Chris Goodwin

1 hour ago, sevrick said:

Looking for Extradimensional Space in HD but it doesn't seem to be there.

52 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

 

There is no Extradimensional Space as you do not need to create it. You just use Extradimensional movement and declare where it is going which can be absolutely anything. So you can state that it is a small extradimensional space that is 8 hexes wide and has a ladder going up to its exit.

It's not in HD.  If you want it you'll need to use a custom power. 

Cost-wise, an 8m by 8m by 2m room would be 128 cubic meters, for 40 base points.  Adding UOO for +1/4 increases that to 50, and +1/4 worth of AoE to increase the access size brings it to 60 Active, the same Active Cost as Hugh's sample build above. 

For long term habitation a Base with the Extradimensional location would probably be better, but as you correctly pointed out, the character would still need a power of some kind to access it. 

In the HERO System Advanced Players Guide 2 there exists a specific Extradimensional Space power.  If you already have the APG2 I'd recommend that power.  (While the book is well worth having, I wouldn't recommend buying it for just one single power.)

A quick look through shows me that the biggest sections with game mechanics and power builds are the Magic Items, Alchemy, the Potions builds, and the character builds themselves. 

Granted, it doesn't take much for it to be a lot of work entering things into Hero Designer. 

I would love to see more Fantasy Hero source material for 6th edition!

It looks like a lot of it is pretty edition agnostic.  How much work do you think it will take?

I think if everyone's making their characters at about the same level of efficiency, it's more fun than when one person is minmaxed within an inch of their life, and even moreso than when it's everyone but you minmaxed.

This seems like a bit of cheese, but if you apply Not Vs. Water to the Barrier? 
 

Maybe also the Transparent adder with Only Vs. Water?

26 minutes ago, GDShore said:

Sorry Chris, the only fantasy not underlayed by the peasant/serf is modern-urban fantasy or renaissance-Victorian. All of the early fantasy game were based in the history of the middle ages, D&D, EPT, C&S and FH.

Given that we're playing a system where we can build anything... why do we have to slavishly ape the conventions of the stories Gygax et al loved?  Even by 1978 or so, when Appendix N was compiled, fantasy had gone in new directions, and in the almost 50 years since then it's gone in a lot more new directions. 

If you like that, play it.  More power to you, play what you enjoy.  As you note, there are a whole lot of games and settings that cater to that.  But there's a whole lot more to the fantasy genre than the authors whose heyday was the 1930's to the 1950's.  We don't need to lick the boots of D&D anymore.

10 minutes ago, GDShore said:

Chris you are right it is not pleasant, it is however the underlayment of all fantasy.

All fantasy?  I disagree with that.

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Then the original rules were tweaked again and they went back to "build youself a superhero."  Then those rules were tweaked and,altered here and there and we fot "build yourself a superhero," and more variants and twesking of the superhero rules and spy rules lead to "build yourself a sorcerer" and "build yourself a cold war operative" and "build yourself an intergalactic adventurer" and even "build youself a mech."

 

And each one of those rules sets was _different_ in fundamental-for-their-intended-purposes ways, while retaining a lot of key similarities to the rules set that inspired the tweaks.  Unfortunately, they were similiar where the system is the most obvious, which lead to a lot of claims of "it's the exact same game!"

 

Sometimes, this was hyperbole by folks who noticed the similarities; sometimes it was sincere from folks who sae the obvious similarities and too few of the differences.

 

One thing lead to another, and we have the world's biggest set of "build yourself a superhero" while we run around proclaiming "build anything you want!"  While each subsequent edition has gotten more and more complex, and has, in its own way, tried to invent a balance that has never once existed within the rules, very little has been done to move it away from superheroes fundamentally; there have just been a thousand options dumped on top.

 

For example:  weapons familiarity, strength minimum, martial Arts, magic schools, incantations, gestures, spell components-

 

Absolutely _none_ of these are  necessary to build "6d6 magic missile" or 3d6 HKA battle axe."

No, but they were the first things added in order to make the standalone games not just another iteration of "build yourself a superhero, only in armor and with a green cover".  I think they are necessary for that. 

