Brian Stanfield

I think you'll find, Brian, that the phrase is BadWrongFun and has NO dashes.....
 
😄
 
Doc

I'd rather leave the seat open for someone fresh to Hero, so maybe we can gain another convert. We need the new blood. I am already sold. 😉
 
I sure would like to know their build house rules though.

Well, this is another good argument that has me thinking a lot more, lately, that all characters should be built with multi powers, some of which are limited by appropriate circumstances (weapons of opportunity, etc.), and let everyone build to concept without the argument over who pays points. Really, armor, weapons, equipment, etc., are all just special effects anyway, right?

Thanks for the warning.  There are always trade-offs, but the great part of the Hero system is we get to choose which ones we want to make.

Thanks for the kind words.  The armour activation roll rules are from 6E2, pp. 210-212, or Fantasy Hero Complete p. 194; I'll add a page reference to this in the next revision.

I never played a Danger International game, but I am intrigued with the Resource Pool concept as a way to manage 'experience' and money.  I may have to give that a try in my next campaign.  That does make it a little more D&D-esque as you note, but if I give a warrior a big chunk of character points via a magic sword, then I can more easily justify letting the wizard buying an expensive new spell without having to resort to a multipower and trying to balance it.

I mentioned something about this at the very end of my post. Danger International had a way to spend character points for more money to buy better equipment. It worked great. It seems like a Resource Pool could offer a similar result. 
 

The balance standpoint is the only reason I brought this up in this context. So, the “found” equipment (theft, treasure, gifts, purchase) used to be what garnered experience points in D&D (not to defend that game right now). So the equipment was the experience points that allowed one to advance. Fantasy HERO is fortunately set up differently, but the found magical equipment sets up a different kind of problem, as is always discussed in these forums: now everyone is carrying “free spells” in their flaming swords and exploding arrows and such, so why does a wizard have to pay for his magic? It’s obviously going to depend on the particular campaign setting, so can’t be answered in any “universal” way for all settings. But it’s still another balancing problem which kicks the can down the road. 
 
This is why I simply hypothesize the “pay for everything” approach. I don’t want people to have to build everything, as Old Man says. That’s a total pain. But the Equipment Guide is pretty thorough, so they won’t have to. But realistically speaking, who pays attention to all their mundane equipment? I’m playing in a D&D game right now where I have a bag full of stuff that I started with. I probably won’t use most of it. Let’s face it, the only equipment people really care about is their weapons, and we obsess over their  capabilities. That’s the quickest way to break a good D&D game, and Fantasy HERO suffers from a similar problem. 
 
Perhaps I say that if you keep that magic item you stole from the bandit king, then you should pay points for it, which is pretty much the approach that Fantasy HERO suggests in several places. Cool. It’s like a Power Trick in Champions: use it once, that’s ok, use it many times, you should pay points for it. I’d say the same thing with magic items in Fantasy HERO. What about the mundane equipment? Well, that’s why I suggested a Resource Pool. I’ve got my “adventurers pack” full of stuff that I never really think about. I’ve never stopped to lament that I only had ten torches when I should have bought five more. We almost never even us the first one, except perhaps for narrative effect. It’s just there, in the background where it belongs because who really cares about that crap anyway? So, let’s just make the adventurers pack a Resource Pool that I have a set number of points for, and I’ll fill it with equipment worth that many points, but maybe it’ll be rearranged when we get to town. I’m just spitballing here, but it works. It worked in Danger International too, all you have to do is justify how it works (how do you get the items, etc.) Any found item can be added to the pack, but if you want to keep it it will need to replace some other item. 
 
The “loaned” sword issue is already resolved in what I wrote above: everyone should have their own Attack Power defined with a “weapon of opportunity” Limitation. If swords are defined in my game as 2d6 KA on average, then I take that Power with the “weapon of opportunity” limitation. It could be my sword, your sword, or one I found in the lost temple of Thunder Mountain. If it’s a “magic” sword, maybe it simply adds Skill Levels to your ability to use a sword. Apply them to DCs or OCV, However you want. Remember, the “magic” on a sword is a special effect. I hand the sword to you, you get the Skill Levels that go with the magic sword.
 
What does that do to our accounting of our Character Points? Well, things get a bit wonky once I start lending out my magical equipment. This is why I suggest a Resource Pool, which is a fancy way in HERO-speak of saying, “I’m going to handwave this.” Seriously. If the magic sword, packaged as Skill Levels, gets lost or is lent to my friend, I’m out those specific points and I’m entitled to replace them with some other equipment of equivalent value. And the borrower would have to lose some points to be able to keep it. If it’s just temporary, who cares? Don’t do the accounting because it’s a pain. And let’s be honest, who does all the nit picky accounting for all their gear anyway? 
 
