the fireball. The effect on Simon Earth Guy and his friends (all within the 6" radius) is that the amount of damage from the 10d6 is reduced but the three villagers who are 8" away from the center of the fireball are also caught in the fireball.

Assuming my understanding is close, I think I would build it as a compound power: The defense could either be Damage Reduction (50% or 75% vs. Energy) or Damage Negation, which would be an area of effect and usable on others. As for the additional AoE I think I would use a naked advantage to model that. How often do players in your campaign run into AoE attacks?

Here is what I am imagining happens when this character uses this power is that an attacking area of effect is 'spread out'. The resulting 'spread' reduces the damage but increases the area of effect.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested

That limit is just campaign definition. In part it is also how much granularity there is.

A Plate armor can provide up to 12 PD or only 4 PD depending on setting. That is often forgotten when comparing example Weapons of different ages.

I would go look at armor & weapons from the time period you are considering. I would only allow armor & weapons that are appropriate from that period. You might also consider that iron weapons and armor are going to be heavier and less durable than steel. So if you are using encumbrance, wearing a suit of 'chain mail' might give you lots of rPD/rED but the encumbrance lowers your DCV & DEX so much that you go with a lighter armor to manage the encumbrance.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested

Now, after reading several of the threads on two-weapon fighting, most of you will probably see these limitations as somewhat extreme; but consider the following:

1) I'm relatively new to the system, so I'm still learning exactly what these limits actually MEAN in-game.

As I suggested in my earlier post you may have to 'reboot' your campaign based on what you now know.

So...the question about Two-weapon fighting. One of the characters in my current game is built as a two-weapon fighter. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I would highly suggest that you limit this kind of character to a 'light fighter'. This is what I have done. And I have basically ignored the 1/2 DCV rule because this is a light fighter and she doesn't do a lot of damage with either of her hits. But if she gets hit she could be dead.

2) Pretty much my entire gaming group comes from a D&D / Pathfinder background, and they all min-max combat abilities to the hilt. Everything they do is planned and built to deal out maximum damage as quickly as possible and making their characters all but impervious to all damage.

Please see what I suggested about 'rebooting' your campaign because that will 'free' up experience points. By getting the players to assign experience points to non-combat skills you have opened up role playing opportunities.

Now here comes the hard part for you (as the GM) is that you have to create adventures which don't require combat to succeed and in fact if they use combat to try and solve the adventure they will fail.

In my campaign the players operate out of a big city called Elweir. Here are some examples of adventures:

• Finding and capturing a 'Jack the Ripper' killer in town. For months the players heard about the "Slayer of Women". He killed women about every 2 weeks. It 'appeared' random. Now the players went a number of adventures while all this was going on. And that was by design. Eventually there was a 'killing' that was close to home. The players then worked out how to catch him. In the entire adventure there was blood drawn one time, when the archer shot the villain in the butt to keep him from getting away.
  
• The players got involved in a deep political intrigue type adventure. It took a couple of sessions to finish. They never drew a weapon in the entire adventure. It was all about shadowing, streetwise, high society, and going around and asking lots of people around town to get information.
  
• There was a two part adventure that involved rescuing a bunch of people which they were able to accomplish without 'fighting'. They spent time laying traps, watching the encampment, and figuring out how 'poison' the encampment. That was the first part. The second part involved an epic battle.
  

It is more work to create adventures that are more role playing than adventures where their is armed combat. It is harder to create a role playing adventure with 'conflict' and tension. Combat oriented adventures always have 'conflict and tension'.

I hope this helps you out.

Finally - where do you live? I think I would like to play in your game!

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested

I am running a Sword and Sorcery campaign, the Valdorian Age - Rising Power on the Frontier. I am using the Valdorian Age Hero campaign material, but I did toss out the magic system (love the concept but the book keeping of favors looked like it could be a pain). I wanted to have a campaign were the 'king in combat' is going to be based on muscle/skill (i.e. swords/axes/bows) vs. magic. I wanted magic to be difficult, limited, and dangerous for the caster.

I developed a set of rules to help maintain a balance in the game. These rules in many cases are arbitrary but they are set up so you don't have a brick swordsman (wielding a 2 handed sword in plate armor) with the same combined OCV (base OCV + CSL) as a fencer (wielding a rapier or saber w/ Combat Luck). That would make a light fighter (fencer) a non-viable character. So I came up with a list of Characteristic & Skill Rules. These rules have allowed for some very viable and varied combat fighting styles. We have a dwarf (brick) who just wades into fights with his sword and shield. We also have a fencer who dances/bounces/flips through fights pricking and stabbing her opponents until they either die or pass out from being stunned. We have the archer who could give Robin Hood a run for his money. And we have a bounty hunter/sorcerer who uses his sorcery to befuddle, confuse, and sometimes disappear and sneak up to nail his opponents. And we have priest - who hates to fight. She typically uses her staff sling from a distance or now that she can summon a lightning bolt will occasionally blast opponents. If they get to close she does a lot of dodging .

I think one of the problems you have is that you have a character that can use Combat Luck & armor at the same time. No no no. Don't allow armor layering ("Well he is wearing a leather armor suit for 2 PD/ED and over that he is wearing plate armor and that is 6 PD/ED, so that means I have 8 rPD/rED"). This applies to combat luck. Also I would not allow combat luck to be higher than the best armor in your campaign.

