gojira

Re: What have you used? I think the bits I've read through the most are the mini-settings in Urban Fantasy and Post-Apocalyptic Hero. Some neat ideas there. Those kind of forced me to use Fantasy Hero and the Gromoires, due to the rather spread out nature of information in Hero. However I haven't used those technically, as I'm not actually gaming with them. Sorta thinking about starting a game, but no game time yet. I also liked reading Valdorian Age and Tuala Morn. Again no actual use, but fun writing and ideas.

Re: Help me grok HERO!

Re: Help me grok HERO! I thought Diamond Age was a common term for post-Rust Age. http://www.comicvine.com/news/is-this-the-diamond-age-of-comics/141229/

Re: Help me grok HERO! What I think we really need is some more campaign info. Unfortunately the Hero words for this thing might be in one of the books you don't have. What is the target power level? 400 points is standard for a super hero, but it can be more or less for different types of genres. Do you have any power limits? Attack powers, defense powers, OCV, DCV? Game world stuff: Who are the players opponents, if they are the only supers? Because no super villains.... What's the tone? Grim, light, humor? What comic book age? Silver, bronze, iron, diamond, rust? What kind of morality? Are the players expected to be all "good," or "evil," or will the form a cohesive group at all? Do you have any details for the campaign city? What do you have planned for their first challenge?

Re: Help me grok HERO! See, I did not get "psi" out of "bio-kinesis." I got more of a shape-changer, morphing, Venom-meets-Dr.-Moreau kind of vibe. OP might want to clarify for us.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy I think we're arguing orthogonally here. I'm saying modules need to be geared for a particular campaign. You can't really do a module that works for the Turakian Age, the Valdorian Age, and Narosia all at the same time. You're saying they could do a series of modules. Well, sure. But they'd need one series for the Turakian Age, one for the Valdorian Age, and one for Narosia. It's three times as much work to support three campaigns, and presumably you don't earn any more because your customer base is split between three major campaigns for the one genre.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy Just to toss some more virtual bread crumbs out while feeding the pigeons, DnD has a much more rigidly defined system. Queen of the Demon Webs could put "For level 10th-16th adventurers" and have a ready market. In Hero, it's not so clear what you put on the outside of your adventure module to let folks know what to expect inside.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy I think I might agree with the Old Man, at least partially. I was going to add, on my own, that Wizards/DnD seems to have one setting, at any given time, and to put all of their resources (writing, printing, advertising, etc.) behind that one setting. Which is what it seems to take to make a setting "wildly popular." What appears to not work is the shotgun approach, where you sort of spray your resources around and hope something hits. There's a new adventure, Tangent One, just announced. It's a system-less adventure for a fantasy RPG. While that's a neat idea, I find myself wondering how useful it could really be, with no stats for monsters or other details. It's those details which save me time, or most of my time anyway. But it illustrates the problem that Hero Games currently has so many fantasy campaigns going that supporting just one isn't really possible. For two bucks, I might chance a purchase, just to see what it's like. But I'm still kind of dubious of the concept of a system-less adventure.

Re: Help me grok HERO! Well, what you say is true. However, you don't get any benefit from having a partially transformed target. And Major Transform is expensive, and as you say Power Defense is fairly common. So I do think that ultimately the player will see this as a power that "doesn't work" and isn't going to like it. I read through 5e Champions again, and I think Mystic Master is a bit too mystic. However Check-List Hero would work pretty decently, only swapping out a couple of powers for flavor. Change the SFX from "gadgets" to "bio-kinesis" and give it a limitation like "Full phase to switch slots" and I think you'd have a very playable character. Anyone with 6e Champions want to point out where this is in the new edition? I really am sorry I can't help more in that regard.

Re: Help me grok HERO!

Re: Help me grok HERO!

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy It's ironic that someone would make this statement while there's a kickstarter for a fantasy setting for Hero, Narosia, that is not even half way to its funding goal and less that a week left to fund it. Either there's no way to make a setting "wildly popular" with Hero's customer numbers, or Hero's customers just aren't into pregenerated settings. Or maybe there's some other reason, I can't really tell.

Re: Help me grok HERO! That's a "use your judgement" and "make sure the power fits into your campaign." Honestly I would ask your player to stay away from powers like Transform until you both understand the system better. Do you have the rest of the character? Have you looked at any other characters for inspiration? Which ones? Maybe you should try to use one of the quick superhero generators?

Re: Is this worth a Limitation? I'm voting for "no points." That you can't feel what's beyond something is normal for touch, so I don't really see how it could be worth points to take a limitation for it. If you had a sense that normally did see through things, I could go for it. If you have x-ray vision that is stopped by a large number of materials (let's say anything with a Def of more than 3, so basically you can only see through clothing, light armor, very light building construction, light plastic, etc.) then sure that's worth a Limitation and some extra points.