My point is this: we all choose to ignore or handwave certain things, and enforce others in our games. That’s GM fiat and not some universal RAW. Some people use Multipowers for magic, others don’t, others allow for a divisor to the real cost. Then they decide what to do about equipment, magic equipment, magic weapons, etc. plenty of different solutions have been offered in the forums. Again, it’s GM fiat, it’s campaign setting-specific, and it’s really up,to the taste of the group. Do we waste our time tallying every bit of weight that we carry around in order to enforce encumbrance  rules? Some do, some don’t. It’s important to some people that they are carrying 15 rather than 10 torches. Others will just handwave the problem away. I’m just offering an internally consistent way to address some of these problems. I don’t claim wrong-bad-fun if nobody else wants to try it out. 

No worries, I didn't take it that way. I already knew what you'd say and inserted it into my mind for you! 
 
 
So I guess I should have been clearer. Multipowers aren't necessary for what I was saying. I'm riffing off of this conversation earlier this year, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. The whole discussion then was about dividing magic costs or not, a la Fantasy HERO Complete dividing spells by 3 to reduce cost (If I remember correctly). Again, this amounts to  Multipower without calling it a framework: you just get the cost benefit for free. 
 
So there's nothing that says you couldn't charge points for everything, as suggested by Doc Democracy in the link, but keep the DCs low. No need for Multipowers either. But the ongoing debate in Fantasy HERO is how to keep free equipment balanced with purchased spells. Simply making everything purchased solves the issue. The equipment builds are all available if you get the Equipment Guide, or any number of sources. Use those guidelines, and add another Limitation: weapon of opportunity, and you're good to go. So a fighter has a 2d6 KA with all the typical data (OAF, real weapon, roll required, etc., and add "weapon of opportunity") and he can use any weapon he has a Weapon Familiarity with. If he loses it, he's without his "power" until he finds another weapon. He can also have an RKA to go with it, with a similar build. Armor would follow the same model, with PD caps based on the campaign guidelines. Make them really low for low fantasy, or really high for Fantasy Champions. Levers, dials and switches to your taste, and we no longer have to argue about how much a spell should cost to "balance" the free sword that requires a WF of some sort. The arguments become moot (ok, who am I fooling? The arguments continue on just because . . .) and we have some internal consistency.
 
I know, I'm taking this discussion sideways, but it really comes back to the same issue as we usually see: how to balance magic with mundane equipment. All that mundane equipment, by the way, that was built with the Powers rules in the first place anyway. It's all just special effects for the powers. Giant sword-wielding plate-male wearing warrior? Same as a KA casting, Armor casting wizard. Just different special effects. Spell ends? Re-cast it. Sword breaks? Just get another one. 
 
Ok, that's just a little bit more description for what I'm proposing. Just another way to conceive of it.
 
One quick edit: I forgot that the discussion I linked was revolving around Resource Pools for magical items and equipment. I misremembered it as Multipowers and inserted my foot into this discussion. Sorry. But the point still holds: once people can start buying magic items in Fantasy HERO, all bets are off as to why we all shouldn’t be paying points for our equipment anyway. 
 
I actually prefer low fantasy with little to no magic, but it still holds, just with much lower campaign limits. Even heroic level games like Danger International offered ways to use character points to buy more money in order to get better equipment. So why not just eliminate that mediating step and just pay points for equipment?

No worries, I didn't take it that way. I already knew what you'd say and inserted it into my mind for you! 
 
 
So I guess I should have been clearer. Multipowers aren't necessary for what I was saying. I'm riffing off of this conversation earlier this year, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. The whole discussion then was about dividing magic costs or not, a la Fantasy HERO Complete dividing spells by 3 to reduce cost (If I remember correctly). Again, this amounts to  Multipower without calling it a framework: you just get the cost benefit for free. 
 
So there's nothing that says you couldn't charge points for everything, as suggested by Doc Democracy in the link, but keep the DCs low. No need for Multipowers either. But the ongoing debate in Fantasy HERO is how to keep free equipment balanced with purchased spells. Simply making everything purchased solves the issue. The equipment builds are all available if you get the Equipment Guide, or any number of sources. Use those guidelines, and add another Limitation: weapon of opportunity, and you're good to go. So a fighter has a 2d6 KA with all the typical data (OAF, real weapon, roll required, etc., and add "weapon of opportunity") and he can use any weapon he has a Weapon Familiarity with. If he loses it, he's without his "power" until he finds another weapon. He can also have an RKA to go with it, with a similar build. Armor would follow the same model, with PD caps based on the campaign guidelines. Make them really low for low fantasy, or really high for Fantasy Champions. Levers, dials and switches to your taste, and we no longer have to argue about how much a spell should cost to "balance" the free sword that requires a WF of some sort. The arguments become moot (ok, who am I fooling? The arguments continue on just because . . .) and we have some internal consistency.
 
