bluesguy

6 minutes ago, Simon said:

Your kids were in high school with you?

Dang now everyone knows I have a time machine ;-).  And everyone no knows you have a wicked dry sense of humor ...🤣

Grammar! 

Both of my children have played Hero since they were in high school with me.  That was a ways back 😉

FHC is intended for people who do not have 6E1, 6E2 and older 6E Fantasy Hero books.

The rules are the same but are focused on running a Fantasy Hero game.

6E1 & 6E2 is a toolbox that lets you build any kind of RPG genre game you would like.

FHC is a toolbox and a specific build kit for building any kind of Fantasy RPG game you want.

On 4/29/2019 at 10:12 AM, ChaosDrgn said:

Partly the reason I ask is I've seen a good number of how to questions on here. I'm thinking of doing a thing called "Hero Bits"... not full code just samples on how to do different things - my main languages (as a web developer) is HTML/CSS/PHP/JavaScript. I'd want to do it if there was enough people interested and I'd prefer to use things that anyone can get ahold of for free or easily (i.e. Atom, Brackets, etc)...and since Atom seems to code in pretty much ANYTHING...

I think this would be an excellent project for someone with your skill set.  You would be hailed as a Hero, 😀, of the HD templates if you could do this.

Does the Broken Kingdoms have a place for Aussie sized crocs?

Sorry I didn't see this until now.

I am currently running a Fantasy Hero game using Epic Table (free to players) on Sunday afternoons (2 to 4 weeks a month).  We are playing in my campaign world, Nyonia (site doesn't seem to work w/ IE).

We are looking for one or maybe two people.

If you are interested PM on this site.

In my world there are not a lot of magic items.  Mages are pretty common and very few creatures require a magic weapon to kill.

Also my world is really wet.  This causes all kinds of problems with metal - especially steel and iron weapons (one of the reasons why there are many people w/ bronze weapons).  There is a magic spell which will clean and make ready any metal weapon or armor (basically healing and/or transform).  The party recently got a large treasure that included two exquisite steel swords (not magically but both were +1 DC above a normal steel blade and also had a +1 OCV bonus due to quality of the weapon).  The previous owners had those spells which is why the weapons had not just rusted away.  The players paid to have someone make scabbards for the swords with the cleaning spell in the scabbard.  The spell can be used up to 3 times a day and only with the weapon that the scabbard was made for.

The party also has a player who carries a big shield and so they had a mage put a s powerful 'light spell' (cone) that has a 6 hour per day 'fuel charge'.

I am a big fan of practical vs. bigger bang sticks 😉

In my games the best PC archers I have allowed them to buy up to +6 with bows, +3 vs. hit location and +3 vs. range penalty. One player's archer would regularly hit enemies 60m to 120m (30 to 60 hexes) and if she had a really good chance to hit she would go for head shots.  Oh and that particular character also paid for combat on horseback so she could shoot from her horse with no penalty.

Was it realistic?  Don't know.  Kind of didn't care because they were having fun and the other players were having fun watching it happen; especially since she would often thin out the horde of orcs coming at them ... And honestly this is they way I want my games to feel and how I like to see combat.  For reference (starting about 1:15)

In both my fantasy and superhero campaigns people have used the wealth perk.  It has shown up much more often in fantasy games set at the heroic level where people buy equipment.  In one case the player wanted to play a noblewoman who ran away from her family and a potential marriage.  She basically took her inheritance and left.  The player didn't want to have to deal with book keeping around money.  She paid for Wealthy as a perk and our agreement was that any kind of normal daily living or general equipment she could afford to buy.  If she wanted to buy something for the entire party then we would have a conversation about the impact on her 'wealth' for that month.  When the party decided to pool their money and buy a tavern/inn - she had to show she actually had the silver saved up to pay her share.

I came up with a set of formulas to figure out if the tavern made money each month (above expenses).  They players could influence the outcome based on characters using their trading skill rolls.  At the beginning of each game month they would make their trading rolls and I would tell them the result (I introduced some randomness to the outcome as well).  Some months they made an good profit; other months they broke even; pretty rarely they lost money.  Any money they would dump into a rainy day fund.  They kept adventuring and would come back to their home/tavern/inn between adventures.

