Cosmosemeritus

Re: What pre-5th Edition Hero books do you still use?

I mostly run a fantasy campaign, so much of my old 4th and pre-4th ed Champions stuff has been unused for quite a while, but if I ever get back in the Supers mood I'm sure many of those titles, like Road Kill, Mind Games, and Wrath of the Seven Horsemen, would be put to good use.

I still use my old Fantasy Hero Companions for ideas as well as the Hero System Almanac. The spirit rules in the Almanac make for some interesting adversaries.

Re: Probably not the right place, but...

Grats on the employment. Both sound like good positions (even if Corona smells like cows ;-) ).

Re: creating a new world using a new system

Hot Socrates on Plato action' date=' caught on film, sold to the highest bidder. Look for it on a newsstand near you![/quote']

 

Downloaded the torrent and already have it burned for the archives.

 

they actually called me a Hero whore last night! that fits I guess:sneaky:

 

I don't think the term is 'whore' if you don't get paid for it.

 

Unless of course you do get paid for gaming.... Now how did you accomplish that?

 

Steve so loved the game that he said "Law degree? Who needs it! I'll write HERO books for a living!"

 

Now THAT'S hard core.

 

And here I thought he did it to save his eternal soul. No matter the reason many appreciations to him.

Re: Quick Hero

Let me know if you continue to have problems. I could e-mail you a copy.

Not to worry. The problem lies within my PDF viewer, not your PDF or how its posted.

Re: creating a new world using a new system

Hrm, mistake one. Don't work on your first 'continent.' Work on your first 'city.' Think small, then explode outwards. You think big, you'll get bogged down. Just an FYI from many years of writing.

I have to disagree to a point, Thia. I feel that painting the background with broad brushstrokes helps set the color tone for the foreground details. (sorry the painting metaphor kinda got stuck in my output buffer).

I think its good to work from big to small, but only working on the gross generalities. Like Universe has gravity => Spherical planet with oceans and landmasses => General Geography of the continent of focus => climate and rough social ideas for the region => Now you have a foundation upon which to build your city. Then work outwards with the details.

Re: FH without Stun

That's cause its usually involved, one way or t'other.

Re: Turning Undead

that bad huh? hehe

Back to OP, does anyone remember the Spirit rules from the Hero System Almanac back-in-the-day? The shift spirit power seemed like a good way to build turn undead. But I never developed the idea as none of my players have ever expressed any interest in the ability. (What they do want to do takes enough of my time as it is:D ).

It used the idea that spirit occupied containers, so a corporeal undead was just a body being possessed by a spirit, usually bound to that body. Shift Spirit forcibly evicted the spirit from the container to the spirit plane. It worked a bit like a cumulative transform using EGO instead of Body to determine when the effect was enough to exact the change. When purchased as Turn Undead it was usually bought Area Effect, OAF, and requiring some kind of skil roll.

I haven't given much thought to the idea since moving on to 5E, but this thread made me remember this. Perhaps something similar could be constucted from the 5E ruleset?

Re: Quick Hero

I wasn't able to get the pdf open on my first try. I'll try again later as I'd like to see how you've approached this.

I tried this in the past (4th ed.) using a bunch of package deals. Essentially the player chose a racial package and a 'class' package and that spent most of their points, including characteristics. Multi-classing was done by having 'light' versions of the class packages and allowing the character to choose two of them.

I never actually required the purchasing of the class packages and after the players became more accustomed to the Hero System they stopped being used in their entirety. Since moving my game to 5th ed I haven't redone the packages as there hasn't been a demand yet.

Re: FH without Stun

Automotons don't get a break on the rpice of CON when they don't take STUN' date=' so why should PC's?[/quote']

 

Excellent point. I didn't even think of automatons when responding to the OP *slaps own forehead*. I blame the tequila.

Re: Magic System Question #1

You think I'm lying?

 

Look it up yourself, smart-mouth!

I have no doubts that page 153 of a book contains the phrase you quote. I call into question the identity of this wondrous tome of lore and your perception of it as the only real rulebook.

I asked for assistance locating the rule you mentioned, stating where I had already looked, in the hopes that you'd simply reply with a page number and the title of your reference source. If you had, not only would I have thanked you for the information, I would have been better informed as to which version of what ruleset you were using and thus been better equipped to respond to your other posts in a helpful manner. Instead, not only do you omit the title, but you also insultingly cast doubts upon the validity of my source material.

