Kealios

Kazei 5 has some good writeups about hacking written from a Hero System cyberpunk point of view. Yes, I believe all the hacking powers are mental-based.

I have just discovered your world and books I was looking through my Fantasy Hero files and saw that I had 3 PDFs from Kestrel Arts of 5th Ed monsters...which led me to your webpage... Now I want to buy all your books. Looks like I should wait, however, since you're redressing some of the previous versions and coming out with a new one this summer? One thing I noticed was that your physical books all seem to come from different places. I tend to prefer softbound books - is there a site that will have all your books in one place? I will also be buying PDFs and the HDC files...gotta have all the goodies! EDIT: Have you considered a package of a Book + PDF + HDC files?

I'm trying to replicate some of the Templates in Kazei 5 for 6th ed, and the Basic Cyborg Template has: Cyborg Body: Swimming -4m (-2 points) I cannot seem to make this in the Prefab I am making ("New Prefab") because it won't let me add negative distance to Swimming. Ideas?

As I've been reading the 6th ed rulebook getting ready for my game, I see a few requirements that players need: In order to run Bioware (not any old cyberware), they need the Bioware Compatible talent (p.11). In order to run cyberware needs a Cyberbrain (p.10). Cyberbrains replace EGO, OMCV, and DMCV with their own stats and are independent of the character (p.41). In order to show this correctly, I think a character has to sell their EGO (etc) back to 0, then buy a cyberbrain. However, the NPCs in the book don't always seem to jive with that. Examples: Agrees: Replicates (p.205) <They have -2 EGO (p.75) but shouldn't the Cyberbrain not reflect that?> Disagrees: Typical Twenty-First Century Solider (p.184) <looks like he may have added stats on top of what the cyberbrain adds> Any of the Cyberdroids (p.194-202) <Cyberbrain stats are not reflected in the Characteristics section> Carlos Jagger (p.210). I'm starting to guess that the Cyberbrain is quite literally it's OWN thing, and stats purchased by buying one literally do not stack/add to the character's own EGO/OMCV/DMCV. Did I just answer my own question? If so, will Hero Designer reflect this? Interesting...

Thanks. Not sure what went wrong, but I'll redo them and watch for these tips. I also think I didnt save them as Package Deals, which I really need to do in order to apply them to new characters.

I probably have an older version of Hero Designer. The .jar file says HDv3 and the program says it is Hero Designer 6 [build 20130424]. It won't let me update, so I've been using it, and it has been fine. I created some Prefabs. I was making different body types for heroic campaigns. I saved them all...but the folder I saved them to shows only one file (I named them all "BODY: xyz" with different descriptions. The "Body.hdp" file shows as 0kb in size. Attempting to load prefabs doesn't work...but opening recent files DID...until I started opening them in sequence and they began to replace the others. Anyway, I clearly did something wrong. Any idea what?

My son, who I am about to introduce to Hero system (6th ed), wants to build a Scorpion-like character, which is how I found this thread. He wanted the option to not always yank the target to him. I was going through the rulebook last night and settled on Telekinesis, only to Grab or Punch. The Grab-and-Pull simulates the "Get over here" while the Punch can simulate it just impacting to do damage. I'd probably also limit the TK to Only 1 Target and Limited target: living beings. For what it's worth

I think this is fantastic. Most of a new GM's problems with launching a campaign is designing the nitty gritty...so looking forward to more stuff in all categories!

Awesome, thanks guys!

I'd love to find the cover art for the 4th ed FH...the rider with spear facing off against the ogre in the snow. Ive done a search for about an hour, and other than a blurry pic on ebay, no luck. Do you have a link, or know where I can find a digital copy? I want it for my wallpaper

In the Cold fire trilogy by CS Friedman, Gerald Tarrant makes the observation that anyone who can see stars at night is still under the sun, but that the sting is more bearable. .. So vampires are never really free from the sun unless they're inside. It made me think about that for a bit.

Excellent points all around. In the example above, I did a "danger room" scenario which was a free-for-all pit fight. The PCs didnt know each other, and everyone got paired up randomly with an opponent. The NPC fighting this one player had one spell, which was the entangle, and the player was out of things just like that. In my world, when magic is used (or more specifically, when spells are failed), it summons monsters to this world. This is the "fluff" for why magic should be rare - but the players are just calculating the odds of failing spells, and trying to buff themselves against it. I was hoping to give an in-game enforcement to the "magic is rare" concept, because the players werent getting it. The second point to that is, the monsters DO have magic...and are scary. The fact that magic summons these creatures to this world is terrifying for many of its inhabitants, and a huge rift has been created in scociety, with some people "ok" with the monsters coming from magic, while others shun magic completely because they dont want to destroy their world. It was in this vein that I wanted to put points cap on what the players can do. Maybe I: A) lower the points value of PCs considerably remove point caps completely C) assign some mandatory Limitations (like those you mentioned, above) D) Hope for player buy in. I'm sure, if I can find the right balance, that my players will come along. They're good guys with decades of experience. Overcoming expectations is tricky...

