migo2154
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Posts posted by migo2154
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On 10/13/2023 at 1:55 PM, Grailknight said:
I think I've figured a way to do this, but it's really complicated and expensive.
Zed chould buy all the Powers that the Shadow Clones will have access to first. Then buy Auto-fire and Indirect on all of them as Naked Advantages and add a Custom Limitation based off Retrainable to allow for them being destructible and perhaps an Extra Time to manifest them. I think that covers everything, but I wouldn't want to have to write this up.
Or with GM permission, he could make use of the 5-point doubling rule to make copies of a Multipower bought through a Focus and just have them be Fragile.
Omg xD, i didn't understood at all haha.
So, it's basically build the shadows as a set of powers with naked advantage, and then apply it a 5-point rule to allow me use it multiple times?.
On 10/13/2023 at 2:08 PM, Hugh Neilson said:Physical Manifestation seems like the relevant limitation.
To limited SP, I've put activation rolls on SPD. Make the roll at PS 12 for the coming turn. This allows a character to gradually invest a point or two at a time into SPD.
So, in this context, Physical Manifestation represents the custom limitation Grailknight mentioned?.
I'm sorry for my ignorance, but what means SP? 😆.
On 10/13/2023 at 3:41 PM, Grailknight said:That's just teleport with an SFX and a Limitation. I doubt the Shadow Clones will leave LOS.
Like I said, incredibly expensive but I think it covers what he wants. Sometimes HERO is like that.
Thank you, I had a mental block that kept me from recalling that one.
What means LOS?. I'm sorry but i'm still not so used to the Hero Abbreviations. 😅 -
5 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:
You could agree anything with the GM that suits you both. As a GM, I would be content with two separate SPD tracks, one for ZED hitting the usual SPD 5 segments and one for the shadows on a SPD 3 track. With you paying for 5 SPD at full price and an additional 3 with some kind of limitation.
The big question are how does it work when the SPD changes because a shadow is created or a shadow is destroyed. What happens, in your system, when shadows and ZED are supposed to move at the same time? There is a big advantage in being able to act twice in one segment, that might be a 0 limitation taken on the 3 SPD, cannot act in same segment as ZED.
Doc
Got it, i'll talk with my GM about it, Thank you all! ^ ^ -
19 hours ago, LoneWolf said:
Duplication or Summons is not a good fit because the shadows do not seem to be independent sentient creatures; they seem to be more of an extension of the character. Basically, they allow the character to make his normal attacks from several different locations. The original poster also stated he wants to play a Ninja. Most Ninja use martial arts and some weapons to attack. Stretching allows you to do attack from different locations.
Start with Images to sight with a -5 to perception roll with the limitations only to create shadows duplicates, Limited Range, Physical Manifestation and Unified for 9 points.
Add 15M Stretching with the advantages Fully Invisible and Does Not Cross Intervening Space and the limitations No Velocity Damage and No Noncombat Stretching, Unified Power, Linked to Images for 17 points.
Add 15M teleport with Position shift, No Noncombat movement, Unified Power and linked to images for 10 points.
For 36 points the character can create one or more shadow duplicates within 15M and attack through them He can also use teleport to swap places with his duplicates.
Oh i see. And yes, Shadows are not independent creatures, but extensions of Zed that can do everything he does.
18 hours ago, LoneWolf said:Sentient was probably a bad choice of words. I should have just said independent and left it at that. I envision a shadow clone more as an extension of the character than a separate creature. This is based on the fact the clones can only act by the characters mental orders and cannot act on their own. It also prevents the clones from being mind controlled.
That's also true. Shadows cannot be mindcontrolled because they're not creatures, they're most like a "ki-based" copies of Zed.
14 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:Me, Duke and LoneWolf are probably saying that the shadows are essentially SFX of other powers, they exist in the world and the advantages they provide can be removed by opponents by destroying the shadow, which must then be recreated by Zed.
Because they are SFX, they are extensions of Zed and can do anything you pay for Zed to do.
Essentially, the shadows are created and move away from Zed at whatever pace Zed can move. They then become floating points from Zed to attack from, perceive from, instantly change places with, etc.
All you need to do is pay for those abilities. So, attacking and carrying out tasks, those come using indirect, or stretching (does not pass through intervening space). Swapping places is teleport, only to specific floating locations (the shadows). Spying would be clairsentience, only from those same locations.
I suggested that, on his own, Zed has SPD 5, and that increases when he creates shadows, representing an ability to do more when shadows are active. If you stuck with RAW rules about SPD changes, that could get tedious, I would get a little loose with it. If you were moving from SPD 5 to SPD 8, your phases go from 3,5,8,10,12 to 2,3,5,6,8,9,11,12. I would suggest that you allocate phases 2, 6 and 11 to the existence of shadows and act on 3,5,8,9,12 in their absence. If it takes an action to create a shadow, Zed might spend segment 12 in combat creating a shadow, segment 2 creating another, segment three creating another, so he would be delayed until at least segment 5 in acting, if he wanted to be fully up to speed. If he chose to work with fewer shadows and different SPDs then you could work with the GM on what segments your phases would be, I dislike the RAW for this.
Duke and LoneWolf gave steered clear of this and suggested the shadows extend his ability to act in a round but not how often he acts (truly, more sensible but leaves out (for me) the feeling that he can do MORE per round).
It is a halfway house to using summons and duplication.
Doc
Ok, i get it now. So that means Shadows are simply a roleplay excuse to make those powers, and a way to replicate Zed's abilities as if they're another copies of him. But in this case, aren't shadows a kind of fragile focus for all powers or actions? or the focus limitation is not necessary for those powers?.
Another question, could be possible to have a separated speed chart for my shadows?, something like: A SPD 5 Speed chart for zed, and a SPD 3 Chart to make the shadows actions when they are summoned?. I'm not sure if this could be possible... Maybe i could talk it with my GM about it.
8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:Doc:
For what it is worth, I suggested "loosening the MPA rules;" that was intended to allow a feeling of more per round- such that each "clone' could attack separate targets without penalty (or perhaps allow the purchase of skill levels to offset this penalty.
However, buying SPD +1 as a power (an END-costing Persistant power) with the SFX of "shadow guys running around" would give a nice cleanliness to their popping in and out- might even include a limitation that the SPD can be forcibly shut down if both shadow guys are attacked in the same phase, etc.
There is more you can do, but to be honest, as this was specified as a player character, I was trying to avoid an excess of "doing way more" for the same reason Doc (and I ) don't really like Duplication for Pcs: too easy to dominate the game, even id being careful not to.
I see. I'm agree to make Zed's powers in the less game-breaking way possible. -
14 minutes ago, unclevlad said:
How are you going to execute multiple attacks with a ranged attack? These are also independent attacks; doesn't matter how many miss, you get all 4. If you're going with Multiple Attack...soon as one misses, that's it.
I'll give one example of their use...sic all 3 on a single foe. He did say they have a high CV. Give them Teamwork...and all of them play wolfpack tactics. The one who gets targeted...dodges. The other 2 attack. Or keep them near you. You get engaged? If your opponent hasn't invested heavily into a multiple attack regimen, he's got problems. Yeah, the fact that they're SO easy to eliminate is a problem, and at the table, might need addressing...but they're not useless. If they've got ranged weapons as well as melee? You've got volley fire.