Re: What do I need? New to HERO. If you go to the main landing page, there's a link in the upper right, "Visit the Hero Store." http://www.herogames.com/home.htm Here's a direct link to the core books: https://www.herogames.com/viewItem.htm?itemID=256527 https://www.herogames.com/viewItem.htm?itemID=240411 * * * I have a question for ya: What game did you play at the Con? Who ran it? Because knowing a bit more about what it was might help us to direct you what you really need to get.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Origa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFl5lBjSQI&feature=autoplay&list=AL94UKMTqg-9AE5I0qI_NRL3-_VQj3KIn6&playnext=49

Re: Champions one-shot to teach/show off the system If you think this is something you might like to see Hero Games distribute, you shouldn't use any characters that you or HG do not have the rights to publish. So X-Clones are right out. I have no idea if that's where you are going with this, but I thought I'd bring it up. However, I think teh bunneh uses pre-generated characters for Teen Titans TAS when he does demos, just because they're instantly recognizable to a lot of people, so if it's just you and your group, you might consider a similar easily recognizable group of characters. The problem with Teen Titans is there's only four (well, four main ones, I guess) and you sound like you have a larger group of players. If you look around, you could probably find the character sheets he uses, which have nice graphics.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested Yeah I was intrigued also. I was thinking of doing something similar, although I've never tried it. What I was thinking of is to allow players to buy "starting wealth" with points. It doesn't affect wealth or pool afterwards, but it does allow a player to buy more things when making a new character. Actually plain ol' wealth might just be the answer. Not a pool at all, but a fudgey character concept adjudicated by the GM. It explains why the Paladin always has a shiny suit of plate mail, even when his last one got dinged up in a fight, while the Druid sleeps out under the stars, eats twigs and berries, and is still wearing that same stinky robe he started in.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested Because if the dagger is 5 character points, and the warhorse as a follower is 5 character points, then something must be taken out of the pool before something else can be put in. I think we are all assuming that this is in fact what a resource pool does: create an artificial limit as to what a character can stash. Is there some other sort of resource pool? Possibly just missed part of the conversation here...

Re: Advocacy on other sites... If you have something to post, like a Hero game you are running, or you want to ask for other Hero players, or something like that, go ahead and feel free. A few of us will probably chime in. But expect some arguing too. You need a really light touch with certain folks over there. One of the best tactics is just to decline politely to argue ("That really isn't the topic I intended.") and then move quickly to something that is on topic to direct the conversation elsewhere. Anyway, I think what I'm saying is if you want to make some posts go ahead, but I think a call here for all of us to pile on rpg.net is inappropriate. If you'd like to mention, here, posts you've make at rpg.net I think that would be ok for some moral support.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested I didn't read through everything in your last couple of posts, Markdoc, but for the OP: one way to limit problems like the "12DC Fireball" Mark mentions above is to give the Wizards a pre-approved spell list to choose from. Get the Fantasy Grimoire, tell your players "Weak, Apprentice versions of spells only to start, and here's a list of banned spells/schools" and let them pick lesser, more balanced versions of spells. 12DC Fireball? No, it's only 6DC. Hmm, and it's got a -6 penalty to cast, and it uses a lot of Endurance. Only going to be able to cast a few of those. Might want to look at adding some spells that are easier to cast for more flexibility. Don't be afraid to set hard limits too. In Hero System's Urban Fantasy book, there's a mini-setting where mages can't take any kind of defenses spell. Oh, they can protect themselves against other spells: defense vs fire, defense vs dark magic, those are fine. But no defense that stops fists, or knives, or bullets. So any mage can be battered into submission with a good old punch in the nose.

Re: Algernon HERO Curious: how well does it work with your e-reader?

Re: Advocacy on other sites... Yes. Hero System on rpg.net has "history." I tend to post there organically. That is, I post in threads where I have something to say, and otherwise I stay out. I don't go over there and try to "preach Hero System" at them, or something like that. They know about us, and when it's appropriate, HS gets mentioned. Personally, I'd prefer to not be the reverse of the trolls Chris mentioned. Let's not wear out our welcome over there. When Champions Complete is released, I intend to post a review/mini-review with my own thoughts. I think that's appropriate, being a new product and all. Until there's news though, I don't want to stir up their rpg.net pot. It seems kind of poor manners, imo.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested Now that I've been able to read your reply... It's been commented here, even lately, that the Hero System could benefit from some advice on getting started for beginners. So you are not alone in that observation. OTOH, a way to get started is fairly obvious: 1. Buy a pre-made setting 2. Use that as-is Really if you're new it's the best way. All the hard work is done for you, all you have to do is follow along. After you've seen a couple of planned out settings, and GM'd them for players, you'll in a much better position to make your own from scratch. Tuala Morn is very full featured, and contains a lot of Do. It. This. Way. Which means it shows you how to balance things by setting limits, which gives you clues as to what sorts of things need to be limited (like Combat Luck). The Valdorian Age is another neat setting. It's a little more free-wheeling than Tuala Morn, and might require more GM interpretation, so it might be better to tackle second. There's a debt mechanic for spell casters that leaves a lot of room for roleplay, it's very mechanics light, but might be a struggle along with new rules. There's at least one class of Hero GM (and I myself at least partially fall into this category) that expects their homebrew stuff to look just as good as the premade settings. Which is kind of an unrealistic expectation. We're not doing this as our day job, we have to come up with ideas on a much more limited time budget. So I'm wondering if you think you might be in the same boat. But a prefab setting is much easier.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested I did some reformatting to make your post easier to read.