Frenchman

Re: Divide by Three I have to agree with Tywyll, this thread has become nasty, and it will no longer benefit from my continued input, of which I sadly have much more.

Re: Divide by Three

Re: Divide by Three We've never had a player pay for a magic item other than myself - and that was only for a magic item which I started the game with, improved over time, and which could not be (permanantly) taken away. Balancing of magic items between players happens fairly naturally in our group, since they are pretty rare, distributed by group decision, and our GM(s) are pretty good at predicting how they will potentially upset game balance. They're just another form of equipment.

Re: Swallowing a Man Whole Hero System Bestiary, page 33

Re: Banish as Transform or EDM? I'll be damned...thanks!

Re: Variable Summon

Re: Power as Def Because in many cases, AVLD is disadvantageous. There are times when it is not an advantage. If what TheUnknown is suggesting is that X/5 applies as a defense in addition to power defense, then it is quite clearly a limitation in all games. In games where power defense is uncommon (or anything less than universal) is is arguably a limitation even if it replaces power defense, since it is more common (100% of potential targets have the defense). I would say that draining a stat/power should reduce its defense against future drains, based on the way I conceptualize the sFX uses of this mechanic.

Re: Divide by Three Our games have always had it as an option, but most spellcasters have simply gone for the Multi-pool or VPP option because they are sooo much cheaper if you ever get more than ~10 spells. I happen to like cost divisors better than frameworks, and have run into no problems in play with that method - I have experienced problems with Frameworks which slow down or stop play repeatedly. I personally have a deep dislike of using power frameworks for all of a caster's spells most of the time, because VPPs either need deep tweaking or make the caster all-powerful. In a 150-point game a shrewdly used 20-point VPP can allow a caster to be a one-man adventuring party. MPs, on the other hand, suffer from the restriction that only one slot (or only up to AP of the MP) can be active at one time. Casters have three choices: 1 - Only use one spell at a time (Attack or defend, not both) 2 - Use multiple spells at reduced power (Attack and defend at reduced efficiency) 3 - Buy the slots with a mix of END to Activate, Uncontrolled, or Continuing Charges (Effectively reduced the power of the spell and is complicated for newbies) Both types of frameworks suffer, most damnably IMO, from what we have called the 'Point-Vaccuum' - If a character has a 60-point framework, almost all of their spells are 60 AP. After all, there is no reason for them not to increase the power of their spells when they bump their pool, since it costs almost nothing (if not absolutely nothing). Finally, frameworks make it so that certain types of spells are non-existant. In MPs, spells which would 'normally' (IOW, bought with cost reduction instead of a framework) be bought as an MP (such as the Door Opening/Closing spell in the Grimoire) are far more expensive than other spells (you have to buy 2 or more slots rather than just one, and since each slot costs 1-3 points, there is little incentive to do so). In either framework, spells that are more powerful than the AP limit are also not purchased, or purchased only rarely (since they have to be bought outside the pool and cost many times the cost of a spell inside it), which I also don't like. Cost reduction doesn't require any build-related insanity, and works with pretty much every magic system (with the obvious exception of those that are mechanically centered around a Framework). Casters will tend to know spells of varying levels of power and effectiveness, and the players don't have to learn any additional rules about how to manage a framework. The only drawback I see to using cost/3 is that it is more expensive than a framework if you are buying more than ~10 spells, which any caster worth their weight in dung should. Because of that I have been toying with the idea of using Cost/4 in my next fantasy game, but we'll have to see how it goes.

Re: Variable Summon Short answer: VPP method is really, really really expensive... Because then a Summoning Spell with, say 120 Active Points (including a +1/2 advantage for variably creatures which you don't need in a VPP, so the VPP can be 80 points) and around -2 in limitations (G&I, RSR, Focus) More than -2 is pretty common for a spell. The spell ends up costing 40 points. Now you buy that 80 point VPP - We don't add Cosmic, so changing the pool takes a full phase and requires a skill roll. Lets say the GM is nice and the roll is a Magic roll. So the VPP now is 80+40 points, but lets add some limitations - the same -2 of limitations as are on the spell, in addition to the -2 Summon Only limitation. Now its 80+8 points, and it takes a full phase and a skill roll to change the summon power... Thats 40 points vs. 88 points. Big, big difference in cost.

Re: good FH minis? Reaper! Reaper! Reaper! Reaper! Reaper! Reaper!

Re: Martial Artist For the anti-poison power, you may want to consider a cumulative dispel instead. Poison in Hero tends to be a lot of active points (I personally don't inclue NND on the drain...Its just a limitation that LS: Immunity works in addition to power defense. I digress) and also has gradual effect and/or continous, along with extra time for the initial damage (onset time). So if you know you've just been bit by something poisonous, you can "meditate it out of you" fairly easily. A 6d6 Dispel vs. Two Poison powers at the same time (Most poisons are a drain and a KA), Cumulative x4, with RSR, No Range, Self Only, and 0 DCV Concentration costs 15 points and will be able to tackle anything up to 144 Active points (per power, not both of them together). This also means that if you are forced to ignore the poison for even a short time, you have less timet to get it out of you, meaning you are more likely to suffer some of the damage from it. I happen to like that conceptually.

Re: Power as Def I have to agree, and I rarely use AVLD as a result, since most of the time I'm doing something like Mental Power vs. Flash Defense or Drain vs. Natural ED - in heroic games where mental and power def are almost unheard of, but Flash defense occurs at least once in almost every group of characters.

