LoneWolf

In games like D&D and Pathfinder your characteristics are more important at early levels, but after you start gaining levels their impact on the game diminishes and your class abilities start to make more difference. For example, in pathfinder if I have a first level elven wizard with and 18 STR vs a fighter with a 10 STR the elven wizard will probably defeat the fighter. The +4 to hit and damage from STR gives the wizard the advantage. But as the characters gain levels the wizard quickly falls behind. By 4th level the fighter has gained enough BAB and feats and extra HP that the odds are now with the fighter. With Fantasy Hero characters start out stronger than other games, but don’t progress as quickly. Starting Fantasy Hero characters are closer to mid-level characters than starting characters in other systems. The other thing to consider is how the stats define the character. In other games any character can usually use any weapon they know how no matter what their STR score is. In Pathfinder for example I can have a 10 STR and use a bastard sword. I may not get the bonus to hit and damage, but I can use the sword. In Fantasy Hero weapons have STR min you need to meet or you take penalties to hit. To use a bastard sword in Fantasy Hero requires a 13 STR if used in two hands or a 15 STR if used in one hand. If you are playing in an earlier edition the higher base damage allows you to achieve a higher max damage. Prior to 6th edition damage for KA was capped at twice the base damage. This is recommended in 6th edition Fantasy Hero as well. Your 10 STR character in Fantasy Hero would be limited to using a short sword and doing 2d6 damage with skill level and martial arts. Your 15 STR character could use a bastard sword one handed and do a max damage of 3d6. If you have a 17 STR you could use a greatsword for 2d6 damage and max damage of 4d6. An extra die or two may not seem significant but in the Hero system it is really is. The other thing you are not factoring is that the Hero System has a lot more stats than the D20 based games. In those you have 6 stats; in Hero you have about 20 depending on the edition. When you look at all the stats you are going to get a lot more variance than if you are only considering a few. DCV is going to be a lot more important to the lightly armored warrior than the one in full plate and shield. Many heavily armored warriors favor blocking over dodging so don’t need the same level of DCV as the light warrior. To them OCV is more important. As to the balance Fantasy Hero is better balanced than most other systems. By design a point-based system is all about balance. You pretty much pay for everything you can do.

I don’t have FHC but from what I can see the stats in it are different than the other books. Both the Fantasy Hero book and the rule book have a short spear listed as +0 OCV doing 1d6+1 damage with a normal stun multiple and a STR minimum of 10. A long spear has a -1 OCV does 2d6 damage with a normal stun multiple and a 13 STR min. The long spear is also listed as a 2H weapon. The STR min for the long spear is 14 in the Fantasy Hero book. The long spear is also listed as a EL weapon in the rules book, but not in Fantasy Hero. That gives the one from the rule book a 3m reach instead of 2. I can see a 10+ foot spear having a -1 OCV. The problem seems that the stats for the same thing are different depending on the source.

My copy of Fantasy Hero 6th edition shows both the short and medium spear as being one handed weapons that can be thrown. The short spear has a STR min of 10 and a medium has a 12 STR min. The Long spear is a two-handed weapon with a STR min of 14. The average STR in a Fantasy Hero game is probably going to be higher than 8. In a world where hard physical labor is more common the average STR will probably be higher. The 8 STR is more for a modern world where we have devices that does not require a great deal of STR. Driving a car with power steering does not require much muscle, but working on a farm without mechanical devices requires quite a bit of muscle power.

Most important subjects tend to have multiple gods for that subject. There seems to be more gods of war than the sun. Greek mythology has at least 2 gods of war. One may be a goddess, but the point is there are more than one.

There are lots of circus stereotypes that could make decent characters. The strongman who actually has low end superhuman strength, the hypnotist with some mental powers, the stage magician, and acrobat immediately come to mind. Early American folk hero would also be a good fit for this type of campaign. Things like Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and John Henry could serve as inspiration.

Then every character will have knowledge and science skills. What about a character with Inventor or mechanics? Do they also get a VPP? How about a character with lots of social skills do they get minor mental powers? Does buying paramedics give you healing? Does animal handler give you mind control vs animals? Background skill cost less than other skill because they are not supposed to have a large effect on the game. Doing this makes them more valuable than full skills. A small VPP is not really that expensive and can easily be afforded by a champion’s character. I can see allowing the character to create items once in a while, but if it is something they do regularly they should pay points for it. A 20-point VPP with the limitations only changes between adventures (-1) and OAF cost 13 points. Characters should get what they pay for, but they should also pay for what they get.

