Wardsman

Actually, I was not over-estimating (since I have no idea what spell-lists you will be using), so much as warning very, very strongly to be highly restrictive in what you permit from the beginning. It's always easier to start off narrow and relax the restrictions if you feel comfortable with how things are working, than to discover something is not working and try to stuff that particular genie back into the bottle. Experience tells us that you don't need a whole spellbook of nasty spells to be disruptive - just one or two hard-to-answer spells will do the trick.

 

As for the restriction on metal armour and weapons that's a possible and interesting approach if you want to further differentiate mages and warriors. If you want to go that route and haven't read them already, it's worth checking out the Tim Powers books The Anubis Gates and/or On Stranger Tides: they both use the "iron is inimical to magic" trope and they're both rollicking good reads, as well.

 

Edit: the way iron works in those books is analogous to a drain or suppress effect, making magic weaker where there is much iron. In the books, that effects both the spellcaster and the target, making it hard for spellcasters to directly effect someone protected by sufficient iron. That might be an interesting alternate approach, though it heavily tilts the board against spellcasters in combat.

 

Otherwise, the only thing I can see that might be a problem is spell research. If your players are anything like mine, the first thing they will want to do is spell research in any down time they have - if you have much downtime, they will be able to generate some nasty stuff fairly quickly (at which point the whole "restricted access" thing becomes moot). A month, for example would be enough to generate 2-3 really useful spells or one that fills their starting VPP, and in most games a month's downtime between adventures is not likely to be super uncommon. As long as you are on the ball, you should be able to catch anything you really don't want, but unless you actually want spell research to be a thing the PCs spend a lot of time on, I'd review whether you actually need it in your game. Personally, I don't like setting up rules constructs that will probably force me to say no to players on a regular basis.

 

In my own game, spell research is analogous to scientific research in our time - not something you knock out in a few quiet evenings in a rented room, but a painstaking process that normally takes years or even decades - preferably in a well-equipped lab - to generate usable results. That essentially places it out of reach of PC spellcasters, while still explaining the question of where new spells come from. That's an explanation that players will likely easily accept, so it causes no in-game problems. It also offers you as GM the ability to provide "breakthroughs" for players to develop their own unique spells in the form of someone else's nearly-complete research notes, if you want.

 

cheers, Mark

Markdoc brings up some good points.

I personally don't like frameworks in Fantasy. But I do  believe if you allow them for the mages you should allow them for non mages

Ultimate Skill from 5th edition has some interesting rules on the Power Skill(Magic), Inventor skill(Spell Research), and Knowledge Skills.

You might also create a ranking system for spells and some sort mechanic that limits what rank of spells the caster can use.

I'm leaning towards [ (active points/10)+ (real points/10) ] /15 = Spell Rank. Ranks run 1-15 for 1st, 16-30 for 2nd, 31-45 for 3rd etc.

That way a version of a spell with more limitations is easier to acquire than the version with less.

Compare what mages can do vs what everyone else in damage over time.

I use encumbrance rules for armor against mages regardless of what it is made of.

5th has an optional figured stat called Arcane Defense. It is PD, ED. Ego Defense, Flash, and Power Defense rolled into one. But it only works against the magic special effect. Somewhere between 2-5 points in cost per point with a stat/5 adding to it if you use figured characteristics.

I've thought about letting Dwarves take it based on CON.

Use Spell Colleges! I'm working on my Harn translation at the moment.

-1/2 looks about right, maybe even -3/4. There isn't a published value for this limitation that I can recall, even in 6th or CC/FHC.

-3/4 was one value I saw in a previous Fantasy Hero edition. I Thought that might be low.

I don't think it popped up in 5th.  Or if it did I don't have the book it is in.

Then I'm afraid you are better equipped to toolkit this than I am. All I can quote is the Success Roll Odds table from the back of CC/FHC and give my opinions based upon that and my memory of the costs of things back in 5th. Which as I said isn't very good since I exclusively use CC/FHC now, I sold almost all of my 5th edition books years ago. I hope I've been helpful though, and other HEROphiles might have experience with the kind of toolkitting you're currently working on, so hang in there. Best of luck!

No you have been helpful.helpful.

What do you think of this?

for 1 Character Point, characters can buy a 7- roll with a Skill (16% chance of success);

for 2 Character Points, they can buy a 9- roll with a Background Skill or as an Advanced Familiarity with other Skills (37.5% chance of success);

for 3 Character Points, they can buy a Skill Roll calculated as (8 + (CHAR/4)) (giving a character with a Primary Characteristic of 10 an 11- roll, or 62.5% chance of success, and one with a 20 a 13- roll, or 83.8% chance of success).