Now I don't really care if you're using 4th Ed Champions, 3rd Ed AD&D, SJ's Gurps, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mechanics as your real rulebook. It doesn't matter. We're here to discuss a game, and in the process of sharing our ideas we learn from each other. If you really want to participate you should learn to respect the opinions of others, especially if you disagree with those opinions.

Respond as you will. After reading some of your other posts, especially your responses to criticism, I fear you may be on your way to becoming a forum troll. I hope you instead grow up just a teensy, tiny bit (we are gamers after all) and learn to respect others.

Re: 5d6 Hero

My proposed method for increasing the ganularity of these rolls (which I have posted before) is to use 3d12 (target number is a nice' date=' round 20), but 5d6 is also an interesting choice. (Or you could use 3d8 or 3d10.)[/quote']

 

Haven't worked out the figures, but I suspect that increasing the size of the dice used won't increase granularity in the same manner as increasing the number of dice. I think the distribution will differ. Is such a difference sizeable?

Re: What I learn playing a GM.

After skipping the last 4 pages of the thread...

I miss being a player.

Correlary:

When you are permitted to be a player again, don't back-seat GM.

Its just plain rude.

Re: Holding 'em Back

I don't want to be rude or anything' date=' but I have said this many times already. The effects of this power do not immobilize the target and there is nothing to break out of. In addition, nothing about how this power was described to me [i']forces[/i] targets to spend time dealing with the effect in any way.

If a character had an extremely low strength (and perhaps the mass to match) is it within your idea of the effect to still not immobilized the character?

Perhaps instead of a strength drain, increase their mass through a transform (OK OK I know I think tranforms solve anything ) however I'm half asleep and don't remember if this will have the desired effect on movement and strength output.

Re: Magic System Question #1

The real rulebook (not v5.5 ) p.153 in Transform And Other Powers "Characters cannot use Transform on themselves"

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight....

Re: Magic System Question #3

Good question. Could be done with Usable by Others and/or Area Effect I suppose. Something like:

Retrocognitive Clairsentience (Sight Group), Usable As Attack (x8 maximum weight per inanimate target; +1 3/4) (110 Active Points); One Sense Only, Normal Sight (-1/4), Fixed Perception Point (-1), Limited Power Recipients must remain within 2" of Target "photograph" (-1/4), Limited Power Whatever Spell Lims you use (+var)

44 CP not counting your 'normal' spell lims. I chose usable as an attack as the caster would have control over the clairsentience. If its not a big deal you could drop it down to Useable Simultaneously.

Re: FH without Stun

Hi!

 

How do you handle playing FH without using the Stun rules?

I don't. I wouldn't recomend it either. Stun is one of the major reasons to play Hero; Fantasy or otherwise.

I want to do get rid of stun cause it slows fights down, especially with unexperienced players. The decision is fixed.

I disagree with your reasoning, but I'll still try to help.

But now I ask myself how to handle:

- BODY < 0 Do characters die reaching 0 BODY, or do they keep going until they reach their negative BODY value?

In theory, the characters would keep going until they reach their negative body value.

- if the are below 0 BODY do they get handicaps? (like 1/2 OCV, DCV and movement for example?)

- what about hits causing a lot of damage at once (like when using Stun the victim is stunned because getting too much stun with one hit?)

Both of these can be done using the Impairing/Disabling options in the 5ER. And of course there is always the standard rule that a limb can only take 1/3 of a character's body in one hit before getting lopped clean off.

Would CON become a 1 pt characteristic then? Or could I use CON rolls every round for a character below 0 BODY, in order to keep going...

 

thanks for input!

Lets see... with Stun every 10 CP of Con gets you 5 Con, 1 ED, 1 Rec, 10 End, and 2(.5) Stun, which is 10 points of secondary characteristics. Without stun, that only drops to 8, which IMO isn't enough to lower the cost of Con. But if you are also not using Endurance and Recovery, then Con is barely even worth a single CP per point. IMO

Re: Turning Undead

Klaatu, something, something? A quick lexicon for the D&D (or SRD) impaired:

 

HD - Hit Dice

CR - Challenge Rating (used to determine difficulty of encounter)

SRD - Standard Reference Document (freely available d20 rules, which WotC extends in a proprietary way to create D&D).

Thanks Tetsuyama. My knowledge of D&D is about 15 years out of date.

Re: Magic System Question #1

: Nope. You can't Transform yourself.

I'm afraid I must have missed that one. I just scanned pages 237-241 5ER and didn't see this. Where is this mentioned?

