Brian Stanfield

Dammit! They finally do something right, and then pull the plug!

I'd never thought of it that way before, but I like it. To be a "member" of a magical tradition gives the benefit of a standard set of spells. This is especially useful when trying to teach the game, as I will be. Not too much explanation needed, and the spells could be presented with only a little more text than you provided already. This is a great idea. Are you choosing Knowledge Skill instead of Power Skill because it is less expensive to buy extra levels?

Is there any role for the Power Skill: Magic after Bob learns other magical traditions? Or is it used for the basic spells only? This was something I was wrestling with and couldn't decide for my magic system: what role does KS play in things? This is where I start to get worried. With 19 points spent Bob now has somewhere around 30 spells. Granted, this may be exactly how you want it to be in your campaign. I was thinking a little more restricted. Sure a warrior can spend equivalent points to know all melee weapons, and buy some skill levels to go with them, but he doesn't actually carry all the weapons with him. He's probably going to have a standard 2 or 3 that he always uses. This potentially puts the wizard at a great advantage. Perhaps your starting cadre of spells are fairly weak, in which case it's not a big deal, but once you allow the Fire Bolt as one of a half-dozen new spells, which will all presumably be of equivalent value, then you're starting to get one really dang powerful sorcerer! Again, this may fit your vision perfectly. And I really like the simplicity as well. For my, I'm thinking of something a little more slow-building in terms of wizardry. The big strong fighters will start the campaign as the more useful players, but eventually the wizards will catch up. By then everyone will have their turf staked out, and hopefully they'd begin to specialize more in their skill sets. Just a hypothesis, but it is what I'm using to create my campaign. Your last two examples are making Bob a complete badass, but the question I have is "how did he learn to do these things?" A quest for a grimoire is an obvious answer, but just spending the points for a spell is a pretty risky proposition because suddenly Bob can save his points from a dungeon crawl and suddenly show up in the next scene with a big, nasty new spell that just appeared. That's a meta game issue, I realize, but that's also partly why I'm trying to come up with something that is more closely defined and initially restrictive.

Actually, this was the point I was trying to make, I just didn't write it well. I don't want to hold the party hostage to one person's interests. As far as spell research, what I am envisioning is that any kind of change to a spell would require study of similar spells, etc., to then make a new association that wasn't there before. This obviously isn't going to be role played. But a fireball may be taught one way in one manual with a small selective area of effect, and a different way in a different manual with a large area delayed blast, each with their own unique Advantages and Limitations. To blend them into a third spell with a selective delayed blast would take a research roll. As you said before, a complementary KS roll would be a good idea. None of this would actually be role played, and would happen off stage between adventures, etc. But think of it as writing a paper in school, where you had to grab several books and compare ideas and then glean your own opinion out of them. I guess I should reiterate this: I always hated D&D and how players would suddenly "level up" and spontaneously get new spells. Where from? How? Same for any other skill set actually. Why would a fighter suddenly know how to use two weapons, etc., without some sort of instruction, or perhaps some sort of "weaponry research" roll of their own. I'm just thinking out loud right now. As I said before, I'm trying to find a way to keep things balanced, so I think magic should be a little more restrictive, especially if I allow the invention of new spells.

The is neither here nor there, but I was playing in a D&D Encounters group for a while that met on Wednesdays at my FLGS. It was an informal core group of 5 or 6 guys, and whoever wandered in to learn the game. A "care bear" setting if ever there was one, and characters with short story arcs for sure (just by how WoC organizes it). It was a blend of personalities and goals, so there was always some dissatisfaction on some front, but the GM did a great job of balancing interests, especially with new people. But I happened to miss one week when a guy showed up randomly and built a chaotic evil character, and role played him appropriately. It ended out leading to a Majority Party Self-Kill (MPK?) where they all turned on each other in the middle of an adventure over a role-played misunderstanding. I came back the following week to find half the players and most of the characters gone! It led to hurt feelings, players quitting, but also an epic story for the guys who stayed. The GM had the opportunity to scale back that particular encounter in order to smooth things over, but as the conflict unfolded he let them play it out. Once they turned on each other there was no turning back. So in the end, it was a mix of good GMing and good role playing that led to a bad outcome, but I think nearly everyone appreciated their own agency in how the story unfolded.

