Thia Halmades

Re: Daily Art Findings I have new wallpaper. And tomorrow, maybe more new wallpaper... And oh yeah: (DING) "You got repped!"

Re: Paladin help Who's children? His children? My children? I at least want to know if I was helpful.

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO Killer Shrike: Actually, I was wondering about that myself. You're simply suggesting that we boil it down to one core ability, then parse it out depending on how the individual wants to handle range, damage capacity, etc., yeah? That makes sense to me, and would simply adjust the terminology, instead of the point expenditure. Good enough. I may even explain it that way to the PCs. Thanks!

Re: Creatures: The Unseelie Court Well, if you were to write up The Fool, there are a few things to consider. First is look & feel; The Fool is... well, he's pretty much unkillable, and if slain, someone else simply rises to take his place (See: Fairy Tale, Feist). In the heirarchy as proposed by Shakespeare, which we have yet to deviate from, there's a pair of courts (Seelie, Unseelie) and a pair of rulers. They are Titania, the Fair, and Oberon, the Fool. Oberon comes in two basic flavors; the first is the constant, antler-headed form of sexual male domination. The virility, strength & (cough) attributes of the Stag, synonymous with the modern view of the horse for girls. Giving into this version of the Fool is succumbing to inescapable power; losing yourself in it is bliss, that ultimately leads to madness, loss, despair, insanity and death. Not because it wasn't great; that's the problem. It was so great that it snapped your mortal body, and you'll never be the same again. You'll spend the rest of your short, tortured life trying to recapture a feeling you should have never had. This is very well covered by Feist as well. However, no male figure should ever be without their own personal army. This is the Great Hunt, which rides out on Samhain and the Full Moon, and will pursue anyone, and anything. Nature itself trembles in fear of the Hunt, and those who see it have their hair driven white with terror. All of this can be alleviated by allying yourself with your local fae. In the event they come round, leave a bowl of milk outside your door. They won't come knockin'. But don't go outside. The Fool should be reflected mechanically as being similar in some ways to a Vampire; he eschews sunlight. He was banned from the Light and now cannot take it. His strength is nearly limitless, and in his own domain (he has a pocket dimension, the Unseelie Court) he can move about at will (limited TP). He can summon The Great Hunt on any Full Moon (followers, rare, specific circumstances) but likely has high-powered Fae followers always ready to do his bidding. The Fool doesn't use boom boom magic; he does wield a sword in one hand and holds his reigns in the other. He has a fatal weakness, his love/hatred for his wife, Titania. Oh, and he's stark raving mad. Hope that gives you a start, if you want to build him. And, of course, I invite The Fool himself to correct, adjust, add or dismiss anything I've written here, as he's done more research than I.

