Chris Goodwin

The 6th ed vehicle rules apply an OCV bonus to attackers to hit rather than a DCV penalty to the vehicle based on its size.

It's in the Champions III supplement, which I would argue is perfectly acceptable for 3rd edition!

If that's me then I'm the one who helped figure out that working across the Internet was probably not going to be workable. I still need to grab the files; I've had other things going on.

I just heard that Jim Holloway has passed away. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1650679758547413/

I don't believe this is factually correct. In FH 1, for first-gen Hero, the base condition for all spells were a full Phase to cast, half DCV, a Magic Skill at -1 per 10 Active Points, and END cost of 1 per 5 Active. Gestures and Incantations are Limitations that can be taken, but there's no requirement built into the system that they must be. In FH for 4th edition, the base condition is the requirement of a total of -1 from a list of Limitations; it's assumed that a list will be provided by the GM, but the book provides a list which includes Gestures and Incantations. I'll note here that no particular Limitations from the list are required, so a character could easily have spells without either Limitation. The genre books for FH for 5th and 6th editions specify that the GM will create the magic system, and will specify any required Limitations. These can include Gestures and Incantations, and those are listed as very common for magic, but there's nothing requiring them. The sample magic system provided in Fantasy Hero Complete does include Gestures and Incantations as requirements. Finally, the original poster in this thread, Gandalf970, specified Gestures and Incantations in the original post. There are a number of ways an attacker could disrupt a caster's spell using Gestures and Incantations: Via an Entangle or Grab that affects the hands, unless another body part is specified for the Gestures By an Entangle that affects the mouth or the voice, whether this is provided by a Modifier built into the Entangle (such as Stops Sense and specifies Voice as the "sense" stopped via the "voice as sense" rules in 6e2) or by special effect and GM permission By a Grab that affects the mouth (possibly via an OCV penalty) With GM permission, by a Darkness that affects the Hearing Group, possibly requiring the "voice as sense" rules in 6e2 With GM permission, negotiation, and discussion, an attack against the Hit Locations covering the hands, mouth, or throat might do it. Slitting a caster's throat before they can incant, slicing off a hand or arm, smashing the fingers or throat with a club, fist, or other weapon, choking or strangling the caster... any of these probably will do it. Pretty much all of this includes discussion with the GM as a prerequisite. Tl;dr: To fully answer the OP's question: if a spell has Gestures and Incantations, there are a number of ways provided by the rules to disrupt the casting, and a number of others that can be had with GM negotiation. The majority if not all of these can be performed with a Held Action.

I speak typo: "interfering" 😷

FHC pretty much just needs an adventure. It's got monsters, spells, magic items, pregenerated characters, a sample setting. More than the D&D starter kit, to be sure.

Well... if you're already a wall-walker that's another way you could use your Clinging. Entangle with Damage Shield seems like an overbuild.

In our DI and FH games they often represented a character's own organization keeping tabs on them. Or an enemy organization, or an allied one -- like how a CIA agent might be watched by the FBI when in the US.

It means that the cling-ee is attached to the cling-er, and has to beat the STR of the Clinging in order to get loose. But it's not treated as a Grab, and doesn't allow throwing or damage. You could do a Clinging-enhanced Grab, which would increase the STR required to break out, but not for damage or throwing purposes.

Back in the day, Watched and Hunted were separate disads. I'm not Duke, but I don't remember us using Watched all that often with Champions; if we did, we probably doubled the FH/DI values and rounded up to the nearest 5 Points. I'll have to check those books again to see how that matches up to 3rd edition numbers.

Same way as all the editions before, if that's the way you think it is. 🙂 In 5th and prior, Normal PD or ED only stop the Stun from Killing Attacks if there's at least one point of Resistant PD or ED.

6e2 p. 103.

For immunity to fear, I'd do a couple of things. Extra Presence for defensive purposes only (against PRE Attacks). Possibly a psych complication. And then, Life Support vs. fear, for probably 3 points. This is assuming there are natural things that a normal person might be afraid of, and even other PCs might need to make EGO rolls against, but this character wouldn't have to.

In Fantasy Hero, Delayed Effect plus Charges is used to let a character stockpile their charges over multiple days. I'd recommend doing that.

If you're asking about something like a saving throw, most likely not unless the poison description calls for one. Most of them have listed defenses against them.

My own words above are the sort of dismissive drive-by that I normally despise, so I'll illuminate a bit. By Fantasy Champions, I mean: tending toward higher power levels, most of the superheroic combat and character options, a bit less GM oversight over world design. Pay points for everything, generally Power-focused builds. Characters get built to DC/DEF/CV caps. By Fantasy Hero, I mean: lower power levels, Normal Characteristic Maxima, generally Skill-focused builds, a world and magic system(s) designed by the GM. Combat options: Bleeding, Hit Locations, Impairing/Disabling, Knockdown, Encumbrance, normal equipment doesn't cost points. It shouldn't surprise anyone that I favor the latter play style. Given that this thread is specifically discussing Multipowers for magic, I'm not going to say this play style precludes their use, and I've been at least partly defending magic as Multipower herein... my tendency as a GM is to more heavily restrict magic as part of a magic system, which means that if Multipowers are used for magic, they fall under whatever those restrictions are. I'm pretty strongly against charging points for normal equipment. I think it's for historical reasons; my preferences were pretty heavily formed by the standalone, Hero-as-house-system games, rather than the universal HERO System. It's also partly because I don't want to have to work out all of the point costs for normal equipment. (edit) It's partly because, if a character's sword, or his sword and daggers, or his sword, daggers, shield, and crossbow, are part of a Multipower, it starts looking more like a "Brick Tricks" Multipower. (/edit) And partly because, to me, the combination of lower point values, Normal Characteristic Maxima, Strength Minima on weapons, encumbrance, and so on, seems to give a more organic feel than does building to caps. All of the above having been said, I have played in a short-lived Fantasy Champions game that I quite enjoyed. I hoped it would go on longer, in fact.