13 hours ago, GDShore said:

Yes in a world filled with magic such amulets and healings are possible but they will cost, and the peasant/serf has nothing, owns nothing and his horizons are limited. He is one step up from the slave, and in some cultures treated worse. Knowledge and its use is expensive, and to the peasant/serf a single copper would be a fortune and medicine or medical help is always costly. 

This sounds too much like real life to me.  I don't want to play in this game world.

19 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think the idea of classic fantasy has more to do with genre than age.  Winnie The Pooh was written over a century ago, and it has fantastical elements but nobody would consider it classical fantasy.  You can write classic fantasy today; its about the themes, concepts, setting, and events, not the date it was written. Classic fantasy is what you get when you don't try to put a "twist" on it like all the stuff in the original post, or focusing on humor and mockery of fantasy, etc.

While I don't need puns and mockery, I can enjoy them.  And I don't believe that Xanth or Myth Adventures in any way are attempting to mock "classic" fantasy.  The Dancing Gods series... I wouldn't call it mockery, but is definitely satire from the inside.  (Also in my Appendix N.)

Me, I need a twist or I lose interest.  I can't stand the same thing over and over and over. 

Along with "railroad" "sandbox" and "rowboat" I'd like to add "theme park" to the list of terms.  It's a world or adventure that's obviously designed as a place to adventure in.  It can also be a railroad or a sandbox; I suppose it could be a rowboat as well, but I have a tough time seeing how. 

13 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Treating magic as just technology or science we don't yet understand instead of... magic.  Its not science its outside science.  If it loses that magical feel of the supernatural and the impossible brought to life, it stops feeling magical.  Don't explain it too much or the magic goes away.

I hear this a lot... but how do we reconcile this with playing in a system like Hero where our powers are quantified in terms of range, area, power, and so forth? 

As I also said up-thread, I do see magic as a science.  I lose immersion if it's not.  I lose interest in books where it's not, and I certainly don't want to play in settings where it's not.  If the characters in-universe believe it's not, I can maybe accept that... but if I want to play a character who believes it is, and tries to figure out how, and the GM shoots me down, I'm going to pack up my books and go home.

I'm still not exactly sure how you're supposed to play in a roleplaying game where magic isn't explained.  I'm not being rhetorical here; I literally don't understand how.  The GM at least needs to know the system behind it. 

4 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

My tolerance varies, but if the game designer/GM thinks Xanth and Myth Adventures are classic fantasy I'm out.

De gustibus non disputandum. 

What makes something classic fantasy?  Because those series were both in their heyday 40 years ago.  Look back at 1974 when Lovecraft, Howard, and Ashton-Smith were writing their stuff... and it was 40 years before that.  None of those guys had any illusions that what they were writing was high literature.  (The Hobbit was published in 1937, as well.)

I don't build puns into my games, but as I said up-thread, both of those are in my "Appendix N".  And I've actually run a Myth Adventures game in Fantasy Hero. 

How much immersion does it really take to "I just want to bash orcs?"  You can do that with hex-and-counter skirmish level wargames (and where did D&D come from?).  If you're using a relatively complicated, full blown RPG system like Hero for that, IMO you might be doing more work than you need to. 

DrivethruRPG has quite a lot of free maps to download, and quite a lot more that are very inexpensive. 

My biweekly group uses a Chessex mat and wet erase markers, and sketches out maps quickly whenever we need one.  We usually have one we're referring to when we're drawing them out.  (This is always an open book test!)

I used the Tech Underground map from Robot Warriors to represent an underground former Rebel base in my Star Wars Hero game, and I did exactly that when they needed it: sketched it out on the mat. 

I remember building spellcasters with DEX 20 and SPD 4 because, as someone once said (I have no idea where, but I distinctly remember it), "SPD = fun".  That doesn't seem to be as much the case in 6e, where I've played perfectly competitive supers with DEX 15 and SPD 4. 

But spellcasters really ought to be in at least as good of shape as rogues.  In pre-6th CON would have been as necessary as it ever was for point savings on ED, REC, END, and STUN, and especially REC and END as those two were very important for a caster.