Creating an incredibly knowledgeable character in the Hero System is dirt cheap. For 21 point I can have a character with an 18 INT and 5 13 or less background skills (science or knowledge skills). That also gives me a 13 or less perceptions roll. Any INT skill I purchase also starts at 13 or less. Since you already paid for the skill enhancer each additional background skill only costs you 2 points. Almost all characters except NPC’s seem to end up buying up their INT to 13, which means you are only paying 18 more points. Paying 18 points for +1 to all INT based skills (including perception) and getting a small VPP is too good to pass up. If the skills alone get you the ability to do this any intelligent player is likely to do this. Now the game has turned into scientists and scholars instead of western champions. This post is also in the Champions forum. In a Champions game the character purchases all their abilities. If the gunslinger has to purchase his six shooters, the schoolteacher should pay for the ability to create useful items. If this were a heroic game it might be different, but then it should take a significant amount of time to create anything.

Use a VPP not skill rolls. Unless you are going to allow all characters to be able to use skills like this it is unfair that one character gets this ability while other do not. If you give it to every character than all characters are going to be highly educated. When you do that the character is no longer unique.

If my suggestions on defenses and damage are followed you don’t need all that many powerful people or monsters. Ordinary gunslingers are still a threat. Not so much individually, but in numbers. An outlaw gang or Indian tribes are still threats to supers with low defenses. You will still have powerful individual and monsters, but they will be the boss fights instead of the ordinary encounters. Most of the characters mentioned in the original post do not have superpowers. For the most part they are exceptionally well trained normal humans. To keep the western feel I would avoid using mutants so the typical four-color Champions character does not seem appropriate. I do see lots of magic and technology being more common. The technology is probably going to be more steampunk than modern technology. I also see lots of highly skilled characters.

Having a single bullet proof hero should be ok, as long as the character has some sort of weakness that can be used against him. Maybe he is gullible or physically slow. If his defenses are high enough that he can handle the BODY of the attack but still takes stun that would be better. One thing to keep in mind that is if a characters main defense is not getting hit combat tends to be all or nothing. This seems to bother a lot of Gm’s. A lot of GM’s seem to feel if the characters don’t take damage every fight they need to make the opponents tougher so that they are a challenge. When the character is taken out by an average hit, getting hit needs to be rare. Usually when the character gets hit it is because they messed up. It could be they failed a perception roll so did not notice an opponent and so took went all out offensive instead of maintaining their defense. When the character can easily be taken out not getting hit for multiple sessions is ok. If there are a lot of characters are relying on DCV the need for healing is not going to be that big of a deal. For other characters that are not quite so hard to hit, they should be buying up their body. Most characters should consider buying up their body from the default 10. Having easy healing does not really fit the idea of a western. Life is supposed to be dangerous.

You probably want to keep the defenses low enough that ordinary guns are a threat. The characters can have some resistant defense, but not enough to bounce bullets. DCV and combat luck should be the main defensive powers. This means you will probably need to scale back your attacks a bit. Unusual attacks are fine and should be encouraged. In a lot of ways this is going to resemble a high powered Fantasy Hero game more than a champions. Ranged martial arts and skill levels will probably be fairly common. Normal martial arts are probably also going to useful. Martial arts don’t need to be eastern; there are lots of western martial arts like boxing and wrestling.

Considering you can buy another battle star for 5 points, I don’t have a problem with purchasing fighters cheap. Star Hero is normally a heroic game so characters usually purchase equipment including ships with cash instead of points. So, how you build a vehicle or base really does not matter that much. Missile bought as vehicles are usually sophisticated devices with lots of capabilities that go way beyond fire and forget. They often have computer guidance systems that are able to evade anti-aircraft defenses. They can often navigate to avoid defenses or to get a better approach to strike. There is no reason you cannot have both in your campaign. We have both in real life now. Often the purpose of writing up a device as a vehicle to define how they work in the game.

I never had a problem with players trying to get a bunch of low-cost powers. When you do that you don’t save as much. In general a bunch of low cost powers are not as effective as a few high-cost powers. Since every power has to be twice the active cost of the EC a low point EC does not save you many points. Unless your GM is allowing multiple EC on the same character it is better to have a higher cost EC and buy the low cost powers outside the EC. For example, if you put the 3 powers you listed into a 5-point EC instead of a 25 Your EC would cost 3 point and your 3 50-point powers would cost 35 point instead of 17. That means you are paying an extra 40 points for the same powers. You could then put in a bunch of 10-point powers for 3 points each, but all that does is increase the final cost of the character. You would need to have 13 10-point powers to make equal out and even then, you would be spending an extra 39 points. At that point each point you spend is getting you 1.7 points. With the 25-point EC each point is getting you 2.2 points. Throw in a few more 50-point powers and the saving are even higher. If your 25-point EC has 6 powers each point gets you 2.5 points. One of the reasons that special powers are not allowed in an EC is that for the most part they are usually dirt cheap. If a GM is too permissive with what they allow in it can allow a character to get all of the special defenses dirt cheap. This is the easiest way to abuse an EC and why a good GM will be careful what they allow in it.

