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bluesguy

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Posts posted by bluesguy

  3. Where do your chars put their XPs?

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: Where do your chars put their XPs?

     

    I went through this with my campaign. Magic is weak and hard to learn. So skills and combat ability is 'king'. Here is how I have handled skills in my campaign world. Also I run a campaign 50/50 campaign of combat to role playing. This also has a big impact on what people spend points on.

     

    The way is has played out, is that the players are making sure to work on the combat skills and improve them but they are also investing a lot of points in non-combat skills. Knowledge Skills (general, area, city, etc), professional skills, and other skills. One of the characters decided - "my character should have deduction and some kind criminology skill" (whatever you want to call that in a fantasy environment). He basically came up with some plausible explanation, saved the points & spent them at the appropriate moments. So now he is a cross between a Hawk from Spencer for Hire and Sherlock Holmes ;). Makes for some interesting role playing and adventures in a town of cut throats.

     

    Another character has decided that his character is going to be THE weapon smith in town. So he is buying up all kinds of knowledge skills around weapon smithing. He already had some basic skills and abilities. His character's background fit the premise so I have been allowing him to buy up skills along the way.

     

    Another character keeps buying up all her presence based skills because she is going to 'talk people' into what she wants. She has bought all the ones she has to human max. She also is constantly adding to her KS about people, places, things & legends.

     

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

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Ok I have the basic Hero books and a bunch of stuff to run my Fantasy Game, which is going very well. But during the summer there will be points in time when everyone can't get together and the rest of us would like to play. Champions campaigns were always good 'fill' for those breaks because they can be very episodic, at least the way I run my Champions games.

     

    In any case, I am looking at the Hero store and trying to figure out what is must have, nice to have, and when I have more $s than I know what to do with ;). I am also going w/ PDFs whenever possible. I don't have the physical space for a lot of books

     

    • Must Haves?
      • Champions Universe 6th Ed
      • Champions Powers - not sure I need this but maybe it will make it easier to build characters... Opinions
      • Champions Battlegrounds - good place for a starting set of adventures?
      • Book with a bunch of super villains

       

      [*]Nice to Haves?

      • Champions Universe Organizations Bundle - Expensive but looks very useful
      • More books w/ super villains

     

    Suggestions & recommendations are greatly appreciated.

  6. Animal companions - reducing the cost

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: Animal companions - reducing the cost

     

    I really like the idea of raising a juvenile animal' date=' starting with even lower stats and raisig them as time goes on. Blueguy's daughter sounds like she's been after a very similar character to my player. I still need to ask the player if she's OK with it. ... and since it might take several years for a juvenile to reach maturity, she might.[/quote']

     

    So my daughter picked an owl and I figured it would mature pretty quickly because my daughter was willing to put points into the owl at a regular basis.

     

    Having said that why does the bear have to take 'years' to mature? Couldn't the bear have a 'radiation accident' :snicker: and grow up faster when the player has the points? Didn't I read you are running a high fantasy campaign, so a 'magic accident' should work.

     

    As for the contact thing.. I don't get that one either. I understand having a sentient contact who becomes a follower over time. I just don't see how that works for an animal.

     

    Although I just thought of a possible example. In the movie Dance's with Wolves, Dunbar encounters a wolf who eventually becomes a contact (8-). The wolf is a contact because on occasion the wolf provides useful hints (like when the Indians show up or when he distracts the soldiers). If the wolf had lived longer and Dunbar had stuck around longer maybe the wolf could have become a follower.

     

    Personally I wouldn't have any limitations.

  8. Animal companions - reducing the cost

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: Animal companions - reducing the cost

     

    This sounds a lot like the character my daughter ended up building for the game I have been running. She wanted her character to be something like a cross between a Mongol/Native American (archery & horseback riding) and a druid. She also wanted to have an animal companion. There just were not enough points to build that character to start with. So she started out with a couple of basic spells, good CSL w/ a bow and an excellent riding skill. Over time she has bought an 'archery style martial art', learned to shot from her horse (no penalties and some fancy 'movie' style riding & shooting skills) and got an owl for a animal companion.

     

    For the owl she started out with a juvenile owl. I basically lowered a number of stats and abilities from the standard owl write up. She has been adding points to the owl along the way. First the owl matured, then the owl got smarter, then she got a mind link with the owl, and she is saving up so she can see/hear what the owl hears. If she had tried to start out with the end result, she would still be saving points and be pretty dang frustrated.

  10. Damage Limits

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: Damage Limits

     

    This is an interesting thread, especially how it morphed into a discussion about magic weapons and armor.

