Norm

One of the really ancient D&D supplements had Iron, Silver, and Golden Horns of Valhalla, which summoned set numbers of various sorts of berserk swordshumanoids to fight for the summoner.
 
We added the Tin Horn of Valhalla, which summoned a random number of berserk kobolds, who were sort of indiscriminate about who they fought.  It was supposed to be an even dozen of them,  but 3d8 was the range of kobolds's attempts to count as high as 12.

Ideas for a Group:
A group that finished a multi-year stint in some country's military (army, King's/Queen's highway guard, etc) .  They are like a foreign legion which would allow for different races/builds.  The reason for the military gig was to get them the first level of citizen rights in the country.  Something like 'Latin Rights' in the Roman Empire.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Rights
 
What Christopher and RDU Neil said above.  Espeically RDU Neil's numbers 4 and 5.  I did that when bringing new people to fantasy hero.  Only one or two people really want to drastically change their character on me.  I still let it happen and they kept all of their current experience points.
 
We kept the spells/powers to already published things (Fantasy Hero, HERO System Grimoire, etc) in the beginning to make things easier.  As above, if they wanted to tweak things later, it was easier to do it after they had some game sessions to see how things worked.
 
Not sure if it really helped, but I manually created sections in their character sheets that listed weapons (with STR bonuses), sectional armor, spells, etc to make things easier for them.  It was some work for me.  But once set up, was easily maintained.  I also ripped out all point values.  I did not want to worry them about all of the points.  They seemed to like the character sheets.  I attached some examples.
 
 
 
Glaive.HTML
Ghoral.HTML
Jarlyn.HTML
Kross.HTML

I am gearing up to run a fantasy hero game in the next month. I was looking through my copy of Fantasy HERO and trying to think of how I want to run things and have thus come up with some questions I was hoping to get insight into. 

First, lets start with describing me and the situation. I have been playing with HERO for a very long time. Every time I have played, I have generally done so with fellow HEROphiles or at minimum a majority Herophile group. This will be my first time running for complete HERO newbies and two of whom are relatively RPG newbies. So i want start off with by making things as easy and intuitive as possible. So among the things that I want to streamline regard building up spells and unique character abilities, heavy tracking of END, and particular complexities regarding variations in weapons, etc. To that end, the following are some of my basic ideas:

--The Pitch-- 
While they are all relatively new (minus 1 DnD player), they are all familiar with DnD and such generic high-fantasy. So I am going to be pitching this as a High-Fantasy Game in a setting with familiar ties to DnD. A world full of thieves, priests, soldiers, sorcerers, druids and mages. Anything they can think of from DnD and so much more will be a possibility. That their general guideline should be to think of "low level" characters they wish they could play in DnD or characters they wish they could have play but for whom the rules of DnD were too restrictive to allow. I will even pitch a few "group" ideas to help get creative juices going and hopefully avoid the issue of Option-Paralyzation wherein given a blank page, folks struggle to think of ideas. 

--How to Help--

I am looking for some pitch ideas I can throw out there to help. Not ideas for individual characters per se but more for a group identity in which they could form a group identity. The one system the relative newbies have played with uses this "group identity" method to help form characters so it should be familiar to them. 

My ideas are: 
A coalition of [insert class] seeking vengeance for a lost master. Could be a group of monks, clerics, or mages, etc. 
The Freed Undead. A group of otherwise undead characters (or a linked monstrous group) that were once under the thrall of a necromancer or such but for some reason are now free and in search of a way to rid themselves of this curse / repent for their previous thralled deeds. 
The Anti-Magic Cult of warriors. A relatively secretive group that seeks to undo the deeds of (evil) mages. A group who specializes in a type of anti-magic style of combat and action or who otherwise only use magic for good. 
Circus Performers. A band of traveling circus performers who live by the creed, "leave every place a bit better than the way you found it". 
Mercs for Hire. Obvious. 
Any more? 

-------------
--Magic--

One of the things that can get hard for any new player is the variety of options for powers. I feel competent enough to build anything they want and hopefully the pitch and character brainstorming session should be enough to get us to a well rounded character. It is the issue of magic / character abilities that I worry about. One idea to help keep things simple on the page and achievable for the players that I got from Fantasy HERO was the idea of "Spells as Skills" wherein one buys the POWER SKILL as "Magic X-". This is their roll to use any of the magical spells they have bough. And the spells are listed like Martial Art Skills. A fireblast [RKA 1d6; 15active] would be cost/3 to get as a skill. Thus FireBlast would be 5 points. The second step in this would be to have PCs buy a "magic reserve" which would be an ENDurance Reserve an a Recovery rate based on some particular trigger (sleeping, meditating, etc). This would help PC spell users not drastically outpace their fellows and help keep the casters tracking of ENDurance simple-ish. 

