Killer Shrike

When I'm being paid to do something, I deliver what the customer wants. Otherwise I do what I want, for my own reasons and enjoyment...if other people like what I've done and find value in it, that's a happy coincidence. So, my advice to you is to do what you enjoy doing. As it happens, I hosted a FantasyHero wiki for a handful of years and ultimately shuttered it despite the platform having accumulated a fair amount of content. The main reason was, while a few people did put up some content, the majority of the material came from me and at a certain point it stopped making sense to me to continue to host a platform for collaboration when almost no one was actually using it to collaborate. Hopefully you'll have a better experience.

I miss it as well; we had just gotten to the climax of Act 2, poised for the home stretch. And then...quarantine! I still suspect it is all merely a stratagem of Mr. Timothy Ledoux; the difference between fiction and reality are as naught to one such as he; the 4th wall is the least thing he has shattered in a long existence occupied by the ceaseless pursuit of unwholesome power. I have kept my hand in with Here There Be Monsters a bit in the interim however, slowly but surely chipping away at porting content. I finished porting the Zombie Apocalypse Vignette this weekend and am pretty happy with the results... Zombie Apocalypse

Athame Esbata Rita Sabbatha

It is a quality piece of software and definitely (more than) worth its $25 asking price IMO if you are either a GM or the type of player who likes just making characters for fun. It has what I consider to be a very mild learning curve (but I'm probably not the best gauge for that). It is a literal tabula rasa when first opened with no character selected... You get started by either selecting an existing character sheet from disk (if you have downloaded one, for instance) or by making a new character selected from the types of characters HD has the character creation rules for...such as 6e standard superheroic or heroic, or a vehicle, base, etc... Once you've picked the type of character, you are presented with a tabbed interface and you basically go from tab to tab filling in the parts of your character... Note: I changed my preferences to have the tabs go down the right side, so your UI would look slightly different out of the box (if i recall correctly they default to run across the top), but it should be equally as obvious what the tabs are regardless. ProTip: I would recommend saving your progress frequently as you go (Ctrl+S), as you should for any long form content development. When you want to see a character sheet for the character, using the "Current Character" menu option select an Export Template and Preview the character sheet. There are lots of export templates, targeting different options such as html (viewed / printed using your browser of choice), plain text, rtf, etc. Some come w/ HD and a lot more are available in the downloads section of this site, catering to different levels of verbosity, style preferences, and so on. When you are getting started, I would recommend a default HTML template and you can get more discerning later when you have a better idea of what you want. Personally, I use custom html templates nearly exclusively, but do sometimes output other formats when i have a particular reason to. After you have the basics down (make a standard character), HD offers a plethora of other features if you want or need to get fancier. You can turn a "character" into a template from which you can make future characters...for instance imagine you made a "Goblin" character representing a baseline gobbo for your setting...you could make it into a template from which you could later create a new specific named goblin and add on to the baseline...you could go further and have layers of templates that stack one upon the next, such as a baseline gobbo template, a gobbo champion template built on top of that, and a gobbo chief template built on top of that, layering up the abilities from one to the next. I think the utility of this is fairly obvious in settings where you have lots of stock characters which are mostly defined by what they are plus some individualization, such as most fantasy settings. You can also make or use prefabs, the term used by the app for lists of pre-made abilities, gear, etc, which can be loaded up and used conveniently within the tabs for skills, talents, powers, equipment to quickly whip up characters without having to copy and paste common effects (such as your campaign's definition of a long sword or basic fireball spell, etc) from one to next. Pro Tip: heavy use of prefabs can put memory pressure on the app, so I suggest loading up the ones you need when you need them. One of my favorite features is the ability to define and reuse custom campaign settings that can be applied to all characters in a given campaign. This is hugely convenient and offers a lot of flexibility and is worth checking out if you get that far. I use this feature very heavily; one of the first things I do when setting up a new campaign is go into HD and make a campaign ruleset and then bang out a few baseline characters for that campaign (such as average person, average PC, average "thug" opposition, etc) as part of the dialing in process. And so on...the summary is HD is basically an industrial grade power tool for Hero System character creation and management (an aspect of HD that doesn't get talked about as much but which is in my opinion its most significant value add), and like many power tools it does have its sharp edges and beginners traps, but it richly rewards time spent learning its nuances. ----------------------- My user preferences menu: I no longer remember what the defaults are, but I recommend upping the max RAM allowed to the app using the conveniently provided slider if you are in the habit of keeping a bunch of characters open (such as all of the PC's of your campaign and the current crop of NPC's / bad guys) and have them auto-load on HD start.