     

    I am currently running a campaign based on the Valdorian Age and if there are any magic weapons or armor they will 'purpose built' to fit the story. Once used they will not longer have any value towards the campaign. For instance if the story is going to have the players deal with a legendary monster they will 'hear' about the 'only way to kill' said monster is with a particular weapon or magic or whatever. But after they defeat the monster the weapon or magic item is basically useless because it only had one purpose. This fits the legendary model of 'magic' that I want to run in my campaign.

     

    As for damage class and CSL, the players have already gotten pretty much as good as they are going to get. They run into a lot of 'minions' (OCV 4-5; DCV 5 and maybe +1 or +2 in CSL & shield), wearing 3 or 4 PD/ED armor using 1d6+1 or 1 1/2d6 weapons. The players on the other hand range in OCV from 5 to 6; DCV 5 to 6 + some have shields; +4 to 6 CSL; up to +3 PSL; wear 6 PD/ED armor ("magic" leather armor made from carrion crawler skin that they killed); using 1 1/2d6 to 3d6 weapons (when strength is included). Pretty much the characters move through minions like Conan would. And that is exactly what I wanted in the campaign. I am enforcing the 2x DC rule for now.

     

    I have also capped OCV/DCV to either 5/5 or 7/7 depending on the style of fighter and limited the strength of the characters depending on the style of fighter (tanks have +18; fencer/speedsters are ~13/15). What I have encouraged is learning a martial art that goes with your character's fighting style.

     

    This has played out well. When they run into opposition that is 'weaker' in one-on-one combat situations they slice through individuals like a hot knife through butter. When they run into a large number of 'weaker' opponents they get creative or use maneuvers that might be dangerous against someone as skilled as they are but are very cinematic - big time sweeps; picking up an opponent and throwing them at a bunch that is getting ready to charge; archers who take head shots to drop opponents with one shot; speedsters who disarms a few and then gives them a 'prick' to suggest they run away. So the five characters have had encounters with 20 or 30 minion bandits at a time and it was pretty much the way you would expect an encounter like that between Conan or Fafred/Gray Mouser to go - bandits were mincemeat.

     

    When they have run into opponents who are their equals they start to get nervous and play more defensively. They look for ways to minimize their opponents strengths. The last time that happened they were happy that everyone decided to run away from each other. The players seriously wounded the bad guys and the bad guys seriously wounded a few PCs. The PC (and players) went home licked their wounds (and pride) and started thinking about 'how are we going to deal with those guys?'

  11. Damage Limits

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: Damage Limits

     

    I like creating magic items that are unusual and not particularly combat useful. I am also perfectly happy to let magic items get taken, lost or stolen.

     

    So recently the players found a blanket that always stays warm or cool depending the outside temperature. There was a fair bit of arguing about who in the party would get it. That was fun.

  12. Background Rewards

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Background Rewards

     

    I do something similar. I have spelled out how I award experience points on our groups Obsidian Portal site. Experience points for adventuring is pretty straight forward. The other ways involve helping to flesh out the campaign world. For instance writing up adventure logs that are written from the character's POV; helping to create shops or NPCs; developing legends, lore and songs; etc. A couple of ideas the players have come up with have generated adventure ideas.

  13. What third party Hero products would you like to see?

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: What third party Hero products would you like to see?

     

    Fantasy Hero adventures that can be dropped into any setting. For instance a city adventure involving kidnappings for some nasty purpose. And maybe write up the villains a couple of different ways so they could fit in a classic "high fantasy world" (lots of magic and races) and a sword & sorcery world (limited magic and 95% of the races are human or human like). Exact same villains for personalities and motivations just different kinds of powers/abilities/etc.

     

    Get permission to create adventures for a specific setting that is already published by Hero.

     

    How about an epic campaign in an existing setting. Basically come up with a big story, break it into 'books' and 'chapters'. Provide the villains (see above on capabilities) and major plot devices for each chapter (location, general goal, hooks into the story, how this story 'links' to the next story). But leave space for the individual GM to fill in the gaps.

  15. Blueprints/Maps for sailing or oared ships

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: Blueprints/Maps for sailing or oared ships

     

    I did some downloading of files and research on the information that everyone posted. The Humber Keel is exactly the river barge I was looking for. The main rivers in the immediate campaign area are very wide. But the source book said barges were rowed up and down the river. That seemed crazy to me but I don't know anything about boats/ships at all. Thank you so much Andy!

     

    I also went to DriveThruStuff and got a number of PDFs that will meet my needs.

  17. Blueprints/Maps for sailing or oared ships

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Eventually the characters in my campaign are going to be involved in traveling by ship. They will be going up and down rivers on barges (oared mostly) or on larger bodies of water via sailing ships. Will the Hero System Vehicle Sourcebook or The Ultimate Vehicle help me out that much? I have looked at some other threads about sailing ships.