In my current campaign one of the players is a ship captain.  He is part of a family business (think clan sized family) that is involved in shipping.  He also bought wealthy.  When they are in home port he goes to his nice home with his two servants.  He doesn't worry about how it gets covered, he is wealthy.  I hand wave how the ship much money the ship makes/loses each month.  Two other players are from very wealthy families but have walked away from that are did not buy wealth as a perk.  Originally the ship he captained was owned entirely by the clan.  The party ended up with a huge treasure and they decided that the ship captain needed his own boat.  So they took that treasure and spent it on a ship that they designed for their needs and had it built.

Glad you figured it out. 

Brian

Thank you for purchasing HCM.   Here are the steps documented in the base zip file:

This readme file is to help you with installing the Hero Combat Manager onto your computer.

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1.  Unzip the hcm-package.zip into a temporary directory
2.  You should have two files:
    o ReadMe.txt - This file
    o hcminstaller-#.##.zip - This zip file contains a version of Hero Combat Manager.  The version number is based on #.## in the file name

When you unzip the hcm-package.zip do you see those two files?

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3.  Unzip the hcminstaller-#.##.zip so that the HeroCombatManager folder (directory)is unzipped in a folder (directory) you have full rights to.  For Windows systems I would recommend installing it into a C:\Applications folder that you create.  I can't make similiar recommendations for Mac or Linux systems because I don't own those systems.

This zip file contains a folder which has all the files needed.  When you unzip this file you should have a folder/directory called HeroCombatManager

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4.  Once unzipped the folder HeroCombatManager has the following items:
    o export folder - This folder contains the custom Hero Designer combat record export files that are needed to export characters from Hero Designer to be used by Hero Combat Manager.
    o hcm.jar - This is the actual Hero Combat Manager Java program
    o HCM_UserManual.pdf - This is the user manual
    o HeroCombatManager.gif - part of the icon that shows up when Hero Combat Manager is running
    o HeroCombatManager.ico - The desktop icon for Hero Combat Manager
    o ReleaseNotes-#.##.txt - A list of bug fixes and new features in this release

What you will find in the HeroCombatManager is show in step #4.

If that doesn't help please send me a private message thru this forum and I will send you my email address so I can see the file myself.
  

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

It's often noted that, over time, crits are worse for the PCs than the opposition, as the opposition will eventually get a lucky roll against the PCs.  So let me ask...

 

 

whether a bad guy has rolled a similar crit, leaving the PCs mostly dead, with a couple KOd or deeply Stunned?  How does that play out?

That hasn't happened yet.  For instance, two weeks at the end of the session they had decided - "we should raid the enemies base camp and burn their supplies before we leave on our ship". I rapidly put a map up (VTT - I have a ton of digital maps), showed them where people were when they took their quick look and where the supplies were.  They had a preliminary plan on how to attack the base camp and burn the supply tent.  So during the week I made updated the map, included the tents and what the 'fortification' was and came up with a guard schedule and what the bad guys would be doing.  Night guard was a higher count than day guard and 1/2 the day guard takes prisoners out to cut down trees for lumber to improve the fortification and to build rafts that can be used to go up river.

The players saw the set up and said - hell no we are going into that.  Let us ambush the lumber patrol and probably wipe our a major part of their force.  You can imagine what I was thinking (dang I have to think of another map I have and think on my toes).  As you can imagine they laid an ambush and wiped out the guards and rescued the prisoners.  They even left a cryptic message that a band of knights was coming to attack the fort in the morning (pretty plausible since they bad guys know about a band of knights in the area). 

The point of this is that the players in my group either try to negotiate whenever possible or make sure to be the ambushers rather than the ambushed.