Duly noted. I'll take you up on that, and add you to my ignore list to save us both further similar misunderstandings.

So, I'm going to assume that you are legitimately just not understanding the mechanics rather than intentionally trolling, and therefore will try to explain it one more time. In Fantasy Hero (specifically), the rules recommend three dominant ways to model fear and a variant using NND; I copied and pasted the rules text above and I suggest reading them again. It indicates that it considers the most common (by far it goes on to add) approach is as a Drain vs Presence. In this game, the standard defense vs Drain is Power Defense (PowD). It further indicates that a particularly strong form of fear causing ability can be made by applying NND to a Drain vs PRE; such abilities would not be resisted by PowD. All NND abilities must define some kind of alternative defense which makes characters that have it immune to the ability. In this case the rules indicate the appropriate alternative defense is the Fearless Talent described in the same genre book. The other way the rules recommend handling it is as Mind Control. In this game, the standard defense vs Mind Control is Mental Defense (MD). Now, Fantasy Hero doesn't explicitly call this out, but one could also apply NND to such a Mind Control. It would work exactly the same as the Drain scenario however. Finally, Fantasy Hero also says one could use Change Environment to apply negative points of PRE to everyone in an area. This is actually pretty sketchy because to the best of my knowledge while Change Environment in the rules as written does allow negative modifiers to be applied to characteristic rolls it doesn't actually allow applying penalties to characteristics directly. Either Steve forgot that or he intended this as a special case. How such an ability would be resisted is, I suppose, left to GM's discretion; normally environmental effects are resisted using Life Support which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in this case (to me). If I were running Fantasy Hero using the rules as written in the genre book, I would probably treat this as being resisted by PowD. More likely, I wouldn't allow it at all as it seems inconsistent to me and sets a bad precedent by allowing CE to work like a unresisted Drain despite the main rulebook clearly saying that specific CE effects should not be as good as or better where they overlap with the mechanics of another Power. The unusual CE digression aside... -------------------------------------------------- TL;DR: You are perhaps imagining that the genre book is suggesting "the GM should pick one of these styles and then use that one style for all fear based effects". But it isn't; rather it is saying "in a fantasy setting run using the guidelines described in this genre book characters might have fear based abilities using any of these recommended mechanics". That means a player character adventuring in a campaign run using the genre book's recommendations could run into opponents with "fear" SFX abilities built using either Drain or Mind Control and potentially an NND version of at least one of them defined as working vs a specific Talent (Fearless). A player running a character in such a campaign could try to make their character resistant to fear in a variety of ways including buying more base PRE and EGO or PowD or MD...or they can simply buy the provided Fearless Talent which will afford them a modicum of protection against all opponents using fear causing abilities defined using the genre books recommendations. -------------------------------------------------- If we imagine the player character Fnord the Fighter and posit that Fnord's player Fred has taken the Fearless Talent when designing the character, and further imagine that Fred is piloting Fnord through an adventure run by a GM using Fantasy Hero and related supplements as written and observing the indicating modalities including how to model "fear and awe"...in the course of that adventure Fnord might encounter opponents using Mind Control based fear, Drain PRE based fear, and NND variants of Drain based fear. Fnord should prove to be less affected by such abilities than fellow party members who did not take the Fearless Talent. In fact, if the GM is honoring the indication within the Fearless Talent write up to treat it as an Absolute Effect offering outright immunity to fear then Fnord is not just less affected by such abilities, he is entirely unaffected by them. In the same thought experiment, lets imagine a different player character named Churl the Cleric played by Charlie. Churl does not have the Fearless Talent, but does have a custom ability called "Divine Aura" defined as 5 Mental Defense and 5 Power Defense. When Fnord and Churl are in the encounters with opponents using either Drain vs PRE or Mind Control based fear abilities, Churl does enjoy some protection against those abilities thanks to his MD and PowD. However versus those dastardly opponents using an NND variant Churl is out of luck as his Power Defense does not apply. But take heart! All is not tribulations for Churl...vs an opponent with a Drain vs DEX ability his Divine Aura offers him some protection while poor Fnord, fearless though he may be, is not so lucky. And so on; hopefully there is no need to grind through permutations here. -------------------------------------------------- Now, having said all of that in the vein of "if you are using the Fantasy Hero genre book", this is of course the Hero System and you don't have to use the genre books in part or whole if you don't want to. Personally, when I ran Fantasy Hero I tended to favor Limited bonus PRE and piggyback Presence Attacks for most "fear" type effects and reserved drains vs PRE and / or EGO for longer term and more serious "terror" type effects, Transforms to apply Psychological Limitations for mind bending / phobia inducing type of effects, and sometimes Mind Control to force a specific response / behavior in those affected (such as "run away and don't come back" or "drop the frightening object"). You of course are free to handle such abilities however you like in your own campaigns if you are the GM. If you are not the GM, ask your GM and they will let you know how they handle such abilities and what you might do to either make such an ability for your own character or make your character resistant to such abilities. It may so happen that your GM says "I do what it says in the Fantasy Hero genre book" in which case discussion of the Fearless Talent etc is relevant to you; otherwise it probably isn't.

