Nightshade

Can we ask why instead? Perhaps I'll get it this weekend if my FLGS has it. But here's my ultimatum: I can only wait for as long as it takes for my gaming store to get it. I simply won't wait any longer than that. Nightshade

Where would you put charges? They can be continuing, don't cost endurance, and can be made as advantages if you have enough of them. You might put those in the "other" catagory or as a possibility in some of the others (duration, for example). Nightshade

Evil Damned Undead... Where's Ash Housewares when you need him!!! Nightshade

Must be patient.... Patient.... Patient.... Screw it! I want it and I want it NOW!!!! Actually, I feel better Congratulations. I can't wait to give you more money. When was the FH Grimoire coming out again? Nightshade

How would you build the constantly reappearing flower, I wonder? Nightshade

It really should be accidental change bought in the forms that are not statues. The physical limitation for the change (complete paralysis) should be bought in the statue form of the multi-form. Nightshade

I'm definately going to get it. I pretty much only run Fantasy HERO games and have my own world, so a lot of it may not be necessarily useful, but hey, if it was half as good as I have read from the playtesters, I will be more than happy to spend some cash on it. Plus it keeps HERO healthy, which makes them publish more books, which gives us more potential for even better quality stuff. Nightshade

Truthfully, I have been running Fantasy HERO for years, and I am also beside myself with anticipation. Between this and the Grimoire, I think that I could pretty much convert anyone who is HEROphobic to a believer. Now, back to waiting... The book will be out soon, yesss precious... Verrry soon, precious:D Nightshade

My brother owns a gaming store and he has stated that HERO was actually outselling d20 for a while. Of course, he and his business partner pretty much only play HERO, so that may have had something to do with it... Nightshade

I personally liked the cover. I would have to agree with the color scheme comments, but overall I liked it. However, I really like the Fantasy HERO logo. That is very sharp. I also don't just books by their covers.... Nightshade

The Bone Collector I am currently reading the Bone Collector. It was the book that the movie was based on starring Denzel Washington. The author did a lot of research into forensics and how police, FBI, etc. find these guys, and puts it into the book. It's also a very good read, if you like that sort of thing. That might get some juices flowing. Nightshade

I'd put him in a life and death situation where he has no choice but to roleplay the code vs. killing. For example, have a DNPC be held hostage by a homicidal lunatic who just might have to be killed to prevent killing the dNPC. You could also amplify one of his other disads, like turning a watched into a full Hunted, increase the frequency of a vulnerability or susceptability, etc. You could also state that if he isn't going to roleplay his disads that you aren't interested in having him in your game... That's always a last resort, IMO, but sometimes you have to take a stand. Nightshade

Molecule Man I like Molecule Man, just because he dropped a mountain range on most of the Marvel Heros during the Secret wars to impress Titania. That was truly great. Nightshade

Languages In terms of language names, I did what most languages do here on Earth, the language is named for the country: So, for Shildaria, we have Shildarian, for Vanar, Vanaran. For flavor, I also have my world version of Latin, Arawn, which is spoken in many dialects in many countries. I will have to come up with a language chart someday. That would be very useful for my game. Nightshade

Venom Venom was just too nasty. He had a great element to him, too: He truly believes he is the good guy. He's the hero. Spiderman was the villain. That was just great. I also think that the Master, especially the Roger Delgado Master from Dr. Who was very well done. When you heard that laugh *shiver* Nightshade

I have been doing a lot of work on my fantasy world and wanted to have some other opinions on the way I am handling the racial packages. I am doing all of their abilities, modifiers, etc. pretty much as in FREd, however, if I have a statistic increase, I still allow up to 10 stat points increase over the new base that is given (so a race that has a base STR of 12 can get to 22 before hitting NCM). However, there are these "racial" skill packages in the old Fantasy HERO. I don't know what the new one will suggest, but I never really liked these. What my plan is to make each race have slightly different Everyman skills (including humans) to reflect the different racial attitudes/necessities. My plan is to make it so that you can pretty much play any race for free (i.e. everything balances out). For the Everyman skills, I wanted to have just the same number, so that it would be "fair". What do you think? Nightshade