  18. Banshee

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Banshee

     

    Meadyaon: You submit a bunch of character ideas here. I wonder if you are just collecting character ideas? I ask because I don't see how you could be playing all these characters. What is your goal with all your character threads?

  19. Treasure Generation Tool

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    My turn to contribute to the community. I have been using a spreadsheet to track both merchandise and randomly treasure in my campaign (The Valdorian Age). Recently I came across the tool Inspiration Pad Pro which makes it possible to create a number of text files that IPP reads and then uses to generate anything you want based on your files.

     

    I have taken my spreadsheets and converted them into the kind of data files that Inspiration Pad Pro uses to randomly generate things. The result is a Valdorian Age treasure and merchandise generator. Here are the notes from the "Readme.txt" file which is part of the zip package.

     

    ========

    This zip package includes the files necessary to generate treasure in a Valdorian Age campaign using the InspirationPadPro2 tool. You can download a copy of the InspirationPadPro2 tool from http://www.nbos.com/products/ipad/ipad.htm. It is a free program and it is very useful.

     

    These random generation files have been "tuned" for the Valdorian Age campaign material. They have also been further "tuned" to fit my version of the Valdorian Age Campaign Material.

     

    After you have installed the InspirationPadPro2 tool, locate the directory C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2. You will then need to copy the Common\va directory to C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2\Common and Generators\ValdorianAge directory to C:\...\nbos\InspirationPadPro2\Generators

     

    When you start the InspirationPadPro2 tool the Valdorian Age should be one of the options.

     

    The ValdorianAgeTreasure.ipt file is setup to generate many more mundane items than a typical fantasy campaign treasure pile. My players like finding 'useful' things in the treasures they come across.

     

    It is very important to realize the Valdorian Age is a campaign world where monsters and magic are extremely rare. How often items show up is based on this rarity and the costs reflect the rarity as well.

     

    One area where there is a great deal of detail has to do with the bookbinder.ipt file. My players are very interested in books in the campaign world. Their characters will spend coin on books. So I have created a very complex book generator. It is highly customized to the campaign world (people, locations, etc).

     

    To adapt this material for another campaign the following files will have to be changed:

     

    1. coins.ipt - This generated is highly skewed to generate copper and small amounts of silver coins. Finding gold coins has a 1 in a 1000th chance of occurring.

    2. colleges.ipt - These are the magic colleges. The outcomes have been adjusted away from certain types of magic (Black Magic, Conjuration, Elemental, Necromancy, Shamanism, and Witchcraft) and towards other types (Alchemy, Song, Divine, Wizardry, Divination, etc).

    3. historictimes.ipt - This is very specific for the Valdorian Age campaign world. Extensive changes need to made here for this file to work with other campaign worlds.

    4. holidays.ipt - This is a simple file to change

    5. oldgods.ipt - List of deities in the Valdorian Age and it will need to be changed for another campaign world.

    6. people.ipt - This is another area that will require extensive changes for another campaign world.

    7. places.ipt - This is another area that will require extensive changes for another campaign world.

     

    There is at least one bug in the files. There are times when a "Novel" is generated but the 'place' that should be generated with the novel's title doesn't appear.

     

    ====

    If you have questions please contact me.

  20. Weirdness Magnet

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Weirdness Magnet

     

    I can't help with the character creation part but I do have a friend from college who is a weirdness magnet. My friend Don is weird unto himself. If gamers are on the edge of 1 standard deviation off of norm, then Don is easily 2 standard deviations off the norm for the American population. In addition to the fact that Don is weird unto himself, he attracts an odd collection of friends - some of us are in that 1 SD off of norm, but he had/has some friends that are 3 or 4 or 5 deviations off of norm. He doesn't do anything special to attract these folks they just 'find him'.

     

    Also there were weird occurrence that happened around him - finding weird objects (bizarre religious emblems), phenomena, and the previously mentioned people. If he was late for a game session there was always another story about some weird thing that happened to him.

  22. some useful toys

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: some useful toys

     

    Awesome! Are you going to create a HD file and post it? I was taking the previous ones and putting them into a HD file. I can put all of them into a file and post it if you would like.

  25. Fantasy Art Thread

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: Fantasy Art Thread

     

    Awesome!

     

    In fact I asked the sponsor whether or not I can buy a 'license' to use the images on my Obsidian Portal site. I am sure I will buy the $25 level. But I am willing to buy a bit higher level if I can use the images for my OP site. We are in discussions about that :-)

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