bluesguy

Bump ... Old topic.  Looks like it might be useful again.

Currently I am running a game online and we are using Epic Table which has mostly meet our needs.  It is a bit clunky and has a single developer maintaining it.  I have been looking at a wide variety of other VTTs to use.  I have looked at all the big names - Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Maptools, etc.
 
A while ago I found Tabletop Simulator on Steam.  I was fascinated with the possibility of 3D rendered terrain and figures, shared sound (effects and music), and what seemed to be a big community working on free assets.  I didn't buy it because I didn't want to spend the $20 on an experiment.  Now it is on sale and I picked up a license.
 
A quick list of pros and cons:
 
Pro:
Supports Windows, MacOS (don't know what version), and Steam Linux Not subscription based payment system Appears that when I run a game I host on my computer (i.e. not on a shared host managed by the Berserk Games) Mind boggling amount of terrain, miniatures, and tools Video tutorials from both Berserk Games and the community at large Powerful scripting language Con:
Written documentation is weak (IMO).  Video tutorials are nice but I learn by reading and doing not really watching a video.  Plus I read pretty fast.  Overwhelming amount of community assets - LOL too much of a good thing Organizing assets is one of the things that could be improved.  You can grab a bunch of assets on the table and put them into a bag.  Bags can be labeled.  Dropping assets into the bag is not easy.  Moving bags without taking assets out of the bag is a pain in the butt. Each person using the tool has to buy their own license.  It is possible to buy a discounted 4 pack of licenses but I have already purchased a single license so I would have to buy the 4 pack and gift it to someone in my group and they would have to distribute it to everyone else (minor pain) Setting up a table the way you might like it takes time.  
My next step is to see if I can set up some scripts that will handle the roll to hit (11+OCV - roll = DCV hit).  I have no idea how to do that yet but considering other things I have seen people do it must be possible.  After that I will try and figure out how to do killing attacks and normal attacks.  My hope is to create a set of assets that the players have at their play station and can just use as they want.
 
 

If you are playing face-to-face, you can also make buildings (skyscrapers, etc) to populate your table.
 
From a Champions game, the cardboard box is actually the trailer part of a semi-truck on its side (yes you can buy vehicle paper models).  I can't find a photo from when we had the skyscrapers up.  We were using Heroclix figures and when a character was flying we used the little 'pizza tables' that come with delivery pizzas.
 
A different session, which I ran at a game day event at a local store.  Aliens crash in Northern MN.  The heroes were pre-generated and had a MN theme to them (literal man of steal - fell into a vat of molten steel, Paul Bunyan avatar, DJ who used Prince music to create sound effects, etc.)  Trees and logs...
 
 

And we all know how tht turned out in OOTS #32:

I have a transparent hexmap I bought many years (2 decades+) ago.  I don't think the original manufacturer makes them any more, but I found this:
http://arcknight.squarespace.com/shop/clear-map-grids-colors-and-styles
 

I suggest you check out DramaScape (available on DriveThruRPG).  They have nicely detailed maps that you can print out in square tiles - most with 5-foot squares, hexes, as well as no overlay.  I know they have a warehouse, street scene, Japanese garden, hideout, sci-fi research lab, tavern, ... I have about 50 different sets, including two sets of 6x6 sci-fi floor/room tiles that work great for a create-your-own modular villain base. 
 
[Edited to add:  last I knew, they had some available for free, so you can get a feel for what they provide.]
 
I've also taken some floorplan image files and Google Maps screenshots, overlaid them with hex-grids, dropped them into Word documents, resized and printed them on card stock for assemble-yourself battle maps of part of the Boston Commons, a mansion, an apartment, a street scene, a yacht, a research ship, and a warehouse. 
 
Man, have I burned through a ton of toner for my color laser printer! 

I'd recommend heading over to Drivethrurpg.com and searching there.  Might take some tweaking of your search terms, but they have a whole section for maps and terrain.  Most are $2 or less; some are free.  Make sure to add "hex" to your search terms for hex maps, although that doesn't necessarily filter out all of the square maps.

This, to me, seems the biggest selling point to Hero.
 
The downside to this is that everything needs to be built.  