I must admit that I don't know much about what anyone does on most of the other forums. I am pretty new here, and the forums are pretty active, so I never get to read everything. I would say that tesuji's last post had only a couple things that I would call inflamatory, and not nearly so bad as before. I would say that I am still confused as to why someone who likes D&D so much is on a Fantasy HERO forum, but hey, that's his prerogative. I think that some of our forums do get way out of line due to people getting riled about something someone posted and feeding into the negativity created. There were lots of insults posted on both sides, you have to admit. The annoying thing about opinions is that they cannot be proven, but people will try anyway. It is my opinion that HERO is a (far) better fantasy system than d20. I can't realistically prove it, as that is an opinion. I can say that HERO has more flexibility in the character development area, as you can choose to focus on skills of any type, stats at any time, and not have to develop things that you don't want to develop, which is impossible to do in D&D (you cannot, for example, not gain any hit points at a level and get more skills instead). Whether that is a good thing or not is, again, a matter of opinion. If people wouldn't get so personal about it, perhaps we could get a discussion, not a big screaming match like we had before. I do understand, however, if you have seen someone post many times things like where the argument went before, and always involving the same person, why you would ignore their posts. Like I said, it is important to realize that these are the HERO forums, and we really should be discussing things related to HERO, and trying to keep it positive to HERO. We aren't paying anything to be here, so we should be respectful of that fact. Nightshade

I agree with almost everything you said. Just a couple of things: The only time that characters are limited to how many skills that they put into a single skill to go from unskilled to very skilled is at low levels. I was in a D&D game once where the Rogue suddenly decided that he needed to be able to sneak, as we were in a scenerio where that was going to be important. He just got to 7th or 8th level and put all of his points into it, making him pretty good in just one level. My point is this: I think that this situation is possible in any system, be it D&D, HERO, or any others. One advance that I'll give d20 over previous editions is that there is an advancement to the skills AT ALL. In 2nd ed, you put in a single skill point into swim, and you were an olympic quality swimmer. Don't have that point in it and you could only dog paddle. There was no gradient to make you better. It was much better done this time. My other point is that I would rather have my players decide where to put their experience than the system. If they don't want to increase their body, they don't have to. More skills over more spells for wizards, fine. I like that. But that is an opinion that can't be argued for or against. If you don't like that, and you find it too easily abused, then you should try something else. In terms of magic, I actually have the following problem with D&D wizards: The start off complete wimps, barely able to passably help the party. They get more powerful, but feels like they do it slower than the other classes. Suddenly, they improve by leaps and bounds as they get access to the more powerful spells. I found this trend as I went through my PBeM phase: Lower level games (say 7th and below) had a low frequency of wizards. High level games (15th and above) had a very high frequency of wizards. I finally figured out that it was because wizards get more powerful following an expontial curve. They start off slow, but then get more powerful per level. The other classes go up pretty linearly. This was for 2nd ed. The same somewhat holds true for 3rd, but it didn't look nearly as bad as before. Personally, I like being able to improve your character as you see fit. If you want your character to be more magically fit, and don't want to improve your statistics, other skills, whatever, then I want you to be able to do that. If you want to become more buff, or a better marksman, or more diplomatic, I think that should be the player's prerogative. You have more freedom now in d20 D&D than before, but there are still some times when some people wish that they could have fewer skills and more hit points. Nightshade