Re: Paladin help A Trade domain goes back to what I was saying before, about having your "Paladin" (sorry, I have to use my own framework for this, so if it's outside of your view, please steal what you need and toss the rest) should be an outstanding examplar of what this deity wants in its followers. So when I say "Paladin" I mean the following (for HERO terms) - - A follower of a deity who fulfills a warrior capacity, specifically in service to the deity and the advancement of the deities' goals and objectives. - A person who, through their devotion, has curried favor with a deity/higher power/themselves (some Paladins in d20 have no God, they simply have a higher calling, and don't try to explain why, they just do. I'm accounting for that here). Said devotion/calling grants them abilities above & beyond a Normal. - Those powers are built to support and forward the Gods/Personal agenda. In this instance, specifically, a deity of Trade. So what is "trade" for this deity, and how would one promote it? According to Mr. Dictionary, we can easily call trade "The exchange of goods, the buying & selling of commodities." Simple enough. So we can throw out 'tithe.' This Paladin, while in service to a higher deity, probably is naturally concerned with retirement. You can't kill monsters forever. You gots to get yours, I gots to get mine. Mission objectives for this servitor would include, but not be limited too: - Defense of a trade route under seige - Legal liason for new business partnerships - Bodyguards for higher-ranked tradesman who are in service to the God. - Bounty Hunters who ferret out snake oil salesmen. - Guarding a new road and attempts to foster positive alliances with hostile forces, a variation on the liason theme. - New trade works best in peacetime. Business is best during war. Guarding a supply line, engaging in battle while showing off fancy new weapons (gotta make a living) and defending scientists developing weapons, for trade to the home nation, to use in combat, would all fall under this view. Now we've got a basic job description, and we've covered peace & war. Paladins do their fair share of meting out justice, which would certainly cover any shaky deals, etc. They could act as mediators in disputes when people get cheated as easily (or possibly more efficiently) than a Cleric could, along with the backing of the church to enforce the law. They want trade to prosper, which means everyone is treated fairly (base alignment: LN). Healing wouldn't really apply here, yeah? Not their thing. You can give it to them, and their Divine, technically, so they might learn it, but I wouldn't grant it as an initial power. Smite Liar would be handy, though. Only usable in God's Service, must have been actively lied to, or have evidence that the person has lied (i.e., an evil tradesman, etc.). +2d6 Deadly Blow would be a good foundation. I like the flavor of that. Read Between the Lines: Detect Lie, requires concentration. No gestures, etc. Can only detect intentional lies; in other words, if the Paladin knows what they're hearing is false based on prior evidence, but the speaker believes what they're saying, we're judging what they tell from their POV, not "THE TRUTH." This actually helps, because the Paladin can easily ascertain whether the speaker is totally complicit or just a victim. Trade on Swift Wings: Improved speed. This class would also get a Mount. Trade on Swift Wings should confer to the mount as well. Time is money, baby. Silver Tongue: +2 to all rolls involving trade and commerce. "So I was in this dungeon, and came across this. Interested?" Skills should include Knowledge: Law, Area Knowledge: Trade Routes, Heraldry: Blazons & Shields (to recognize trade insignia, specific traders' and merchant's markers). I would grant them: Protection, Law, Truth, and if you have it, Time. Some more thoughts. Hope they help!

Re: Morwold: So how does a Fantasy World Come to Be? Oddly, I was going to quote the same bit that CQ did. Now I have to find something else to quote. *pause* Meh. It took a while, but y'all reached the point I would've made originally anyway; the only person who needs to know how the world came to be is you, the author. That's just the way the cookie crumbles for players sometimes. If you want to understand a group, then one of the things you look at are their creation mythos. Hence, my suggestion was, simply, allow each group (or faith, of barrel of monkeys) to have their own creation myth. Some of those people will take those creation myths and hold them very tightly, and claim the myth as their own. They will then inflict the myth on others, but never share it. These people will become grotesques (paraphrased from Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio). My point here being that if you're really concerned with creation myths, you might want to recall that religion is a major cause for war. In your original premise, that your Modern World is ripped all to **** because of said wars, than creation myths actually become quite important. Let's say you're a Gnome. You believe in the Pay Per View event, the Cataclysic Smackdown, the Wrestling Match between Herbert & Zane, which knocked the firmament around so badly it created craters from elbow drops, and mountains where the dirt collected outside of those craters. They sweated rivers, and their showers afterwards didn't drain properly and left behind the oceans. Well, Herb & Z felt bad having mussed up the otherwise pleasant turf on which they'd fought, and being benevolent wrestlers, introduced other Gods to the place and asked for some help fixing it. These other 8 Gods hung out for a bit, had some lunch, populated the planet, and most wandered off again. Your best friend is an Elf. He hates wrestling and thinks your idea is totally moronic. "ROUND 2! FIGHT!" Socities define themselves and thier personal self-view through their creation myths. If Goblins are little more than slaves, than it makes absolute and total sense for them to believe they were created that way; millenia of being the water boy to the much stronger races of the deep will do that for you. It doesn't occur to them to challenge it because they know it to be true. To mix in real world theology here for a minute (please hold flames, this is merely an example) many people believe the story of Adam & Eve to be literally true. That's how it happened, and no amount of evidence will ever convince them otherwise, because they know they're right. Who are we to disagree? The Hindus believe something else entirely, and some folk go with the Big Bang (we're here by accident, thus relieving us of the whole 'original sin' concept). These views change people's outlooks and how they handle certain situations, or what topics they'll approach. From a world construction stance (what works, why does it work?) this isn't quite as relevant. But considering that it's people and NPCs that make the world actually interactive, it becomes huge.