Funny you mention that: I used VPP for divine magic in the same system. This is true. I think the main problem I was considering in going this route is "how do I cap each individual spell?" My original concern was that I wanted to link the points in the skill to the points in the spell as a sort of natural check. So as you say, the cost of the skill is the RP cost of the spell. If you want the spell to be more powerful, you need to be more skilled. If you only require the skill roll without any sort of connection to the power of the spell, then it seems like it could be abused more easily. You could have a low skill with powerful AP spells, and then buy skill levels for a group of spells to offset the high AP penalties on the roll. I was looking for a more organic "growth" in the magic and the characters' abilities. As I say, I may be overthinking this, or at least overcomplicating it. The growth in power then led me to consider the problem "What if I've paid for a weak spell, but want to increase it when I get more experienced?" I thought maybe Spell Research might be one way to do it that has a narrative quality to it (you have to go on a quest to the libraries and do some research to change anything). I guess this is when things are starting to get too expensive because there seems to be a lot of overlap of skills. But to simply allow a player to add a couple of points to a spell's RP by dropping a limitation or raising the AP makes magic too convenient. I'm trying to emphasize the work needed to develop or change spells. Anyway, I think my idea is beginning to collapse under its own weight!

I totally agree. I had worked out a really complicated Multipower magic system before, but to make it cost effective I had to go through all sorts of crazy Limitation gymnastics, and it got pretty burdensome. But if the Reserve limits the Real Points rather than the Active Points in a spell, that's a real game changer.

What?! Are you saying that DriveThruRPG stopped printing it already?! I was coincidentally planning on getting a copy today!

This looks like what I was originally trying to do, but then I started thinking too much and made it soooooooo much more complicated than I intended. I think when I try to teach Fantasy HERO to a new group of players I should just go with the spells in the HS Grimoire and leave it at that for a beginning. As you say, a low bar of entry is of great value for this experiment. And the Grimoire allows for different variables within each spell to help it match campaign requirements. I'd like to see your system when you get a chance to post it!

Ah, gotcha. I wasn't thinking of the KS being the roll for the "requires a roll" limitation, but rather the Power Skill corresponding to each particular spell. But it gets costly really quickly that way, doesn't it? I think maybe I'm outsmarting myself into a corner . . .

By the way, there is an interesting rule alternative on 6e1 403 that allows slots to have no more Real Points per slot than the Reserve, which allows for relatively more powerful spells with more limitations without requiring the high cost of big Reserves. I really like this idea.

Ack! I must have been remembering something else about Multipowers! Thanks for the correction.

I agree: 80 points is a lot to spend, and so should be used! In this case, I'd save Multipowers or VPPs for "expert" characters. That of course raises the question: what qualifies as mastery? Is it a set number of Character Points spent in magic? Good enough, but then who could ever afford to build a Multipower later in the campaign?! It would cost too many points just to set the Reserve or Pool. I was thinking of using the optional rule of setting the slots of a Multipower based on the Real Cost rather than the Active Points in order to keep the cost down. But if I go that route, I'd probably just define magic as a Multipower and stick with that instead. You have a point here: maybe just one magic skill and then charge for the spells individually. They could be limited enough to bring the cost way down. But then that brings up the problem of how to modify existing spells or create new spells. I'd like to keep a bit of control over how much they change, and what they can create, based around "schools" of magic. But I'm not sure I follow how a 2d6+1 RKA is a naked advantage. I'm a little rusty at building powers, so maybe you could help me out here. . . . This is more like what I was thinking, but I'm not sure where you're getting the +4 for 4 points. I'm sure I'm missing something, so please correct me. Each +1 for a skill is 2 points, so that'd be 8 more points for 11 total. But remember, my original idea is not to limit the Active Points, but only use the Real Cost as the cap: so you could have a 4d6 RKA for 60 AP, with advantages like AOE, but if it's limited enough it could bring the real cost down to the 11 point cap. The idea here is that as a player gets more experienced, then he can buy up the skill to increase the cap. Even a few more points in Real Cost can really beef up a spell.