I won't post any response to the stuff that you stated before the points that I said that I'd discuss, although I will say that insults, from any side, is rude. I would also state that I don't agree with Killer Shrike as to feeding tesuji is feeding a troll. Aside from the insults, I think tesuji is trying to make his point. If he simply wouldn't be so, shall we say, aggressive about it, specifically the name calling and whatnot (however, I don't think he started it), I think that this would be a very good discussion. If you look at the last part of his last post, he was very cordial, and again had some very legitimate points. I am of the opinion that if more people did this, it would be a more pleasant forum. Now, on to the (hopefully only) discussion: tesuji wrote: "I believe, for worlds significantly removed from worlds the players are very familiar with, class based system, specifically loose class based systems, are immensely valuable tools to show the players much of what people in the world are like. I admit that in the hands of a GM who decided to be too constrictive, they are a means of it, but assert that he can be just as contrictive with the approval stage in a points-then-approve system such as hero. Classes are one way he can say no, but he can do so in many other ways." I'm still not getting this quote thing down. Anyway, I disagree. My world is much closer to Earth than Greyhawk, as I don't have very much magic, and D&D worked very poorly for it, because of that fact. I will agree that the purpose of classes is to do exactly what you say. And, I also agree that there are circumstances where the GM must say no. My issue is that it is the GM's perrogative, not the systems'. I think that D&D takes this somewhat away from the GM. tesuji wrote: "i think you and i are getting a different take on this. I will agree completely that DND is the classes but the fact is that DND is greyhawk. The official setting is greyhawk and the DND book includes that. All that being true, the question of which classes are allowed for a custom game is the GMs. he is not obligated by the rules to allow sorcerers or paladins or any of them. " I agree with you there. There is nothing that states that I have to use sorceror or paladin, or can't modify them. However, when I changed or deleted pretty much every class, my prospective players had problems. It simply wasn't D&D to them. I understand that the base setting is Greyhawk. However, most of the setting books released for d20 fantasy use at the minimum the base classes, with maybe a few tweaks, deletions, and add-ons. All of the ones released that I have seen (granted not that many) have wholesale changed them the way I had to. Now, if they are going to, great. I just haven't seen them, and I think that is for a reason. tesuji wrote: "I think the determinign elements there are the similarity of the cutom world to the two systems and the experience the user has with the system, not an ingrained element of the system themselves. Once you add "players" into the mix, i think the issue of newbies vs veterans shifts the balance more heavily towards D20 if newbies are involved." I agree with you there. D&D is definately a more new player friendly game, especially if you have never roleplayed before. I will also agree with you that as the players become more experienced, that the shift is more towards more complicated, freeform systems like what HERO has. Okay, that isn't really what you said, but it could be inferred from your post. That has been my experience, however. tesuji wrote: "That is one element of the skill resolution system. Since i rarely see toddlers arm wrestling with strongmen come up as an element of my stories, I really cannot see that as as serious an issue as you seem to have with it. I see "circumstantial modifiers" which adjust the Dc play into practically every scenario i have ever run... and as such i find the d20 "i know what a +1 modifier will do... 1 more chance in 20" vs hero's "i don't know what a +1 modifier will do... is it 10 chances in 216 or is it 27 chances in 216?" to be much preferable. With take-10 and even take-20, d20 deals with the more extreme randomness quite well IMO. " The 3 STR vs. 18 STR example holds true for any skill. Let me give you an actual in-game example. I had a wizard in my game with a STR of 7. He got into some trouble with the town bully who had a STR of 15. He got wrestled to the ground and restrained. Basically, he couldn't cast any spells. The party was a couple rounds away, but were running to help. Now, the wizard tried to get out of the bruiser's hold, and whooped the guy good on the roll. After looking at the statistics of it, he actually didn't have a bad shot at doing it, either. I have also had archery contests and concealment vs. search checks. Anytime it is skill vs. skill, the player with the lower skill simply doesn't have that bad of a chance to succeed. In my experience, this doesn't occur as often in HERO as D&D. I don't mind it happening, but I don't like the frequency of it happening. I don't think that I have had anyone ever complain