Re: Campaign idea! Wait... I remember 8 as being fairly straight forward, story telling wise. Am I forgetting something key? It's early I might be, you never know...

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO And we were having such a nice conversation, too. Killer Shrike: I'm new, so I really don't understand. Can you explain, in small words, what your changes would actually do to improve the game? I'm not going to be ready to start flipping out House Rules just yet, as I need to master RAW first, but I'm at least curious. i3ullseye: Good morning, thanks for joining the thread! Actually the transition bit I have down already. Interestingly enough, the mechanics you described for getting people invested in the story are very similar to the ones I already did for my primary campaign. That home-built world is the one which has actually caused the strife which made me want to switch from d20 to HERO. A few things that are worth mentioning in your initial review: d20 is a good system, but the fatal flaw is its gross lack of flexibility. Skills are limited in their application; you often find yourself struggling to match things up, but can't justify creating an all-new skill because (gasp) no one had ever taken it in the first place. All magic works one way and introducing a new spell requires groping around blindly in the dark, clinging to other spells as a guide post to how to build your new spell. You have to worry about duplication and toe-stepping. If you want a new magic system, you can't build one, because you have no LEGOs. You have to pretend you have LEGOs and then write down what you imagine your LEGOs would look like, if you had them to begin with, which you don't. Second, you are correct in that on paper, a PrC is a great way to introduce a 'special unit' (such as the one my PCs are in) but there are no rules to build a PrC. In HERO I can build a Class Package Deal, call it "Order of the Silver Crescent" and be golden from then on. Poof. If I want a new Elf package, I can build a new Elf package. If my 'Drae' only look like Drow, but have totally separate benefits, I can reflect that, too. I got more out of reading the first 50 or so pages of Fantasy Hero last night than I've gotten out of any racial supplement ever introduced for d20. And that's saying something. 50 pages vs. about 600? Yipes. Agreed: d20 books are pretty. And that's the best thing I can say about them, sad to tell. They're very, very pretty. They have beautiful hard back covers (CURSE YOU SOFTBACK!!) and gorgeous interior art work. Do you know what I don't care about? Artwork. It's great for flavor, but it isn't a primary trait I should be judging a book on. I say this because I don't pull books down from my shelf and show off the artwork to my friends. I pull books down from my shelf to look up a rule or roll a mechanic through my head. I'm really not in the marketing demographic here. I want my books to contain Killer, not Filler. Which isn't to say that d20 doesn't do some things very well. It does. It creates a strong, structured environment in which to introduce new players. It gives (at first blush, until you tinker with it) a simple combat structure that allows you to swing, manuever, and cast spells. It has a simply laid out magic system that only starts about two fights a session. It has excellent creature sourcebooks. All good. But all flawed, because (to invert KS's sig) it's all built on a flawed system. But those are my thoughts on it, and the whole reason I flipped in the first place. So I have some pent up bitterness.

Re: Paladin help Oh, Steve, forgot to mention this: Tales of Destiny II, yes?

Re: Paladin help Using Paladins as a military force is an ongoing theme in my primary campaign, and is one that is constantly revisited. The beef I have here comes from d20, not from a general opinion. In d20, when someone says "Chaotic Good Paladin!" I freak, because that's my sacred cow, yeah? No one likes it when people try and steal your sacred cow. However, in HERO, I have infinitely more options purely in terms of what the system can do. It changes from a lawful good code to "In service of the deity." Using your powers outside of the service to that deity means the powers don't work. Simple. You go against the grain often enough, the powers stop working until you Atone. Equally nice. As I said to mayapuppies, one of the big things for me is that when someone says "Paladin" I know what that means in D&D terms; I almost prefer Killer Shrike's terminology because it won't confuse me. But I agree with you on this, Susano, that the bulk of what we're talking about are Holy Soldiers; they may have special powers, they may just be fantatical devotees. But the defination is much broader. *basks in the flexibility of HERO*

