Killer Shrike

For heroic / gritty levels of play, I normally apply a skill maxima across the board, which incidentally applies to magic systems that require skill rolls. Skill Maxima is one of the rows in my "Assumptions" checklist I use for various campaign settings; you can see it in detail along w/ links to various "paradigms" such as High / Epic / Low fantasy, and a worksheet for you to fill in your own if you wish, here: http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/campaignParadigms.aspx And here is an example from an actual campaign: Assumptions The following options are assumed to be in effect for this paradigm. Option Selected Option No NCM X NCM Powers Available O Powers Not Available Super Skills Available O No Super Skills Available Combat Luck Allowed X No Combat Luck Allowed No Deadly Blow Allowed O Deadly Blow Allowed Literacy Standard X Literacy Not Standard No Weapon Familiarity X Weapon Familiarity No Armor Familiarity X Armor Familiarity No Transport Familiarity X Transport Familiarity No Skill Maxima 14- Skill Maxima No STR Minima X STR Minima Superheroic CSL Conversion X Heroic CSL Conversion No Encumbrance X Encumbrance Knockback X Knockdown Generalized Damage X Hit Location Damage No Long Term Damage X Injury & Impairment Damage Normal Damage Default X Killing Damage Default No Long Term Endurance X Long Term Endurance END Cost = Active Points / 10 X END Cost = Active Points / 5 Equipment Costs Points X Equipment Doesn't Cost Points* Bases & Vehicles Cost Points X Bases / Vehicles Don't Cost Points* Followers Cost Points X Followers Don't Cost Points* *Resource Pools as described in the Starting Character guidelines are in effect O: By Origin X: Selected @Mr. RNote: as you are interested in using my Metier magic system, it might be relevant for you to know that I consider it to be a low to mid power level magic system and suggest it as being serviceable for Sword & Sorcery and Epic type settings.

This is the House Rule I've used for Dispel in various settings...works for me but YMMV: DISPEL (5e & 6e) DISPEL DICE OF EFFECT + DICE ROLL When used as per the rules, Dispel suffers from point disparities which generally result in a Dispel ability either being very narrowly defined and corner case, or so encumbered by advantages that the dice of effect are too low to be reasonably capable of affecting equivalently pointed target abilities. Due to this lack of teeth, Dispels are rarely ever actually taken by player characters, unless their cost can be subsumed into a Multipower or Variable Power Pool, and in general Dispels tend to go unused during play as they hardly ever work vs creditable opponents. This house rule allows a reasonably defined Dispel with some degree of Expanded Effect to still be viable vs abilities with equivalent Active Points. Dispel grants a base effect equal to the number of dice the character has in Dispel, plus the roll. Thus a 6d6 Dispel confers +6 points of automatic effect, while a 12d6 Dispel confers +12 points of automatic effect, and so on. ABORT TO DISPEL Even though Dispel has a defensive use (countering attacks before they can take effect), the Power is not flagged as a "Defensive" ability, and is flagged as an "Attack". The rules more generally allow a character to Abort to a defensive action, but does not allow characters to Abort to an attack. It has been a long standing house rule of mine that a character can abort to a Dispel if it would protect them from harm. A character with a relevant Dispel can Abort to Dispel an incoming attack that would harm them.

Doesn't have to be a Drain vs a Skill Roll. Penalties to Skill Rolls and how long or under what conditions they apply are entirely in GM's discretion land (see rules on Skill Modifiers, generally). Obviously scope, degree, and duration considerations apply here, as does consideration of combat vs non-combat impact. For instance a cumulative -1 penalty to Preciat that lasts for a Day per failed RSR: Preciat or a cumulative -1 penalty to all 3d6 resolutions made by the caster that lasts until the end of the current combat per failed RSR: Preciat might both be appropriate as a Minor Side Effect but have different ramifications. If one must mechanic absolutely every little thing however, 5th edition also offered the notion of Negative Skill Levels as a kind of No Range, Constant, END costing custom power that could be applied to a target to impose a skill penalty. One could model a 0 END Persistent version of such as an SE effect if one were so disposed. I likely wouldn't bother as I'm not uncomfortable using GM's discretion for this sort of thing, but it's an option.