I know, I'm taking this discussion sideways, but it really comes back to the same issue as we usually see: how to balance magic with mundane equipment. All that mundane equipment, by the way, that was built with the Powers rules in the first place anyway. It's all just special effects for the powers. Giant sword-wielding plate-male wearing warrior? Same as a KA casting, Armor casting wizard. Just different special effects. Spell ends? Re-cast it. Sword breaks? Just get another one. 
 
Ok, that's just a little bit more description for what I'm proposing. Just another way to conceive of it.
 
One quick edit: I forgot that the discussion I linked was revolving around Resource Pools for magical items and equipment. I misremembered it as Multipowers and inserted my foot into this discussion. Sorry. But the point still holds: once people can start buying magic items in Fantasy HERO, all bets are off as to why we all shouldn’t be paying points for our equipment anyway. 
 
I actually prefer low fantasy with little to no magic, but it still holds, just with much lower campaign limits. Even heroic level games like Danger International offered ways to use character points to buy more money in order to get better equipment. So why not just eliminate that mediating step and just pay points for equipment?

Armor roll I’m guessing is just a renamed Activation Roll. And that is in FHC. It’s a nice way to have sectional defenses when you don’t want to use hit locations. One problem I had with it was my my brother couldn’t make an activation roll to (literally) save his life. I would consider at least giving everyone 1 DEF that always works. It doesn’t add to armor but works if the roll fails-unless the poor fool rolls an 18.

Ditto!
 
D&D had me _convinced_ that I hated fantasy role playing even more than I dislike the genre overall.
 
Our original "hey, let's play fantasy with Champions!" game was something we just sort of _slipped_ into, and I have to say that the difference between "fantasy HERO (cough-cough-*champions*-cough cough) and D&D wasn't just extreme, it was both liberating and eye-opening.
 
However, I _do_ tend to discourage Lightning Mages from wearing metal armor.
 
 

My own words above are the sort of dismissive drive-by that I normally despise, so I'll illuminate a bit. 
 
By Fantasy Champions, I mean: tending toward higher power levels, most of the superheroic combat and character options, a bit less GM oversight over world design.   Pay points for everything, generally Power-focused builds.  Characters get built to DC/DEF/CV caps.  
 
By Fantasy Hero, I mean:  lower power levels, Normal Characteristic Maxima, generally Skill-focused builds, a world and magic system(s) designed by the GM.  Combat options: Bleeding, Hit Locations, Impairing/Disabling, Knockdown, Encumbrance, normal equipment doesn't cost points.  
 
It shouldn't surprise anyone that I favor the latter play style.  Given that this thread is specifically discussing Multipowers for magic, I'm not going to say this play style precludes their use, and I've been at least partly defending magic as Multipower herein... my tendency as a GM is to more heavily restrict magic as part of a magic system, which means that if Multipowers are used for magic, they fall under whatever those restrictions are.  
 
I'm pretty strongly against charging points for normal equipment.  I think it's for historical reasons; my preferences were pretty heavily formed by the standalone, Hero-as-house-system games, rather than the universal HERO System.  It's also partly because I don't want to have to work out all of the point costs for normal equipment.  (edit)  It's partly because, if a character's sword, or his sword and daggers, or his sword, daggers, shield, and crossbow, are part of a Multipower, it starts looking more like a "Brick Tricks" Multipower.  (/edit)  And partly because, to me, the combination of lower point values, Normal Characteristic Maxima, Strength Minima on weapons, encumbrance, and so on, seems to give a more organic feel than does building to caps.  
 
All of the above having been said, I have played in a short-lived Fantasy Champions game that I quite enjoyed.  I hoped it would go on longer, in fact.  

That's kinda why I do it as well. I'm a first-time GM for HERO, and need to reinforce everything I can going into each session!

Well, this is another good argument that has me thinking a lot more, lately, that all characters should be built with multi powers, some of which are limited by appropriate circumstances (weapons of opportunity, etc.), and let everyone build to concept without the argument over who pays points. Really, armor, weapons, equipment, etc., are all just special effects anyway, right?

You're most welcome. You'll find that the forums are a great resource! You've got centuries of cumulatively applied experience to draw from. You'll also find that if you ask one question, you'll get 18 answers! The real problem will be narrowing down the choices that work for you. 

You're most welcome. You'll find that the forums are a great resource! You've got centuries of cumulatively applied experience to draw from. You'll also find that if you ask one question, you'll get 18 answers! The real problem will be narrowing down the choices that work for you. 

