Gandalf970

Wow I would love to hear more about your campaign setting and details, details details. This is deep deep deep and I love it. It would be great if you could do a knowledge dump on us. I would love to read it.

Good idea

Fantastic thanks Scottish Fox

Lord Liaden FANTASTIC! This is the stuff I was looking for. Game tonight so I will update Ptolus as we go. Thank you again.

Players are descending into a hellspawned pit. They are climbing down with ropes and a demon has been summoned and inhabits this place. I am looking for some dark descriptions that will emote fear and terror as they descend. Thanks in advance.

Wow I would love to hear more about your campaign setting and details, details details.

Archer great idea! I like it! A freezing pit of water hmmmmmm

Thank you for all the help, these were fantastic ideas and I am using some and mixed. I decided on the relay and the fight hanging from a rope. I am also going to use Thia's idea about now they are seditionist's and are going to be introduced to new allies to really take down the new enemy. Great help all, I will let you know how it goes!

If you have been reading my Ptolus story the party has finally decided to actually help. They are not do-Gooders this is more out of keeping themselves alive so they can go back to a somewhat normal life. I don't want to do the normal, fight the cultists, one minor boss then fight the last boss, ritual stopped. Please send me some ideas as to a different take on how this adventure could play out. They know the location and have a means to get into it. They are not great puzzle solvers, but low level one's could be ok. This isn't a high level magic setting, but it could be used to slow them down. Other then that, what lies below is up to me and now you.. Thanks

The party had to decide which faction they were going to align with to try and figure a way out of this. After seeing the lay of the land, there were the barbarians who held the docks, the Crimson Circle in the middle, three demon cults to the NW a Necromancer to the North and a force who worships the Sun God Tharzane to the due west. The city was a miasma of dead animals, people and life in general. Smoke, flies and carrion birds abounded. They approached this encampment and with a little luck (one player has 5d6 luck) they were allowed in and asked to help. They all decided to do some hero stuff and helped capture one of the more learned cultists. He explained that there was a ritual they were planning. The party then went back and forth on just getting out of the city, but remembered the barbarians were outside. They then went and conversed with the said barbarians. They wanted to know why they attacked the city in such force when they had to march for 6 months to get to the city. Well they found out the Crimson Circle cult had captured their king and they were fighting for him. So they went back to the Sun God people and told them what they found out. One of their priests informed them of a prophecy that if a king was sacrificed then the Ghul can return and fulfill his evilness. So now they are going to be heroes and interrupt the ritual and help save the city.

Where do I find something in this example. Big troll warrior learns magic. He decides to learn lightning fist. how is it laid out in hero? He wants to punch and have the magic light go off as well? Does he cast the spell the round prior or does he make two rolls ? How do you see this working?

This Halmades I like your late night ramblings!

It was a perfect role playing moment! The party was hiding out in their mortuary basement. There are 6 coffins tied to a ritual called the covenant of blood that they haven’t figured out. There is also an opening to the ocean. Well part of the covenant is if they fill the coffins with vampires they can summon the sahuagin to aid them. But since they haven’t figured this out the sahuagin come to check on this periodically. When they came up they attacked them. The vampire did as well and then lost control due to bloodlust after feasting on one. She turned to attack a player and I rolled an 18, so I had her crumble to dust. But one player took it and ran saying she died from infected blood. This ties perfectly with the covenant and may cause them to investigate further. I am adding that vampires cannot hurt sahuagin in that room due to the prophecy.

Well the group didn’t want to be a hero and allowed the chaos cults of Ptolus to summon the Night of Disolution. What this amounted to is bringing various demons into the fight. A little back drop was a barbarian horde was part of a prophecy and this has been going on for 15 sessions. The players then seen the armies take to the walls. I have them a chance to interrupt one of the rituals but they ran away and hid in a mortuary of theirs for 8 days. After their Vampire gave the all clear they went out and viewed the wreckage! Half of the city is gone and so is 60% of the population. There are fires everywhere, ghouls on most streets, demons flying about and a Necromancer has raised a skeletal army in Necropolis. Also their vampire died due to feasting on infected blood (and an 18 attack roll)which has them even more scared. They are now trying to figure out who they are going to align with. They have a mistrust of the city government and really have a quandary. Disease is going to come knocking and they only have three weeks worth of food and water. Flies and cultists are there big worry and the ghouls

There was supposed to be a big fight where the party helped stop the Night of Dissolution in Ptolus. Well as usual the group went in a completely different direction and let it happen. They hid themselves away in a deep mortuary they had found and stocked it with food. Basically it was eight days of complete darkness where the various cults roamed free. At the same time some barbarians were attacking. This was all brought on due to these cults doing rituals. The aftermath was about 30% of the City being destroyed along with the army fighting off the barbarians. The group isn't really do gooders and are all about themselves. They have a few hooks in the town, but I need to find a new story arc for them as they didn't stop the cults. Something more they can do for themselves that has some importance after the disaster in the city. Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

Page 224 and 225 five some great ideas on balancing armor. I use the Endurance cost, the DCV and DEX rules and the rule that Post -Segment 12 Recoveries don't allow characters to Recover End due to Armor use.

Bluesguy thanks! I have been playing games for 40+ years and have always played it that way. After the game if it didn’t work we would discuss it! Glad to hear that others do the same!