The flight is fine as it normally costs END. Not sure what Umberkeneseis is, if it is telekinesis it should be fine. If I remember correctly Regeneration was a special power in 4th edition and does not cost END so cannot normally be put in an EC. Check with you GM on that, if the GM is ok with it you can put it in. Each of the slots also get the limitation as well or you cannot put it on the EC. So the cost of the EC and all slots are 17. If the regeneration and flight works in bright light, you cannot put that limitation on the EC and the cost would be 25 for the EC and slots without the limitation.

I think you are confusing a VPP for an elemental control. With an elemental control there is no pool. You pay a set amount for the EC and all powers in the EC subtract that cost from the active cost before applying any limitations. All powers in the EC have to be at least twice the cost of the EC. For example if you have a 25 point EC all power in the EC have to be at least 50 active points. You subtract 25 (the cost of the EC) from all powers in the EC and then apply limitations. If every slot in the EC has a limitation you can apply that limitation to the cost of the EC. So if all his powers have the -1/2 limitation not working in bright light that can be applied to the cost EC as well as the powers. In the above case the EC would cost 17 but still deduct 25 points from it. Not all powers can be put in an EC. In 4th edition you cannot put special powers in an EC. I think all powers also have to cost END to be put in an EC, but that might be for 5th edition.

You are kind of doing it backwards. Instead of figuring out what the character learned you are focusing on XP. That does not work well because some things that take a long time to learn are dirt cheap, but other things that can be learned quickly cost a lot of points. For example, it cost 5 points or less for a 14 or less knowledge skill which would be the equivalent to a PHD. For the same cost I can add a martial kick (offense strike) to my martial art. It does not take 8 years for an experienced martial artist to learn each maneuver. The XP system is designed to keep allow players to grow their character at about the same rate. It is designed as a player reward system, not as a system to logically advance NPCs. You get rewarded for things like role playing and being clever. It is an artificial game construction to keep the players interested in the game. Instead of figuring out a point total and spending it figure out what the character has been studying and give them the appropriate skill/power. For the most part unless a character has a radiation accident or were not fully grown when the campaign started they don’t change much physically. So, what XP is really representing is what the character learned. Don’t worry about how much it costs just give the NPC what it should have gained. The answer to your question is there is no set rate for how much XP to give per year.

Since it is fantasy why not have the ornithopter have folding wings. Carry it like a life boat and lower into the water. It uses oars to gain some distance from the ship and then takes off when it is fare enough away.

When writing up an NPC I don’t bother about points. I give the character what I want them to including the disadvantages they should have and give a NPC bonus to cover the rest. Points for PC are more to balance them against each other than anything else. When writing up an NPC look at what you are giving them. If it is too powerful tone it down, if it is not powerful enough boost it up. The thing to keep in mind about the Hero System is that unlike a lot of other systems the characters effectiveness does not go up as rapidly as the points go up. I can have a 500 point character whose attacks are not any more powerful than a 350 point character. I can also have a 250 point character whose attacks are more powerful than a 500 point character. Some things are also more expensive than others. It takes very few points to build a world class scientist, but a competent martial artist is more expensive. The growth rate of characters in the Hero System is a lot different than other systems. In most other systems the characters start out incredibly weak and become incredibly powerful by the end of the game. In the Hero System characters start out powerful and usually become more versatile. They do grow in power, but not as much as other systems. This means you don’t need to increase the power of their foes. In a system like Pathfinder the foes the character fights at the beginning of the campaign are no match for the character at high level. In the Hero System that is often not the case. A 4d6 KA is dangerous to most characters, especially prior to 6th edition.

Set the combat luck to add to Secondary Value and the rest of the defenses to add to the Primary Value. This might not show the combat luck by itself, but does show the defenses without the combat luck first and then the total defenses including the combat luck. To me this is better because I don’t have to calculate the totals everything is there in front of me.

I am not a big fan of trying to convert things from one system to another because it never seems to work out well. Some things that are low level in D&D end up being very expensive, while some higher-level things are dirt cheap. Other game systems do things differently than Hero System does and trying to convert those almost always creates problems. If you are going to try and convert something don’t look at the game mechanics of the other systems, look at the special effects. Prismatic Spray is basically converting Prismatic Sphere into a ray. The original spell was designed as a defensive spell that required you to cast multiple different spells in a specific sequence to overcome Each layer caused progressively worse damage if you tried to push through. That is why the graduated damage and effects. I would really recommend against doing it like this. If you want an attack that does different types of damage that would be fairly easy, but I would avoid using different types of powers. Prismatic Spray has what would be 3 blasts, a drain, a transformation, a mind control (or mental transformation) and a movement useable as an attack. The last one is a stop sign power that is completely abusive and that most GMs would not allow. What I would do would be to have the power just deal damage of different types. Buy it as a blast and use a partially limited power to change the special effect. Buy variable special effect on the blast and apply the -1 no conscious control on the variable special effect. When you hit the target, you always do the same damage, but roll a die to see what the special effect is. This creates a spell similar to Prismatic Spray that works well in the hero system. Trying to convert the actual spells is going to be a nightmare because the differing damage. The way hero works the either the lower damage rays are useless or the higher damage spells are overpowered. If you stay with the different combat effects, they have to be brought separately or put into a multipower. For the multipower to work the pool needs to be large enough to hold the active points of the most expensive power.