Even so, a warrior type is likely to have around 5-6 DEF armor, a sword and shield, maybe a couple of daggers, maybe a crossbow and 10 quarrels.  That... sounds not unlike a Multipower to me, for which they've paid no points.  Maybe STR 18 and 6-8 normal PD, for 11-14 total PD.
 
The wizard type could have all of that stuff too, but why would they, when they have a flaming bolt spell that does 3d6 RKA, a mystic shield for 10 PD/10 ED, a gust of wind (TK, 10 STR, AoE, plus Life Support), and eyes of the cat (Nightvision), for which they did pay points.  Whether or not those are in a Multipower.  
 
My point of view is that if you're specializing in weapons and armor, you're not paying points for them; in exchange, you're not building to CV/DC/DEF, but approaching it through character concept, Normal Characteristic Maxima, and Skills and Talents.  Whereas, if you're specializing in magic, you might be able to exceed "normal" DEF and DC on a regular basis, but that's a privilege for which you're paying points, again whether or not you're doing it through a Multipower.  

The nice thing about low fantasy is that mundane weapons, STR minimums and CHAR maximums, etc., will make the damage doubling less of a problem. If you were going to play all-out animé fantasy with ten foot flaming swords or whatever, it's a lot harder to cap the damage. The magic that does exist in low fantasy is more ritualistic in nature, and is also inherently limited by extended time constraints, rituals, etc.

Super-helpful to know about this example as I refine my plan. I bet that in doing this advance work, I'll learn most of what I need to run an initial game as well!

Without going through the entire document again, I'm guessing it may be an Activation Roll for armor, which is a pretty common strategy for creating sectional armor that may sometimes "fail" to cover an attack. 

I forgot to mention this before: pages 6-12 of the HERO System Basic Rulebook are an excellent introduction to the HERO System. Those 7 pages are a lot more useful than the "HERO in 2 Pages" document. It explains all the basic concepts, but also includes a guided tour through the character sheet, which I always find immensely useful for new players so they can become familiar with what they're looking at. 
 
As @Duke Bushido said, the Resource Kit is perhaps the best summary/introductory document HERO ever did, but it's for 5e. Most of the material is the same, but if you're committed to 6e (as I am), then there is some potential confusion that might result from using it (such as the figured characteristics, etc.). What I did was basically create my own mini-version of it with my own "starter kit" for my new players, many of whom have never done RPGs before. I used my PDF of the Basic Rulebook and ripped pages 6-12 out and created a "HERO in 7 pages" document that is the backbone for my "starter kit." I give each player a folder with some character sheets, campaign-specific info, etc., and these 7 pages to orient them to the basics.

I am wondering just how much of this needs to be thought through.
 
This sounds like stuff you buy/find.  Essentially the GM can decide how many bits of this stuff can be found, or are found.  The player gets to use some skills to make this stuff into one use magical items. 
 
I think that the key bit of the character sheet is a bunch of Knowledge Skills to represent the magic runes known.  I would also give him a Carve Rune skill possibly based on Dex Int or EGO depending on whether the carving is more about knowledge of the rune, manual dexterity or force of will.
 
So.  When the player finds this stuff (and the availability is in the GMs hands) he gets to roll and spend some time carving.  I would say that he makes an KS to see how powerful the crystal is and that the carving roll is modified by the active points (-1 per 10 is the usual) of the effect being sought.  If it is carved correctly the player has a one use magic item.  If he has five and throws them, he may win this encounter but will have none for later encounters.
 
Doc

For what it’s worth, there are a lot of playing aids in the downloads area. I mean a lot! See if there’s anything you like that you could use as handouts. Or get ideas to create your own handout. [Name redacted] is such a nerd that he actually owns a laminator to create player aids as laminated cards to have on hand each game session as [name redacted]’s players learn the game. 
 
 
 

I've paged through the literature, and in my view, literary wizards who can use a sword are more common than those who cannot. Most fantasy literature treats wizards first and foremost as adventurers, mentors, or villains. Garion from the Belgariad uses one, the Grey Mouser, Lythande, some versions of Merlin, Gandalf, most of the wizards in Vance's Dying Earth, and Harry Potter. In movies you can add the evil wizard from the Golden Voyage of Sinbad and the kid from Dragonslayer. Wizards who don't use swords include the old wizard in Dragonslayer, Radaghast the Brown, Skeeve, the conjuror from Krull, Schmendrick.... largely old people and comic relief characters. Almost any character that springs to mind when you say "wizard," with the exception of Raistlin, uses a sword.

I am imagining an ugly superhero/villain called Power Creep