about the +1 to skill is better for him than me due to my higher skill. Personally, I prefer to have a diminishing returns system, where getting a +1 to a skill is not as good the better you get. It feels more real to me that way. However, I much prefer the linear system D&D has to the system White Wolf and some others use, where not only does getting another die to your roll not help as much, you had to pay more for it (a lot more in many cases). tesuji said: "through classes the Gm allows the characters to progress in a reasonable way, showing the players what comes first and a scope for how things are learned... you don't get ti fireballs without learning easier magics. For this to happen in HERO, the Gm has to provide this information to the players. Last HERO game i was in i saw a photographer, the session after we had picked up a enemy computer, spend his 3xp to gain computers skill which he had not had before. he went from little skill, maybe a everyman roll, to 13- in the course of a "in game weekend" by picking up, and i mean this literally was how it was descirbed, "the yellow computers for dummies nook" and was off and making 13- die rolls for computer stuff. That violated no HERO rule. So, you must forgive me when i say, when someone talks about how much better the adnavcement and experience and gaining abilities is in hero, i often don't get that. it seems much more reasonable to scale things in order of acquisition so that prerequisites occur before more advanced abilities. HERO does not do that. A GM might decide to add that for his game, but HERo does not do that for him. Classed system do that." They only do that for the powers and abilities specifically of the class. They don't do that for the skills, necessarily. For example, where in d20 does it state that when you gain your level you can't put all of the skill points into one skill that was previously untrained? As to the example you gave, as GM I would rule that a "for dummies" book may not qualify for the full roll, especially over a weekend. You have to have time to practice a skill (any skill) before you get the full skill. As to the getting fireball without easier magic in D&D, that may be the case if you assume that all magic has the same philosophy. I never liked that idea, personally, but it is inherent to D&D (wizards all cast the same spell the same way). There is no rule that states, however, that you need to have anything even remotely fire related to get fireball in D&D. You could have all enchantment, necromancy, and abjuration spells and still get fireball without restriction (unless you were a specialist and picked that one as a forbidden school). I will agree that D&D does a very good job of doing what you are talking about with feats, especially. The magic has a different philosophy than I would like on my world. I do classify my spells in terms of common special effect/common style, so I have an admitted prejudice there. HERO's spell college system did attempt to rectify what you are talking about, but IMO did it poorly. We'll see how they do it with the new addition. tesuji wrote: "i find, as do other proponents of sidekick I think, that the system's learning curve does get in the way of new players being attracted to it. i know if i told my barbarian player, who took up roleplaying after she turned 50, that the HERO5 manual plus the megasized fantasy hero manual were the books needed for the play and chargen, she would have smiled and told me no. When i was able to give her the PHB and thats quite literally all she used to build her character... that worked. i think sidekick will go a long way towards bringing new players to HERO. " I have already agreed that D&D is a much better system for people who have never roleplayed before. I don't understand why sidekick will help get people into the game. I know that I haven't read anything about what the Sidekick book will do, but I will say that the HERO system Grimoire will help me with my fanasy game MUCH more, as it eliminates a lot of the math associated with the spells. It makes it easier to play a wizard when you can just look the spell up and write it on your sheet. I'll have to look up what the sidekick book idea is, so I can't really comment as to your point there. tesuji wrote: "I agree. As stated earlier, i actually recommend D20 modern for low magic worlds. Truth be told, its even looser class system is IMO superior to DND's greyahwk class system. When i run another fantasy game using d20, i will likely as not utilize a lot of the d20 modern class structure by adding in the "stat hero" classes as more generics and removing any multiclass penalties in favor of prerequisites for 'advanced classes." I never got d20 modern, as I already had a system that I liked. How are you planning on doing magic with that? Do they have anything for that, our do you have to create the spell progression, etc? Anyway, like I said, I can't comment as to how well d20 modern will handle low magic worlds, as I don't own the product. I will say that I wouldn't use D&D, for reasons I have listed previously. Nightshade