If you've been playing D&D 5th Ed for several years (especially the dumbed-down Adventurer's League version) then here are some things you'll get from Fantasy HERO:
1-  Hit locations - These really spice up the randomness of combat.
2-  Realistic Armor Interactions - Armor makes you safer at the cost of being slower, clumsier and easier to hit.
3-  Monsters and Enemies are scary - The unlimited build potential for villains means players can't rely on their innate knowledge of the Monster Manual to know what is happening.  Each creature can be a terrifying and unique thing with custom powers.
4-  Character Creation is INCREDIBLY open-ended.  There are endless character concepts you just can't do in D&D.  In HERO - You can do them.  My Current saturday group:  Fire sorceress (pretty straight forward), a witcher built on the Witcher 3 model, Udyr from League of Legends, an Air Bender, a dwarven explosives expert and a dragon born priest with powers based on cold
5-  Combat overall feels more engaging with a larger number of moves and a limited number of hit points.  Did you take an arrow - in the eye?  You're down and dying.  Weapons are actually scary.
 
The only REAL drawback about HERO that my players continue to gripe about is that character creation is painfully open-ended.  They know what they want, but not how to model it.
 
My two tables alone have resulted in at least 3-4 additional sales of Hero Designer.  Players love being able to make their character the way they imagine it and not being constrained by classes.
 

Not old, distinguished...

Man, the developer must be old.

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.

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...

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 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)
 

The rest of the universe collectively has gazillions of pints of blood. But I only have a few and I put them to constant good use.

Glad you figured it 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).

In comics and movies, you see them used as an entangle, to perform a grab, to enhance a PRE attack by cracking the whip, swinging, and as a weapon to inflict minor damage either with stretching or with limited range (according to how you choose to write it up).

I've found Combat Effectiveness caps effective in this regard as well.  I have a whole, painful spreadsheet for the characters.  You can't have the highest OCV and highest DCV and highest damage and highest speed and strongest crowd controls and highest movement and highest defenses and then have absolutely zero skills, talents, quirks, etc.
 
On my Wednesday night game the party's Anti-Paladin of Tiamat is maxed out.  He keeps asking to buy more combat upgrades while sitting on zero non-combat skills.  It's like the guy reached 30 years of age and learned nothing but how to smash things with his massive morning star and breathe fire for his goddess.
 
Last night after he claimed a sacred relic of another god (Baphomet) and used it repeatedly he lost his powers and was absolutely flummoxed as to what the problem might be.  I asked him to make a Religion check while praying.  He didn't have it.  He got nowhere.
By the end of the session - concerned he would not get his powers back for the foreseeable future he picks up Religion.  I can't just throw skill check challenges at the party as he'll just impatiently await the next chance to smash something.  I have to throw them at HIM so he feels the direct pain of not being able to do things.
 
Thankfully the rest of the table "gets it".

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.

I am in the "drop it to zero if you want" camp.  I will say that I totally understand those folks who disagree with doing this, whatever the reasons are. 
 
What I would like some enlightenment on (because I really don't understand it) is the opinion voiced above that the character should somehow be made to suffer for this.   How is a player selling off say 6 points of OMCV (so he now has a 1) more of a hindrance than if everyone but him bought another two levels and he stayed at 3?
 
Yes; it's much harder for him to hit with a mental power (which he likely doesn't have anyway), but is that not also true if he stayed at 3 while everyone else went to 5?
 
I suppose I am having a difficult time rationalizing that we don't add penalties to characters who sell off some STR, or CON, or STUN, or DEX or anything else, because there are default problems associated with these reductions. However, there are default problems with reducing OMCV as well.   The fact that they may never come up for a given character in a given campaign doesn't make it cheesy, at least not anymore that the guy with the strength 5 is cheesy because he didn't buy enough STR to lift a bus.  And just like reducing OMCV (or anything else, for that matter), the player doesn't expect to be put in a situation where he would _have_ to lift a bus, either.  Further, I expect that few GMs would alter the campaign in such a way as to make this character regret not being able to lift a bus.  That being the case, why does reducing OMCV somehow "require" such a penalty? 
 
I'm with a lot of other folks who really think that it should have defaulted a zero anyway.  Though I confess to being intrigued by Shrike's idea of mental combat maneuvers...... 
 
How do we determine STR for mental attacks?  EGO seems traditional.  Maybe we need a special set of Mental Damage characteristics, too: mental STUN, mental BODY..... 
 
 
Great.  Now I'm thinking again.  I've got things to do besides think, you know.... 
 
 
 
 
Duke

In my low magic session. Combat luck work only without armor.