Re: Martial art style Prefabs and other cool ones. I bought the pack along with my UMA, and I know for a fact that the prefabs work in every single version of HD - I use them with pretty much every character I build, and find them to be a steal for $6

Re: Banish as Transform or EDM? In our games only summoned beings can be 'banished' without extremely powerful magic, and weak summons can be banished with weak spells. So we use the compleletly book-illegal build of Dispel Summon. I know that Summon is an instant power and therefore cannot be dispelled, but it has aspects similar to a continuous power, like mind control and mental illusions do (we allow dispel to get rid of those, too) Hasn't caused and balance problems so far.

Re: Extra information from 3d6 Sounds a little bit like what I did here, except that I counted 1's and 6's instead of doubles and triples.

Re: Package deals

Re: Variable Summon I agree, there should be a more elegant way to do it, but the only book-legal way is a multipower. I have been playing around with the idea of Variable Adders (10 points gets you 5 to put into any adder or into base power), but I haven't playtested it at all, and I'm trying to think of a way to be able to unify it with Variable Advantage so that adders and advantages could be interchanged...

Re: Identify Spell Unless of course, the character can 'see' magical auras (and in dnd, as well as many other settings, that is 'traditional'), then its part of the sight group and gets Range and Discriminatory for 5 points. +5 PER, slap on G&I and RSR, and for 5 points its yours. This is before any cost reductions or putting it in a framework like most spellcasters have to do to afford more than 3 spells, meaning that it'll likely cost the character 1-2 points. Thats cheap. I happen to agree with MX, detects are very inexpensive (they should be in most cases) and there is little guideline for how much information is revealed by them. Yes, yes, yes, we could take our little table and replace "AP+X" with "Succeed by X or more," but we either: A - Make the penalties so huge, in order to challenge the rather inexpensive +20 PER, that someone with a "natural" ability to detect magic (usually as part of a race package in my games) has no chance of getting much information, or: 2: Have a lower threshold, and suffer either detect spells that cost a pittance or are always achieving maximum effect. Just as Detect Thought would be a bit annoying to model with Enhanced Senses, and thus is a separate power (Telepathy), I think that a more general 'detection' power for divining complex information (with similar mechanics to telepathy or what has been proposed in this thread) would be a useful addition in some games. Also, rolling dice is fun.

Re: Power as Def That is an interesting idea with even more interesting implications...the more you drain, the more you drain! As in, each drain reduces the amount of defense available against the next attack. I'd say that that counts as a "common" defense when compared to power defense (everyone has it), and say it should be the +3/4 level of AVLD. The only drawback I see is the obvious one: a power of a certain strength cannot be affected at all (for 4d6 this is a power of 24*5=120 AP, but even a 60 AP power will require an above-average roll to get anything through) If you want to make sure that you can always do something, you can add Penetrating to it.

Re: Swimming Stuff I had not assumed (or thought of) that the 'lake-rocks' were anything special. Usually rocks at the bottom of a lake are the same as those on the shore and nearby, just rounder. That is a good idea, though. The idea of using wood and rocks together is also intriguing, and since the rest of the contests the characters will be facing are solvable by wits as well as physical prowess, it could well apply. Thanks for the thoughts.

Re: New Spells for a New Player in a New Campaign For the Wind Pillar - If you want to build it as an EB, you need more dice. For it to deal any KB at all, you have to roll a 6 on the EB, and snake eyes for teh KB dice. Making it a 3d6 will increase the AP to ~60 points, and it will do KB/KnockDown about half the time. Also, why use a separate END reserve for the spell? Just add Uncontrolled, and that way the character can add as much END to it as they want - instant END reserve effect without the paperwork, though it unfortunatly costs a lot of END at the time of casting. Add END only to Activate, and then you just define how long it lasts and the spell costs the same END to cast as it does now.

Re: Swimming Stuff I am hardly an expert swimmer or anything, but I've fooled around in the water enough to have noticed that descending isn't just a little harder than ascending, its a lot harder. Then again, you may be right. Simpler is better. Mayber just +/-1" of swimming, regardless of the characters total inches, to represent that.

I have a few thoughts/questions about swimming. Most movement modes (Running, Flight) are doubled when going down (with gravity) and halved when going up (against gravity), but it seems that swimming shouldn't work this way (for normal humans, at least) since people float - so should Swimming movement be increased when heading towards the surface, and decreased when diving? Seems that x2/.5 isn't quite right to me, though. Also, it is easier to lift heavy things underwater, because the water supports more of their weight than air does - but carrying even a little extra weight can severely hamper your swimming ability, especially if you are trying to swim upwards. If the extra wieght is denser than water, that is. I'm saying because I am planning a contest for a fantasy Hero game in which the contestants must dive to the bed of a lake, and carry stones back out. Most stones in a single breath wins. The above issues are all things that will impact the interaction between the rules and roleplaying of this contest, and I'm looking for suggestions or page references dealing with these things. Thanks all

Re: Identify Spell It looks good, but what does the loss of effect over time represent? Does the person using the power forget what they learn from it? Why couldn't they write it down? I also think it may be a tad too cheap for an ID Everything power. How about you model it on Dispel instead of Aid/Drain? 3 points per die, base level is that it IDs one power, and use the Adjustment rules for Expanded Effect to make it increasingly more useful. Since Dispel isn't (normally) cumulative, one would need to have a large number of dice to get everything - but your take on the Partial Effect advantage could ameiliorate that a lot. You may even consider giving the power the Partial Effect bit as a default, and making a limitation for a power that is All-or-Nothing.

Re: Identify Spell