Old Man

I've been looking for that book for aeons, but it's been out of print for a while and the only times I've found it online it was vastly overpriced (approx. US$60). Bah.

Traditionally, the D&D gods and demi-gods had immunity to a lot of the instant kill stuff. A high enough CON in D&D gave you immunity to poisons and stuff. In theory, if you really wanted an instant kill, you just have to hit the guy hard enough with whatever special effect you want.

It took a couple days for the group to fully recover and get equipment repaired. If the tanning shop and smithy hadn't burned down, the work might have been faster. During this time, Lavenus and Macarrandir found two people interested in actions against the muskies. Zin, a travelling Manling entertainer; and Chip, a Vashon priest in exile. The townspeople were still clearing the debris from the fires as the new group set off through the burned section of wall. They had not gone 50 yards before Lavenus stopped. "I have to go back." Ignoring the questioning remarks, he turned around and went back towards the town. He called, "I'll be back soon, don't worry." Needless to say, they didn't worry. After half an hour of waiting, they still didn't worry, they started to get irritated. Mac was about to charge back to town and drag Lavenus back by the horns when they spotted a figure approaching. Neither Zin nor Chip recognised the man for what he was, even though his clothes, the pale skin, the sunken eyes and skull decorations gave it away. Yor was a little surprised to see the black clad necromancer. "Greetings," Aleister said "we still hunting muskies?" "We were told you were helping the muskies, not killing them." Mac mildly accused. "I didn't think it was true, but we haven't seen you for days." "Your friend, the stone-man told us he saw you giving aid to the ones that raided the town." Yor commented. "You haven't been praticing evil necromany have you?" He glared. "No, no," Aleister said in an offhanded manner "I was fighting off a nasal slime demon. It took longer than expected. So, what happened to Lavenus? "That bastard probably went to take another bath. Let's get going already." With that, Macarrandir took off at a trot, following the light trail into the forest.

I'll agree, the game itself is pretty lacking but the worlds and backgrounds are pretty good. I know some people that enjoy the Darksun setting. I HATE the Dragonlance setting primarily due to Kender. If I had to play in a campaign, I would take Extreme Hatred of Kender 20 pts as a Disad.

The question is, how do you make it so the "IT" moves to another person.

http://www.thewarp.net/war/tiger/ Try looking there

I've found plain old 75% damage reduction to be good enough to make a character nigh invincible, especially if combined with an average level of regular defenses. If you have a 20/20 force field and 75% DR, on average you take six stun from a 12d6 EB and eleven stun from a 20d6 EB. You never have to worry about being stunned. Even a critical hit from an 8d6K, enough to outright kill anyone else, inflicts just seven body and 55 stun.

I understand WillS's issue. There's this number on the character sheet that defines how much time the player gets to spend playing the game. As long as you're within one or two SPD points of the average it's not usually that much of a problem. That said, Hero combat is pretty complex, and it will slow down unless everyone at the table is ready to go when their action comes up. At that point they should know what it is they're going to do--in any game, and in Hero especially, it is really not acceptable for any player to sit there trying to decide what to do when his phase comes up.

What Shadowpup said. I'd go with: 6d6 RKA (90) only damages living creatures (-1/4) all or nothing (-1) activation roll (based on target CON) (-1/2) You can't ordinarily do this with Major Transform, which explicitly can't be used to kill things (though I never understood why not). Ideally your Finger of Death ought to be AE 1 hex (to handwave the lack of a to-hit roll) and NND, but of course now you're way over 100 active points. Which is how it should be.

There are some pros and cons, I think, between 4th and 5th. 5th is a much meatier book. Plenty of examples, much clearer power and skill descriptions, some rules changes that needed to be made (and a few that really shoudn't have). 5th is a much denser book. 4th, however, had better layout. I have the damnedest time finding things in the 5th ed book, not because it's disorganized, but because not much effort went into setting sections apart from each other. Maybe my eyesight is just getting worse, but I never had any trouble instantly finding the paragraph I wanted in the BBB; in Fred, I've had trouble even picking out the cost breakdown that's supposed to be at the end of each power description. 4th also had much better artwork--none of this computer-rendered mannequin crap that seems to be all the rage in gaming circles today. This last, of course, is a matter of opinion.