In my Nyonia campaign I have different Min/Max characteristics for the various races.  I also talk to players about character concept including fighting concepts.  In the current campaign there are four characters who have varying degrees of skill as fighters:

• Big viking type - Very strong/tough, extra running, is really good with his battleaxe and has specialized type of martial arts.  He has one maneuver that he is very proficient with.  But he can never have a DEX higher than 15 and a SPD higher than 3.
• Fencer - formally trained sword fighter, former pirate, who fights with two swords.  She has the min. strength needed for her weapons (she can't buy any more STR, CON, BODY) but she has a high DEX 18 or 20 and a 4 SPD
• Warrior Priest - Very strong/tough, extra running.  He is good with a wide variety of weapons and is pretty amazing on horseback.  He has spells to boast his strength (any time he wants) and deadly blow against specific enemies.  He can't buy a higher DEX or SPD.  I am also not going to allow him to buy any martial arts.
• Bard - See fencer but with lower DEX and 3 SPD.  When he first started he could keep from getting beat up by ruffians, but he saved XP to learn martial arts from the fencer and now he can not only hold his own but do some damage when he hits.

There is a race of bipedal cats in my world who have a very high starting  and max DEX/SPD but their strength and CON are limited.  I have a race of people who are like hobbits who have a very high DEX/SPD, low STR, limited running, but can basically disappear if you take your eyes off of them for a moment.  And last but not least something like a dwarven race (physical size, STR of Tolkien dwarves w/out beards who fight with swords), they could best be described as walking fireplugs (tough as nails, strong, slow as a slug).

On 4/3/2019 at 9:43 PM, Old Man said:

 

Heretic!  Burn him!! 

I have the match ... LOL

We use crit success/failure rolls.  We recently had a PC mage who rolled a 3 to hit while using a large AoE KA on some bandits, which translated into max damage.  Most of the bandits were dead or nearly dead and the rest were either knocked out or seriously stunned.

We have also had someone crit fail and end up with a broken bow string or lower DCV (being out of position) or drop a weapon.

The players know if the they can crit so can the bad guys.

In my current campaign my son created a mage that uses battle magic.  Now all the magic in Nyonia is based on where you come from so I designed all the spells and how they work together.  I envisioned the battle magic as something someone would use to support an army, like artillery.  We had to 'retire' his character.  The magic and the character were just to powerful.  The rest of the players never complained (all folks I have played with for years) but I knew they had to be frustrated.  During at least two adventures the mage selected his best spell for the job and did a lot of damage to a lot of characters.  The last adventure the players ambushed (out of combat) a large band of brigands in a narrow space.  The mage used his big AoE and rolled max damage (2d6KA) - being surprised out of combat is really bad (2X stun and in that case it was 12 Body, 36 Stun X 2).

So my son and I talked about it and he saw the same problem as I did, so he created a warrior priest (good healing and some support spells to protect and help the entire party) and we had a good game reason for the two characters to be switched out.

I have also decided that no one can play a mage with battle magic ever again. 

I think one of the things that often needs to be done before the campaign starts is to set some expectations, ground rules and norms.  To this end I did the following with Nyonia campaign world:

• Character Benchmarks - I will freely admit that most of the information on this webpage I 'stole' from another Hero site but I can't remember where/whose it was.  This shows well known fantasy characters against the standard characteristics.  The placement is subjective.  The important thing is for players to see how their characters stack up against well known literary fantasy characters.
• Rules for characteristics depending on the general type of character someone is playing - If you want to play a knight then expect to play a character who is a 'brick' and not particularly fast. Want to play a swashbuckler type then expect to be very fast but not particularly strong and you want to avoid being hit if at all possible.
• Combat skills - This helps focus the players on a particular fighting style and keeps things from getting out of hand.

After players are comfortable with their combat skills they tend to start telling me things like:  "I want to buy +1 with all Intelligence based skills" or "Can I buy off this complication?" (which allowed me to create a whole story arc for that).  The players own a ship and so I think they should start putting points in the crew to make them more capable - so I will suggest that to the players at some point in the future.

Thank you for purchasing HCM.  Sorry about the problem.

I will add to my backlog of work.

I agree 100%.  My son wanted to run a campaign when he was in High School after playing in my campaign for a while.  I got him a copy of TA and it worked very well.  There was enough detail that the world felt real, plus a ton of space so he could make it his own.