To me, this starts looking less like Fantasy Hero and more like Fantasy Champions. Edit to add: Adding in process. Please stand by... Edit edit: This is worth a follow-up, so I'm going to do that instead. Stand by...

Even so, a warrior type is likely to have around 5-6 DEF armor, a sword and shield, maybe a couple of daggers, maybe a crossbow and 10 quarrels. That... sounds not unlike a Multipower to me, for which they've paid no points. Maybe STR 18 and 6-8 normal PD, for 11-14 total PD. The wizard type could have all of that stuff too, but why would they, when they have a flaming bolt spell that does 3d6 RKA, a mystic shield for 10 PD/10 ED, a gust of wind (TK, 10 STR, AoE, plus Life Support), and eyes of the cat (Nightvision), for which they did pay points. Whether or not those are in a Multipower. My point of view is that if you're specializing in weapons and armor, you're not paying points for them; in exchange, you're not building to CV/DC/DEF, but approaching it through character concept, Normal Characteristic Maxima, and Skills and Talents. Whereas, if you're specializing in magic, you might be able to exceed "normal" DEF and DC on a regular basis, but that's a privilege for which you're paying points, again whether or not you're doing it through a Multipower.

"John Q. Normal" (Champions II page 57) predates Espionage. I'm not sure if that was when they were set for sure, but that section talks a lot about it.

And to follow up... For instance, the GM could set up their magic system so that there are "tiers" of spells. Every spell falls into one of four tiers: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and Master. A spellcaster buys all of the spells at the highest tier they can cast with Requires A Magic Skill Roll at the -1 per 5 Active Points level. Once they have learned a total of at least 10 Real Points worth of spells within the Basic tier they can buy those down to -1 per 10 Active Points; once all of their Basic tier spells are at -1 per 10 Active, they can start learning Intermediate tier spells at -1 per 5. In order to start learning the Advanced spells, they need to get all of their Basic spells at -1 per 20, which then lets them in turn improve their Intermediate tier spells to -1 per 10, at which point they can start learning the Advanced spells at -1 per 5. Characters can throw fewer Active Points in a spell and improve their Magic Skill Roll. Let's say I attempt my Fire Arrow spell at full power (-6 to my roll), but biff it. My next Phase, I decide to throw it at half power instead (for -3 instead of -6) and succeed this time. There are other ways to go about it as well. The GM might require that all spells be bought at -1 per 5 Active Points, but allow characters to make Complementary Skill Rolls with Knowledge or Science Skills related to the schools of magic, so that a character with a 60 Active Point fire spell, who would be casting at -12, might be able to make SS: Thaumatology and KS: Fire Magic Skill Rolls in order to gain bonuses. I've come up with a Talent known as Affinity. You would buy it as Skill Levels, which can be allocated to any of the following: your Magic Skill Roll, your OCV, Damage Class (at 2 levels per +1 DC), or any mundane Skills relating to your affinity. So a character might have Affinity: +3 with Fire, in which case they could get +3 to cast a Fire Spell, or they might use +1 of that on their casting roll and +2 on Damage Classes. They might have spells in a different school that affect or modify fire magic, and the GM might let them use their Affinity with those as well; for instance, Dispel and Aid might be part of the Metamagic school, but the character with Fire Affinity can get their bonus when Dispelling or Aiding fire magic.

They would make the magic roll at -6, then assuming that's successful they'd make their attack roll with their OCV against the target's DCV, along with modifiers for range, cover, Combat Skill Levels, combat maneuvers, and so on. There aren't typically caps on Skills, other than those set by the GM. It's possible for characters to buy their Magic Skill up to the point where all of their spells are effectively at 17- (because any roll of 18 is an automatic failure), but there are ways for the GM to work around that.

Yeah, the 3e corebook was the core rulebook, as were the 1e and 2e corebooks. If you wanted the complete Champions experience, it was assumed that you were adding the II and III supplements to whichever corebook you had. Most of the Skills were in Champions II, and if you wanted Transform, Piercing, Neutralization (Suppress), Healing, etc., you needed III. All of that is to say that if you want the full "3e experience", then by all means, add the II and III supplements if you want. (We also didn't have "edition wars" back then that I recall. I don't think anyone was comparing their particular edition to figure out which one was "right" or anything, so in practice it was effectively "first-gen melange". Nobody really checked to see that you were doing, for instance, EC or Growth or whatever in accordance with whichever rulebook the GM had. That also meant that you might see characters in the same Enemies book or adventure module that did EC differently, if you bothered to get out the fine toothed comb and the red pencil. In my group, most of the GMs had the 2e corebook, while those of us who came along at the tail end of first-gen had the 3e one, yet we were all playing in the same games.)

26 in 3e as well. Thing is, at the time I think a "normal" was someone who wasn't putting on a super suit and fighting crime. Champions didn't have "normal characteristic maxima". I don't recall many GMs insisting that because your character didn't have the "super gene" or whatever that he couldn't have 26 DEX.

How about Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser? Thieves, warriors, and occasionally sorcerers. Harold Shea. Fencer, wizard, and psychologist!