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO Actually, terminology is one of the things that's intrinsically flawed with d20. For example, all SFX are pre-determined by the spell description. Cone of Cold. Lightning Bolt. Ball of Fire. Then a player decides to get cheeky and says "MY magic missile is really a dagger of ice!" This generates the well known and much feared long, slow stare from the DM (i.e., me). "It what now, sorry, I had crazy in my ears. Couldn't hear you properly. Ears full of crazy. It's rampant. What?" "MY magic missile is different, because I want it to be! HA HA!" "Er... okay, look. Tell you what. I don't care what the bloody thing looks like so long as the mechanics remain unchanged. A magic missile is a magic missile; if people try to determine what it is, they get the same roll as they would any other time. Fair enough?" "YAY! I'm different!" *long, suffering sigh* Then, just to make turnabout fair play, they introduced a Feat in Player's Guide to Faerun: Spell Thematics. ALL of your spells somehow resemble your theme; ice, smoke, exploding monkeys, whatever. As the player's was "ice" we went ahead and made them take the requisite feat, which conferred a nifty bonus. And the crowd wonders: "Nice anecdote. Where are you going with this?" AHA! Just wait, says I, and all will be clear! As previously established, visuals and mechanics are separable in D&D so long as you tool around with the SFX within reason. Makes sense. According to a friend of mine, visuals & mechanics within HERO are intrinsically linked, one is built from the other, the Reasoning Game Engine theory. Discuss.

Re: Paladin help Okay, so we're eschewing the general concept of 'Paladin' as defined by D&D and you're saying (if I read this right) - A Holy Warrior in service to a Higher Power. Plain & simple. Doesn't need to be LG, doesn't need to cast spells, Lay on Hands, none of that, yes? That would drastically change my response. I see the word "Paladin" and I have a knee-jerk reaction to it.

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO RNA = newbie shorthand for Ranged Normal Attack, or your basic EB. I was figuring based on RKAs, which is mostly what I'll be dealing with. However, I did follow your math, thanks!

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO Are you talking about an EB as an RKA, or as a RNA? Because I was under the impression that 15 CP = 1d6 Killing, regardless. I don't know yet what a good cap is going to be, but that thought crossed my mind. When we say 'Active Point' what, exactly, do we mean? What the power would cost prior to disads? Do we then concurrently figure in the various options until we generate a 'Real' cost, and we track the 'Active' cost to get an idea of game balance? For example, a friend of mine (in his own words) was an idiot and didn't put in an Active Point Cost and wound up with a hero who had a pair of stick shockers that only did stun, transferred to anyone else that touched them, bounced, and had a couple of other absurdities tacked on. He owned every fight he was in, hands down. I want to avoid that.

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO And to resolve one arm of this saga: I've spoken to the lovely gents over at RPG Shop and he's sending me a copy of FRED & my Combat Handbook. He didn't have a copy of FH in stock, so I'll have to get it elsewhere, but he was extremely fair in cutting me a deal for it and keeping my business. Props to Allen. If he posted, I'd give him rep. I don't generally endorse companies, but he treated me right, and deserves his props.

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO I've considered subscribing to Digital Hero but I'm such a snob when it comes to magazines and written material. I'm also very anti Dragon magazine, some of the worst balanced, poorly prepared material ever produced and printed. I'm sure that in part that's me and my view of what a game should be about, vs. the evolved board game that the game is written as, but the conflict still exists. However, you've yet to steer me wrong in any sense of the word, so if you recommend it, I'll subscribe to it and check it out. However, I reserve the right to lambast you if it fails to meet my exacting specifications. I've checked out Michael's site before, he recommended it earlier on, and there is some good material there, although I haven't really delved wholly into it yet. Picking up Ninja Hero may be a good plan; they still haven't shipped my books (ROAR), although I did grab copies of the Bestiary (which is surprisingly beefy) and MM&M. By tooling with my copy of HERO 4th I've managed to grasp the math required to cost out a power. When someone says "Active Power Cap" they're referring too the total number of points one can invest in the base power, before the modifiers and disads are tacked on, correct? So an APC of 50 means that you can't go tossing around 4d6 RKAs, because they cost 60 Active points, yes?