So...I think you are referring to my Metier magic system, and the Preciat style specifically? http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/MagicSystems/metierStyles.aspx I'm going to assume the answer is yes, and proceed. Note: I'm going to refer to Side Effects as SE and Requires Skill Roll as RSR throughout to save typing. A few things: 1) In both 5e and 6e Minor SEs (such as what the Preciat style has) are 15 AP not 30 AP... 2) SE paired with an RSR occur when the skill roll is failed (unless the Always Occurs modifier to SE is also applied). In the case of Preciat and other Metier Styles that take a SE that is not also Always Occurs, the RSR is the corresponding required Metier Style skill, and thus the SE only occurs if that RSR fails. 3) You can do a lot of things with Side Effects, not just inflict damage. Personally, I like self-referential SE's which tie back to the thing that caused the SE; in the case of magic use diminishing the caster's ability to cast further magic has a nice feedback loop component. An obvious one is a temporary penalty to the Metier Style skill itself for a period of time...dialing the penalty amount and the unit of time to suit your preferences or the situation. For endurance using magic systems I liked to use a fatigue based model. I used Long Term Endurance rules generally in most of my Fantasy Hero campaigns, and piggy backed on that for magic systems that used END. But a Drain based option also works. Anyway, I describe both approaches in detail in the following document: http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/GeneralSpellRestrictions.aspx#SideEffects You could also define a cross-cutting ambient notion (such as ley lines or Darksun-like defilers, or what have you) and have SE do something like deplete the ambient magic of the local area for some period of time...you could go further and tie it into Change Environment to apply a flat penalty to something within the affected area. And so on. But, there's an entire section in the SE write up talking about all the various creative things one can bend SE to do for a reason. IMO "takes damage" is the least interesting / least creative / least useful option. If you put a little thought into it, you can use SE on a magic system or individual spell type effect to dial up the flavor and feel of that particular type of magic. 4) The GM is explicitly told they can adjust the impact of SE to suit their campaign. So, if even after considering the above points and possibly settling into a version of SE that isn't just "you take a lot of no-defense damage and maybe die", you still feel like SE is to punitive for your tastes...just turn the dial a bit to ratchet it down. This is how I approach universal "toolkit" type systems, and Hero in particular... I hope some part of this response is helpful, and I'm glad to hear people are still using my Fantasy Hero material...let me know if you encounter any specific things you have questions on and I'll try to answer them.

In my D&D 3e to Hero 5e conversion I settled on 15 points per "level" equivalent. http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Conversion3e/Conversion3eStep1.aspx I'm assuming you are referring to figureds as being "free" in 5e, while in 6e they are not but you get a commensurate # of starting points. That shouldn't really affect characters post initial creation; set the starting points as you see fit accommodating 6e's adjusted baseline, and after that things should proceed basically the same; the amount of XP earned per session didn't materially change between 5e & 6e and post character creation progression is basically unaltered between the two editions. As to something a bit more proactive, the approach that I've used for the past 37 years of gaming across every system I've ever played, GM'd, or had more than a passing interest in, is to just sit down and make characters for that game. There's no better way, IMO, to learn the ins and outs of a game than to simply make a lot of characters, perhaps running them thru little mini combats or challenges here and there, comparing them to sample characters and opposition, etc. Similarly when converting between game systems, the best approach is to have some goal in mind as to what you are trying to preserve from the source game and what aspects of the target game you feel will somehow improve the overall experience of gaming in the setting and concepts of the source material, and start making characters that have some meaning to you making sure to retain the essence of those characters while showing off the features of the target game system that you feel enhance, improve, or model those characters better than the source system was able to. You work within the constraints of the target system's balancing scaffolding (points in the Hero System, levels or careers or some other point buy mechanic in other systems, and so on), and find the sweet spot(s) wherein you can express the concepts and characters from the source material without overrunning the bounds of the target system. So, I would suggest you just sit down with some characters you want to convert into 6e and "just do it". After you are done, twiddle and tweak to align the characters to point bounds, look for patterns, etc, and settle on a scale that feels right to you. Personally, were I to sit down and redo my old 5e Fantasy material for Hero System 6e I would use the same general model I settled on for Here There Be Monsters, my urban fantasy setting, just replacing the modern gear list with a fantasy gear list (etc); it's 6e based already, the magic systems I defined for it work, the resource pool model I built it around works, and it's been played in enough to have the sharper edges worn down. Might be worth your attention.