 

 

Well... using CHA/4 instead of CHA/3:

A )  Roll penalties need to increase by 20% to 25% to remain "even". Your Average Person would have a 62% chance of success instead of 50% (as 8s would result in 11- rolls instead of 10- rolls). A character with 20 CHA would have a 90% chance of success vs. 83% (and in the previous post it was supposed to be 98% vs. 83%, I miscalculated).

B )  Familiarities and proficiencies would still lag, but obviously not as far. In my opinion though still far enough to make the extra cost more than worth just investing in the full skill if they aren't characteristic based. If they are characteristic based however 5+CHA/4 = 7- (16%) and 7+CHA/4 = 9- (37%) for an Average Person, which is essentially the same as it would be if you used characteristic based rolls for familiarities and proficiencies in the standard rules. If you make Familiarities and Proficiencies characteristic based and also change the dividend to CHA/4, the rolls for 10 CHA (the baseline) become 8- (25%), 10- (50%), and 12- (74%) for standard skills and characteristic rolls.

C )  Skill level values also still lag, but obviously not as far as with CHA/3, Reducing their costs by 20% would cover it. But again, some types of level just can't drop at all and those will be the ones to suffer most under either toolkitting.

Ultimate skill has a few ideas on balancing out what I want to do plus ideas on manipulating the curve.

It also has a chart to help wrap my head around the probabilities.

I'm of two minds regarding this idea.

On the one hand I do like the granularity of skill rolls it will produce. Having originally come from d20 that was the hardest thing for me to get used to about HERO.

On the other hand I see a few issues with, and lots of extra work created by, changing the dividend for characteristic based bonuses considering that Success Rolls are on a bell curve:

A )  All of a character's rolls become easier to make unless you also increase penalties by between 40% and 66%; especially powers with Required Skill Rolls based upon APs.

For Example: Your Average Person would now have a 74% chance of success instead of a 50% (8 is the break-point in terms of rounding and would actually result in 12- rolls, not 11-). A Character with a 20 INT would have a 98% of succeeding Knowledge rolls instead of 90%.

B )  Unless you also make Familiarities (8- skills) and Proficiencies (10- skills) characteristic based (changing them to 5+CHA/3, and 7+CHA/3 respectively) then they become much less valuable if literally anyone can achieve a better roll by spending 1 or 2 more CPs.

C )  Skill Levels become next to worthless, unless for some reason you've already hit the maximum (or maxima) you can raise the stat. So the cost of skill levels would have to drop at least 40%, and in some cases they simply can't as they already only cost 1 CP.

Personally I don't recommend this change, its lots of extra work for every little benefit.

Well a lot depends on difficulty levels (subtractions to rolls)in the system.

What does the math look like if it is CHA/4 especially on level familiarities and proficiencies??

What value is this limitation worth?

I'm 5th edition guy so someone else would need to translate to 6th.

5Th suggest all undead built with a limitation affected by necromance that gives  undead an effective ego or presence.

Turn undead in 5th is a talent that behaves as rules as written except at + 40 level where it destroys them.

I add vulnerabilities and susceptibilities to presence attacks from opposing forces with the right talent or perk.

Works well in other issues like law vs chaos or fire vs water pantheons.

You could also let priests and paladins by linked attacks to presence.

Another option is tread the undead as summoned and use a special suppress and dispel rules.

Treat as a summoned horde and allow suppress to remove some based on roll. 

If suppress hits dispel levels they are wiped out.

I must admit I'm not really that familiar with 5th anymore (I spent a long time wiping it from my mind to make room for CC/FHC), but "Average Person" seemed more appropo than "Small Child".

Honestly, I've never been a fan of Characteristic Maxima (for many reasons). I don't use it in my campaigns, instead I just discourage players from buying up their stats beyond the Characteristic Maxima without a reasonable special effect for why that stat is so high.

May I ask why? I like to hear other options.

In a non-superheroic setting it makes a certain sense to me.

I'm leaning on tweaking charistic rolls too since supers are not present as suggested in Ultimate skill.

Looking at CHA/3. So an 8 would give a an 11 or less.

Harn magic has an interesting SFX system not unlike Hero.

Fire is not just elemental Fire but action.

While Water is tied to Darkness , Cold and Inaction.