I have been working on a Fantasy world for well over the past year. I finally introduced it to my players last week, and got a bit of a backfire in my face. The campaign is now on hold once again. First, I realized that I was really trying to make a low-magic world, but the players rebeled against it, instead preferring a D&D-style magic world. That is fine, but not in THIS world that I've carefully crafted. That's on me. Second, which was the crux of the issue, is my attempt to reign in magic use. I could go into what I was trying to do, but bottom line is simple: I limited the max Active Points a player could use. I then went a bit further, and put limitations on Attack, Defense, and Utility spells based on the Power Categories from 6E. My reasoning was simple: you might need 60 AP to make a useful/powerful Fireball (Yes, I capped DC, but this allows Advantages, etc), but I dont see why I should allow a 60m Flight spell or a crazy-strong Barrier. An example: A player could easily get 30 AP in Attacks, 20 in Defense, and 10 in Utility. I did this instead of going through Power by Power and making limitations. The players really didnt like this. I get it...but I also dont trust players to "play fair", and I dont want a pre-made spell list. Example: I hit a player with a 3d6 Entangle, which is only 30 AP, and quite equal to the 2d6 RKAs they were slinging around. This fighter had 15 STR...and was stuck helplessly for the rest of the fight. He was the strongest member in the group. Yes, he could have dodged, or done a bunch of defensive things differently, but he didnt, and it ruined his night (because he was out of the only battle we did in our intro). I want to avoid this... How do you limit powers in your games? Do you really trust your players? I have BRILLIANT players - and by that, their IQs are much higher than my own (and I think Im a reasonably smart guy). Other than me having to come to terms with player expectations vs my own, Im really struggling here.

You could get lost reading the amazing webpage of Killer Shrike...he has article after article of balance and fantasy tropes - so worth your while one evening to peruse! Im in the opening phases of launching my own Fantasy game on my players. We've all been playing Champions for the past year, and are switching over. We have discovered that while a 6r armor vs a 6DC killing attack usually works, if the damage rolled is high, PLUS the Stun multiplier is higher than 2, that can be a game changer. We have house ruled that Killing Attacks do x2 Stun always - we dont use the hit charts, because we want to reduce the number of dice rolls (the players even object to rolls to activate spells, but they arent getting away with that, no way!)

Aversill, you raise the excellent and obvious point of preparing for one encounter at a time. I'll keep this wisdom in mind...thanks for the tips, all.

I've been creating my own fantasy world, which is mostly ready to begin playtesting with my players, but I am finding that creating the monsters in the game is really stalling me out. Are there independent or 3rd party Hero bestiaries available out there? I need D&D-style monsters, primarily non-pure melee critters or humanoids - I need magic-toting monsters (dragons, demons, blink dogs, displacer beasts, etc). Yes, I can create my own. Yes, I will, eventually. Yes, I own the 6E Bestiary and plan on using what I can initially...but I want more Recommendations, or sites I can pillage?

What Knowledge Skill would be most appropriate to help a character know/suspect/guess how much a target character makes a month? I am specifically looking at Bribery, where a successful bribe should be a certain percentage of the mark's income. Would it be KS: [City]? What if professions made a reasonably similar income across the land? Thanks!

This may not be entirely on the same subject as this thread, but it is definitely similar. I came across an interesting Limitation for building Fantasy spells that get around the OIF or other Foci Limitations (this was while I was reviewing a conversation on this forum about "broken" characters): "Restrainable (only by means other than Grabs and Entangles; Spell Components Pouch; -1/4)" I'm trying to envision how you would Restrain this spell as worded. Taking the Pouch would do it, but so would removing a Foci. "Other than..." is what is throwing me. I guess this is saying that yes, Grabs and Entangles would work, but there are other methods as well. Does this Pouch not need to be refreshed, just accessible? Is this the "We assume the character stocks up in town without micromanaging small components" rule?

Thanks for the clarification. I figured out what it was for just as I was reading your description. Appreciate it!

Why would the "Limited Range: 30m) be an Advantage? I cant wrap my mind around that.

I came up with a few ideas. A simple Foci would work, as would a Summoned Automaton. The only problem with Summon in this case is the delay a Summoned creature/item has to suffer before it can act, and I cannot find a way to speed up the act of Summoning.

I guess I just need to figure out how to make it vulnerable only to ranged attacks then...