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

I strongly dislike divide by 3 simply because it breaks Hero rules unnecessarily. More elegant would be to come up with some kind of -2 limitation that must apply to all spells. My own preference is to use ECs for spellcasters' date=' which achieves a similar cost balancing effect while also encouraging the player to buy quite a few spells of similar power, rather than dumping all the points into one big RKA. But YMMV.[/quote']

 

I don't really see how it breaks the rules - it is suggested and used by Hero System books.

Most spells allready have at least -2 in limitations - you would need that limitation to be worth -6 to achieve something closer to cost/3

Re: Divide by Three

So... what about magical item costs?

 

Divide by three (assuming they are an integral part of the character)?

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?

Perfectly book legal: page 224.

I'll be damned...thanks!

Re: Variable Summon

If the spells have -2 in limitations' date=' that means you can have three of them at a time in the VPP, reducing the need for the Skill Roll and Phase to switch.[/quote']

 

Sure, IF you can predict the next three spells you're going to need before combat starts.

 

Also' date=' there is a common house rule about the base Control Cost being half the maximum Active Points of the pool (which I use). 80 Active means the Control Cost starts at 40 points (before modifiers). But the Real Points in the pool need not be higher than 28, if you're going to have -2 in lims on every spell.[/quote']

 

. . . how is that different from the way they are costed in the book?

Re: Power as Def

So why change the rules just because it's an avld? Which is an advantage not a limitation.

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

Why not just do it as a VPP? I'd give the control cost at least a -2 Limitation for "Only One Power Available: Summon" and another lim for "Astral creatures and Demons Only." Then you can build whatever Summon power you want. (And it wouldn't be difficult to write them out in advance of play.)

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'm not much into making a power weaker by giving it an advantage. You make something weaker by giving it a limitation. If your 4d6 drain doesn't work as well as my 4d6 drain due to yours giving characteristic defense then yours should have a limitation on it.

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.

Ultimate Martial Artist and Ninja Hero Character Pack

SKU: DOJHERO705

 

This costs 6 dollars and has all of the martial arts (w/ associated skills Weapon Familiarities, disads, etc.) The only thing it doesn't have are "Powers" suggestions.

 

And it only costs 5.99 (since HDv3 only came out recently, all of the packs in the online store are either compatable with v2.xx or were made under v2.xx)

 

(Disclaimer: I may be wrong about the last statement but they should be compatable)

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

They should be compatible' date=' and 6 bucks ain't unreasonable compensation for the work of making the prefab. I'm a bit leery of the company made prefabs though because I'm picky on formatting. If I have to go through almost every maneuver and style and correct the way something is presented anyway, I might as well make it myself.[/quote']

 

Unless you reformat regular maneuvers, you should experience no problems except where the limitations of current HD design fails to allow custome maneuvers to work "correctly." Some of the names for a handful of maneuvers are lengthy enough to cause me to alter the name or change the margins of the page in certain export formats. Overall, I expect you'll find that the money is well-spent. Unless you value your time at less than $1 an hour (and it'll take you more than six hours to fab them yourself).

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

Oh' date=' yeah.... I also buy all Stat Increases and Decreases as Powers rather than raw Stats, thus altering the "Minimums and Maximums" to work closer to the way they used to[/quote']

This is also what I do for racial packages - and that in itself is often enough of a 'deal' for players in my group.

I also allow 1-3 "free" background skills per package deal, so players do end up saving a few points when they buy a Package Deal. These skills are often not chosen at character creation, but are instead given to the characters when the issue comes up and everyone agrees that the character in question should have that skill, given their background and package.

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

Don't forget too that the basic un-added-to Detect has no range and takes a half-phase action to use. Making a more traditional 'Detect Magic' spell isn't necessarially cheap

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

Let an especially clever NPC come up with the idea of carrying a bag of stones to accelerate their descent' date=' only to abandon the bag at the bottom.[/quote']

 

Except that the goal of the contest is to collect stones and bring them up to the baskets. Though the irony in a character (NPC or PC) potentially doing this did make me hurt my diseased lungs laughing.

 

A mathematically-oriented NPC might carry multiple bags of stone' date=' [i']and[/i] some wood; some of the bags counteract the wood's buoyancy, and the rest of the bags provide additional weight for sinking. The extra bags (for sinking) are abandoned at the bottom to allow for moving around, and the rest of the rocks can be separated from the logs to rise to the surface with them. The only drawbacks are having to tug along a large bundle of logs and rocks, possibly against the current, and having to prepare a bag of rocks ahead of time for each trip they will make into the lake. (The wood is reusable.) I assume the rocks at the bottom of the lake are distinguishable in some way, so it will be clear that the contestant is not merely coming back up with the rocks they just took down there?

 

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

Normal humans have nearly neutral buoyancy. Modeling the slight amount of positive buoyancy most humans possess would likely add nothing to game play except more bookkeeping.

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.

...assign some reasonable sink rate (maybe 1"/turn or more). That way' date=' when the character is swimming, he must expend that many inches of swimming each turn just to keep from sinking. This reduces the amount of swimming available for moving horizontally, while allowing the character's descents to be more speedy and his ascents more difficult. [/quote']

 

While you were suggesting this for those characters which are generally dense, I may klept it for use with the encumberance idea you had.

 

As far as underwater encumbrance is concerned' date=' even before we consider the weight of the stones the character wants to carry, I'd note how they are carried. If the character can just stuff them in his pockets, that leaves his arms and legs free. If he carries the stones in his arms, I'd guess he'd have maybe half his swimming available for the job. [/quote']

 

It's assumed that there will be a variety of approaches to this.

 

If a character is significantly less dense than water' date=' I would have him buy inches of swimming per turn that work to keep him from sinking, and might possibly allow a PHY LIM: "May Not Submerge" or "Excessivey Buoyant", depending on how difficult and/or inconvenient it is to be unable to submerge.[/quote']

 

I'm reminded of a character I once had...a demon trapped in a fat person's body. He had a power built like this, and no other swimming. It was funny when he got thrown off the boat. He was pretty funny in general.

 

If you look on page 379 of the HERO System 5th Edition Revised (what's the standard abbreviation for all that anyway?) you'll find the encumbrance tables. Due to the negative buoyancy issue' date=' I'd opt for using the DCV mods as negative modifiers to inches of swimming/phase (or perhaps treat them as a per-turn sink rate, as with the dense example above). If you use the normal encumbrance numbers, Joe Normal can swim with up to 108.9 pounds of excess baggage without sinking. I might allow this if he was carrying this weight of life preservers, but if it were a like weight of stones, I'd expect him to sink like one.[/quote']

 

Hmmm... ReFred is out in the car, but FH is within arm's reach. I think that I'll use your idea, -1" for bing over 10% encumbered, -2" over 25%, etc... I'll only count the wieght of the stones, and any other metal objects they're dumb enough to bring in. Some characters may have the bright idea of carrying wood (or tying a rope to a floating log so they could climb up- that would be smart), so I think I'll count those as negative wieght for determining the movement penalty.

 

You could abandon realism and just assume that each extra stone you carry costs 1 END/phase. Then it is all about who can find stones quickest' date=' and who can hold their breath for longest, rather than the weight they can carry.[/quote']

 

That is tempting, and I may end up going with it.

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

Now' date=' do I go the cheap way with A detect or a more expensive but heavily limited Telepathy?[/quote']

Depends on whether you are a player or the GM