To the OP: when they're Summoned critters, you can make them Automata. This answers your mindless, don't care about them getting popped like a balloon, etc. It does requite the full +1 Amicable, tho.
Yeah, in this case, all shadows could make attacks like "Throwing shurikens" at range. They could do melee attacks too, using swords and so. The main idea is to have a group of automatons that follow my orders and can coordinate attacks, and in the same time, they could act as defensive mechanism due to the swap ability, but they must be fragile, so they can be easily killed. Zed is, indeed, a fragile character too, so he depends of constantly evade attacks, that's more or less the kind of gameplay that i'm looking for.
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9 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:
This looks like an obvious application for duplication. I have real problems with duplication characters. Why? Because it allows one player to dominate a game. If there are four players with a character each, they all get 5 or 6 actions per round. If one If those players can duplicate into four, that player gets 20 to 24 actions per round, more than the rest of the group put together.
As such, if I was given such a character, I would be looking at a character with perhaps 5 SPD and +3 SPD (physical manifestation) and a naked advantage to apply indirect to physical skills (from any of the shadows created when the SPD is activated). The swapping is, to me, effectively a limited teleport, only to the locations of the Shadows.
The big thing for me would be what happens when a shadow us destroyed, does it mean that a new shadow can peel off and can only move at the movement rate of the core character?
This means the player can move character and shadows but he gets only 8 attacks a round, stopping him dominating stuff. Attacks can come from player or any shadow, the player can instantly move to where a shadow is. Then you can ignore all the issues with slavery etc.
Doc
Yeah, idk if is a good idea give shadows all that actions, maybe they could have less spd than zed. And, when a shadow dies, zed must spend his action to re-summon them again, they cannot reappear automatically.
3 hours ago, unclevlad said:--500m isn't close for something like this, particularly given that the main char has to give orders. For there to be a limitation here, it'd have to be MUCH less.
Ok, reduce the maximun range sounds correct, probably the best possible range could be 80-100m?.
3 hours ago, unclevlad said:--if main falls unconscious, summons disappear...this should be covered...? I can't find it quickly scanning through Summon.
--swap positions with any shadow is kinda tricky; for Zed, it's probably Teleport, only to Fixed Location (current location of a shadow ninja); for the shadow ninja, it'd be Teleport, only to where Zed was, uncontrolled, trigger.
--shadows can duplicate every one of Zed's abilities...I wouldn't lock that in stone, but I don't know how much these are intended to be used outside combat, and in what contexts...
Summons probably don't have to dissapear if zed is unconscious, but they cannot act, because they depends of Zed's orders to act.
Outside combat, maybe i could try to use shadows to spy, using stealth or something like that. In this way, shadows could communicate mentally with zed to report things (So the link could be used for that kind of situations), im not sure if i can share vision with shadows too... Maybe that can be so much?. But the summons surely will not have all zed's skills, so they cannot do things like lockepicking, or talk. They're more like automatons that only can follow orders while summoned. They could have a time limit too, maybe 1 hour or so...
3 hours ago, unclevlad said:Feels more like Summon, but the headache there is how expensive it'd be...because you'd have to buy Amicable. OTOH, you don't have to pay for Altered Duplicates...and you can summon 3 at once. For Duplication, you'd need Rapid Dup. Plus, there's a lot more quirks to Duplication; Hero's basis is actually biological duplicates, so swapping it over to a non-biological version is always a pain.
I'm thinking...reserve 75 or so points, for now, for the shadow ninja power. Build Zed. Then build the duplicates; one thing we KNOW, is they're going to be notably cheaper because they're so easy to trash. Note that they won't have any non-combat, non-ninja skills...I'd keep Stealth, but I'd probably not carry over Lockpicking or Security Systems, for example. So, what kinda point totals are we getting for these shadow versions? It might still be OK, even paying for that painful +1 for Amicable. (And also note that you'll get some break from the shadows limitation.)
I think that summon is the best option for me, although duplication sounds good too, i'm not sure about how to make them in that way x'D.
1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:Indirect TK, and an indirect PD-based ranged attack. SFX is "a shadow guy did it"
Get just a little bit loose with the MPA rules- not much, but a little.
T-port., SFX is "swapped with a shadow guy."
This works almost exclusively becauae of the stipulation that one hit tales them out: reasonable by attacking the source. Targets get a PER roll to see the source- it's a shadow guy.
There's more, but I think we can see the drift of this:
Why pay for duplicates or summoned characters who, from the description, are quite literally SFX. If they can wrestle, get some TK. However, if one hit dismises them, they arent going to wrestle particularly well...
Still, from what we have been given, spending pointa to create these guys is, thus far at least, some pretty expensive over-thinking.
Umm, yeah, maybe... But in that case, what kind of actions can i make with the shadows if they're not builded as summons?. For example, a shadow could walk by they own, attack, climb structures, spy... All of these by Zed's orders, because they cannot think by they own. -
Hello everyone!
I'm about to play a super hero campaign, so for this game i want to play a ninja, and, of all ninjas i know of, there's one i'm very interested to play: Zed.
For those that hasn't player LoL (good for you, never try play that sh... game), Zed is a ninja inspired in Shredder (The main Villain of Ninja Turtless).
He's a martial artist with very high combat skills, very good stealth, and is a expert in closed and ranged combat using all kinds of martial weapons. But, also, he has a special ability... He can control shadows. That is, a special power that allows him to create a couple of shadowed versions of himself, that he can use to make some kind of ninja tricks... And, since i want to play a Hero version of Zed, i'm, of course, trying to imitate this ability. There are some rules for these shadows:
- Zed can use more than one shadow simultaneously (Can be up to three, that's what my GM said).
- Shadows can die with every damage they receive (They simply have 1 hp and no defense).
- Shadows can imitate every of the Zed's abilitys, except the shadow creation power.
- Sadows only can act by zed's mental orders, they can't act at their own because they don't have conscience.
- If Zed falls unconscious, all shadows disappear.
- Zed can swap position with any shadow, even if zed is entangled, as long as zed is not stunned or inconscious. Zed is also aware of the location of every one of his shadows.
- There could be a maximun distance between zed and his shadows until they automatically dissapear, i think on something like less than 500m.
- Shadows have the very same weapons that zed currently has, and they can use it as effectively as Zed can, but they probably cause less damage than Zed.
- Shadows are physically equals to Zed, but with a shadow translucid appareance, because they're made of dark martial arts powers or something like that.
In order to make that power, i have some ideas, but im very confused right now, specially with the limitations that i must use with them, that's why i call for help x.x.
- Im thinking in make it as a invocation with the same skills and combat stats than zed, but with 1body, 1 stun, no defenses, and less DC on their attack damages. Also, make them with limitations like "slavery" (because they cannot think by they own).
- The swap ability is very confusing for me, but im think in some kind of mental link with the shadows, and a teleport power with the limitation (Only to swap position with linked shadows).
- Idk if i can make the swap power as a defensive ability, or if i can buy an alternative speed with the limitation (Only to abort to swap with shadows).