But only a few spells are defined and it strongly suggests a magical precedence as to what can be done by Each Convocation(college) or not.

So Haste spells, aid tod ex and speed should be fire. Arguably aid to running is also.  While Slow spells would be Water.

But what about an aid to swimming? Fire or Water?

There are no flying spells listed in Official Harn stuff . Is it possible? that is up to you. If you allow it it looks like air.

What about telekinetics or levitation? Air or Mind? Or is that a meta magic and thus neutral magic? 

I could arguments for all three positions.

So in theory two Harn like worlds can subtile different magics.

Parallel worlds is built into the cosmology BTW.

Off the top of my head, an apprentice is an "Average Person" with the small template, who has Age (10-), social limitation (subject to orders), and social limitation (youth). They will have proficiencies in whatever skills their master is teaching them.

I don't know. Average is 8-10 in primary stats. An older one closer to making journeyman maybe .

But a young one just starting out at 10?

But the again I just looked at the age 10 limitation Strength is the only thing under 8.

Thinking of coming up with rules for apprentices as characters.

Besides taking the age limitation(10 year old), what disadvantages could you see such a character taking?

And how do you handle the aging of the character with young age limitation?

Growth spurt where he buys it off?

Welsh pronunciation: "droo".

so do the scottish. It means cold mist.

Here it is. Been playing with it. Combine it with the Active point/10 + Real point/10 spell ranking system and it might be workable.

In the system below. No buying spells with points. It takes time based on spell rank.

The number of spells you know is limited by a talent Arcane discipline. Spell Rank -1 is how each spell costs.

So you can know as many first rank spells as you want.

Since there are 6 schools of magic and the other ones are harder to learn, I'm toying with requiring a talent for each school instead all of them using one.

Still mulling that over. 

Think I have working attunement mechanic.

I'll check those. Turns out the fate site I found had a hero 5th edition section.

http://www.culpan.org/harnwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.OldRules

 

Problem is I don't know enough of the original harn system(systems?) to know what is lost in translation.

If I remember correctly mages could prepare potions and scrolls.  These could be used in combat a bit more effectively.  But even using these could be pretty dangerous.  I think scrolls required incantations, magical ability roll (which you had to make), concentration (1/2 DCV), and a full phase.  Potions were a bit easier in that I think they just took a full phase to take effect.  Casting an actual spell in combat required incantations, gestures, foci that got used up, concentration, and at least a full phase.  And that didn't give you things like fireballs that could wipe out big groups.

 

In my game no one played a mage.  And in Harn that makes sense.  Mages were extremely rare.  Even royalty might not ever meet a mage, let alone a commoner.

 

Now someone did play a monk from the island where all the mages supposedly came from - can't remember the name of that place it was off the coast of Harn (SE coast I think).  Said monk had some cool talents that almost seemed like magic.

 

Harn is a great campaign world to play in, if everyone buys into the the very very low levels of magic in that world.  There are no magic items (except above).  And as for monsters the players might not ever encounter any monsters except for gargun (the equivalent of orcs) because all other monsters are just that rare.

Looking at some Harn rules now. And people complain about HERO math!

It is taking a awhile to get back  into that old school mode of thinking.

WoW! That style of charting and calculations. I remember similar stuff from other systems even early AD&D.

It is if D&D and Rolemaster had a baby.

I think I posted somebody's 5th edition hero notes above.If I didn't I will later.

Aura Stat, do need a conversion? Or ignore it?

A long time ago (+25 years) I owned most of the Harn background material (I didn't use the character & combat rules though) and adapted it to the version of Hero that was available at the time.  When I built my campaign magic was very hard to cast, took a lot of time, and was generally a bad idea to try in combat.  I did allow mages and priests the ability to create magic items (basically potions, scrolls, etc) so they could have a limited set of things they could do in combat.

 

Mundane combat was the name of the game (melee and missile) with a couple of martial arts.

 

The game world is very gritty.  In Hero you would want to use all the optional combat rules to simulate how deadly Harn combat rules (which I gathered from people who played in Harn) can be.

How did you deal with the magic?

Funny enough, I know almost nothing about the three settings that you listed. That would increase my learning curve if I pursued any of those licenses. Besides, I either want to use an existing Hero setting or roll my own. That makes for a lot easier time of it, IMO. I cannot qualify your suggestions as good or bad, due to my lack of familiarity with them. Urban Fantasy is pretty well covered by Monster Hunter, Inc. 

