Harakani

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From the Nobilis game we just finished... Secrets: "What now?" Betrayal: "Well, if we don't want to destroy the world, we'll need a turtle." Leviathan: "so, you have plotted against me for some time?" Betrayal: "An hour and a half?" (checks watch) "about two hours, lord." Nightmares: "Our plans are quite advanced. We believe we can prevail." And my favourite, which requires explanation. Nightmares got blamed for killing Leviathan (our Boss') servitors - but he wasn't doing it. We finally found out why. A session before he had given Betrayal's Anchor's secretary his coat because she was in shock. Forgetting that at the time he had shapeshifted the Mantle of Nightmare, Artefact of Power (Aspect 2 focus), into a coat. Yep. That coat. The secretary, wearing the coat, had instantly buffed from "just a minion' to 'minor demigod equivalent' and (justifiably) killed her boss.

Re: Need Help with new power idea. I've done it twice. It hasn't really caused problems but few people were interested. A points based LARP I'm in now uses a similar mechanism. Our maths went like this: This should be a power with a half-life. That is, over the course of the character's career it should *on average* have the same number of points as any other character. If we assume the average lifespan is X months, then the power should 'pay off' in X/2 months. The issue is making sure X is correct. assuming they start 40 xp down, and a get one extra xp each session, n/2 = 40. n then = 80 sessions. At 1 session per week, 52 sessions per year, that's over a year and a half. 10 months till they see any payoff. We also limited exactly what the XP could be spent on; we mainly used it for 'gadgeteer' type characters building independent items we could take off them anyway, if we had to. I also concur this is not a "power" in the hero sense.

Re: Getting rid of Endurance Alright... This is a new group, so I'll give 'em about 6 sessions or so to see if they can cope with END. I always customise the sheet to the game (in this case because low powered heroic fantasy tends to have a lot of equipment and few 'powers'). I'll try and make END easy to understand on the sheet. Thanks for all the feedback.

Hi all, I've tried removing END from heroic games a couple of times. I do this because I've noticed a lot of players really dislike having to change a stat every time they do something. I first tried ignoring END altogether, and found that as it was the limit on the use of a couple of powers, those powers became overeffective. I tried requiring characters to buy Reduced Endurance: 0 END on all powers and found that this 'front loaded' the cost of speedster characters, with the result that everyone started buying SPD. I'm now looking at this system: Characters may not buy SPD. Characters have no END stat. In order to get additional actions, characters must buy a package called "Extra Action" "Extra Action" has the following components. * +1 SPD * +20 END Endurance Reserve * +8 REC Endurance Reserve total: 20 points. All characters are capped at spending 8 END per phase. In a 40 AP game this means that for almost all characters they will be unaffected. Advanced players are allowed to exceed this limit if they are prepared to track their Endurance round by round. for a 60 AP game, I'd probably use 25 points and increase the REC to 12 and the END to 30. (25 points) for a 100 AP game, I'd probably use 20 REC and 50 END (35 points) for a 20 AP game, I'd probably stay at the 20 point level, but could go to 15 (4 REC, 10 END) Does this seem like a reasonable compromise? Please note I'm using a simplified END system of 10AP = 1 END, even for strength. Thanks Harakani

Re: What fundamental thing would you change about the Hero system? Yeah, probably should do something with DCV. I made it up pretty quickly as an example. What about the idea of the site/books/wiki/whatever, though?

Re: What fundamental thing would you change about the Hero system? Waaaaaaaaay back here... http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40568 ...there was talk of an "Ultimate Customisation" book. I'm guessing that such a book would never be published (but would be delighted to be told otherwise). Possible the community could do it as a website - maybe a wiki? Could be in this format (I made up an example - please don't debate that) OPTIONAL RULE: graduated Haymaker. Effect of rule: Increase effectiveness of high OCV. Level of change: local. Summary: A character may sacrifice 2 points of OCV for +1 DC on an attack. This increased DC is subject to the same limits as DC gained by CSLs (may not more than double attack's base DC). Impacts: CSLs, especially low ones, now ALL give 2:1 for DCs. Dexterity is more useful. Haymaker no longer needed. Can also replace Hit Locations. Highly accurate characters can now do far more damage against immobile objects.