--How to Help--

I have never tried anything like this before. So any feedback from folks who have tried the spells as skills or used End Reserves for magic essence pools would be appreciated. Has this help players maintain roughly balanced characters? If there is an issue, what has it been centered around and did you and your group generate any particular solutions. An example would be "the fraction rate of x/3 was too low and casters always had far more versatility. Make it x/5" or perhaps the reverse of that, or "Because all that was required was a few points for the Power Skill and Spell, absolutely everyone dipped a bit into caster and so niche protection was lost. Make all casting like Martial arts and require 10, 15, or 20 points to buy in at all". 

-------------
---Weapons--
It seems that as DnD has gone on, weapons have gotten more and more streemlined. Long gone are the 3.5 weapon catalogs where every possible variant of a real world weapon needed a mechanical change in game. I can appreciate this quite a bit. I think I am going to just create a super generic chart of Big, Medium, Small Weapons that each have a set damage value unless the Players spend points to get a much higher quality one. Has anyone tried this? Do you and your fellows enjoy the simplification? Given that one can still spend character points to get specialized mechanics. 

-------------

--Generic Advice--

Any Generic advice for bringing Fantasy HERO to life for a new group? 

La Rose. 
 

I advise using a small group of familiar spells pre-built for casters so they don't have to try to figure out their own powers and spells.  I'd also create blank template "classes" and races so players can start with them, then have x points to spend from a list of abilities for each (as in; this character can have ability A but not B).

If they are truly new to Hero, and new to RPGs, character creation can be tough.
 
1) Ask them if they could describe the kind of fantasy character they want to play... you can build it for them... and show them how their character concepts are represented in the rules.
2) This helps them jump right in and see how their ideas are able to be translated into characters.
3) You get to shape their interpretations of Hero, so they inevitably build to your biases... always important for a GM to have players who fit a style.
4) You can teach them by saying, "After a couple sessions, we can talk about what you like, and don't about the characters, and we can tweak them so you learn how to make characters.
5) Or they can make a new character after they've seen how the game plays, from the ground up.
6) I think it would be a good idea to allow the players ideas about their characters to shape the world. If one of them wants to be all Avatar: Last Airbender... then now your world has elemental clans in it, or some such. If another wants to play a noble house, second daughter who loves to duel, then now a certain part of society is heavily shaped by dueling culture. Make their interests part of the game, and they'll be happy to learn the system.
 
Just my opinion, but game play and character dynamics first... system and process second.

Ideas for a Group:
A group that finished a multi-year stint in some country's military (army, King's/Queen's highway guard, etc) .  They are like a foreign legion which would allow for different races/builds.  The reason for the military gig was to get them the first level of citizen rights in the country.  Something like 'Latin Rights' in the Roman Empire.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Rights
 
What Christopher and RDU Neil said above.  Espeically RDU Neil's numbers 4 and 5.  I did that when bringing new people to fantasy hero.  Only one or two people really want to drastically change their character on me.  I still let it happen and they kept all of their current experience points.
 
We kept the spells/powers to already published things (Fantasy Hero, HERO System Grimoire, etc) in the beginning to make things easier.  As above, if they wanted to tweak things later, it was easier to do it after they had some game sessions to see how things worked.
 
Not sure if it really helped, but I manually created sections in their character sheets that listed weapons (with STR bonuses), sectional armor, spells, etc to make things easier for them.  It was some work for me.  But once set up, was easily maintained.  I also ripped out all point values.  I did not want to worry them about all of the points.  They seemed to like the character sheets.  I attached some examples.
 
 
 
Glaive.HTML
Ghoral.HTML
Jarlyn.HTML
Kross.HTML

Ideas for a Group:
A group that finished a multi-year stint in some country's military (army, King's/Queen's highway guard, etc) .  They are like a foreign legion which would allow for different races/builds.  The reason for the military gig was to get them the first level of citizen rights in the country.  Something like 'Latin Rights' in the Roman Empire.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Rights
 
What Christopher and RDU Neil said above.  Espeically RDU Neil's numbers 4 and 5.  I did that when bringing new people to fantasy hero.  Only one or two people really want to drastically change their character on me.  I still let it happen and they kept all of their current experience points.
 