Re: Turning Undead

If you want to keep the D&Dish undead turning stuff' date=' port over the Turn Resistance quality that many undead have: +X PRE, Only to Resist PRE Attacks (-Y). Also keep in mind that undead in D&D tend to have lots of hit dice relative to their CR, making turning less likely (i.e. a level 4 Cleric can expect to encounter undead with a CR close to his level, but it may have *many* more HD than that; a CR 4 Minotaur Zombie from the SRD has 12 HD, making it unturnable by a level 4 Cleric).[/quote']

 

I think he is speaking in words of some kind... You had me up until you started talking about 'CR' and 'SRD'.

Re: Turning Undead

I haven't had the subject pop up in a while but back in the day I used Shift Spirit from the Hero system Almanac. I included a limitation that made it require a presence attack to deliver.

I'm not sure how I'd do this in 5ER. Perhaps as an EGO Drain, 'doesn't affect usable EGO'; and give all affectible undead a phys lim 'destroyed when EGO reaches negative EGO value.'

Re: Divide by 3?

For my own campaign I spent much time wrangling with the issues of balancing power with point expenditure while also balancing spellcasters with non spellcasters with hybreds. I finally did away with CP cost for spells alltogether. Spellcasters pay for the ability to use magic as one or more talents, then pay for their character's aptitude as one or more skills. Skill roll penalties are determined by the unpaid real point cost of the spell and all spells are written by the GM, even if the PC is researching the spell.

The irony is that since working with the players to come up with this system, no one's yet made a spellcaster, so its still untested.

Re: Magic System Question #1

Any ideas what Limitation to use for "Only to learn"?

Since points aren't actually expended until the the power is acquired, a limitation that affects only the acquisition of the said power wouldn't limit the use or effectiveness of the power itself, thus be worth no points.

How about this? Require spellcasters to have a power that allows them to learn new spells. It could either be a major transform or a custom power (or something else). Have it take a long time, have side effects, cost cubic furlongs of endurance, and any other nasty limitations. If you use a transform, perhaps have it target the character's EGO or INT rather than Body.

Re: Magic System Question #1

That's... wow' date=' that's almost unreasonable. I think one of the laws of HERO is that unless you take Independent, your points are YOUR POINTS. Taking points away on a failed skill roll. That's. Blasphemy.[/quote']

 

True... true... but you can't deny that its painful. :-)

 

 

The real point is that if you want a process to be time consuming, arduous and painful to the characters (rather than the players), you should do this through story. From reading the OP's post it seems as if he's already planning on making the spells cost points. If the cost is high enough (and the rate of xp gain low enough) to discourage casual spell purchase, and if the GM imposes certain story elements the process of learning a new spell can be a difficult process and an enjoyable playing experience.

 

Make spell acquisition involve quests to distant lands or the acquisition of rare objects to be given to the spell instructor.

 

"Ere I deem you worthy to learn my secret Sigil of Sanctimonity, you must return to me the Sacred Solids of Socrates!"

Re: Magic System Question #1

I notice the use of the word painful in your description...

Painful to the character or painful to the player?

Not much is more painful to the player than the loss of CPs. In that vein you might consider having the learning process require the expenditure of points prior to a roll (skill-based or whatever). If the roll fails, the points go away; like dropping that independant focus while crossing the Bottomless Pits of Targasso.

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

A long time ago on a dinner table far, far away...

My best friend and I started an AD&D (1st ed, as it was later known) campaign using the boxed Greyhawk setting and the recently published T1-4 Module. We didn't play it often, mostly playing a modern-genre game using Palladium's Heroes Unlimited, but we did play it semi-regularly until I left for college about 3 years later.

When I returned home from college I brought 4th ed Hero with me and started the long and painful process of converting my old gaming group from their pagan d20 habits. Oh how they wailed when I threw their platonic solids in the crucible and burned their saving throw tables at the stake!

It was during this tumultuous time that our old Greyhawk game was re-born. Since the original campaign was based out of only a few supplements, much of the game world was devoid of detail. Over time the details have played themselves into being, with the players creating much of the campaign background themselves through the backgrounds and actions of their characters.

Today the campaign probably bears little resemblance to the published campaign world, but its ours and we're happy with it. Magic bears no resemblance to AD&D systems, having more in common with Gygax's Mythus Magic system. Gunpowder, but not guns, exists in the game though the PC's don't know from where it arrived.