Re: FH without Stun First, effectively everyone has the power: "Takes no Stun" from the Automoton rules. I'm looking at running an Automoton game at the moment, so this intrigues me Remember all defences are /3 with this power. Occurs to me you may want to use the 45 point version, whereby every attack that does BODY causes a reduction (I'd make it a simple reduction like "-1 to all skills and CVs"... a sort of negative overall level)

Re: Attacking Diviners Possibly go the true strike route? some otherwise pathetic attack hits home? (+OCV or damage) Could do something nice in a combat situation with "force to accident"; basically see what needs to be done to make their life miserable. Find weakness? Wow. Wierd idea; Bill and ted. Two part spell. The character's divination goes off way before the battle, and they set up a trap. bad guy hits the trap when spell is cast. Diviner then "sends" warning back to earlier self. If you want to go the "direct attack" route, going to have problems doing it as a diviner.

Re: Time Wars by Simon Hawke Wow. I loved the Time Wars books. And you actually played Time Master!?!?! That was my first non D&D book. I must've bought it... wow... a LOOOONG time ago. How does it play? Harakani

Re: Hero Modding: One Dice Mechanic Sorry for taking so long. Man, I'm starting to think this was a trap. I've gone through every skill, power, attribute, advantage and disadvantage in Hero, and made a note of what needs to be changed to go to the new dice mechanic. The short cut notes are about 12 handwritten pages. I'm adding it to my campaign background (50+ pages) I'm making colour coded dice (0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2) I'll playtest it and post my results. Thanks Harakani

Re: Ultimate Customisation A list of optional, thought out, playtested rules. Complete with likely effects and pros and cons. I'd buy that. Harakani

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here I can see where it would be useful. I'm not sure if it would make a good book, but it might very well make a good .pdf, or even just a very nice "free stuff" resource. I like the Alcoholism advantage posted earlier. I also think Steve's writeups of sociopathy would fit well. The disads like that are the ones I would most like, as I can feel them generating plot seeds when I read them. Breaking it down into chapters, I think you could get something like the following... Chapter 1 Introduction How Disads can add character to a character Chapter 2 Optional Rules for changing the disadvantage systems. Eg Steve's Heroglyph articles. Les Categories. Chapter 3 Default Disads as a way of enforcing Campaign rules; eg "Tech Level" What changing the disad points on a PC does; eg 50/25 vs 50/250. How to handle Disads that disadvntage the entire group... Chapter 4 For each Disad... * Disad name * Description of Disad * Problems Disad causes (in non-game terms)/Impact on character's life * How Disad can be cured/ameliorated (in non-game terms) * "standard" writeup (and may be multiple disadvantages, such as an addiction *and* a social limitation) * (IMPORTANT) Variations (eg "in most fantasy games alcohol was one of the primary beverages. As such Alcohol's frequency should be X", or "Alcohol is illegal in several modern countries such as (x,y,z) and was illegal in America during the prohibition. While still as available, the disad is worth an extra 5 pts to represent stores of alcohol are illegal") * Complimentary advantages (eg +1 when Carousing, KS: Alcohols, KS: City's Bars) * Complimentary disadvantages (eg Social Lim: Alcoholic (p XX), Phys Lim: Damaged Liver (p XY)) * Things for GMs watch out for (may fracture group, don't let character's with LS: Poison Immunity (Alcohol) take it, etc.) * Archetypes * Adventure Seeds/Plot seeds (should probably be written into the above bits) Chapter 5 Vehicle Disads Chapter 6 Base Disads Chapter 7 Automaton Disads Appendix A Random Disadvantage tables for various campaign types (so you don't get "Susceptibility to Kryptonite" in a Dark Champions Gritty Realism campaign) Appendix B "Campaign Plan" sheets, with various lists of things to tick off. Eg; how common is vaccum? "Common, Uncommon... Non Existent" how common are fire attacks? "Common, Uncommon... Non Existent" Appendix C Breakdown of Disads for quick reference (most common only) Harakani