- The campaign level is about 400 character points.
What do you think about that?, There's some things that im not very familiar with, so i'm very interested in know your opinions.
Good day to all! ^ ^ -
13 hours ago, unclevlad said:
Ah, but you see, that's where campaign limits come into play. It's legal under one aspect...but not ALL aspects by your campaign rules. OR, use the rule related to Normal Characteristic Max...you can exceed them, but it costs DOUBLE. Even if you buy them as powers.
But note that buying an Aid will also allow the base OCV to exceed NCM. That means you'll want to examine it closely, and potentially not allow it...especially if the character has stuff like Fast Strike as a martial maneuver, which has +2 OCV.
The rules are extremely flexible, but that also means, HIGHLY abusable. Things like "30 AP for powers" includes a 2d6 HKA...which can be improved with martial maneuvers, or Weaponsmaster, or Deadly Blow. I tend to worry somewhat less about power APs, and more about damage classes *overall* with whatever they're doing. Focusing only on APs can create tunnel vision. You want to look at the final result, which has broader implications.
Ohh i see... So i must set a campaign limit. I got it
55 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:Seconded, unclevlad. Back in the lead-up to 6e, I recall a SETAC discussion on AP limits. Steve Long was a bit surprised as he noted that there are no rules on limiting APs in 5e, nor would there be in 6e.
Some high AP abilities (often with a lot of limitations) are quite manageable and good in specific games, while very low AP abilities can become game-breaking. "+6 OCV and DCV" added to the campaign average, much less maximum, would fit that latter description quite well. Even +3 over campaign maximum would be a huge shift. When the campaign norm is CV 7, there's a 40 point "character tax" over a campaign norm of CV 3.
Yes, this is true, i don't have problems with, for example, drains. But things like "characteristics as powers" or "power defenses" were giving me nightmares because are very cheap and my players can buy so mucho with 30ap.
But, anyway, thank you very much!, i will do that
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2 hours ago, unclevlad said:
Characteristics can be bought as powers. You can simply buy +3 OCV. It's already Persistent...so Time Limit is now a limitation...a large one. If he wants to use it on himself only? Then you're done. If he wants to use it on others, you get into the complexities of that advantage.
And what Lone Wolf noted is correct, when Time Limit is being used as an Advantage. What I said is correct when it's being used as a Limitation.
2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:Aid (and other adjustment powers) use the Delayed Return Rate to slow the fade rate. It's a +1 advantage for Aid to fade at 5 points per minute. As that's more useful than having it wink out after a minute, customizing the advantage to have it fade out entirely at 1 minute at +3/4 does not seem unreasonable.
3d6 Aid with +3/4 advantages is more than 30 AP, though. 18 x 1.75 = 31.5 rounds to 31, so not a huge difference, unless you are stuck on 15 AP as an absolute maximum..
As unclevlad suggests, he could just buy, say, with a 1 minute Time Limit (so -2 limitation). That could be +15 STR, +3 OCV or +3 DCV Usable on 8 recipients (+1). This now costs 0 END, can be used on multiple targets with one action and does not require any rolls. The drawback is that switching the Multipower will shut off the characteristic granted, so he can only have one at a time.
He could purchase these outside any framework, though - +15 STR UoO (x8) = 30 AP, 1 minute time limit (-2) = 10 Real Points. Add on the OCV and DCV powers and he pays 30 points for the entire set.
Right, understood. Thank you very much!
I'm affraid of allow them buy characteristics as powers because we are using characteristic maxima in this game, so he can't normally have more than 8 OCV, 8 DCV or 20 STR unless they uses some kind of temporal buff. But if he decides to make a power like: +6 OCV, 1 minute Time Limit (-2), that's legal in the because is not surpassing the 30 Points cap, But he will almost duplicate the maximun OCV, and adding CSL to that (he can buy up to +3 CSL) he will have 17 OCV, DCV, or 50 STR, and that's something that nobody, even the main villains, have.
I can, of course, tell him that he cannot do this and only buy characteristics until some limit. Have you faced this kind of situation in your games?, maybe is not as broken as i think?
3d6 Aid with a +3/4 advantage sounds very good. I could allow that too. -
23 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:
Time limit on an instant power allows it to be used again without having to activate it again. It is only useful if there is something that makes activating the power difficult. For example, if the power had a lengthy startup time or required using and expendable focus. Time limit would allow you to use the power any time during its duration without taking the extra time or without having to use another use of your focus.
If the Aids have limitations that are required to activate it, you can use the Aid without being restricted by those limitations. For example, if you had requires a skill roll and side effects on the Aid, you would not have to make the roll each time. But if you switched to a different Aid, you could no longer activate the first Aid without going through the full preparation. Any Aids you have still continue to function until the fade away. Once you shift to another slot you can no longer use the first Aid on someone else without shifting to the original slot. When you shift slots, you have to go through the full preparation each time. Once you do that you can use that aid until the time limit goes out without going through the perorations or until you shift to a different Aid.
Ahhh i understand. This not works as i thought then...
Seems that what my player wants is more like a Boost than a Aid... But he will pay END every phase to mantain it. -
14 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:
If I understand the question correctly, it's whether the character can (for example) Aid himself and another teammate for +18 STR, ++3 OCV and +1 DCV (as DCV is a defensive ability so adjustment powers are halved).
The answer to that question is "yes". The effect of Aid is instant, and wears off with time (fade rate). Changing slots and/or using Aid on a different target does not cause prior Aids to vanish.
Of course, it likely took 12 phases (2 uses of each slot on each target) to maximize the Aid amounts.
Ohh ok, so aids do not vanish when a slots change.
13 hours ago, unclevlad said:Also, Time Limit is IMO being used improperly, unless there's more going on. Aid has a lingering effect, but the fade rate is 5 points per turn. Therefore, it'll be gone in 4 turns...less than a minute. Time Limit as a Limitation is for powers that have no clear-cut termination point. With Instants, that allows it to be applied to something like an Entangle. Sure, it often won't last, but if the poor sot can't break out, it will.
Mmm, then Aids cannot have time limit advantage?.
Well, his idea was to build a buff with a time limit, but without the fade rate... Is this possible?. Something like: I have +3 OCV for 1 minute, after that time, the buff vanishes. -
Hi all!
I have a player in my game that has a multipower reserve with 3 Aid powers:
- Fixed Slot: Aid 3d6 STR, time limit: 1 minute.- Fixed Slot: Aid 3d6 OCV, time limit: 1 minute.
- Fixed Slot: Aid 3d6 DCV, time limit: 1 minute.
Since this is a heroic game, all powers cannot pass 30 active cost, so that multipower reserve have 30 Active points too, and i know that multipower reserves limits how many points can be used with that powers, so, since all powers are fixed slots and have time limit, he cannot activates all powers simultaneously. But, how about activate the same time limit power multiple times?.