First off grab Fantasy Hero as it has a ton of great ideas and thoughts on tool-kitting your game. i am currently running a low fantasy campaign. These are some of the rules I use. I make armor have a -DCV and -DEX per armor point. Players can buy it off, but it really makes them think about armor as it takes over the game quickly. I made recovery of body only available every two weeks, you could get grittier and only allow a recovery every month for body. I use the breaking of armor and weapons from Fantasy Hero, they have decided to seek out a weapon maker to make stronger weapons. As far as magic, I use a magic roll, incantations and gestures as well as side effects for all spells. All spells are visible. Also every spell generates .25-.50 corruption. Corruption awakens enemies of the types of spells you are casting, demon vs divine, fire vs water etc. I don’t allow healing spells or magic potions except in rare situations. I also don’t allow any magic items except legendary ones that provide plot to the story unless the character buys it. Depending on how often you cast spells in a certain area it becomes active against a player. This also creates corruption and areas have multipliers and END cost like 1.25,1.5 etc. Must have Magic Endurance reserve and magic recovery.

Thank you so much mallet. I am just beginning my Hero adventures and this is so helpful! It really makes a lot of sense to me now!

The Necromancer in our group has created a Vampire and is looking create some Skeletons. We are using the rules as written in the 6th edition Grimoire. We got to talking about how many you can have and how long they last and if you have to control them. There is no control required but my take on it is that the cost of goods and not really being able to actively use all of them is kind of the limiting factor. If you decide to create 1000 skeletons (which is a spell) you have to have 1000 sets of bones and then what do you do with them. It is the same concept with the Vampire spell as there is an option to create 16, but you have to have caskets, places to hide them even though all are Slavishly Devoted they will be sitting around and having to feed so I feel it creates more in game issues then worrying about controlling them. The control is managed by the fact that you cannot do that much with your own character as you are using all of these to do your work. Is this how you see it? Have you had issues with this aspect? Coming from other games they were always worried about controlling creatures but I would like the communities thoughts on these issues. Please let me know how you see this in your campaign. Thanks as always.

Pan piper that is great, Ptolus is a great campaign setting and a lot of fun for all.

Another session in Ptolus and some fun stuff. The Necromancer was able to summon his Vampire Scarlett with much fanfare. This was a long term goal which he finally succeeded at. The party reveled in this for a few days and ran around at night unhindered for the first time. The face man and gambler got a hook when he was shooting dice from someone. A group of Delvers had found something deep under the city. They tried selling it at the Undercity Market (a less then scrupulous place for black-market items) and were unable to find a buyer. The information was gathered on a critical roll so I gave them the Midtown location where the item and Delvers were located. They surveilled the place and found that they had at least one mage and decided to hang back and watch the place a little longer. Another player the 1/2 Elf Rogue rolled a critical surveillance and the gambler found some luck (5d6 luck) when he rolled. As they were watching the place the Balcazar Crime Family sent in eight thugs to steal what they had brought up from under the city. There was a huge fight that the players watched and then they swooped in killing the injured and securing the chest. They then had to hang out in a hideout before they could move the item to a safe place. The Necromancer detected magic and they decided to go to the Necro's contact and ask him. Fortunately they didn't bring the chest with the item in it. The Necromancer's contact wanted 25% to open, but they were to cheap and once again they were fortunate to not take the deal. The following day they hid out in one of the Rogue's hideouts in Midtown and noticed someone was searching the area. They moved the chest to the Warrens at night with the help of the recently summoned Vampire. By this time the Crime Family was wrecking shanties as mages were desperately searching for the chest. Again they were smart and put it deep under the mortuary they had purchased in the Warrens. They hired a professional to unlock the chest and found an arm to a statue. The Rogue remembered a dark demonic statue in the Necromancer's contact's place that didn't have an arm. His contact was afraid of the statue as it was demonic. So they did the right thing and dumped the chest and arm deep in the ocean. Very fun night and they were afraid the whole night, they were worried about the Vampire's bloodlust, the Crime Family and the Delvers.

MordeanGrey, I am going to do this for sure. It makes so much sense!

Thanks Ninja-Bear! I appreciate the advice and I want to get it right so the players understand it and it makes sense to all of us. Asking on this forum helps so much as I am new to HERO and I receive so much great advice.

Another couple of good night's in Ptolus. My players picked up a basic job. I spice merchant they worked for before named Burt hired them to find out who is underselling him in the trade and get the product for him. Usually my group does their investigation, surveillance and is pretty cautious. For whatever reason they ran right in and didn't do anything. They detected some magic around candles the people they were searching for and decided they wanted nothing to do with them. They never asked the next question and assumed that they were evil. The sent a letter to the Knight of Pale and the Conciliators. They then received some bad dreams and a vision, but they ignored it. Well the Knights of Pale do what they do and killed two of the merchants and captured the other one. What they found out later was that the candles were for good voodoo magic as a recent surge of refugees was bringing disease into the city and Aizylin the loa of marketplaces wanted this healed. This led to some great aha moments and some back tracking a requests of forgiveness. They found a juju zombie head and he told them what was needed. They did a great job impersonating a Lothian High Messiah and releasing the prisoner and returning the bodies to a withdoctor. Great night tomorrow as a player is summoning his first vampire!!!