Re: Start BODY at 2 instead of 10 Hey, anyone got a ref for the rule that you go unconcious below zero BODY? Anyway... I'd leave the BODy at 10, or 8... changing it changes all the stat calcs A LOT. sounds like what you want is more randomness. If you don't want the complexity of the hit tables, get a crit hit mechanism. Example Give all humans a "transparent" limitation of Vulnerability: All attacks, only when extra die comes up a 6. Then get your players to roll a different coloured die when you do damage (you already roll for STUNX, after all). on a 6, the attack does double damage... or triple damage... or whatever... a 3d6 club that rolls 4 and doubles will render a normal human to "dying". 1 1d6 knife that rolls average (4) and doubles will dot he same. I'd suggest the critical rule doesn't apply when >6 DCs. That'll actually give characters an incentive to stay low, and stop using greataxes. 2 birds in 1 blow. and a 2d6K that max damage and doubles will do 24. Killing a normal human instantly, and rendering conan dying. you can let PCs and maybe certain "non mook" NPCs buy off the disad to effectively get D&D's immune to critical power. I had a lot of success with a mecha game using a "scale" disad. All equipment was either civilian (legal, easy to get, but took double and did half damage from/to military) or military (did double/took half damage from civilian, but hard to get and illegal). When someone shot a (civilian) human with a (military) 2d6K cannon, everyone assumed the human was dead. When they shot a mech *with the same stats* there wasn't that perception. Harakani

Re: Hero Modding: One Dice Mechanic I certainly wouldn't argue with that. Which is what I actually tend to use; match 6's and 1's, and count the leftover. This is similar, but still has the potential to encompass the full range of results... if not more. For example 10d6 can roll from 0 to 20 successes, and therefore 0 to 60 stuns; but there is a "steeper" bell curve. I've never had a problem, but my players have. Hmmm... that's a good way of putting it. Yeah, nice terminology. I like the way you have defined these. Firstly, that 1d6-1 not appearing anyone else bugs the heck out of me. As my games tend to the heroic, and killing attacks are common, players are confronted with this type of roll all the time. Secondly, I am not looking at trying to get a change into the core rules. I am happy with them the way they are. The complexity makes sense for the variety. In my particular situation though, I can look to try to make things a little more simple. I guess this is really a slightly more comprehensive house rule addenda. I have done this already, and it was a popular move. I also altered the SPD chart to a SPD deck, and this was also popular. Both these changes were prompted by reading threads on this board, and have been extensively playtested Okay, dealiojg with these Wolfie: White Wolf? I noticed the similarity between Hero's BODY, shadowrun (4th) and WW's mechanisms. I will have to do some examination of the time taken to roll multiple dice vs 3d6, but as I am rolling a heroic game, an "expert" would have 6 dice. 8 dice would be TRULY exceptional. I have looked at the probability curves, and you are absolutely right. The problem is exacerbated for low numbers of dice. I actually see this as a benefit, however. Under the old system I had two problems. Players bought very high skills because they wanted to be able to perform a skill reliably. Second when characters had low skill rolls, the variation in the dice rolls meant low skilled characters could frequently outperform high skilled characters. This system fixes both problems.