Can he, for example, use Aid OCV multiple times, and mantain it activated in him and his party simultaneously?. -
I think that elves, dwarfs and orcs are very common in fantasy because they're cool xD, so everybody like them. But, in fact, every Setting has their own justifications to have elves:
In D&D, Elves are escencially "Nerfed Fairies", and this is because they aren't from one planet, but from another "Plane", because, you see, in D&D Lore, there exist the concept of "Planes", and are like dimensions that exists separately, but there is some type of link that allow things from one dimension to travel into another one. There are 3 planes that conforms the "Lower planes" (There are more planes, like the elemental planes, and de upper planes, but this is not important right now xD):- The Shadowfell: Is de plane of death and shadow, where all dark creatures and dark powers become.
- Feywild: Is the plane of life and wild, where all fairies (such Elves) and magical creatures came from.
- Reallity: The main plane where all mortals exists.
Elves became from the Feywild, but in Feywild they are no "Elves", they are "Eladrins". In other words, Elves are Eladrins that lost their powers because they lost their connection with feywild. But they're still Fairies, so they still can have a fraction of their original power.
Another example is the Warcraft saga, where Elves are descendants of Troll tribes that decided to live near of a magic source called "Well of Eternity". This Well is a source of pure magic power, the strongest source of magic in Azzeroth (The planet where warcraft story takes place), and this magic power caused changes in this troll tribe, making them more sensitive to magic and natural spirits of the planet. In this case, there are 2 main elves races:- The Kal'Dorei: Elves that have great affinity with the nature forces, and the Wild Gods. They're mainly Druids and Elune Priests (Elune is the God of Moon in the elf Mithology).
- The Shal'Dorei: Elves that have great affinity with the Arcane power. They're not god followers, but very scientifics, arcanists, and wizards.
So, each story represents Elves as different entities and have different origins, but all elves have some common things:
- They have longevity, and can live thousand years.
- They can sleep less hours than other races, or don't need to sleep at all.
- They can have a high arcane, or nature affinity.
- They're very agiles, and talented in sword and dance style of combat.
- They are a very arrogant race, and they usually see another races as inferiors, because they're commonly very proud of their lineage.
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On 1/12/2022 at 10:51 AM, Hugh Neilson said:
All of your examples seem focused on "what might happen in the game" without "what impact will these rules have on the game?". For example:
Sounds like there was no compelling reason to slow down or speed up, so they engaged in normal travel and these rules would not even come into play.
Again, these fatigue rules do not seem to be entering into the equation. Is there a reason for them to push to go faster, or want to go slower? Does he move faster (baseline) than them? Is he pushing himself to the point of exhaustion in haste to escape the players? If the players lose the trail, what happens? Again, are these rules having an impact, and how often will they have that impact?
You're right, these are mainly "What if" scenarios.On 1/12/2022 at 10:51 AM, Hugh Neilson said:Sure could. How is the players' decision on how fast to travel based on a beast they don't know exists, much less is hunting them?
What does that have to do with how fast they decide to travel?
I could invest hundreds of hours into designing random charts to determine the weather every day, but if all it will ever mean in-game is "It's sunny today." "That's nice."; "it's drizzly and a bit chilly today" "we pull the hoods up on our cloaks and soldier on" or "it's a blizzard out there" "OK, we'll remain in camp and get to our location a day later than we planned - who cares, there's no rush", then why did I bother?
Unless the players have to make meaningful choices on how fast they will travel, this all seems like wasted effort to me.
I understand, i'll focus on that then.
Thank you very much ^ ^ -
5 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:
So, when the characters are exploring, why do they care how quickly they move? Inmost of the examples you provided, they slow down to reduce the risk of hostile encounters. In a hexcrawl sandbox, time is seldom of the essence, so if moving slower is safer, why would the PCs rush?
You mention rolling for encounters every half day regardless of how fast they travel, but most of your sample encounters seem pretty static. Why would there be twice as many beasts (sleeping, eating, hunting, or making a surprise attack against players), harmless events (dead corpse, an npc traveling, abandoned camp, etc.) and bandits camping near of the area, or attacking people if they travel through the area at half speed? If I take two weeks, instead of one, to get between two settlements, I will encounter twice as many bandit camps and find twice as many dead bodies on the road?
Well, i can give another examples:
- Players must go to a place that is will take more than 7 days of travel, but their resources are limited, and of course, they can hunt and find more resources in the wilderness, but that's something that not happens everytime, so they decided to go at normal speed, so their resources will endure all travel, and they will not have skill penalties by going too fast.
- Players can be tracking someone, and they can't go so fast because they need to be concentrated in the traces, but they cannot go slow either, because his target is going fast too and they could lost him.
- A beast can be actively hunting, and players could not be aware of it, because: a) players are distracted making their camp. b) The beast was very good hiding his prescense ( beast's stealth check vs players perception).
- they can be exploring a abandoned house, and suddenly notice that another group of people is approaching. Players cannot know if they're enemies or not, so they decides to be very cautions until they reveals their identity (abandoned house encounter + people encounter).
But, again, all this situations aren't builded deliberately by me, is a result of the game itself, so i cannot prevent what will be the most used mechanic, or the most tipyc situation in a game session. What we want is a way to use that posibilities without the need of ingame calculations...
So if players wants to go faster, we don't want to make a in game calculation based on our actual speed and movement per hour. We want to develop a rule to have this already maded, so we can enfoque all our concentration in the roleplay and consult our speed charts whenever we need it.
Now, as for the penalizations or bonuses based on speed, this is a DnD mechanic that is maked because DnD is a very simplistic game, and they assumes a static speed for everyone, and in order to have variety of options, they do this kind of things. But we don't have any intention on mantain it because we know that hero is a very different game with endless possibilities, but that endless posibilities are very intimidating for us, so we didn't know who to make this approach.
What we're trying to do is a equivalence in hero that help us to simplify the mathematics. It's the same for LTE rules, we don't want to be actively calculating how many LTE we are consuming, we are trying to make a rule that help us to simply consult how many LTE was consumed.
And, of course, i don't have any problems to recalculate this rules once players upgrades their characters... I only want to have it precalculated in order to use all my concentration to roleplaying and improvising the encounters. This is why this is a good initial solution for us:
On 1/7/2022 at 7:14 PM, dsatow said:To figure out LTE costs for overland travel, this is how I would do it.
Figure out the shortest distance moved by all the player characters in a single turn. Then determine how much endurance is spent by each player going that distance. This gives you LTE end loss. For most players this will be about 3 LTE per turn since the minimum burn is 1 LTE per 20 minutes. Most normals will last 5-7 hours. Normal Heroes (not super) will probably last about 11-16 hours. This is not modified for rules regard sleep or food, so you might want to look that up as well. If you have a character that is burning more than 1 LTE per 20 minutes, most travelers would probably slow down to accommodate a rate of speed for them that would be 1 LTE/20 minutes.
In 5e, multiple this distance by 0.6 to get kph travel.
In 6e, multiple this distance by 0.3 to get kph travel.
Multiply kph by 0.621371 or .62 to get mph. This will give you distance travelled. Approximate movement modifiers to shorten the distance travelled due to "road conditions" in your campaign.
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3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:
This is the key. How involved will the players be with this, will it make things more entertaining for them or is it just a fascination for you as the GM? Will all the extra bookkeeping and time management matter for the game or not?