We kept the spells/powers to already published things (Fantasy Hero, HERO System Grimoire, etc) in the beginning to make things easier.  As above, if they wanted to tweak things later, it was easier to do it after they had some game sessions to see how things worked.
 
Not sure if it really helped, but I manually created sections in their character sheets that listed weapons (with STR bonuses), sectional armor, spells, etc to make things easier for them.  It was some work for me.  But once set up, was easily maintained.  I also ripped out all point values.  I did not want to worry them about all of the points.  They seemed to like the character sheets.  I attached some examples.
 
 
 
Glaive.HTML
Ghoral.HTML
Jarlyn.HTML
Kross.HTML

Payback,
 
I may have also thought of a similar, but different way than Simon's #1.  You can also overwrite the text of the Power or Equipment item with HTML.  I did this for our Fantasy Hero game years ago.
 
For example, on one of the paladin's spells to heal, i overwrote the default text in HERO Designer of:
 
<i>Hands of the Healer:</i>  Healing BODY 4d6; Increased Endurance Cost (x3 END; -1), Concentration (0 DCV; -1/2), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2), Requires A Roll (Skill roll; -1/2), 8 Charges (-1/2), Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4)  
With the following:
Healing BODY 4d6; Concentration: 0 DCV, 8 times a day<BR>- Range: Touch</BR><BR>- Time: Full Phase</BR><BR>- Faith Roll -4</BR>  
My solution has an issue.  Since the default text was overwritten, the text is not updated if you modify the power.  As a result, you would manually have to update your text.  However, if things are pretty static, you could make a prefab that can be used for all character files.  That is if the overwritten text can be saved in a prefab and remains when added to a character.
 
Also, adding to Simon's #2....   I think that you could also have a combat record with all of your items loaded and create an item list with pictures.
 
I hope I am making sense.  I am working on lack of sleep and it has been almost 5 years since I delved into HERO Designer.  My group has been playing Pathfinder.  Trying to get them back to HERO.
 
Norm.

I want Hero to make a fully realized fully built out Fantasy World. Including Spells, Fighting styles, History, Full color maps, Hero System rules. Everything but power building rules. Everything that a GM needs to run games in that fantasy world. It could be a Rulebook and a Gazetteer style book (ie Pathfinder Core and Inner Sea World Guide). I would also like to see the same thing done to Superheroes. the idea would be for the writeup to be minimal nothing extra and to keep things very simple. Self contained would be the watchword. GM's wanting more customization would be pointed at Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete. Writeups of all equipment, spells etc with all of the costs in them would be available using Bits & Mortar service.

Also something that crosses Savage Worlds Plot point campaigns with Paizo's Adventure path. ie Something that has a strong plotline, but also has some side adventures/quests for variety. Because adventures actually drives sales of other books. GM's need adventures and campaigns. Making it easy for the GM to run will generate sales of the books because they will want to run the game.

I would also love to see more Champions Miniatures. Perhaps WizKids can do some HeroClix of the Champions Universe characters.

 

I have done a few module conversions on my website from AD&D (and Warhammer Quest) into Fantasy Hero.  They are kind of rough but playable quick converts.  I have done the following:
 
N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God
N2: The Forest Oracle
N4: Treasure Hunt
U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
U2: Danger at Dunwater
U3: The Final Enemy
G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief 
G2: Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl
B2: Keep on the Borderland
I3: Pharaoh
A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity
 
I have work started on A2, I4, and G3, to continue and finish those series, but are there any other modules people would really like to see?  Hint: I don't care to rebuild any of the S series.
 
 
 

Well, I wish it all success, but I'll be passing.
 
I really haven't been doing much of anything with Hero even though Champs is my favorite RPG
 
Pretty much the only gaming I do now is with fully supported systems.  And by fully supported, I mean systems that put out pre-built adventures.   I only know 2 people that are running anything homebrew, and one of them is running a full on crawl.  The primary reason is ee all work full time and most have family obligations.  Limited free time.
 
So I am playing in a D&D 5th league game and when I run itbis usually a GUMSHOE or Call of Cthulhu scenario. 
 