I received an interesting complaint about hero from one of my players: "I never know what type of dice roll to make". The player in question has mastered a number of complex systems. His problem seemed to stem from the fact that in Hero there are several different types of dice rolling mechanic that are used. This complaint struck home with me because I am a big fan of One Dice Mechanic. Dice Mechanics in hero 1. Roll 3d6. Sum total. roll under a certain number 2. Roll 3d6. Sum total. subtract another number, roll 11- 3. Roll nd6. Sum total to get Effect, or STUN 4. Roll nd6. As 3 BUT ALSO gain 1 "point" for each 2-5 rolled. Gain 2 "points" for each 6. 5. Roll nd6. Sum total to get BODY. roll another d6, add/subtract a number that defaults to -1 and multiply this second number by the BODY to get STUN. Granted many of change roll 2 (combat) to type 1. A lot of us change 1 and 2 into "roll high". Still, there are 5 different mechanics. Even worse, let's take this stat block Str 15 (3d6) Pre 15 (3d6) Int 15 (12-) These 'core' 3 attributes use 3 different mechanics! The Int skill roll is type 1. The PRE attack is type 3. A strength grapple check is type 4 (ignore effect). It is my opinion that method #4 is the fastest to perform, and scales well to many situations. I propose to use the following "house rule". Attributes grant 1 die per 5 pts. (ie per +1) Effects still grant 1 die/die. (ie per +1) Killing attacks are a normal attack with the advantage 'Killing'. Skills grant 1 die per point they are greater than 8- (so 12- would be 4 dice) Roll a number of d6 equal to the score. Each 2-5 rolled is 1 success. Each 6 rolled is 2 successes. Any penalties are then subtracted from the successes. Any opposed target is subtracted from the successes. If the number of Successes is >0, the roll has been a success. As an additional "speed up effect", each success counts for 3 "Effect", or "STUN". Example; -SKILLS- Bob tries to climb a wall. His Climbing is +6. He rolls 6 dice and gets 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. This is a total of 6 successes. The wall is glass, and the GM has assigned a penalty of 3. 6-3=3. 3>0, so Bob climbs the wall. -ATTACK- Ben attacks Bob. Ben has an OCV of 7. Bob has a DCV of 5. Bob aborts to dodge and goes to DCV 8. Ben rolls 7d6. He gets 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6 (8successes). He subtracts Bob's DCV of 8, and gets 1. 1>0, so Ben hits. -DAMAGE- Ben's attack is a 6d6 Killing attack. He rolls 6d6 and gets 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (6 successes). He does 6 BODY. 6x3=18 STUN. Ben subtracts his resistant defences as normal. Note under the 'old' system this attack would have been a 2d6K and averaged 7 BODY and 17.5 STUN) -EFFECT- Ben, reeling, attempts a PRE attack. He has an *inhumanly* large PRE attack (12d6) and rolls 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6 (12 successes). This translates as 12x3=36 Effect. Can anyone see any obvious problems with this system, please? Thanks Harakani

Re: Weapon not up to the Armor My bad, don't have the book with me at the moment. Still, it takes you above 1d6K and makes doing damage possible about a third of the time - and it is an option available to everybody. Harakani

Re: Weapon not up to the Armor Haymaker. As I recall, basic maneuvers add on a 1:1 basis. 1d6K shortsword gets +5DC (to make doubling) meaning 2d6K. Average roll will do 7 body. Of course it is almost certain suicide to use it if the guy can strike back, but it makes a wonderful attack when/if he is stunned. Or perhaps your lightly armed thieves would prefer move through? If high level, there are numerous talents that can help, like deadly blow. Harakani

Re: Stat Inflation Strength is too useful Either A) allow high strength concept characters to buy >20 str (maybe 25, or 30) lower NCM C) Increase the costs of STR D) Use Tricks characters D typically represents strength with advantages and disadvantages, sich as "Only for Encumberance Penalties", "Does not increase Lifting Strength", "only for strength versus strength contests" and so on. Basically, low powered Brick Tricks. Some of my favourites are "Only to increase casual strength" and "Only to avoid Encumberance" - they'll make a character look stronger without breakign game - consider them as talents. The high strength character can now spend more points on strength. Another cool thing for the "giant" characters (7ft+) is to work out a package deal similar to a bit of growth, and allow them not to pay NCM for their increased strength; ie they are expected to be 21+ Harakani