Re: Paladin help Before I post, query: When you say "Paladin" what, in non-game-terms, do you mean? i.e., what are you attempting to portray?

Re: Paladin help S'up, y'all. Mmm... Paladins. A topic I've had to defend with more verve and verse than your average attorney protecting an innocent man. You! Stop singing Billy Joel. Moving on. Truth & Business (or trade) can go together, especially in terms of making sure everyone is getting a fair shake. It wouldn't be on the Paladin to make a determination as to the worthiness of the deal, as much as it would be ensure that both parties are getting what they paid for. "Are you giving this man a bag of gold dust?" "Are you willing to pay (X)?" In a case where (X) is higher than market value, the Paladin of Trade wouldn't be concerned; they'd simply be ensuring that the trade was done properly and fairly. I can see where if the deity promotes trade and growth, than forces and groups such as Yakuza/Mafioso/Triads/etc. would be acting in direct competition to fair development of said trade. These things the Paladin would merrily stand against and draw his sword for. People who thumb down scales, who appraise things unfairly, there's so much crime & corruption within the confines of 'business' that it's fairly easy to see how this interpretation of the Paladin would never be out of work. On the idea of Seawards, aka, Merchant Marines, heck yes. It also depends on the commonality of Paladins, their squires, etc. Are they seen often? Are they as numerous as say a Knight Errant? Or is a Holy Warrior uncommon, and more often you have soldiers in the employ of the church and a clergy to direct them? You have multiple choices here in terms of approach. If they're rare, then you may appoint one as 'leader' (aka Champion) for a particular vessle and have them lead all others into combat. So I'm going to go against the grain here and say that in the promotion of healthy trade, by all means, the Paladin should be able to Detect Raw Deal.

Re: Campaign idea! Alice said some of this, and Beetle agreed with her, so I'm going to add my opinion in with theirs. While I like the general concept, it sounds like you're looking to plan out a vast amount of events, and giving the players minimal choice over what they're doing. That being said. - Most players don't like being 'told' what's going on in a flashback; this makes flashbacks tricky if have metagamers. They'll realize that they can't "die" because it's a flashback. You have a work around for this. Make the flashback tangibly real. In other words, instead of 'flashbacks' to what happened, they're closer to 'time twists' in which the PCs are literally reliving the events that led up to where they are. This promptly introduces two things: Fear of Death, and Death. I'm a firm believer in the theory that a PC should, especially during combat, be genuinely afraid for their lives. In premise one, 'flashback as story' the PCs could get bored and/or disgruntled. I have plot hounds, so while I wouldn't have that particular problem, I've seen flash backs screwed up before, so I strongly encourage going with 'flash back as relived reality.' Otherwise, in option two, they play it, but are immune. Think of it like The Matrix (another my world does not equal does not equal the real world setting conceit).