OH!!! Well, now that you put it that way... I think that I would do the point expenditures as I described above. Actually, I think that it would be very interesting to roleplay the xp expenditure, as there are a lot of interesting plot hooks just in your post. I think that the rules in the FREd for grounds and "base" followers ala TUV vehicle followers would work. Again, if the follower is serving the character, the character should buy it. However, if the follower is more attached to the land (and may betray the character if he thought that the fief were better off without him), then the base should buy the follower. Nightshade PS I am mostly here to help. I am never here to hinder. I am always here to learn, gain perspective, and have fun, not necessarily in that order.

I am not angry. I have never lost my temper, and I have never called you any names. I am also the only person who has stated that you have had some good points. Again, and I'm sure that I have stated this more than three times now, I got into this thread by AGREEING WITH YOU. Particularly as to your points with D&D. However, you have since gone completely off the topic (admittedly with help) and have bashed HERO in every possible way. That is simply rude. The reason isn't because we are rabid fans of HERO and can't stand criticism. It's simply because these are the HERO boards and you have attempted to slam everyone who even attempts to defend the system. I will also point out that I have read all of the thread, and really, what does your initial post have to do with what I was talking about? Just to say it again: You are being rude. You are being insulting. You are being a poor guest on these boards put up by a company to promote their products. Now, to your points: I get the distinction. I understand your point. Here is my point: Just because someone insults D&D on the HERO boards does not give you the right to insult, annoy, and belittle people as you have done. Many people have posted rebuttles to your claims. If you had a good point, I have stated so. If I had a good point, you have either ignored it or attempted to wave it away as a nuance or triviality. Many times you have done with D&D what you are accusing me of doing for HERO. No. That isn't hard to believe. What I find difficult to believe is that people make and buy programs to make their D&D characters easier, and HERO makes a product to do the same, and then people complain about the math in HERO. If the math bothers you so, get the program. I also find it difficult to believe that it is THAT much more difficult. It really doesn't take me much longer to make a Fantasy HERO character than a 3rd ed. D&D character on paper without the programs. I understand that this is/can be a hang up, but with a calculator, I really just don't see it. Maybe it is because I have done so many. I think you may be right on that point. I agree with your point that it is the GM that should limit what is available for characters to play. However, the correlary to this is that it is the GM who should do this, not the system. I have argued the point from the beginning of this discussion that it is easier to do this with HERO than D&D. Not that it isn't possible to do this in D&D, just that it isn't as simple to do. I think that you get a lot of the credit for degrading the thread to the D&D sucks, HERO is better; no its not direction this thread took. I would also give you a lot of the credit for why people got so upset. Just from your last post: "Unfortunately, for you, i have been here since the beginning." "Can you get that distinction? You haven't so far." "non-say-bad-hero-stuff-hulk-get-madder-than-hornet crowd" "Sorry if my facts get in the way of your rage. It was a good rage, a well done rage. Kudos for that." Now, if someone did that to you, would you get upset? Of course, and IMO reasonably so. But you will notice that my posts have not done any of this. The only time I may have even given you a jibe was when, in response to a snide comment from you, I reworded a snide comment back, or when I posted that I thought it was amusing that most of the current discussion started by people (not only you) flying off the handle partially from a post I sent AGREEING WITH YOU! I still find that hilarious, btw. I haven't raged against you. I never have. I'll admit that some have, and I will say that I don't agree with some of the responses from them, but you have to admit, some of the venom unleashed was from your side of the fence. Actually, now that I say that, I'll also take some of the responsibility for that. I will admit that sometimes I did not explain myself properly, did not have a full grasp of some of the rules, and put up some very bad examples. That lowered the quality of the discussion and can be very annoying. For that, I appologize. I think I can sum up where we disagree. If you would like to continue this conversation, I am more than willing to address the following points: 1) I believe that a class based system is too constrictive for the character development, even the vastly improved system used in D&D. 2) I believe that the classes in the PHB (but not in the DMG or any of the various supplemental books) are an inherent part of the "official" d20 fantasy game called D&D. Therefore, it is fair to discuss them as part of the D&D system, but not part of the d20 system. My interpretation is that it is the prestige classes that are setting specific and the basic classes are genre specific. 3) I believe that in some circumstances, HERO is a better fantasy system than D&D because it is more easility customized to fit your game than D&D. 4) I believe that HERO's skill resolution system is better than D&D, as it is less likely that in an opposed skill vs. skill contest that a low skilled character to beat a much more skilled character. 5) I believe that HERO has a better character development system as the players have a more uniform way to increase and obtain skills with experience than in D&D. 6) I believe that HERO does have more math and a steeper learning curve than D&D, but that it is not something that is particularly difficult to overcome, given the opportunity. 7) I believe that D&D is a good system for those fantasy worlds that D&D is good at, such as high magic, high fantasy games. These are what I believe, and a short description of why I believe it. I invite all of those who are ignoring me or tesuji to stop that and join in a constructive discussion on the topic. What I don't want is for this to get into a shouting match or lots of insults. If you would like, I can start a new thread just for this purpose. I'd like to know your thoughts. Nightshade