Re: FYI: why more people aren't playing HERO (rpg.net) Steve's "Teach Yourself The Hero System" sounds like a great idea, and like it covers pretty much everything I thought of. I'm prepared to trust Steve on this one and see what he does... but hey... my ramblings are below. Feel free to skip 'em. Firstly, Hero seems to appeal to people who GM. No idea why. There are exceptions, but nearly everyone I know who has become interested in hero is a GM. If there was a Fantasy game on the market, I would expect it to have a list of weapons. and Feat/Talent thingies. If I liked the game and the game had an expansion for making new, balanced weapons and new & balanced Feat/Talents, then I would buy that expansion. Hero can do this. I'm not sure if Fantasy Hero is such a great idea for a starting system though, precisely because there are SO MANY fantasy games. So... Something like a Teen Mutant Hero (Powersuits also seem to resonate well for some reason) might be good. Break it up as follows... Character Creation Make HEAVY use of package deals (people UNDERSTAND package deals) Provide a bunch of pre-made powers (little mini USPD). Try to go rules lite where possible. Include the rules for each power IN the power description, but add flavour text as well. Idea is that someone can make a character with only a few choices and a little customisation. Rules Provide a summary of the rules. Set it up so as much as possible can be photocopied out of the book as tables. Turn off a lot of the optional rules. Provide flowcharts. I know I summarise entire powers + combat flowchart onto little CCG cards, so it can be done. The basic rules of the hero system ARE simple. If a rule is unlikely to come up, provide a simplification of it. Campaign Provide a sample campaign... maybe an outline of the school, and a few adventures, plus a few adventure seeds. Provide a few sample bad guys (preferrably ones where powers could be swapped out with the powers section to make them different). Extra I love the idea someone had of a free .pdf that just lists all the powers etc in the book and EXACTLY how they were built. Have sections from the designers on the decisions they made, optional rules they ignored and so forth. This would be for the people going from the sample game to full blown hero. I'm worried that putting it in a book might make the book too scary. Have a section on this site with extra characters, maybe extra powers. Marketing The book can stand alone (just). Sidekick is heavily recommended for the GM, and becomes a sort of DMG. The USPD effectively becomes an expansion/splat book of powers. CKC etc becomes a monster's manual. CU/MC become the setting books for "outside the school". Finally, H5r becomes the sort of "end of all things"; the rules to create your own books. Problems... This book will not appeal to the standard hero gamers. We'd rather build it ourselves. Heck, if we were allowed, we probably WOULD build it ourselves. Trick would be building something with enough atmosphere to make people want to play it. The Genre This will be a really important question, but teen hero seems like a good one as it plays to an area hero is very strong (Champions). I must admit, I'm aiming this at me about the age I first started playing Champions. Bearing that in mind... Hopefully a teenage superhero game would resonate well with younger readers. When they want extra options (and they will) hopefully they will turn to the "pre-built" books; especially USPD. Eventually they are going to want to go with 5er because they have little time and a lot of money. Younger readers are probably also more likely to try to run a crossover game. Powersuits might be a good second choice because it seems a natural fit for a points buy system ("this armour can hold up to 100 points of weapons and 50 points of equipment" sorta thing) Harakani