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO And that's what I get for not posting on the weekends. Good morning. *slurp* Mars needs women. Pass it on. While I was out at the local gaming store, I actually found a copy of FH - but no copies of FRED. I briefly considered snarking their copy of FH, but figured "Eh... it'll probably have shipped by Monday. Right? Of course right." *BZZZ* So sorry, thank you for playing! I appreciate the advice on ordering from FRPG but I tried them first: they were out. RPG Outpost actually lists it as being IN and available but they still haven't shipped the garb-farking book. I'm extra miffed because I was hoping to have it at least by Thanksgiving. And I do have a friend who's already DL'd the PDF, and worse, insists that he'd rather have it on his screen than on paper, a philosophy I just can't grasp. For those of you who may recall the original edition of Shadowrun, one of the things that desribed a Hermetic was that, despite living in 2050, they had a bizarre preference for good old fashioned books. This also pops in Neuromancer (and speaking of which, does anyone know how they got to the moon? That's a deep seated mystery for me). I'm one of those people. I can post threads and what have you all day, but I like my books to be printed. *sigh* taxboy4: your player isn't wrong, just mistaken. It isn't that D&D doesn't provide tactical options, it's that the bulk of them require a Feat to do well, and generally speaking they go unused because the system doesn't teach you to think in those terms. To get back to the board game analogy, which is what D&D is simulating, most of it boils down to dice chuckery, and a lot of the extra options & abilities are an afterthought. Sunder? After thought, needs a feat to not provoke an Attack of Opportunity. Grapple? Same thing. And, further, most of those rules have a subset of separate rules which apply to them specifically, making the entire process even more dense than it needs to be. HERO streamlines all of that noise, so any argument over which system is mechanically superior is tossed out the window. You don't see D&D being praised for it's mechanics; they talk about how the 'community contributes.' Sure it does, because they have to build two tons of house rules just to make the car start. Steve: Stupid WW cultists. I ran with them, but I was never one of them. They sussed me out and turned their trench-coated backs on me, the gits. But I got my revenge. I ran a Vampire/Werewolf crossover campaign... and made it work. That really ticked them off. These will be incorporated in their full form, then. In answer to your question from earlier, Amadan Na Briona, I plan on using the full boat of combat options. Right now the campaign runs on an ... I want to say anime flavor although that isn't exactly right. Big pauldrons, lean silhouettes, action lines, action blurs, laser like sword cuts that cause people to fall in half while soaking the walls in obscene amounts of blood, these are all staples of demonic combat for this campaign. So far everyone has really loved it, but there are things you can't do unless your character sheet says you can do them; dodge is either a class ability (+X to AC) or a Feat (+1 vs. a given target) but never simply an action. You can fight defensively, but that again only raises your AC and doesn't have the visceral impact of tossing dice and making the play yourself. It's a long list of grievances I've got with d20, and combat is on the list. One of the things I'm looking at HERO to do is, in fact, provide "heroic" combat. The words "Heck with this, dodge" should instigate a die roll and a combat-based reaction instead of flavor text on my part. "He swings (rolls a 5, misses) and you manage to adroitly avoid the demon's claws!" (checks chart for next in order) and so on... that's gettin' old. Well, got old. Doug Limmer: Thanks for the update, I'll check that right after I'm done with the morning post. I just need to strike the proper balance between the PCs having fun and getting schooled. And... yeah, that's all I have at this moment. I think. More coffee! NURSE! COFFEE!

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO True, there are ways around TP (and I considered popping them into Hell briefly, considering its current proximity to the Prime Material Plane) but there's better, less insta-glick ways around the problem. One of them was just to remove TPs, which will allow me to continue running the game close to RAW, but as Killer Shrike pointed out, every time I do that i wind up having to modify the rules/mechanics severely to get what I want, and as I said in the beginning, I am literally incapable of doing what I need to do under the rules set. There's no mechanic for building a new PrC, or changing a base class or anything else. So yeah, that's infuriating. You're gonna hate me for this. This mechanic is incredibly easy to implement, actually. You turn it into a 1/2pt disad - allows stat check - and derived from the d20 system, CON, DEX & EGO replace Fort, Ref. & Will saves. Voila. You want the spells to be harder to resist? Easily bought up. You, as a player want more resistance? Also easily bought up (+CON, limitation: only applies to magic resistance). I haven't decided if I'm going to use it or not, but it was the local CHAMPIONS GM who actually helped me draft the mechanic and thought that it made sense. Just a thought. *dives for cover*