Ok, i understand... while players and me were preparing their characters, we have talked about how many gritty or realistic they want to play a game, and they want a game where they can manage resources like drink, food and exhaustion (need to sleep or rest). They want to play a survival game, but they don't want to play with so realistic rules that they characters would have to be in bed for 2 weeks because a injury...
So, i can say that they want enough bookeping to make decisions like camping, travel, search for resources to survive, to craft items and to descover things while adventuring. They want the climate important, but not so realistic to the point of simulate every aspect of life, so they want realism until some exent.
And i am looking for system rules that allows me to run the game and encounters with certain level of practicity to me and to the players, but taking into account the survival management of the game. -
8 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:
OK, so it takes 3 hours longer to get to where they were going. Maybe it takes twice as long as they make the whole trip at half speed. What impact does this have on the actual game? Will they arrive at the Evil Wizard's Tower too late to find he has already sacrificed Princess Pinafore to the Dread Dark Deity and is now Omnipotent - end of campaign? Or do they arrive just as the Dark Mage raises his dagger above the Princess on the altar as the stars align for her sacrifice, whether they arrive in a single day by teleportation, or take weeks trudging through the forest at half speed?
I finished to make this response to your post, and was just making corrections, where accidentally missclicked the MOUSE'S BACK BUTTON, and i lost all i writted :'c. I... wanna... die...
But, life is hard anyway, so here i go again:Well, low speed is half speed, so yeah, get oriented and find food could takes 1-3 hours at half speed, because they are very aware of their arounds, and more than that at normal speed, but i'm still making the maths to get the best results.
That example of the princess could work, yeah, but not everytime will be something so epic, players just would want to go to the location as fas a possible, explore it and go back to the city before gets dark because nights can be very dangerous in wilderness, and they don't want to affort that kind of danger. In anycase, we don't want to play a so epic game, we want to play a game where trained, heroic, but normal people are trying to survive in a post-cataclismyc world, developing their city by using the ancient artifacts and technology earned from ruins, finding resources to survive and make new gear, and defend their city from exterior enemies. Players can have some kind of mutations, or Psychic powers, but that will be some kind of anomalies (30 active cost or less), and not something powerfull.
The speed and traveling rules that i mentioned in my first post are maded for the D20 hexcrawl gamerules, but since they are simple and effective, they are used by another hexcrawls like Symbaorum, Mutant Year Zero, or Forbbiden lands, and some generic systems like Gurps or Savage worlds have some adaptations too. But we want to play it in hero because hero it's a incredible and customizable game, and our actual favorite so far! :3, so i'm trying to make adaptations, but, maybe there are hexcrawl and hextraveling rules in hero that i didn't find?.
8 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:Are events based on time or distance? It seems like I would find more location-dependent encounters if I move fast than if I move slow. That beast, corpse, NPC, abandoned camp, bandit camp, etc. is not going to be encountered until I travel through its location, so if I move half as fast, I should only have half as many encounters a day. How often will I have a good, in-game reason to be in a hurry?
Well, for practicity, Hexcrawl systems tends to roll encounters in periods of 1 hour, half journey, or a entire journey (i can decide how many times is a journy, but its normally based on the maximun distance that players can travel without get exhaustion levels, what i explained in my first post). However, since this is hero, and for the way that LTE works, i'm thinking of get rid of the journey concept, and let players decide directly how many hours they wants to travel. Im thinking on how to handle the speed, taking into account the responses i get in previous posts.
There are mainly 2 types of events: Locations and encounters.
- Locations are sites with static positions, and can be considered mayor events, with its own quests or plots, and yeah, players must reach the place in order to find it. However, i can change the place of any location if i want, as long as i relocate it into another hex of the same region, but i have a limit of how many big locations can be in a same region.
- Encounters, on the another hand, can be used as minor event that can be static or mobile, but the important thing is that encounters can be resolved in one session or less. (Ex: The players group have found a camp of merchant travelers). A bandit camp can be a minor event too, but a bandit's den isn't, because this could be a large dungeon that can have it's own quests (people kidnapped and hidded, or a wanted bandit is living here), and surely will be resolved in more than one session, so i consider it a Location.
There are some considerations:
- Encounters and Locations are maded in base of the region witch belongs, and those regions have 2 mainly things to consider: Their level of danger and their level of activity.
- The regions that are nearest of the main city are tipically safest, and have more npc activity, so the only possible dangers that can appear there will be things like minor beasts hunting, or small bandit groups trying to assault weak people.
- Regions that are farest of the city are more dangerous, and tends to have a high activity of dangerous enemies, dangerous locations (and better rewards), and such.
- Players can detect a encounter before it reaches them. Ex: player group travels throught the Dead forest and one of them sees a bandit patrol camping, so the group can decide to go far away from there, or plan a ambush. However, players can be surprised too, especially when they are camping without vigilance.
- Factions activities can alter the events of a region, so if, for example, a new faction takes the control of the main road, this region can become more dangerous, or safest than before, depending of the faction's desires.
- Players can alter the events too. If they destroys a enemy band that was ruling a region, that region can becomes safest. But players can become the new criminal band of that region if they want.
- Climatology events can occur based on the calendar's climate, so, if it's a rainy-heavy climate, natural desasters or events can occur (beasts can migrate from an zone into another because of an natural disaster and elevates the danger of the new region, and can be resulting into a whole new quest of beast subjugation).
I can modify my event tables of each region based on all this considerations, and fill it with new events whenever i see that some results will change that region. So, i can have control over what kind of enemies and events players can face in each region.In order to help players to decide what to do, i have a rumor's table that can give some advices about what can they encounter in each region, so they can berely know the level of danger they will face there, and the factions of the game can give players some quests to start, in the case of they don't know what to do in a session of game. They can Join into that factions and rank up by making quests, or they can make their own faction (their own mercenary companie, for example).
However, taking into account all this situations, i can't assure what players will face in a session, because i don't have control over every encounter that will occur in a session (i can control the encounter's difficult by creating levels of danger by region, however), so what i think i must do is give the players all tools that they need to make decisions, even if they ends to not using it, because someday they will need it.
For my hexcrawl games, i normally use the guides and references of these websites:- https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17308/roleplaying-games/hexcrawl
- https://welshpiper.com/hex-based-campaign-design-part-2/
- https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/09/fantasy-sandbox-in-detail-part-i.html
And i use this book's as complementary materials too:- Dragon magazine 136 - Fantasy cities and merchants
- Dragon magazine 137 - Wildernes, plants and beast
- Old school adventures - D30 sandbox companion
- GM's Miscellany - Wilderness dressing, by Ragin Swain Press
Although, since this is a post-apocaliptic game, not a fantasy game, some of the resources are no so usefull, but i can adapt another ones too. ^ ^
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19 hours ago, dmjalund said:
i think the version is 4e
Ok, understood
15 hours ago, HeroGM said:Ok, the Post-Apoc book is for 5e. Not enough differences in the game so both should be usable.
LTE can go for how long you want IMHO. Just figure out the ratio and go from there. Will they only recover X END every 1 hour (or two or...) and set it at that.
12 x 5 x 60.....
Alright then, thank you ^ ^
13 hours ago, dsatow said:To figure out LTE costs for overland travel, this is how I would do it.