Normally, I wouldn't require point expenditure, either, for something given in game. However, that is what the creator of the thread wanted to do... We are only here to help. Nightshade

I would consider the fief itself as grounds; the castle (or manor house) as a base; people devoted to the character as character followers; people devoted to the fief as base followers; mines, fields, whatever would be wealth with those as a special effect, including taxes; and then state that the other structures not purchased as part of the base are not under the control of the character(s) involved. That was a very long sentence (thank god for semi-colons!). Castles can have quite a lot of equipment. Canons, anti-seige equipment, and arms/armor all come to mind. And there are lots of "laboratory" type things needed for most equipped castles. That seems reasonable to me. Nightshade

Definition of Dragons I just looked up Dragon in the Webster's dictionary and there was no mention of number of limbs. There was only one mention of size, but that was for Dragonet, which means "little dragon." The root word for dragon actually means serpent or reptile. I had never heard of the 4 feet on the ground, but attempting to get to heaven thing before, but that is a pretty cool idea. Nice symbolism there. I think I'll do some more in-depth dragon research. Oh, and for other movies in the fantasy genre, the Harry Potter movies are actually pretty good. My wife liked them so much, she read all the books. They are a little light compared to most of what I read, but I was entertained. Nightshade

Let's see if there's a difference in ways to respond here: Question: I really dislike how the Fantasy HERO book did the Spell College thing. I'd like a magic system that allows more spell effect freedom, so that my mages have more of a variety of spells. I also want them to have access more spells, especially as they get more experienced. How do I do that, yet make them so that they aren't too powerful compared to non-magic characters? Option 1: Post a magic system that uses some sort of power framework, but with limitations, such as charges, required use of endurance reserves, or other required limitations to make them more balanced. Option 2: Suggest that they use D&D (or any other system) to play their game because they have a better way of doing it. Okay. They posted the question on the HERO forums. This usually means that they are expecting something similar to option 1. Now reverse the situation: Question: I really hate how the PHB does magic. I want a more focused magic system that allows wizards to have fewer spells, but more powerful ones. I also want them to be able to cast more often per day. Option 1: Point them to a d20 book that has a different magic system. Option 2: Point them to a different system that has that type of magic. Again, if this were on a D&D board (or d20 board, for that matter), I would assume that they are looking for something similar to option 1. Why? Because they posted it on the D&D/d20 forums. As to your math rant. The first part of your post, you complain about the tedious nature of the math. The next part, you state that you created however many NPC's for another system, something you would never do with only a couple months of experience with HERO. Hmmm.... You wouldn't do it with only a couple months of experience. I'm sure its due to how tedious it is. That's certainly the implictation there. But, I will say this. I find using a calculator to figure out the power costs 6 or 7 times much less tedious than being limited in what characters I can create, use, play, and develop. I have written up many NPC's for my Fantasy HERO game, by hand, on paper and can do any character in about 45 minutes, most of which is actually spent writing. It isn't particularly tedious, because the only time I need to do any calculating is when I have spells. The rest of the time, it is stats, skills, perks, and talents, which mostly have fixed costs. The only math involved is addition and subtraction for most non-wizard characters, much like d20. I also don't believe that the HERO board is intended by most users or the creatores to be only about happy HERO thoughts and without criticism. However, that is NOT what you are doing. At its heart, you are advertising for a competitor's product, which I highly doubt DOJ is looking for here. In addition, you are not criticizing HERO in any meaningful manner. These are all arguements that have been heard before on GENERAL RPG forums, such as rpg.net and others. HERO is too complicated, HERO is too easily abused, its too hard to make your character, there's too much work because there are no prebuilt spells, etc. The response on these are always that same: HERO isn't as complicated as most people think it is, ANY system can be abused (the GM must be able to say no), the character generation is only difficult if you think that the math is difficult, and there are prebuilt spells in some books, it's just that some people didn't particularly like the way that they did it. Nightshade