14 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 I play HERO and I think arguing about details is pointless

Amen brother!  You preach it!

5 hours ago, zslane said:

 

I kinda feel that depends on the style of the campaign. For instance, "Old School" RPG campaigns don't obligate the GM to protect PCs from the poor play of their players. PC deaths aren't always meaningful; sometimes they are the result of shockingly stupid decisions, and sometimes they are the result of just plain bad luck. In old school campaigns, not every gamble pays off and foolish choices have consequences, sometimes deadly consequences.

Or you don't play those "old school" RPG campaigns.  My recollection of those kinds of games from the late 70's and early 80's were dungeon crawls in a place that pretty much made no sense at all.  Often Fighter A, killed in session 18, was the same as Fighter B, killed in session 23, played by the same player.  The 'characters' were more like chess pieces rather than actual characters like you might read in a novel or see in film/TV.  So pretty much what does it matter if Fighter A dies due to dumb luck, roll up a new one and you are ready to go once the party finds you in room 32 all tied up and few hit points down and your stuff in room 38 (he/she is ready to go).

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Players who can't stomach the prospect of losing their characters will find great solace in the superhero genre where, as you point points out, death is rarely the consequence of anything, never mind a consequence of poor decision making.

The people I have gamed with over the years invest time into a backstory and actually role play a character for 20 or 30 sessions are not going to be happy if they die because of a bad die roll.  Maybe the people you game with don't mind that happening and just roll with it (pun intended).

5 hours ago, zslane said:

But if the Hero System is going to be used for grittier genres, like fantasy or sci-fi, then all the safety features of the system should be turned off so that the campaign doesn't just feel like low-level superheroes merely reskinned in a medieval or far future setting. 

Who says Fantasy or Sci-Fi are grittier genres than comics.  How many main characters died in:

• In any Star Trek show?  None in TOS.  One in TNG (but they recycled the actress to play an alternate timeline daughter). DS9 had one death which was Jadzia Dax.  VOY, I believe the only main character who dies is Kes.
• LoTR:  Lots of deaths and I would argue that at least 75% were to move the story along vs. 'bad luck (dice roll)'

If you want a grittier game then Hero can give you all the grit you can possible stand.  I can easily see a Hero game where characters (PC & NPC) are regularly mamed (temporarily or permanently) or killed (every few sessions).

I think it is harder (not impossible) to kill PCs in Hero because the original source material was designed around comic books.  Death of a comic book hero was extremely rare.  Comic book heroes that were knocked out and came back into the fight a bit later happens all the time.  Hero by using PD/ED/DCV/Stun and Body lowers the likelihood of a character being one shot killed and still includes the likelihood of being stunned and/or knocked out in a single shot.

I think Matt's video has something much more important to communicate than the value/history/purpose of hit points.  PC death, how lethal is the campaign, how dangerous are the villains, and how as a GM you can help make sure that PC deaths are meaningful (if/when they happen).  When he talks about his friend tracking all the hit points, I thought about my tool, Hero Combat Manager (shameless plug) because that is one of the things you can see at a glance to know how bad off characters are.  I also like the whole magnet idea.  We used the plastic colored rings that are on soda bottles, milk bottles, etc to do the same thing when we played at the table.

I am interested in seeing how this turns out.  I would never use it because I created my own campaign world and magic to go with it using Hero.

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I envision Oversight bypassing Internet connections altogether, remotely tapping directly into any communication line or database anywhere in the world, indetectably without comparable tech wizardry. A case could even be made for making Oversight telepathic with organic minds, although you might prefer to keep it short of such omniscience.

Actually it could be the Internet and Google...

In 1983 ARPAnet transitions to TCP/IP... Maybe Oversight, who just arrived, but could have been monitoring Earth for a while, decided to intervene.  Global communications network that humans build and 'think they design' but that Oversight has actually designed to provide it with the communication tools it needs.  Also DNS is invented in 1983 which allowed ARPAnet move from a purely academic exercise to something that could become commercialized.

You should start a new thread in the general Hero forum since this subforum is specifically for questions about using Hero Designer