That can also be another issue - what is the technological level of your world? Plate armor is expensive and not particularly easy to make. In my world I have basically made it clear that leather armor (3 or 4 rPD/rED) is about the best that most warrior types have. Some people have chain mail (4 to 6 rPD/rED) but that is as high as it goes. I won't let anyone get better armor than that.

I suggest that you sit down with your players and say "Look I was learning how this system works and I made some fundamental flaws in how I allowed characters to be built. We are going to go through a 're-envisioning' of the game mechanics to get them more balanced."

I would then take their characters, remove anything that puts their characters out of balance in the campaign world, and ask them "what non-combat skills and knowledge areas would you like?"

Then as a GM you have got to create adventures where the players have to use those non-combat skills and knowledge areas to accomplish the adventure. And drawing a weapon will prevent them from succeeding.

Re: Batroc the Leaper (5e, 400+ pts)

Great write up. I was also in a game where Batroc showed up with a few other foes. The adventure was a 'rewrite' of a Captain America where someone was trying to blow up a Natural Gas Supertanker in the harbor. Very exciting.

Re: How to balance mages in high fnatasy.

The whole concept of the Megascale in a high fantasy magic world could be 'problematic'. For instance what happens if a wizard wants to have a 10d6 fireball (more like a nuke) that has a 1km radius, is indirect, and has 10 or more kilometer range. And they have bought specific range mods to make it likely they will get a close hit ("getting close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear warfare"). The effect would be something like a battleship lobbing a shell 20 miles away and blowing away a city block. And to lower the 'real cost' then there could be some expensive focuses, extra time, concentration, huge end spend, etc.

Re: How to balance mages in high fnatasy.

I have to jump in... I know Darkarus and we have had a few conversations about this as well. My one recommendation is to read Magic System Design on Killershrike's site. IF the goal of magic is to make it big and flashy then he has some really good suggestions. He has some recommendations on how to balance that with non-magical types.

Giving PCs the ability to buy magic items w/ character points is a very good one as well.

Re: So Easy Even A Nine-Year-Old Can Do It!

You win GM of the month!

Re: GM Help: That Player I Want to Strangle

he wanted the campaign to be completely reactive in nature - hang around the mansion until someone attacks the city. We never had a document or session in which the world was laid out' date=' playing style was discussed, or anything. If we had, it would have been easier on both of us.[/quote']

 

This is absolutely key to a good gaming experience.

 

With the group I GM we have a very serious Fantasy Hero game with epic plots & bad guys; plots w/in plots and things are not always as they seem. As a GM that takes a lot of work. And for the players it takes a lot of work. There is a ton of role playing (50% role playing & 50% combat) involved and we have fun.

 

For the summer I am GMin our group in a Superhero setting based on the Champions Universe but taking place in the Twin Cities. I have told them it is a Silver Age comic style game. Role playing will take place in and around the combat (more like 25% role playing & 75% combat). As my wife says "Oh boy Champions... Lots of property damage!" This is our cut loose game and one where I as a GM can 'lay back' a bit more.

Re: What product(s) should I get to cover 'modern' equipment & vehicles

Some days I am just not awake. There is a table in Hero 6e v2 pg 208 for guns. DUH

Ok I am trying to figure out what product(s) to purchase that will cover modern (not sci fi or even superpowered) firearms, tactical armor, cars, trucks, buses, radios, etc...

It would be good to have a way to 'easily' build up some groups in my Superhero campaign that are not superpowered but just powerful (mob comes to mind, narco-terrorists, etc).

Thank you

Re: Looking for 'maps' for a modern environment

Thank you all for the great suggestions.

Re: Help me build a Peacebringer character (City of Heroes)

Thank you master builders/designers!

The person who wants this character is new to my gaming group and he is new to Hero. From what I gather from Peacebringer wiki the type appears to be a energy blaster of some kind.

But the players has stated things like:

• Various kinds of blasts
  
• Some kind of hand-to-hand ability connected w/ blast
  
• Healing?
  
• The ability to 'borrow' other heroes abilities/skills (not absorb/steal away)
  

If anyone has some suggestions I would love to hear them.

Re: Looking for 'maps' for a modern environment

Poster razor looks like a great tool to add to my arsenal of tools. But all these products are PDF files and Poster razor doesn't handle PDF files.

How do you deal with that?

Re: Looking for 'maps' for a modern environment

I do have the Hero System Resource Kit which is ok. And the downloaded/PDF resources from DriveThruStuff are also very useful. But nothing beats a laminated color map with hexes or squares on it. Printing out paper ones is ok. But not nearly as nice.

GameMastery has some of the best maps for playing Fantasy RPGs that you can find. I do have a hex/square map that I can draw on with the 'dry eraser' markers so I can draw out maps by hand. But it would be nice to either have some 'standard' modern scene maps (street corner, bank, base, mad scientist lab, etc) to use with Champions.

Does anyone know about a product like the one I am describing?

Also does anyone know where I can get/buy 'landscape' to go with a map? I use to have their transparencies which I had bought that had cars, telephone poles, mailboxes, etc. which could be added to the map so the superheros could use those items in combat.

Thank you all in advance.

Re: Considering running a Champions campaign - what do I need to buy....

Yesterday I bought Champions 6e (PDF) & HD pack and Champions 6e Universe & HD pack. This was exactly what the GM ordered .

Thank y'all. Your advice was a huge help.