I love to run mystery/investigation games and have been working on a Supers campaign for a while.  But constructing a investigatve based campaign is detail intensive.  Once I complete the spine and enough side branches to a viable level, I'll decide on game system and begin plugging in Villians and stat'ing them out. 
 
But for now I really do not need yet another ruleset or yet anothet advice document. 
 
What I need in a gaming product is self contained general adventures that can played stand alone or pluged into a campaign if I ever start having enough time to actually write/run one again. 
 
Pretty much every successful RPG found in full distribution in actual stores have full lines of adventures.  The local FLGS's can't keep them in stock. 
 
For me I will have to shift my attention and funds to games I will actually have a realistic expectation of playing.  Ones with not just rulesets, but also a solid support in adventures/scenarios.

Starting this up, in a month.
 
https://app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/112889/fantasy-hero
 
 

I bought HCM the other day.  Installing it was easy.  No issues getting it to work on my Linux machine.  The launcher created is not working, but I am going to have to play with that.
 
I started to play with it right away and ran into several issues.  I mean, who needs manuals when you have YouTube?    Turns out it was an EBKAC error (Error Between Keyboard And Chair).  At first I was getting import errors because of the strict parsing of HTML/XML.  To make things easier to understand for my players, I had replaced the display text of spells with some simple HTML.  It complained that I did not close the <BR> with a </BR>.  Correcting that and adding all of the fantasy hero character's armor/equipment as a secondary stat, things worked great.  I ran into another issue that turned out to be embarrassing on my part.  It was easily solved.
 
I must say, I am impressed.  Thank you for making it. I know that this will help me run some combats.  Now I just need to find all of the Hero Designer files I got through various purchases or Kickstarters to load NPCs/enemies.
 
Norm.
 

Up until a few years ago, the Hero Games website hosted a wide variety of book excerpts, supplements, and game aids for free download. However, with the most recent website upgrade, most of those items were considered not resource cost-effective to maintain, and were discarded. As a result most new Hero gamers are unaware they ever existed; and even some of the veterans may have missed the treasures they contained, or have since lost something from the collection they once had.
 
However, thanks to the magnificent Internet Archive Wayback Machine, virtually all those items are still obtainable if one knows where to look and what to look for. But since many people don't know, I thought it would be helpful to provide links to representative archived pages.
 
These downloads cover many areas: maps (from published books or supplementary), book excerpts and introductions (including supplementary info about the published official settings), wallpapers, color covers to PDF books, character sheets and hex maps, items cut from books for space (including supplementary forms mentioned in various books), adventure modules, character outlines for illustrations (under "Character Sheets and Hex Maps" for some reason), illos for cardboard mini figures, apps and utilities, graphics and sounds, and more. Many of these were generously created by Hero fans.
 
Because the website has gone through several revisions over the years since DOJ bought the Champions IP, and each version has made changes to the downloads it hosted, I'm including links to Free Stuff pages from different years to cover as many of the varied offerings as possible.
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20061201152750/http://www.herogames.com:80/FreeStuff/freestuffherogames.htm
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20071013030046/http://herogames.com:80/freeStuff.htm
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20110516165152/http://www.herogames.com/freeStuff.htm
 
NOTE: Sometimes a file linked to on one of those pages would not actually have been saved on the particular day that page was crawled by Internet Archive. At the top of each page you'll see a graphic representing how many times the page was crawled on various dates. Clicking on that to get to another date will bring up another page, on which the item you want may have been saved.
 
I recommend exploring. There's much there to enjoy.

I doubt that this is what you are looking for, but you can make it part of your economy.  
 
I ran a game where metal was scarce. Additionally, blacksmith/weapon-smith/armor-smith were mainly for the nobles or upper merchants.  Metal weapons were 10x to 50x the cost.  Most people used quarterstaff or various sized clubs.  Daggers were for getting through armor.  Armor was mainly leather types. Studded leather if you were well off.  Metal armor was at least 100x the cost.  Due to the amount of metal needed for armor, most invested in metal weapons.  I do not have my notes, so some of the info will be off, but you get the idea. 
 
If metal is not scarce in your world, how about making refined metals scarce.  You can have low, good, excellent qualities for anything metal.  Not sure if that would help your situation though....
 
For me....  As mentioned above, I would just use the encumbrance rules.  That can be pretty harsh. Minuses to DCV, Dex rolls, and movement along with extra endurance per turn.  Although, it adds to the book keeping.