Unusual is not really a sense group, it is more of a collection of senses that don’t fit into any other group. The rules state you have to buy invisibility or darkness to each unusual sense separately. For that reason, I would not allow the unusual group to be defined as one of the sense groups an attack is visible to. By default, one of the sense groups is usually sight, the other is usually sound. If the special effect fits those can be changed but the GM should be looking over any changes to make sure they are not abusive. If the player wants to define an attack as being visible to a different sense group, they should have a good reason besides I want an invisible attack. The Hero System gives us great freedom to create anything we want, but to paraphrase Stan Lee, with great freedom comes great responsibility. I would have no problem with a character purchasing a partially invisible attack and defining the other sense group as Radio. My hearing aids can detect when a Microwave is turned on if I am close enough when they are on telephone mode. It does the same thing when any other device that is putting out a strong electrical field. They also pick up the broadcast of the museum audio. The Microwave gun would probably create a similar interference to radar and other radio-based senses.

I have no problem with a player or GM getting creative with their special effect, but it should have some consistency. If you want to say that electricity is making the blade sharper that is fine, but at that point the game effect is not electricity and the character who is vulnerable to electricity does not take extra damage and the effect no longer gets treated as electricity for the minor advantages and limitations to the power. What I would have a problem with is a player wanting to deal extra physical damage and still have the attack be treated as an electrical attack. Special effect should mean something and should be clearly defined. This has nothing to do with science except for on a very basic level. Even a medieval peasant understood that lighting leaves burns and a sword leaves cuts. Unless the GM is changing the rules so much that someone looking at a deep cut wonders if they were struck by lightning having an electrical attack do physical damage is not appropriate. If the GM is making those type of changes, it should be to all electrical attacks. Even in a Fantasy setting the world should still be about the same as ours until magic gets involved. People are still subject to gravity and don’t just float around without using magic. When things act differently, they are clearly magic. In the Sword of Truth series, they had Wizards Fire which was able to burn through any substance. To someone who did not know better it looked like ordinary fire, but someone who understood fire was able to recognize it. Richard was even able to identify an attack was Wizards Fire when he did not witness the attack by examining the surroundings. If you are going to have magic alter the way something works, it should be clearly magic at least to the people who understand magic.

AD&D did have a chart for adjusting your chance to hit based on the armor type, but I don’t think anyone ever used it. Hero does penalize splitting your attack but in all honesty it should. In other modern game systems this also occurs, but is not a pronounced. In Pathfinder the fire damage from a flaming sword will be reduced by fire resistance, but In Pathfinder not every creature has energy resistance. Personally I avoid trying to duplicate something from another game system because each game system has its own peculiarities that do not translate well to other systems. If I want to play that type of game, I will play Pathfinder instead of Hero.

In a Fantasy campaign you don’t have to be fully scientific but some basic ideas should still be there. Lightning should still act light lightning and fire should still act like fire. These are common effects that everyone understands and having them behave in predictable manner helps build a common reference point for the players. . If you are going to give a lighting power minor benefits based on special effect it should also have the limitations of the special effect. With magic there are plenty of special effects that can achieve the results you want without totally changing how known properties of phenomena. I could see a necromantic field causing the wound to be more severe, or a magic field enhancing the edge like Doc suggested. I just don’t see electricity doing that. It might even look similar to electricity, but would in fact be something else.

Why are you even trying to make all the damage from one source? It seems to me that something like what you described would split the damage and apply it separately. By combining the damage what you are doing is simulating other game systems instead of reality. Many game systems use the mechanism that a hit means you actually got through the defenders defenses so do at least some damage. That is not and never has been how the Hero System works. DCV is not AC, just because you hit something does not mean you are going to actually deal any damage. The defender had to pay for separate physical and energy defense so bypassing one to do more damage is kind of unfair. How does a crackling electrical field help a sword cut through metal? If you want to make sure the electrical field does some damage make it a penetrating KA. In all honesty I am not seeing the reason to buy it as a KA other than to make sure it does body. That seems to go against the philosophy of the Hero System of defining the special effect and then figuring out the game mechanics. Based on the description I would make this a NND blast and not worry about body. In a Fantasy Hero game even a few dice of NND will be very effective. As written the sword would apply the damage separately vs the characters physical and energy defense.