You don't need instant change as a power; Activation of Powers already covers the ability to change for free if that is part of your SFX.

In your opinion. I'm not justifying anything. You stated your opinion and I countered with mine. I provide facts and examples to back up my opinion, you provide things like the following bizarre statements to back up yours... Well, if you think having the ability to select more than one output format in a character generation app is equivalent to your house being on fire... Uh huh. Yes, yes it is. I know that no one likes to admit that there are drawbacks to doing something manually without taking advantage of more advanced tools when they like doing it that way; branding modern technology as a problem does not make it go away however. At best, it shines light into ones own inability to keep up with the times. You are more than welcome to continue to grind out your characters by hand with pencil and paper, 1974 style. No one is coming to your house to take away your pencil and force you to use an app.

The problem with a "print button that says print" is the complexity and sheer number of different kinds of characters that can be made using the Hero System. Unlike some games where all characters have more or less the same structure and level of complexity, for instance. The export feature complements the "build virtually anything you can imagine" ethos of the Hero System, the differing needs of genres, vehicles, bases, computers, general aesthetics, desire to output data for use in combat managers or spreadsheets or to directly publish to forum software or a website, and so on. It's a feature. But sure, for Joe Average User with their one character for the one campaign they play in it is overkill. My general advice over the years is that HD is best for GM's and a small subset of players who are particularly keen on making characters in bulk. A consumer should always do whatever due diligence they feel is warranted before making a purchase. HD only costs $25 however, so the risk vs reward is pretty good there. As far as Dan S., I'm aware that some people have gotten their feathers ruffled here and there by his directness, but I have a different perspective. As an established software engineer, it is very unusual to directly interact with actual end users on a day to day basis. Even interacting with less technical colleagues gets irritating quickly for most developers. I've remained continuously amazed that he has the patience to do it at all. I would never do it; I'm a reasonably patient person but I'd rather walk a mile on broken glass than do direct technical support for a week much less the many years he's been helping people out on HD. So, different perspectives. I see the export functionality as a major feature, so I would never pretend that it isn't true. And I as far as the unheard of ability to get free technical support (from the principal engineer no less) for a $25 pay once app? Also seems like a feature to me.

I've been slinging code in some capacity or another on and off for 40 years, starting at age 5 on BASIC; did it as a hobby until my early 20's and entered the industry during the dot com era. I think Dan is of a similar vintage. I manage a large team of software engineers of different flavors, ranging in age from a bit older to me to fresh out of college with most being in their late 20's and 30's. You are not wrong; these new whippersnappers (so to speak) have no context for "how things used to be". But I think to an extent that is for the best. The field is evolving so rapidly and some part of that is due to not being too encumbered by tradition. Every now and then I or one of the older devs get to have a "wise old man person" moment and re-introduce an old idea or technique that is still relevant but most of the tech of the past has been obsoleted for good reason.