I've never really felt that wizards needed to be squishy or rickety or old.  If someone wants to play the old wizard with a long beard at starting point levels they can, but they should expect him to be a starting wizard. 

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

While the wizard can match the standard damage of a warrior without too much trouble, that is not where they shine.  Where the wizard has the advantage is in unusual attacks.  For 8 points I can have a 3d6 Drain STR with OAF, No Range, Requires Skill Roll, Incantations, Gestures.  That spell will be devastating against most warriors.  Losing 10 STR is probably going mean the character does not have the STR to wield his weapon properly so in addition to doing less damage they take penalties to hit.  It will also probably cause them to sufferer increased DCV penalties due to the weight of their armor and other gear.  It will also slow them down and increase the amount of END used. 

To use it though, the squishy wizard has to get within melee range of the sharp, pointy warrior. 

Just sayin'.

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I always appreciated the high degree of compatibility between HERO Fourth and Fifth Editions. It's very easy to use material written for one with the other, which given everything published under them, gives me a vast amount of stuff to draw from for characters, creatures, artifacts, templates, settings, rule variations... the works.

At GameStorm a few years ago, @lemming ran a Champions game that used 5th and 6th edition character sheets (and possibly 4th as well).  No translation necessary.  Just sit down and play.  We didn't worry about which edition it was!

If there were any feature I could ask for from a combat manager, it would be outputting every result in text format to stdout, so that any other program could process it and, for instance, move a 3d miniature on a rendered map.

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Did anyone else briefly see a wolf-asaurus?  Or a croco-stimpy?

 

No?  Just me?

 

Really?

Or maybe some sort of, I dunno, bear-owl hybrid...

Nah, no one would ever go for it.

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Why do you feel it is mandatory that spells cost points or be expensive?  That is the D and D prejudice showing through.

 

If I have a computer programming skill, I have a chance to use any computer I encounter.

 

What, anywhere in the HERO System Rules stops me from building a universe where the only rhing differentiating magic users from anyone else is five points of "manipulate magic" skill, allowing them the chance to use any naturslly-occuring source of magic or magic item?

 

What, specifically, says I can't do that? 

Nothing says you can't, and in fact there are "worked example" magic systems in Fantasy Hero for 6e that do these things.  Including "Magic Familiarity" skills that treat spells the same as weapons that warrior-types can acquire.

Barring a GM using a magic system like those, though, the default Hero System assumptions say that if you want anything extraordinary, like specialized (for which read "magical") weapons, armor, spells, special abilities, etc., you would pay the points. 

Effectively, paying a point for Weapon Familiarity: Blades lets you carry around a blade without having to pay points for it.  Treat it as a Perk, if you like, the same way a GM might charge a 1-point Perk in a Champions game to allow a character to carry around a cell phone;  they can both be taken away or destroyed in play and have to be re-acquired with money to replace. 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Really?

 

Where you the guy that punches the cheeseburgers so they are nice and flat when I unwrap them?

 

 

 

 

Yo, @Chris Goodwin:

 

Tell them what my daughter Noisy told you about Cracker Barrel!

 

     

 

 

I would but I can't remember!  It was hilarious though! 

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

A fighter does not get a 2d6 HKA by buying a skill level.   They get one for purchasing a sword with cash.  Why cannot a wizard buy a wand that gives him a 2d6 RKA for cash?

In FH1e, characters did start with any weapons they had at least one Skill Level with.  That doesn't seem to be the case in any of the later books, though I would allow it myself in Fantasy Hero (and have done in my Star Wars Hero game). 

N.B. I also assume that spells, magic items, and other things that characters pay points for are exempt from AP/DC limits, though as GM I reserve the right to decide otherwise in play if it breaks things at the table.  The rationale being, the equipment available for no point cost is already limited by STR minima, DCs, and DEF values; paying points, especially in a heroic level game where fewer points are available, should grant you greater abilities. 

The penalties end at the character's DEX on the Segment in which they recover from being Stunned.  It still takes the character's full Phase worth of actions on that Segment to recover.