Figure out the shortest distance moved by all the player characters in a single turn. Then determine how much endurance is spent by each player going that distance. This gives you LTE end loss. For most players this will be about 3 LTE per turn since the minimum burn is 1 LTE per 20 minutes. Most normals will last 5-7 hours. Normal Heroes (not super) will probably last about 11-16 hours. This is not modified for rules regard sleep or food, so you might want to look that up as well. If you have a character that is burning more than 1 LTE per 20 minutes, most travelers would probably slow down to accommodate a rate of speed for them that would be 1 LTE/20 minutes.
In 5e, multiple this distance by 0.6 to get kph travel.
In 6e, multiple this distance by 0.3 to get kph travel.
Multiply kph by 0.621371 or .62 to get mph. This will give you distance travelled. Approximate movement modifiers to shorten the distance travelled due to "road conditions" in your campaign.
That sounds good to me, and with the Christopher's info i could do something good hehehe... Thank you very much! -
The problem i have with LTE is that LTE is calculated at rate of END/RECOVERY per turn (12 seconds), but in my hexcrawl campaign, the minimun travel time that players can do is 1 hour of travel (1 hex), because it's a hexcrawl game, so the map is divided into hexes, and each hex have 3 Miles of size, that represents 1 hour of travel using the standart speed of 5km/h.
So, i'm looking for a way to calculate the exhaustion by the minimum travel time posible (1 hour), or at least, each half journey of travel (3 hours). -
10 hours ago, dmjalund said:
there is a version of Fantasy Hero which has these sort of rules and LTE (Long Term Endurance)
I have 6e fantasy hero, so i'll look for it, thank you very much :3
10 hours ago, HeroGM said:
I don't have this :O, it's for 6th Edition? i'm playing 6e.
10 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:Well, the first thing you have to consider is whether or not this is the kind of game you want. Do you want to be like LOTR where the main characters run for several days straight, then fight a huge battle with an Uruk Hai band, without any signs of fatigue? Or do you want it to be Ben Affleck Daredevil where he's gasping and wheezing from a single fight and collapse in bed? It reads like you want a more gritty campaign, which is fine as long as the players enjoy that kind of thing, too.
The second thing to consider is whether or not this idea will ever really come into play. Is there ever going to be a situation where characters force march so much they become exhausted and started to suffer fatigue at this level? Will they, if they start to suffer, just stop and say "OK we camp for a day and rest" then hit the fast forward button? Will the Cleric come up with a spell to heal exhaustion and skip the entire process? Will they refuse to travel much or at any speed, riding on caravans and such just to avoid the hassle, or just stay home? "Sorry Princess Pinafore, we'd save you from the dragon but that's too far to travel."
Third, if you do end up using it, how much paperwork and detail do you want to put into it? The Long Term END system in Fantasy Hero covers this pretty well, but you can get even grittier, assigning impairing wounds to characters who overexert. You can get super crunchy like you mention having the environment use drain effects on characters that represents fatigue, etc.
The bottom line is, how much work is it worth to you as the GM, and how much will your players enjoy or take advantage of such a system?
Well, travel speed and travel time are very important features for hexcrawl, because it's the way that players can control their travel and direction. Examples:
1 - Players ended getting lost in the North forest, and are running out of food!, so they decided to travel at low speed for a half journey (3 hours) to not get exhausted, and to get bonus in their survival (to find food) and navigation checks (to get oriented again).
2 - Players have descovered an ancient medic facilitie, but they don't have enough resources to enforce another possible battle, so they decided to retreat to base, restock their ammo, and get back to the ruins, but they don't want to get engaged into battles while travel. So they decided to go low speed to have bonus in their survival and stealth checks.
3 - Players are in middle of enemy territory, and have been discovered!!. They can't fight back because of the numeric disadvantage, so they decided to go back at fast speed (double travel speed) until they get lost the enemies.
Travel times are usefull for me, because in hexcrawl games, the GM must use it to calculate how many events will the players have in a day. These events are detailed for region and based on the travel speed. For example, each half journey of travel, (each 3 hours in hero, 4 hours in D20 systems) GM rolls in the events table to determine if there is something, so, if player are in, let's say, the main road region, each half journey of travel players have 25% to find a beast (sleeping, eating, hunting, or making a surprise attack against players!), 30% to find a harmless event (dead corpse, an npc traveling, abandoned camp, etc.), 15% of bandits camping near of the area, or attacking people, and 30% of nothing happening.I have made encounters and locations for every region, i made a calendar with stations, temperature and climate variations during the year, based on the biome (for templated regions, artic regions, desert regions, etc), i made all encounters and locations based on each region, factions that acts and make events to occur in determined times of the year, and all stuff that a sandbox hexcrawl needs. What i only need is a system that allows me to get track of the exhaustion for players based on the travel time (1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, 12hours, etc), that players can use to get track of their exhaustion, and to tell them when they need to get rest, and find a good place for camping.
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Hi everybody!, i'm trying to make a survival/exploration post apocalyptic campaign, so this is why i'm looking for some avises or sugestions about how to make this kind of campaigns. I'm not so good with english (i'm spanish) but i'll do my best, and i'm sorry if it's so much text, i'm trying to give you every detail i have to understand the context
.
I want to run a wilderness campaign, where players are traveling constantly throught unknow territories, visiting ancient ruins of the pre-cataclysm civilization, fight with bandit organizations, unknow beasts and another kind of dangers. To make this kind of campaign, i choosed to use a hexcrawl map system, because it's very usefull to get track of the player's route, events, types of terrain and climatology.
I'm experienced with hexcrawl exploration in D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e (i've run campaigns like Storm king thunder, Tomb of anihilation, and my own hexcrawl campaign in D&D), so i'm very familiar with all rules refered to hexcrawl and traveling in those systems, but in those games is very dificult to play something that isn't high medieval fantasy, so i decided to try this campaign in hero, and because i love the customization in this system.
So i start to make all worbuilding of the game, and i decided to make 2 maps, a regional map (3Miles per hex), that will be used for normal exploration sessions, and a continental map (30Miles per hex) that will be used to get geo-political info, get track of macro events, and for vehicle traveling (if players descovers how to build a vehicle
). But here's where i found my first problem: you'll see, in mentioned systems, players can choose how many time they wish to travel, and the velocity at they are traveling, so we have this:
Traveling times -> 1Hour travel, 4Hours travel (Half-journey) and 8Hours travel (Journey).
Traveling speeds -> Slow speed(2 hours per hex): advantage in ability checks rolls (advantage it's like a +4 or +5 to rolls); Normal speed (1 hour per hex): no penalties or benefits; Fast speed (half hour per hex): disadvantage in ability checks (like a -4 or -5 to rolls).
But there are some penalties in travel, for example: each time players make more than 8 hours of travel without rest, they will gain a exhaustion point, if players don't eat or drink water for a full day, they gain another point of exhaustion, and everytime they don't rest at least 8 hours of long rest, they gain another point. exhaustion points get penalties depending of the level:
Level 1: disadvantage in ability checks (-4 or -5 to skill rolls), Level 2: move speed halved, Level 3: disadvantage in attack rolls (-4 or -5 to attacks), Level 4: hit points halved, Level 5: move speed 0, Level 6: dead.