 

Time Travel you say? That is an intriguing idea. If nothing else it would be interesting to run a time shifting adventure. I was watching footage of Dishonored 2 where the protagonist was using a device to shift from a present day, run down ruined mansion, to the past where it was still a living home for its residents. How the protagonist used it to avoid guards, locked gates and the like was very interesting. I'm not certain that it would make the basis for a "beginner game" product, but it would certainly be interesting (and challenging) to write that kind of story as an adventure that is independent of this other product. I like it.

Best description of Tekumel I ever found.

After roleplaying in countless fantasy worlds based on European/Celtic models, a world that does not rely on these overused backgrounds is a refreshing change of pace. Tékumel, a setting drawing heavily from Middle Eastern, Chinese, Indian, and Mesoamerican cultures, fits the bill perfectly. Tékumel is a place with the politics and intrigue of the Roman Empire, the religions of ancient India and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, the magic of the Arabian Nights, the monsters and demons of the Cthulhu mythos, plus ancient ruins containing the technology of a good space opera thrown in just to keep things interesting.

 

The fact that it is both Unique fantasy and has scifiction Relics makes me think of Hero.

http://www.tekumel.com/world_history01.html

http://www.tekumel.com/gaming_tools.html

Glorantha is the setting for Rune Quest.

http://www.glorantha.com/

Harn itself is interesting. It lowlevel and gritty. Close to the 1200's on Earth socially but with a gritty magic.  

But there is a related High fantasy world in it planar cosmology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A2rn

Some thoughts possible settings.

• A compelling Urban Fantasy if that boat hasn't passed
• Tekumel, Empire of the Petal Throne
• Glorantha
• Maybe Harn or at least an adaption of its magic system

The last three may be too old school. But Tekumel rivals Middle Earth in richness. You would have to look at why the licensing for Glorantha keeps changing and how that recent product sold.

Apparently Time Travel is one of the hot trends in Young Adult right now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-parkin/5-exciting-ya-book-trends-to-look-for-in-2016_b_8328078.html

Part of problem was shrinking shelf space and the disappearance of the gaming and books stores.

If you wanted to launch the next big thing in gaming where would you go?

And these days you setting would have to tie into  another media to get attention.

BTW how is the superhero movie explosion helping super hero gaming?

• Hunger Games

I've  been wondering if a skilled LaTex user could pull something like this off?

I'm not skilled But I've been wanting to learn.

BBB is 4th Edition Champions, which included the Hero rules and Champions setting information. It was a pretty massive, blue colored book, hence Big Blue Book or BBB.

Create, like cloak, only pops in FH. Though I could see uses in other genres.

The only time I will get annoyed with posts about the earlier editions is when someone asks a question and gets bent out of shape when I assume they are asking a question about 6e (The current shipping edition). Also, it's kind of nice from a "Do I want to participate in this thread" if someone says that it's an older edition thread in the Subject of the post.

 

Other than that I don't really care what edition you post for.

 

Sorry if people messed with you about posting earlier edition threads.

I appreciate that.

I stil think some of you should write a setting powered by hero.

Steve Jackson Games is doing something that I wish Hero would try. Not just releasing a rulebook with a minimal campaign inside, but a whole game prebuilt to play a particular Genre. Everything you need and nothing you don't. Streamlined rules to make it easier on beginners. etc

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847271320/dungeon-fantasy-roleplaying-game-powered-by-gurps

Well then!

Those of you with a good 6th edition collection need to write something up and get licensing from Steve.

I thought about myself. But that was before I was pilloried for not using 6th on the boards. 

Now I'm not so keen on getting 6th at the moment.

I dug out my 4th edition FH and BBB and could not find any reference in either of them to "Create Effect". So I think it goes back older than that. My champs 1-3 are buried in boxes somewhere or I check those for you as well.

 

-E

BBB?

4th leaned toward a skill like power which I use to prefer. 

Page 36 I think on first edition. strangely enough that version did use create and independent together. But later versions did not.

Neither did 5th. It specifically states not to use independent and not pay points for the item. Just the spell

But 5th does tie it to what it calls "alternate enchantment" rules to differing modifiers from the usable by others section of 5th edition.

Like I said elsewhere I could see it being used in Superheroes and SF as nanotech seeds and other things.

There is one open question which active points do you base the time on? The original effect or the base create effect?

I'm leaning on the Base create effect (real cost of original) which incentives the players to take limitation on the original or item effect.