Sure, if you prefer to do it by hand that's all well and good. But I wouldn't want prospective players considering an HD purchase to get the idea that they need to program java plugins to use it or something along those lines.

Could you cite an example or two, drop a link perhaps? Well, the intent wasn't to insult you but to figure out what you mean. Your assertion seems odd to me because I've been using HD for many years and while I know C, C++, C#, Rust, and a variety of other programming languages, I don't program in Java (I can read it much like many spanish speakers can read portuguese but I don't program in it) and more to the point I've written zero lines of custom code for HD and yet still somehow manage to use it for a wide variety of things. But, if you'd rather feel insulted than engage in a dialogue that is of course your prerogative.

As far as "technobabble", I make a good living as a software engineer so my idea of "technobabble" is likely a bit different than yours. "Export..." is a pretty common concept...particularly in the era when HD was introduced. Even those touting using spreadsheet software as their character creators of choice might be familiar w/ "export to csv" or "export to..." and while I don't have perfect recall of the software that proceeded HD (Creation Workshop) I do know it had a facility to select custom print templates as well because I wrote a few of them. So, I don't think "Export" having something to do with outputting character data to other formats it is too much of a logical leap and I think it was reasonable for Dan to choose that terminology for what is in my opinion one of the core features and primary value propositions of HD. All of the character sheets on my site are exported directly from HD using various custom formats, for instance. Personally, I have used HD more like a desktop publishing tool, utilizing the export format feature. It's a best-in-class feature in my opinion. Pro tip: you can use CTRL+E to export the file to disc or ALT+E to immediately preview it...in the case of an html export template this will pop up a tab in your browser of choice. I do this a lot; I typically do a visual check of the character and then (if I want a hard copy) print it using my browser of choice's print dialog. Super easy. Since my browser of choice also supports print as PDF, I can also save or print to PDF if I wish for those who prefer that format. Murgatroyd.pdf However, I prefer to directly publish them as web pages to my site (such as this slightly earlier version of this same character: http://www.killershrike.com/HereThereBeMonsters/Characters/Durzan/Murgatroyd/222/Murgatroyd.HTML ) ----------------------------------- As far as the user forums for HD are concerned, I'm sorry if you've had a bad experience but my experience has been different. The few times I've had comments, questions, or a request for feature over the years I've been able to get speedy resolution. But, if you don't want to use the forum so be it...fortunately the software documentation is very thorough. Specifically on the subject of export templates, in the preamble it mentions them specifically as so: And printing characters gets a full page and a half of documentation starting on pg 31 and all of page 32, under the heading "Previewing, Exporting, And Printing A Character". If you don't find the value proposition of HD to be meaningful enough to you, I respect that. And I get that you appear to have a grievance / had a bad experience with the app or the user forums or some combination thereof. But I can't really empathize as the thing you cite as a problem (exporting) seems pretty straightforward to me.

I'm not sure what you mean "you have to stop and learn Java". HD is written in Java but it's an executable GUI; you don't need to learn Java to use it any more than you need to learn any programming language that any particular application you use is written in. Maybe you mean "figure out how to install the java runtime on my computer"?

Just a joke, man. 🤷‍♂️ Personally, I've been using HD since the early days of its life, and while there have been a few glitches here and there I've never had a significant problem w/ it. As a more serious answer, I used earlier products before HD came along, Hero Maker and Creation Workshop if memory serves, and made some export templates for CW...so it has been a very long time since I wrote Hero System characters out by hand. Even in its first version HD blew the doors off of CW for me; I switched and never looked back.

I'm a heavy user of Hero Designer. I can of course do it by hand, but I value my time and also don't hate myself.

+1

RAW, I would say "No". The rules say: For this Limitation to be valid, the character must have some difficulty changing forms — the change must take at least a Full Phase, if not longer (during which the character can do nothing else) So, it seems clear to me that it is intended to take time and fully occupy the character. A GM might be lenient and interpret it differently, either across the board or on a case by case basis depending on SFX. Otherwise you could take steps to mitigate your risk before activating the change, or potentially stop-gap the momentary weakness by taking a defensive ability with the Lim "only while transitioning between forms" if it bothered you enough.