I guess I should set more parameters than I did in the original post: I'm looking for a "low fantasy" feel where magic is rare although not unheard of. I'd like to keep it completely within the purview of wizard schools (or whatever they'll be called). To use magic is to devote oneself to study in schools and libraries. I don't want to have "dabblers" in magic in this particular campaign. So there won't be much crossover. If a sword is enchanted, it will be because a wizard cast a spell on it. I don't anticipate scrolls or anything else like that for non-wizards to use magic. Just good old fashioned elbow grease in the library. There don't need to be huge arrays of spells for a wizard to be considered good. I mean really, how many spells did we ever actually read Gandalf or Dumbledore to cast? They would be powerful, yes, but they weren't on constant display. I'd like wizards to be more like bookworms who have a few good spells to use at the right time rather than Doug Henning dazzling the crowd with lots of random stuff. (Is that magic reference old enough to date me?) I'm thinking of having magical tomes as OAF limitations to keep costs down. So, I may need to completely rework how I see the skills working. I'm tempted to go with spell skills and then not charge for the spells themselves, but this seems even more restrictive than I'm looking for since characters would have to go find spells. Lots of good roleplaying opportunities to acquire new spells, but not necessarily for a whole group. I guess the blurring of the lines between schools of magic is actually not all that important, because it would be, for example, a 2d6+1 RKA whether is is a fireball, lightning bolt, or ice cycle, so "crossing schools" isn't really any more advantageous. You don't need to make a fireball into a burst of cold unless there was some advantage added to the fire and the cold individually (catching things on fire, freezing lakes, etc.). But then they're really two different spells and should be treated as such. I'm starting to lean back towards the original Multipower system I created before. It seemed complex, but looking at all the points coming up here, maybe its no more complicated than what I'm trying to get at with a skill-based system. In that system I had a Multipower defined as a spell book with only so many "slots" available at any one time. So a character could collect spells (spell research skill), and then plan ahead which ones he'd need. The only way to change slots in the Multipower was to take time to study the spell book again. I'd allow an OAF limitation on the Reserve (which is not normally allowed) in order to keep the cost down. In this particular case, I'd think changing existing spells (variable slots) would take a skill roll, but changing slots would only be a time limitation. In a Multipower system for beginners, I don't even have to show all the mathy stuff, just the spells available in the slot with their AP penalties for skill rolls. Does anyone know if you can have a Multipower of other Multipowers, so they can all share the same Reserve? For example, a "magic" Reserve and each slot would be another Multipower representing schools of magic. But for now I'd like to stick with the project at hand: Is there any merit in what I've got so far in the skill-base magic, or does it open up more problems than it solves?

I was thinking Extra Time, Concentration, and Extra END would be required. I hadn't thought of that. It's an interesting point. Perhaps I'd allow one-time changes to disadvantages, etc., with penalties on the roll. I don't like the idea of simply changing spells every time they're used. If that were the case I'd just make them all VPPs. What I was considering was perhaps creating a Multipower which contains all the adjusted spells the character has created, so the character still has access to all the versions he's known. I'm not sure on this. If I were to go that route, I may just return to my original magic system which was Multipowers with spell books as the focus, and VPPs for religious magic. It is intended to be a bit "taxing" in order to slow the progress of magic users. The main point is that a character can launch a fireball every phase and take out entire hordes, while the warrior who only spent a couple of points on weapon proficiencies and CSLs has to kill one at a time. The magic soon gets out of hand, which is why I want it to be more restricted, with the opportunity for slow growth. By the time the magic user is a master, the warrior will have a great deal of utility as well. I may be wrong on this, which is partly why I'm putting this out for criticisms and suggestions. As for the skills, I think you may be seeing too many layers. There would be a KS for each school of magic which then gives access to spells within each school as individual magic skills, and then the spell research would probably only be one skill, with the KS for the relevant school of magic as a complementary roll.