Re: Speeding things up Other advice I have taken (and some of this is reiterating what other people said here, but hey, it means two people found it useful) * Try to minimise optional rules. Eg the hit location table is great, but it is an extra roll and an extra lookup. * Try to minimise lookups and rolls. Try to streamline how many lookups and rolls you have to make, especially for commonly used attacks or powers. if someone wants 4 types of armour with different activation rolls, just say no. * Print a character sheet with a lot of the combat maneuvers and options on it. * I have little index cards with summaries of wierd rules (like presence attacks, mind control and so forth) this makes them easier to look up, and I have a page ref on the cards if necessary. * Learn the rules. Failing that, learn to fake it. * Learn to count dice; group by 10s, or look for 1's and 6's (depending on what you are looking for). Then make your players learn. * Killing attacks are your friend. A 12 DC attack only needs 5 dice rolled... 4 for the Body and 1 for the Stun. Multiplication is faster than addition. if it wasn't for having to train people in how to add DCs, I'd consider house ruling normal attacks to use dice like killing attacks. * Increase Standard Deviation. 4 attacks that all do 30 +/-5 STUN are nowhere near as effective at taking someone down as 4 attacks that do 30 +/-30 STUN. Highly random damage (like say, the stun lottery) is far more likely to put a lot of damage past armour, causing a K/O or at least a Stunned. Plus it is more cinematic (attacks are either pointless or earthshaking... you don't nickel-and-dime someone to death). Be warned this will bug your players. * Conversely, the standard effect rules are your friend. If you don't want the drama of players in terror of dice rolls, use standard effect. A good candidate for these are things like adjustment powers; don't write down "this drain drains 2d6 CP of Ego", write it "drains 3 Ego points". Another good candidate is any power that ignores defences, like NND. * If you can trust your players, make them do any jobs you can to speed things up... looking up rules, counting dice, helping new players, handling initiative... whatever. * EITHER Use a sketch map on A3 paper. That way people round the table can see it. Scale will be a bit rough though. *OR Use a grid map prepared BEFOREHAND with counters/minis for characters. *Work out what people find difficult, and change it. The best known example is OCV/DCV. People have trouble subtracting for some reason, so now I use: Defender's DCV is +10. Attacker rolls 3d6+OCV. If Attacker rolls > defender's DCV, attack is a hit. Addition and comparison are easier than subtraction. 10 is a very easy number to add. (Plus, people who've played D&D3e are used to this system.) Good Luck... Harakani

Re: Speeding things up An idea I got off these very boards is the "intiative deck". It is a bit complex, and takes up this post. If you don't like it, skip to the next post. I started using it in one game, and now use it in all my games. Idea was originally to get rid of the speed chart - wasn't intended to speed the game up, but I find it does have that effect. Oh, it also almost gets rid of the idea of Dex for init. Every character gets a number of cards equal to their SPD, shuffled into the deck. (I keep generic NPC cards, like "goon 1, SPD 1", "goon 1, SPD2". There is also a recovery card. I used to have segment cards, but they slow stuff down and none of my players use segment-based powers. I then hand this deck over to a player. The player shuffles the cards, and turns them over one by one. When a card is turned over, that character can take an action. If it is the recovery card, everyone recovers as per post-phase 12. Once the character has taken their action, their card goes to the "discard" pile. When all of the cards have been drawn, the Turn is over. The cards are shuffled and a new Turn begins. HOLDING Anyone can "hold" a card when it is drawn. There's no penalty, and they can use their action at any time another card is about to be drawn. If two characters want to use a held action at the same time, highest Dex goes first. The other action is considered to still be held (they don't have to use it next) If a player is holding an action card when their next card is drawn, they lose the card they are holding (but can hold the next card). If you are holding your card when the deck runs out, you can keep holding your card, but it is not shuffled into the deck. This is unfair to those who hold, I deliberately wanted to encourage people to act now, while keeping hold as a possibility. ABORTING you take your action now, but the next action of yours drawn (can even be on the next turn) is discarded - you use that action now. DELAYED EFFECT If the card takes an extra phase, you have to draw and use another action. If it takes an extra segment, (and you aren't using segments), then it is until your next action is drawn (but you do not use that action). This is the bit I am least happy with. EFFECTS The effects are No one knows when their next turn will be, so it is much harder to game the system. Characters sometimes get multiple actions in a row. This means (for instance) that if A stuns B, A may recover from being stunned, attack and attack again before B gets another action, even if they have the same SPD. This acts like the stun lottery and tends to shorten combats by increasing the standard deviation of damage. No one ever forgets their go. No one asks when their next go will be. People do not wander off because they are playing the brick in a party of speedsters and they just had their action. Harakani