Sorry, I missed this. I've not sat down to do the math, but I basically agree w/ eeprj24. If I were to sit down to possibly tweak the guidelines I would naively expect it to be basically a wash up front, and then just convert a character of each class at 1st, 10th, and 20th level using the conversion as is, and if I found that I was consistently coming up short on points (and by how many) then I would make an adjustment to the guidelines.

Ya, I make use of print and screen css media tags in my various export templates; such as:

If you are determined to have PDF's, you can use any of the html based exports for HD, and then "print to PDF" from a browser. Depending on which browser you use the exact labels will vary, but its pretty basic functionality to "print" targeting a PDF format which results in a pdf file being distilled. Joey Manegarm.pdf

Here's how I did it for my MetaCyber campaign back in the day: http://www.killershrike.com/MetaCyber/MetaCyberCharacters_BodyTech_Cybernetics_Skills.aspx

I own some of the game books and have (attempted) to read them, but just can't get into it. Bounced off multiple times.

Quite impressive. I hope to one day, towards the end of my life once the kids are up and out and so forth, construct for myself a Victorian library within which to while away my twilight years. You, sir, are an inspiration. Bravo! 👏

I used them all (and others) in a campaign setting back in the day _in theory_ but not all of them actually made an appearance "on camera" so to speak. Many of the example characters are of that setting, actually. Long story short, it is viable but exercise GM discretion as you go. You might also want to look at the Here There Be Monsters content as I reworked some of those magic systems (and introduced new ones) in that context. http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Origin_Mystic.aspx

Agreed. This was part of my 5th edition character creations guidelines for "Champions Universe" superheroes...were I to run a 6e supers campaign in the CU I would just update this and go. Setting is a separate Dimension For reference purposes, the Champions Universe setting as described in the 5th edition era as used by me can be referred to as CU5-KS1 and by the book Champions Universe can be referred to as CU5. The official Champions Universes of today (5th edition) and yesteryear (1st thru 4th edition) can be thought of as alternate dimensions in classic Comic Book style. A few key deviations between CU5 and the CU5-KS1 dimension: Magic is not the seed of all superpowers. The Champions went missing a year ago. No one seems to know where they went. This isn't necessarily a campaign plot point, I just wanted them out of the way so that the PC's can have the stage. Their base and other accoutrements are in the care of Dr. Silverback in the meantime. The smart chips used in MC are not generally known about by anyone, even most cops. Turakian Age, Valdorian Age, Terran Empire, Galactic Champions, and other published settings are not in the same timeline as CU5-KS1. Campaign morality is a little darker than CU proper. Not Iron Age dark, but a little grittier. People do get killed, and Killing attacks are used from time to time. Killing people as a hero will result in legal action and/or issues with other non-lethal heroes.

Thx for the reminder; my memory of earlier editions' minutia fades as the years roll by. I'll correct the response.

There's an example of a Aid + Drain combo power on page 197 of 6e, and the Advanced Players Guide II also talks briefly about Transfer type constructs in its section on Drain. I haven't looked at 5e or 5er in a long time but I would guess there's a fair chance that the one in 6e was copy & pasted from the 5e text and such an example can be found somewhere in the black & green era books as well. (edit: Transfer was still an official thing in 5e) It's also trivial to just add Transfer as a base Power to your 6e games if you want to; refer to the Creating New Powers section in the back of 6e vol 2. You can either port the ability directly over from an earlier edition and handwave it away or be a little more rigorous and build it back up from Drain + Aid as you prefer...it amounts to very little difference in the end. The Hero System is a toolkit system after all, not a holy text. It has an entire section in the rules describing how to change or expand the rules to use the building blocks it offers to model what you want. As far as something like the classic Rogue power, there is a multi-column write up for a Transference Touch ability in the back of the Champions Powers supplement. It's based on Multiform and Transform to get a more absolute / across the board effect rather than Drain and Aid. As with many things in the Hero System, there's more than one way to skin a cat. It might be a good pdf for you to pick up if you are getting back into the Hero System; the weird stuff chapter in the end in particular (where Transference Touch is provided) may be of interest to you. here's the preamble...