Urien

Seconded on the CP totals! I recently started a port of D&D to Hero 6th and have set "first level" to be 100CP. Even within that I had to put some boundaries around how it was spent. I.e. a first level character in my game picks from a pre-defined list of species, each of which costs 20CP. This affects characteristics and provides some special abilities such as nightvision or whathaveyou. Then they buy a cultural package, which also costs 20CP and this brings some talents or skills. Then they pick a character class which also brings them 20CPs worth of powers or characteristic adjustments. Finally the 100CP startling level is rounded out by bonus characteristic points (10CP's worth), skills (12CP's worth), abilities (10CPs worth from a pre-defined list of powers and talents) and then finally starting equipment.

 

As you can see, I have locked everything down WAY more than is normal and I have starting points significantly below recommended levels even for low power play. I'm sure some would read the above and think it's badwrong control freak DM'ery that makes players miserable with their lack of options. It isn't - it's a way to get everyone up and playing without spending two weeks focusing on the mechanics of their characters and it produces the feel I want which is heroic but vulnerable protagonists venturing through a dangerous world, rather than Hollywood badasses slaughtering minions.

 

I don't recommend you lock it down as much as I have - mainly because it's a massive amount of effort to create all the "classes" and "powers" on behalf of your players, but if you want 1st level D&D or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay style low-levelness, then chop the recommended CP levels off at the knees, is my advice. And still be careful that nobody over-focuses on one area because it can make them too powerful too quickly. In particular look out for armour. As written it's spot on for how I want it, but make sure starting level PCs can't get their hands on too much too quickly. I converted my existing D&D group over and let them keep the same equipment for the sake of story continuity. That Paladin in chainmail is frightening in how much damage they can shrug off!

 

Healing in Hero is also rather hinky in comparison to D&D. I think the reason is because it's not normal for powers in Hero to be rationed on a daily basis so healing powers would therefore allow PCs to prolong a fight indefinitely. So they introduced an arbitrary "can't be healed more often than" restriction on the recipient end. Unfortunately this clashes with a five-encounters-a-day style D&D play.

 

Hope this helps. I've basically just started doing what you're doing and am about three weeks ahead of you down the road, so take my advice with no more confidence than it deserves, it's just what I've found so far.

That sounds like a good start, but how are you going to distribute EXP during play. That's my chief concern for campaign longevity.

How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?

My favorite Knight of the Round Table (Urien is either a Knight or an Ally of Arthur, depending on the saga). I liked the portrayal of Urien from Excalibur (1980) the most. A person who did not give his allegiance easily, but when he did, he was loyal to a fault. 

What was the first tabletop RPG you Played?  

Red Box DnD (Mentzer).

What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed?  

See Above

What are you currently Playing/GMing?  

Savage Worlds. Looking at getting into Fantasy Hero.

When did you start to play Hero?  

Early 90s 4th edition.

For the Campaign Life & Advancement I think there are a lot of factors that you should fully consider before the campaign (or even char gen) begins. Most importantly how powerful do you want the characters to be at the beginning of the campaign, and how powerful by the time they reach the end. This will give you a general idea of how the progress should go. 

 

According to 6th Ed rules 175cp is a "standard" heroic character and considered the starting point for beginning characters. I personally feel this is more powerful then what I like starting out in a FH campaign, but maybe it is what you like. Most (all?) sample characters (from Fantasy Hero) and most of the creatures in the Bestiary seems to work based off of this starting point, so you have to factor that in when designing adventures using any of that source material. Someone once posted that a starting "standard hero" in FH is the equivalent of a 6th level character in D&D, I don't know how that calculation was made but it seems reasonable from what I remember from my D&D days.

 

If you you use that as a base, and decide to start your players at a lower point total, say built with 75cp, then if they eventually earn 100 xp, that would make them only 175cp characters which is actually what the base starting FH character is recommend to be and (as stated above) about 6th level in D&D. Is that how powerful you'd like them to be at the end of the campaign? If so, and you plan of playing roughly once every two weeks for for 4 years then the players should get about 1.25 xp a session (20 sessions a year * 4 years = 80 sessions/100 xp = 1.25). 

 

But if you want them to end up more powerful then 175cp, maybe at 275 cp then you would double the xp given per session to 2.5 xp. 