These rules are very simplystic, and somewhat... BORED!, but they are effectives in their functionality, and easy to track and understand, so they works.
Then i proceed to search into hero rules to find this kind of systems, and i found dehydration, starvation, and temperature levels rules, but i didn't find any rule to get track of players exhaustion or sleep, to get track of the players overextend. I found the LTE rules, but i have a problem with that: i have so much things to get track of, and i feel that make the LTE calculation for every player would be very headcache for me, so i'm thinking in a solution to get track of players exhaustion without the LTE calculation per turn.
And i was thinking in some solutions:
Method 1:
- Change the travel times to: 1Hour, 3hours and 6 hours, because i look that some rules (like dehydration) functions each 6 hours, and make the LTE and temperature levels calculation to every 1hour, 3 hours and 6 hours of travel respectively. This calculation i'll rename it as "Fatigue" and will be 3 hours worth of LTE. If players don't make a long rest (6 hours of sleep, to maintaint the 6 hours standard) they don't heal the fatigue accumulated. They can reduce 1 fatigue point with 1 hour of short rest, to make short rests usefull too.
- Maintain the starvation and dehydration rules as written.
- Make a house rule of travel speed: Players can travel at: Slow speed (speed halved): they gain 0 fatigue points, and have +1 to skill rolls; Normal speed: they gain 1 fatigue point for each 3 hours of travel; Fast travel (doubles speed): they gains 2 fatigue points, and -1 to skill rolls.
- Make some talents that can be usefull during short rest in exploration (Like rest skills in darkest dungeon) taht cost charges (recovers daily), this with te intention to make short rest usefull, and give players some tools to heal or recover from fatigue between travel.
I like this solution, but i have 2 problems: 1) LTE calculation after battle will not be covered by that rules, and i don't know how solve it x.x, 2) this only penalizes END, but accumulated fatigue points (3+) would give another kind of penalization, what kind of penalization would i put in that case?.
Method 2:
- Make a whole new fatigue system throught DRAIN, with advantage (only dispel with rest or fatigue reduction powers), and make it acumulate in intervals of 1, 3, 6, 12 and 24 hours of effort (multiples of 6, to maintain the system unified into the same times).
- Make talents for this Drain debuffs, appart of the previusly mentioned.- Maintain the temperature levels, dehydration and starvation rules in the same way, but calculed in the intervals previously mentioned.
My problem with this solution is that i haven't any kind of system that i could use as basis, so that difficults me the work
. I could use D&D exhaustion rules as basis, but i don't like it very much, so i'm looking for some suggestions.
i'm not considering characters SPD in the travel because i don't have any idea of how use it with travel speed, so i'm using the Fantasy hero (p. 386) suggestion of assuming 5km/h for normal travel speed.
What do you think about?
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On 1/3/2022 at 12:37 AM, dsatow said:
#1 I have no issue with any of the solutions presented thus far and I think everything is well discussed. I have nothing against creating two new stats or not creating two new stats. The specific GM knows how much those stats will be applicable and used. I am only suggesting an alternate solution.
#2 If the you want to reduce the stat's effect on perception (since by design you can't generally lower the perception below 9+ unless you allow negative stat effects), you could always use a physical limitation. I would guess at least a -2 PER per 5 point limitation. To be honest, I would make it -2 @ 5pts, -5 @ 10pts, and -8 @ 15 pts. Similarly, you could use buy it as a limitation on special senses too: -2 @ 1/4, -5 @ 1/2, and -8 @ -1. Note different GMs would weigh these differently, but I would not go below -2 per 5 pts of physical disadvantage as it becomes less disadvantage and more of a cheap way to buy INT.
Hmm, maybe this would be a mandatory physical complication like:
Physical complication: Human perception
-2 PER rolls (5 pts).
Normal humans must have this complication as part of their 50 pts limitations, but some players could buy the 10pts or 15pts version if they want.
Could be something like that? -
19 hours ago, m.mavnn said:
I wasn't actually - although that might make sense to your campaign, and is a great idea!
It was a more general comment: some things are really important, but only in certain campaigns. One way of telling players that when they are creating their characters is to make those things "first class citizens" during character creation. What do I mean by that? That they are a named thing, with a named cost that is presented to you as an option when you're building the character. If you run the style of campaign you're planning with the default rules, people might apply lightning reflexes, limited INT, enhanced perception, etc to get exactly the character they want but it will be expensive points wise compared to just buying lots of INT and DEX (as @Hugh Neilson pointed out) and (maybe more importantly?) first time HERO players will never think of doing it. Especially if they are coming from a more "pick your options from this list" style rules system.
For an other variation of making things "first class": Fantasy Hero provides a large number of talents that you can just pick off a list. Nearly all of them are pretty simple power builds to do common fantasy related things, but by providing them in a list you immediately raise the chances of people using them.
On a more directly practical note, I also personally think that your intuition is correct that INT is under priced for the style of game you're planning, because it has been priced for its utility in a fairly generic "action-y" type campaign. HERO's heritage is primarily supers, special agents, robots, high fantasy... so the pricing of abilities will reflect that.
The rules explicitly call out the fact that you may need to adjust the skill lists for different campaigns (and I believe adding subcategories or sub-dividing skills is talked about in a side bar, but that's from memory). I think you may be correct that it would be worth doing that for stats as well.
Oh, i get it... Yeah, my players are new in hero, we've played only one game before, a low super hero based in a futuristic city (like Future batman), so they never could think on do that haha (i couldn't either, btw xD).
So yeah, that's a very good solution to me, thank you very much! :3 -
10 hours ago, m.mavnn said:
There's also a matter of signaling, of communication. House rules can be a way of telling the players what matters in this campaign, how its focus is different from the 'default'.
If you turn, say, High Society into a skill with subcategories (like survival) per noble house, you're giving a clue. If you turn it into a full blown social combat system, you're setting the campaign focus before the first character is started.
Could you build characters with limited skill levels and PRE? Yes, but it would be a lot more hassle and a lot harder to communicate that this is an area that is a) important to the campaign and b) it's expected that characters will have varying levels of ability across these things.
Hmm, wait a moment... i'm not very sure if i get it, but... I belive that what you're trying to say is to split some of the skills into more granular options (For example: split survival into camping and find food) so players must buy more skills in order to get all benefits, and increase the build cost without the need of touch INT?.
This may helps, because what worries me is the final price of the build for a player that wants to have high INT, so if i could have a better solution than make strange things with INT, i'll be happy too! ^ ^.
I was thinking on make some talents to have a skill requirement. For example: instead of ban "absolute time sense", make it requires a skill level of 17 in navigation , but based on your suggestion, i could convert it into a skill subcategory of navigation (something like "Time sense" skill, idk, i'm not good naming things in english x.x) and every time a player wants to know the exact day time, and he's in the wilderness, he rolls "time sense" skill.
It's just a example, because idk if it's a good idea to make players roll for everytime they wants to know what time is it xD.