So, technically a PRE Attack is an "Action that take no time", so you can combine one with any other Action if you like. The Fantasy Hero suggestion to do so in conjunction w/ Drain vs PRE to simulate a "fear" SFX just piggybacks that core rule.

Which is probably why the Fearless talent that sparked the discussion also includes Mental Defense, and the NND defense listed is that same talent. 🤨

As it happens it is a "typical construction" as presented in Fantasy Hero supplements, as is the corresponding Fearless Talent someone called out upstream which uses Power Defense from which the question "why Power Defense" emerged. -------------- Fantasy Hero 5e p359 FEAR AND AWE In Fantasy settings, some areas are so Evil or disturbing that they inflict fear on characters in them; similarly, many Evil creatures can inspire fear in people. On the other hand, some beings of power and might inspire awe instead. While awe is a standard Presence Attack in most situations, some special considerations apply to fear. In HERO System terms, there are three primary ways to create a fear effect. The first, and by far the most common, is Drain PRE. Since PRE represents a character’s bravery, confidence, bearing, and resistance to shock and intimidation, reducing it inspires fear in him and/or makes him more susceptible to feelings of fright. If appropriate, you should assume that the Drain PRE power automatically includes a Presence Attack saying “run away in fear!” or the like. The Presence Attack occurs after the Drain applies, and is resolved in the usual fashion against the character’s diminished PRE (generally you should not use EGO in this situation). If a character or monster can inspire fear in anyone near him, you can buy this as a Drain PRE Damage Shield, Area Of Effect — anyone who enters the area suffers the effect, and the longer they remain within it, the more terrified they become. For a fear that virtually any character will feel, apply the No Normal Defense Advantage to the Drain PRE (the defense is the Fearless Talent, page 106). Second, you could build a fear attack as Mind Control with the Limitation Set Effect (create fear; -1). Third, you could use Change Environment to create an effect that removes points of PRE, creating an effect similar to a small Drain PRE over a large area. -------------- It is worth noting that I was only providing an answer to the "why model Fear as Drain PRE / why model fearlessness as Power Defense?" question, rather than advocating for such an approach.

It's due to a quirk of the system; draining a character to 0 PRE causes them to run away from danger on a forced 9- roll made each phase they are in a threatening situation. Drains work against Power Defense by default, so there you have it. A character with PRE 0 must succeed with a PRE Roll each Phase to act offensively or remain in the face of anything even remotely threatening. If he fails the roll, he flees.

Not necessarily "regularly"...in the monster of the week sort of set up you might go a couple sessions and get little or no use out of it, but then get into encounters with things that rely heavily on fear / existential horror as part of their gimmick and get a ton of utility out of it all at once.

In my Here There Be Monsters setting (which is a lower powered urban fantasy setting) I allow the following Talent: Fear Resistance (The effect of all fear and intimidation based abilities (including PRE Attacks) is halved vs this character.); Real Cost: 10 points The price is arbitrarily scaled to the point range of the campaign and its perceived general utility in that campaign.

Ya, I did the template thing for many years; many many package deals...for instance Fantasy http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/racePackages.aspx http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Content/PackageDeals/professionPackage.aspx?profession=all and so on. And also a form of rapid character creation where you just slam a few templates together maybe do a fit & finish pass, and go ( such as: http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Content/CharacterTemplates/CharacterTemplates.aspx ) I kind of was an innovator in that space, so to speak. It works, but it isn't much different than a pregen...it's pregen'd chunks (in the form of packages), and totally generic so you are still left with the burden of describing the setting, and it is also possible that just mixing and matching a bunch of packages still wont result in a competitive or interesting character and still eats up time. Yes, exactly. Taking a pre-gen and tweaking a few things around (fit & finish) or re-skinning (new name, new picture, tweaked bg) is quick and easy. In fact several memorable PC's of campaigns in more recent years started off in exactly that way. In my current (on hiatus due to quarantine) campaign three out of the six PCs were pre-gens and another was basically a re-skin of a pre-gen. 🤷‍♂️