That's a good point. I'm thinking that -2 of total limitations is a good idea: it helps keep the cost down, and it also keeps the rolls more reasonable. I was thinking that spell research would be used to change anything about an existing spell. "Tweaking" would mean changing the Advantages/Limitations, increasing the Active Points, etc., to an already known spell skill. I like your idea about the knowledge skill perhaps being the vehicle for this. But I think if I start requiring too many skills to get things done, it'll get too costly. I think maybe the KS will function more like a weapon familiarity than anything. But it will give access to each school of spells, including their libraries, which will allow for spell research. I like the idea of a complimentary skill roll. Ah nuts! These are really good points. This may not be as simple as I hoped for. But I'd like to go back to the original post and suggest that AP doesn't rise as the skill rises, only the available Real Cost available. So inventing a spell with a low AP will still restrict it until it is again changed. I guess the spell research skill penalty would have to be based off of the consequent AP, not the existing AP. So creating a small fireball (30 AP at -3 on the roll) to make it easier to succeed in the roll is only kicking the can down the road, because to raise it up to a 60 AP fireball will suffer a -6 on the roll. I do lie your suggestions for adding a -1 per each +/- 1/4 change. This brings me back to one of my earlier points, what would be a good threshold for beginning new spell creation. Once they start creating spells, the boundaries between "schools" gets blurry and may disappear altogether if the campaign goes on long enough. I'm beginning to wonder if I should not charge a cost for spells at all, and only require a skill like the Azgandian magic system does in FH6e. But then the obvious problem is explaining how they get access to spells. This seems especially restricting, so I'm to really too keen on this idea.

Oh no! Not another spell thread! I'm wondering if anyone has had success running a skill-based magic system in Fantasy HERO 6e? I developed a really complex set of rules using Multipowers and VPPs that were intended to keep powers relatively balanced and capped, etc., to be balanced with non-magicians. But it was not very beginner-friendly. So I want to come up with something very simple and more intuitive. But I want it to have some sort of cap so that players don't get too much advantage from magic. I'm looking at some sort of mix of the Arts Arcane and the Azgandian magic systems in Fantasy HERO 6e. Has anyone done something like this? Here's what I've got so far: I'll use the spells from the HERO System Grimoire, along with their different classifications. players will choose Knowledge Skills corresponding to the different schools of magic they want to specialize in, sort of like a weapon familiarity. players will have a Power Skill corresponding to each spell they want to use within a school of magic for which they have the KS. The magic will obviously have a "requires a roll" limitation, with a -1 per 10 Active Points penalty. players may also use the Inventor (Spell Research) Skill to tweak existing spells, or maybe create new spells. I haven't decided all the details on this yet. So far that's all I've brainstormed. Here's what I'm considering and need feedback, or need suggestions: How do I cap the individual spells in a way that is intuitive? I'm thinking of capping spells based on the number of Character Points used in a Skill: there would be a cap on the Real Cost (rather than the Active Points) so that it cannot exceed the amount of points spent on the skill. So if someone has INT 20, a Fireball Skill at 11 + (Int/5), it would have a Real Cost cap of 3 points, and a roll of 15-. Then the cap would go up for each +1 for the skill (+2 Character Points). A Fireball Skill of 20- would have a Real Cost cap of 13. The idea is that the Active Points could be high, but still be very highly Limited in order to keep the cost down, so they couldn't become unbalancingly powerful. Over time, characters can use the Spell Research Skill to modify their Spell Skills by removing Limitations, adding Active Points, or adding advantages in order to represent their experience. The Real Cost cap would also have to be purchased up as these modifications are made. At what point should I allow players to create their own spells? I have no idea on this one, although I'm thinking the threshold would involve some combination of the Spell Research Skill and the Spell Skill, sorta like the cap in Real Points described above. How? I'm not sure yet and could use some suggestions. Because the new Spell Skill does not yet exist, it can't be added to the Spell Research Skill to determine the threshold. Once a new spell is invented, a corresponding skill would have to be purchased. So now I'm stumped. I'm also thinking that it would make sense to allow for Multipowers (or maybe VPP) to allow for different strengths of spells. A fireball could be varied in this way so a wizard isn't always blowing up an entire room. I'm not sure how I'd do this as a skill, and it's beginning to get more complicated like my former spell system was. How can I do spell "levels" in an easy way using the Spell Skills? I think that's it for now. All relevant ideas are most welcome.