No, they're completely different. Just compare the weapon charts. Str Min rules have gone from formulaic to arbitrary, not that the 4th ed. formula was all that great. And don't even get me started on the useless "real weapon" limitation, which will cause more problems than it solves. That might work. The problem really is one that all 'universal' systems have, i.e. that a given power simply isn't going to be worth the same from one genre to the next. For the most part Hero powers are costed pretty well, but there are a couple that need to be reevaluated. This sort of rolls into the power-cost problem I have above. STR is a good deal in Champions campaigns, but in FH it's way too cheap for the stat that defines everyone's damage, as well as figured stats, and (in 5th) how high your defenses are. I'm not thinkng of combat here, I'm thinking of reworking the skill rules so that each stat point means something. Suppose INT skills were based on INT or less instead of 9+(INT/5). Characters with INT > 23 are exceedingly rare even in Champions. The present bleeding system is hard to use. 1st ed FH, frankly, had the best bleeding rules--bleed 1d6NND Does Body for each 5 Body of the wound; a 1 reduces bleeding, a 6 increases it. Don't forget to buy Paramedic skill.

Magic always works, but the player is going to get suspicious when all the enemy wizards throw STR suppress and AP/Penetrating RKAs, yet never throw AE DEX drains or RKA explosions...

Penalties for movement are already in the 5th encumbrance rules "The enemy shaman's hands begin to glow while he utters words of power to his totem. Armored guy is the target for his Weakness Spell (3d6 Suppress STR)."

Re: Re: SPEED Freaks Well considering that the GM limited SPD to 5 then the world's fastest man would be SPD 5. I think WillS should talk to his GM and maybe his group about this. If the fastest SPD that the GM is allowing is now 6, then any character with SPD 6 better damn well have it justified because that will be the fastest character in the universe.

Finger of Death, maybe not, Power Word Kill probably. Power Word Kill requires sound and is short ranged. In addition to that, it is the weakest of the Power Words. Yeah sure it kills instantly but it affects the lowest amount of hp compared to the others (about 60 hp). Basically, it's a 6d6 RKA, All or Nothing.

Darnit, you're right. I was about to suggest a 20d6 Suppress BODY. Yamo, you should be ashamed of yourself for asking this question I would have to go with the Transform. It really is the only way to do it as worded. Of course, most of the things in D&D that cause Save vs Death are prevented in Hero with a mere 10 pts or so (LS: Immunity to Poison, etc)

1. Fix the weapon and armor rules so that they're at least sort of balanced, rather than the broken crap that came in Fred. 2. Change some of the power costs to better facilitate heroic level games. Flight and force field are way, way, way too cheap. Drains and transfers are too expensive. 3. Bite the bullet and change the characteristics costs to balance STR and DEX at the very least. Personally I'd like to see DEX broken up into at least two different stats, e.g. 'agility' and 'coordination'. 4. Fix the skill system to allow finer grain at heroic levels. DEX is the only stat where each point really matters. Other stats (such as INT) have about four levels of granularity. 5. Fix the bleeding rules. 6. Fix Damage Shield.

Gear Kreig is supposed to be Pulpish too but I know nothing about it. http://www.dp9.com/Worlds/GK.htm

I agree, don't change the basic costs of anything. Some things may be "over powered" for this genre, but things like that should be handled by the GM.

Deaming themselves fit enough to travel, the three puds, started on their way back to Cowscrossing. The sun set while they were still a good distance away, but there was enough moonlight to see by. As they got closer to the town, they saw an ominous glow in the sky. Even Yor who was lacking in worldly experience knew the signs of a large fire. All of them dashed forward to see what was wrong, any large fire in a town was a bad thing. Yor and Mac outpaced the much slower Lavenus and were the first to see several parts of the town in flames. Four more hands wouldn't do much for putting out the flames, so they did what they could for the wounded. Sadly to say there were many. From the scores of barbs scattered around the town, they guessed correctly that muskies had raided while they were gone. Most of the militia had been wiped out and carried off before the muskies were "driven away". Macarrandir knew a little about musky culture, and thought it was more probable that the muskies had more food than they could carry so they left. It took hours before the last flames burned out, the last wound bandaged. Looking over the damage, Mac approached one of the militia men. "You're telling me that a score of muskies tromped into town, burned down five houses, the leather worker's shop and the smithy, and they got away?" he asked. "No no sir, we got three of them! Our losses were higher than expected but we won!" the new militia captain pronounced. "Captain, how many people were in the militia before the raid?" Thinking for a short while he answered "30 I think....yes, 30." Shaking his head, the skinny Wythir walked away. Joining up with Yor, he said "How is it that these people think they won? They inflicted 3 casualties, and suffered 20 of their own!" Yor shrugged, not knowing what to say and lead Mac to the bath house to wash off the blood and ash. As they made their way down the main street, a familiar stone skinned man pointed an accusing finger. "You! you were with that necromancer. Why did you let him do this to the town? Aleister the Evil was with the muskies, I saw him!" The shock showed on their faces and more than a little disturbed, Yor and Mac continued on their way. Almost as expected, Lavenus was already soaking in one of the large wooden tubs. Looking at his ash covered companions he smiled, "Is the fire out? All those ashes and sparks were terrible on my fur..." Yor was easily able to restrain the much weaker Wythir. They all had a long day (and night) and all needed to get clean and rested.