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO "Hi, my name is Thia Halmades and I... I... *sniff* I can't... I... I play D20! *sob*" You've pretty much summed up my problem. As I've mentioned here and there, I'm running an epic war campaign set up with a variation on the Fae mythos. I pieced those elements together in order to make the game, as a whole, runnable. I knew that just an orc army wouldn't have quite the punch I wanted. However, using 3.5s Demons from the monster manuals, and making sure they had to be 'brought in' would ensure a mechanic that allowed me to ramp up within the confines of the system without breaking anyone's expectations or forcing GNC moments early on. D&D cliche number one: The villain is aware of the Heroes, but does nothing and instead allows them to gain power until they become a genuine threat. I sidestepped this by making my villains ignorant, and involved with their much larger scheme. My plan, basically, was to have the PCs start as cogs in the wheel, and as they gain fame and notoriety among The Adversary, have them alter their plans/tactics accordingly so as to stay on track. They are already drawing up Rules of Engagement to face off against the PCs, in fact. D&D Cliche Number Two: It's only cool if you have a golf bag full of weapons. I threw that out because I had too; you lose a certain level of grittiness when you've got a Frostbrand called "Twinkle" in one hand and a longsword called "Little Little Star" in the other. Pardon me for defaming RA Salvatore so blatantly, but there are whole elements of Drizzt I never bought into. That was one of them. My point here was that I had to change the typing of the character weapon build in order to move the plot forward AND give them weapons which would injure demons, so they graduated the Academy with Cold Iron Ancestral Relics. The Relics are perfect for HERO because the concept was to instill points into them (money/items) in the first place to raise them up and make them that much more efficient, as well as their personal view of what the weapon should be. Now we run into a wall; I've already worked around money management and again, built a way around the logical fallacy "Why aren't we governed by Dragon Kings yet?" I have a measure of control over my PC normals because I know (as you say, Killer) precisely what they'll be capable of, barring feat selection, and none of those are going to be so powerful as to undo what I envision as the world mechanic. Then the Wizard got Teleport, and I was displeased. TP is great for the villains; allows them to get in and out. A limited TP is great for combat situations, and allows the wizard to move the party in and out of combat range. But being able to pop across a continent? Not what I had in mind. Teleport Without Error, anywhere on this plane? No. I disagree. And the player threw a very well controlled snit, because he isn't the first one who's spells have gotten nerfed. But the fatal flaw of d20 is, as I mentioned, that it's a wealth management system. The fighter keeps up with the Wizard by advent of his gear; the Wizard has spells, and if necessary, can make more gear. I'm not here to play "monster killing boardgame" I'm here to tell a war story, which happens to be about these five people and what they do. Pure collaborative story telling. With that in mind, I really have no interest in seeing all that hard work get gimped because the mechanics have to constantly be bent into new and interesting (and occassionally uncomfortable) shapes.

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO tgrandjean: Thanks for posting, and thanks in advance for your feedback. You've provided one of the major guidelines I was looking for; how to guage the battle. Because there are only so many solutions over 13 on 3d6, I agree - determining player striking efficiency vs. BBEG's overall defenses becomes huge. Because I'm running a low-magic FH campaign (which must first be converted from its heathenous d20 roots... mua ha ha...) Combat Abilities must play a major factor in all of this. Considering that one of my primary complaints (as many of the posters on this thread are already aware) is d20's insanely static combat system, "Swing... hit... deal damage... uh-huh, yeah, I'd love to paint the ceiling beige..." I'm excited in great part about what HERO allows people to do, and how it scales it over time through a single round of combat. Hrm. That brings up a few more questions, actually, in regards to mechanics, so I'll ask them while they're hot, fresh & yummy! - In d20, we have three stages of AC; what we'll call Full, Touch, & Flat-Footed. Your FULL AC is your total armor bonus including calculable DEX based on armor worn, the AC value of the armor itself, and any magical/feat bonuses you may have that stack (i.e., are not of the same type, magic & magic, for example, don't stack.) - Your Touch is just your thong & your dex modifier; if your thong is enchanted, we'll count the magical bonus, but that's it. Touch is based purely on your base, magic & raw reflec. - Flat Footed is, as you might imagine, the opposite of touch. You keep all bonuses for armor, but lose your DEX modifier. These three things are important because of the following. In HERO, I want to run a solid magic system with some room for error. In d20, there are 'ranged touch attacks' whose connectivity is based on the Wizard making a to hit roll vs. the targets AC 10 + DEX + Magic (armor bonuses need not apply for this position). I want my wizards to still be able to tac-nuke my BBEG without having the frustration of their miss chance being so high as to make it not-fun. The object of course being to improve the fun by adding true flex and options to what my PCs are doing. Unfun comes from dead PCs who're built poorly on the rules structure. So if I force a check, should I make it independent of the BBEG (i.e., as a Knowledge check of 11-, or variable based on the power of the spell) and then allow the player to buy up that knowledge? Does it make more sense for my Ray based attacks to require a hit roll against the target, and in that case, should I suggest (*coughenforcecough*) to the PC that he buy up the skills that allow him to use magic more effectively, thus flipping magic from a power system to a linked power/skill set? Does that mechanic exist within the confines of HERO?