 

But you also have to decide if the players will need to spend xp on magic items or not (both ways have advantages and disadvantages) and how much stuff like learning new spells costs the magic using characters. With hero some spell effects can be very expensive (The Turakian Age setting got around this by apply a solid "divide spell real cost 3 to get the cost the players pay". That does help keep things in alignment with other non-magic using characters, but rubs some people the wrong way and can still be very expensive. 

 

All these things have to be considered before the players make their characters and the campaign begins, if you really want to evenly spread out the xp you are giving out over the course of the campaign. 

I hear you. Since it is been a while since Ive played Hero system, I'm still trying to get a rough feel for power levels. This helps!

Another way to control bloat is to have caps: no more than x damage, no more than y CV, etc.  That way characters have have a fairly high point total but not be gaudy in power level, just breadth of abilities, contacts, followers, etc.  Give them things to spend points on other than being more deadly -- and encourage them to do so.

I was thinking of tho option, but when I used it bak in the day with Fuzion everyone always seemed to think that meant you needed to buy everything to those levels to be effective. With the way the point system works in Hero System (no escalation in point value for the higher the ability), it means that it is pretty easy to reach those benchmarks.

Since you own a lot if the rulebooks, Fantasy Hero Complete isn't going to add too for you. Christopher Taylor summed it up nicely. As to 5tg or 6th what do you feel more comfortable with? Seriously I'm using 5th but helping my brother make a campaign using FHC and we're convertingthe old fantasy hero for 4th. They are really fairly compatible.

The only reason I was thinking of getting FH Complete was so we could have a physical book we could reference at the table, since I only sadly have the PDFs. I really wish they could reprint the books in their full color glory...

I would kiiiinda recommend 5th, only because I am not that familiar with 6th, and it would make conversion to the older  (thicker) supplements  for FH. The Bestiary is kind of necessary. But anything m0ore, do you have an idea of what sort of magic do you want?  You also need to figure out how much  of the background , and NPCs you want to design yourself, or if you want a published back ground. Figure these questions out, and we can make things more detailed?

I was interested in expanding and using "The Gift" in FH 5th and 6th editions. For the one mage in the party, who is considered a full-blooded sorcerer. NPCs would have their own lesser systems for the most part.

 

• • Experience Points & Levels for Fantasy Hero - This system uses an XP and Level system to for advancement of Fantasy Hero characters. It's designed to keep the characters from gaining too many character points too fast and out growing the campaign world.  For combat encounters, the number of XPs the GM gives out is equal to half the Character Points of the enemies they fight. For non-combat encounters, the GM should give out whatever they feel is appropriate. There should also be XPs given out for Story Awards.

     

    When a character accumulates enough XPs to advance to the next Experience Level, they gain character points to spend.  This system allows for 100 (or 60) CPs of improvement over the course of a long-term campaign (levels 1-20).  The XPs and Experience Levels are listed below:

     

    __XP__        LEVEL       CHARACTERS_POINTS

         0          0         Starting CPs for the Campaign

       500          1         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

       750          2         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

      1000          3         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

      1500          4         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

      2000          5         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

      3000          6         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

      4000          7         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

      6000          8         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

      8000          9         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

     12000         10         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

     16000         11         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

     24000         12         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

     32000         13         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

     48000         14         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

     64000         15         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

     96000         16         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

    128000         17         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

    192000         18         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

    256000         19         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

    384000         20         +5 CP (+3 for a low-powered campaign)

This is an interesting approach which I think I like. Do you award any individual points for any milestones or such, or is everything received through leveling?

Hi!

I am considering starting a fantasy hero campaign. I have used hero system in the past for Super Heroes, but have never gone the fantasy route. I have always wanted to try a fantasy hero campaign, but I have a few questions I was hoping you might be able to answer for me before I begin, based upon your own experiences.

1) 5th or 6th Edition? I own both, but I only have 5th in dead tree version (I own both 6th edition core book PDFS, and a PDF of Fantasy hero). If I go with 6th edition, how is Fantasy Hero Complete?

2) Campaign life and Advancement. I like playing in campaigns that progress slowly over time. My typical campaign runs for several years. One of my bigger concerns for fantasy hero would be the linear experience point increases of characters, and the concern of a character getting to good to quickly. For anyone who has played in long term FH games, has this brome an issue, and if so what have you done to address it?

3) What supplements would you recommend? Ive listed the books I have here. Are there any others you would recommend? The world is largely a gritty lower powered medieval fantasy. I expect I;ll need to pick up the bestiary. Anything else?

Thanks!