Yor bounded through the forest ignoring the whipping branches and pulling vines. Bulling his way into the dog handler, he managed to knock it off it's feet. The creature was shaken but still alive. With an angry stomp, the monk crushed it's windpipe before it could get up. Macarrandir the Proud had just enough time to drop his bow and draw his swords before he was assaulted by the killer dogs. Wythir are known for their speed and agility, Mac used both to keep the dogs at bay. Not wanting to harm the dogs, the atlatl armed muskies launched a pair of darts towards Yor, but could not hit the large nimble man. Almost as an afterthought, Yor backhanded the musky closest to him crushing it's face and sending shards of bone into it's brain. Saying another small prayer to Saint Sebastian, he leapt with the Grace of God into the middle of the throwing muskies. The dogs were persistant in their attacks against Mac. One of them seeming to make a sacrifice of itself in order to make an openning for the other. With swards lodged in the chest and leg, one dog fell while the other latched onto the Wythir's thigh. The dog swallowed a chunk of flesh as Mac fell to the ground bleeding. Yor saw both of his companions fall and his vision turned slightly pink. A rapid combination of punches and kicks dropped yet another musky. The last badger-man tried to defend itself but was totally outclassed. Now it was just Yor and a huge dog. The dog snarled while foam dripped down it's bloody jaws. As Yor advanced, the dog jumped on him and bit his arm. Yor gasped in pain while hammering the dog in the ribs. It look a little while for him to realize that the dog was no longer moving - it's jaws were locked on his arm. He was exhausted but checking on his companions was a priority. When he checked on Lavenus, the flies were just beginning to feast. In spite of the horrible wound tothe stomach, the Toth was still alive - barely. Singing praises to the All Father, Yor's hands began to glow with a golden light. As the healing energies flowed into The Most Pretty, the bleeding stopped and the wound began to close. Soon, the wound was nothing more than a pink scar. By the time Yor reached Macarrandir, he found the skinny man in a lot of pain but conscious and binding his own bleeding leg. Lavenus ignored the tenderness of his newly healed gut and made sure their enemies would never get up. He thought the scalps and coins he found were worth the pain. "We can only rest for a short while before heading back to town." Yor said "It probably be dark before we get there."

If they start with it, then they spend character points on it. For experience, I think it should only go into really special gear that you are awarding to them. Other than that, all gear magical or otherwise is just found/bought and used. There is no "bonding" requiring experience unless that's part of your campaign.

There is nothing inherently wrong with your idea. But for some reason it just doesn't "feel" right. Experience points ARE character points afterall. Hero doesn't work on the whole "you've earned 2,000 xp so you've gained a level, now you can spend 5 skill points." Hero is easier in that if you've earned 5 xp, you have 5 points to spend on your character. As the GM, you'd probably be better off giving xp in a normal fashion and then let the players know when they can spend it, and how much of it they can spend.

Earthdawn: A really neat setting hooked up to a system so byzantine I don't think I ever did figure out how to make a character or use magic. Shadow World: These varied wildly in quality. Some were pretty good (like Gethaena), and some were really, really bad. One example of the latter was "Journey to the Magic Isle", which, for five dollars, gave you two 'adventures' with a total of about four encounters. One of those was a thinly disguised Cthulhu mythos adventure badly transplanted into the Shadow World. Oh, and FH users of Shadow World suffered, since it was published back when ICE owned both FH and Rolemaster; often the FH stats in the modules were not usable, or not even there.

Is it really necessary to implement class-based restrictions on powers in the first place? It's your campaign, of course, but I personally see no reason why the wizard's healing should be more expensive than the priest's. It all has the same in-game effect. To go off on a tangent, it is my opinion that healing is too cheap in the first place.