If I have defined magic in a Fantasy HERO setting to "require a roll," with a -1 per 10 Active Points, can Penalty Skill Levels be used to offset that penalty? What level of PSL is it if it applies to a group or "school" of spells? Can Combat Skill Levels be used in a similar fashion? Also, if I use the Inventor (Spell Research) skill, can PSLs be used to offset those AP penalties as well? I realize that there is a great deal of granularity I can introduce with the HERO System Skills book, but I'm trying to get my head around what the rules say. The PSLs are defined as either offensive or defensive, so this is the main source of my confusion. For example, if I allow a 3 point PSL for all spells, can it be used for the Active Point penalty for all spells (offensive and defensive, etc.) as well as for the Spell Research penalty (which is neither offensive nor defensive)? Or can a 4 point Combat Skill Level be defined as covering the AP penalties for "all spells of a certain group?" If that's the case, it would no longer apply to the Spell Research skill, regardless of the group or "school" it is being used for. I realize this is a big nest of questions, but ultimately if you can help me get a handle on how to offset the AP penalties for the "requires a roll" Limitation, that will get me started.

No offense intended, RDU Neil. I should have been more explicit that the "training wheels" are for my case in particular, not for you or anyone else who may use this approach. In principle, zslane is right in that people need to want to role play in the first place rather than just problem solving. But I agree with you in that incentives are a great tool to keep people's heads in the game. I was thinking about this imbalancing problem as well: perhaps the dice could count as xd6 to add to damage, so if you roll 3 "drama dice" a 1, a 5, and a 6, you add 12 to the damage. But when used for reducing skill rolls, penalties, etc., the body of the dice could be counted for the reduction. For instance, if you roll 3d6 "drama dice" to influence a skill roll, and roll a 1, a 5, and a 6, you'd get -0, -1, and -2 for a total of -3 to the skill roll.

Agreed. This is more of a "training wheels" approach to teach role playing to younger folks who have never really been challenged to do it. Introducing some sort of mechanic may help teach some of those meta-game roleplaying fundamentals. Ultimately, this is what Complications are designed to do. Anyone who feels that the GM is picking on their character by utilizing their Complications in the game have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the tradeoff is for the extra character points for building their character. The "drama dice" pool is another way to instantiate what is already suggested in the rules, as brought up by sentry0: I'd forgotten about HAPs, and think that maybe that could be a great carrot-on-a-stick that is already addressed in the rules. So it looks like, perhaps, this is again something that actually is covered in the rules . . .

Ninjas always make things better!

This is interesting. What do you see the drama dice numbers re-resenting? Are they trading off an advantage gained in exchange for a dramatic twist? Otherwise who'd want to roll those dice? I like the idea of a dice pool, I just can't get my head around it yet...

zslane, that's a really good point that comes back around to the original post: how can HERO System incentivize or motivate good roleplaying? Massey's post earlier is a great example of how the mood can be affected by the GM, but is there a way to get the players "into character" with more than just experience points? I recently played a GURPS game and was given a couple of extra experience points because I came up with a clever and hilarious solution to a problem, but it was really a meta-gaming reward for making the group laugh. On the other end of the spectrum, I was doing D&D Encounters for a while, and a theater guy showed up out of the blue to learn the game, and without knowing the rules did the most amazing job of really role playing his character. It was a top-notch job, but he left as suddenly as he arrived, never having been rewarded for a truly memorable job of roleplaying even though he didn't know the rules. So, the question on the table: is there a way to incentivize good roleplaying, other than just experience points? I know this is ultimately a GM issue, but I'm asking for self-serving purposes. I'd like to start a HERO campaign sometime soon with new guys who are "roll players" more than they are "role players." In other words, how can we encourage good roleplaying that isn't merely the standard video game murder-hobo approach that the hobby has become?

Man, That's good stuff! I want to play in your campaign! I was drinking my morning coffee when I read this, and can't get the image of those children out of my mind!

If the players like this, you can soft-start them with their own characters by using the Quick Character Generator I mentioned above. Have you seen the quick character generation cards that will be coming out?