Re: Fixin' what's broken - switching from d20 to HERO Good morning from where you're at while sip my afternoon coffee, Killer Shrike, and thanks again for the help you've been giving me (and will hopefully continue to give). I've got a lot to say which is vaguely off topic but is in direct response to what you're saying here, because I find the discussion in general to be fascinating. First, on the topic of who stays in which holes why (and why they haven't overrun the entire world). This was the first major chink in the system design of D&D that I tackled, and I resolved it two ways. The primary fix was to do exactly what you said; I rebuilt every MOB from the ground up and assigned it a PC class. This made everything infinitely simpler, since I'd already memorized all of the general class information and could assign feats as generic templates fairly easily. I rounded off the HP, took a stab at their total CON score, gave wimps 0, low-hybrids 1, combat hybrids 2, and combatants 3. That scaled easily, also. One of the differences between HERO & d20 of course being that in HERO you pay for the nonsense stats you receive; in d20 you can assign them pretty much at will, especially if you're DMing, and everyone sort of has the faith to buy into what you did and didn't grant your Bugbear Barbarian a 24 STR because it was a good idea at the time. d20 also makes use of NCM, but out of default as opposed to a specific design philosophy. To go beyond your base + race, you need to burn stat points every four levels, have additional magic items or get wished into place. Unfortunately, this leads to the "wealth management" philosophy that drives D&D. Instead of making treasure 'fun' they make it 'necessary' - a mechanic used to keep the game on track and your players of equal & equivalent power. As you can imagine, this doesn't fit well for a low-magic, world war type campaign. I can't help, to an extent, looking at the points and attempting to determine how those things stack against other elements & factors; mayapuppies made a great point in that someone can design 150pts of "I can't hit the broadside of a barn" while someone more experienced can design 50 pts. of "Don't bother getting up." I am fortunate in that I have piles of d20 books to draw on for inspiration and get a rough idea of how powerful a creature should be, but there are truly insane ones like the Klurichir which look to be worth at least 1,000 points without breaking a sweat. It includes powers like: - Swallow Whole (second mouth, located in the chest) - Four arms, giving it both Autofire/Rapid Attack & TWF - Bite sharp POINTY TEETH - Every word it utters is Blasphemous, as the spell - It hates you. And itself. And everyone else. - Giant enchanted axes, which it wields with perfect proficiency - Etc., etc., etc. The list is so insane that in HERO you start wondering how you'd ever get it approved. Dag. I'll make rebuilding that monster my first order of priority, just out of raw curiosity. Anyway. Is it possible to build in the DS, instead of continuous, only active when the Babau is hit with a HTH or HKA? For range weapons it doesn't matter, really, and you can SFX it as always on, without spending the points if that's an option. You can also distinguishing features to it as disads (maybe a 1/2 pt. by the time you're done). I'm grasping more what Vaninen (sp, apologies) was saying earlier about playing HERO instead of trying to play D&D in HERO. Parts of this are starting to finally 'sink in.'

Re: Fantasy Cliches I can think of a bunch of things it might mean, but I'm unfamiliar with the term. The "Fool" archetype is one most often seen in Shakespeare (King Lear's Jester being the most famous example). The Fool knows all truths, but conveys them in a way which belies his intelligence. I don't know what a Devouring Fool would be.