17 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:There is a difference between "you can do it" and "the game supports it". I could have an 8 INT (-2) and +5 levels with INT skills (20 points), so for a net cost of 18 points, I get an 11- skill roll and 11- INT rolls, but I can add 5 to a single INT skill at a time to get a 16-.
Or I could buy a 28 INT, have a 15- PER roll, 15- INT roll and 15- to all INT skills (marginally poorer roll - but only if there is no complementary roll) for the same 18 points.
If you built the first character and another player built the second, how often would your character shine compared to the other character? The costs are not equitable.
Yes, and the problem is that a player could do it in any way he wants, unless i prohibite him to do it, but i prefer to find ways of balance that costs, instead of prohibite things (But if i can't find any solution for something, i'll have to ban it).
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On 12/19/2021 at 9:56 AM, Hugh Neilson said:
I'd flip that around - while I don't see a compelling reason to change, I also see no compelling reason NOT to break INT down into the two component stats. The only real question is pricing. In my view, INT and PRE are underpriced as-is, so you could split them off as 1 point each. Similarly, DEX could be split into a "DEX-based skills and rolls" stat (1 point) and an Initiative stat (1 points), PRE could be split into a "social skills stat" (1 point) and PRE attacks (1 point stat or 5 points for 1d6), and EGO could be split into EGO rolls (1/2 point stat) and PRE defense (1/2 point stat or +2 {PRE defense per point).
Keeping them linked works for a few reasons.
First, if we expect most characters will include both elements if they are buying up the stat, why separate them? For your game, you expect the opposite for INT - point for separation.
Second, breaking them down means an even bigger stat block. That's perception more than reality, but perception can matter. [ASIDE: d20 does not have "only 6 stats" - it just breaks them down into subcomponents, where Hero puts them all up front. Imagine Hero with a stat block of STR, DEX, CON, INT, EGO, PRE; then blocks for "Health" including BOD, STUN, END, REC; Defenses for PD and ED; and a separate SPEED box (plus DEX-based Initiative if need be) and PER box (INT-based PER), a "Combat Resolution" box with OCV, DCV, mOCV and mDCV, and a "PRE attack and Defense" block. I'm down to "only" 6 stats as well. How many sub-stats does d20 have?]
Third, it's always been that way. But your players are new to HERO, so it has not "always been that way" for them. And if it's always been a way that's not as good for your game, then it's always been the wrong way.
8 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:Smart, low PER guy: Low INT, buys up INT-based skills or skill levels.
Smart, low INT Skill guy: Low INT, buys up PER rolls with one or more senses.
A High INT isn't required to represent an intelligent person. In hero, INT is more like mental agility, quick-wittedness in the moment, perception, etc., so you could easily have a 10 INT absent-minded professor type, with high skills who's brilliant, but doesn't think fast on his feet.
So, what you're trying to accomplish is already built into the system.
Yeah, you're right, there already are ways to make that, but that's not what i'm trying to make... Look, i'll make a example for you:
This game is very survival oriented, players build their characters with 150 points (i'm thinking of low it to 120, but i'm afraid of being to low, i don't want to make it sooooo gritty), and 50 pc worth of limitations.
- Locational damage allowed.
- Locational defenses allowed (Only for Npcs and monsters).
There's a character maxima (-Characteristics: 20, -Ocv, Dcv, Omcv, Dmcv: 6, -Body: 20, and can't be higher that CON, -Stun: 40, and can't be higher than CONx2, -END: 50) and players cannot buy powers because they are only humans, unless they drops down their humanity by taking one of the following archetypes:
- Mutant
- Spiritist
- Psychic
All this archetypes requires a 15-points talent called "Supernatural talent" that allows them buy their powers, 30 points active-cost limit, and a mandatory 25-points worth of a combination of the following limitations:
Non-human: They're not considered as part of human society, so Npcs can decide to elevates the price of all things while they trades with them, or directly not trade with them, and some others directly hates them, and don't want to speak.
Distincts features: They have some types of supernatural features that people recognize as non human, some people considere this as a monstruosity.
Hunted: Some Npc, or Npc group could be hunting them, because they think that non-human must be erradicated, or simply because they are bad people finding excuses to do bad things without punishment.
Code of conduct: Some non-humans may have behaviours related with their archetype, example: Maybe a spiritist have a strong religious mentality, or because they have a spiritual way, they see life differently to rest of people, so they're very pacifists.
Hates technology: Some types of non-humans (Naturalist Shamman, for example), hates human technology very much, because they considere it the reason of the apocalypse, or because they hate what it represents, so, they will not used it, or will use it with very limitations (Restricted use of explosives or firearms).
There are others restrictions, Thought:
Flying is not allowed, Absortion is not allowed, or is a VERY limited feature, Healing and Dispel are very, very..... VERY!! limited powers... You'll see, i build some types of diseases as DRAIN, and cannot be healed or dispeled by powers, but they can buy medicines, or CRAFT IT, if they have Medicine (INT-BASED Skill) and find materials (PER-based Rolls, only if they have the profession to recognize it as material), but spiritist can buy Healing powers for that.
Players must have skills like Survival (Find good places for camp, find food or water), Scavenging (Find materials of ancient sites - Yeah, this is a post-apocalyptic game :'3), navegation (to not get lost in wilderness, because nobody wants to get lost) and such... They're all PER-based skills. Players can also have skills like Weaponsmith, Medicine, Explosives, Weaponsmith, Research and such (INT-based Rolls, in order to make items that don't cost pc to use.
And then, we have Paul: A skilled human explorer with 20points of DEX (20 PC) and 25 points of INT (20 PC). With that, he have a base 14 with all survival, craft, recolection, perceptive and intelectual skills, only for 3 active points each, and a base 13 for all dexterity skills (Stealth, for example), and if he wants, he could also have psychic powers (INT based). He is arguably the most all-rounded and self-sufficent character of the group, he literally don't need nobody in order to survive...
Of course, i could prohibite him to do that, because i'm the GM, i can go and say: "Look, your character is amazing!, but i can't permit this, so you have to remove some skills of your sheet", but i don't want to do it, because i want players do this kind of things if they want, but not at that low cost. Thats because i though in 2 solutions:
1 - Rise INT cost to 2points, so Pauls will need to pay 40 Points to do the same things, instead of 20.
2 - Create 2 separated skills: INT and PER, and distribute all functions into that, so paul now needs to rise 2 SEPARATED CHARS in order to do all of that.
And then here we are xD... That's where i get stucked, because i didn't know if there are the only solutions i have... So i thank you much for all your ideas! ^ ^
). But here's where i found my first problem: you'll see, in mentioned systems, players can choose how many time they wish to travel, and the velocity at they are traveling, so we have this:
. I could use D&D exhaustion rules as basis, but i don't like it very much, so i'm looking for some suggestions.
Making shadow clone power
in HERO System Discussion
Posted
Ok ok, understood. Yeah i can discuss it with my GM. Thank you very much! ^ ^
Alright!. Yeah that covers everything about the power 😁. I'll tell my GM all options you've giving me so my GM could Judge what's the better to the game. And yes, he was indeed expecting some kind of summon hehe.
Thank you very much, your help is very much appreciated!. I don't know anyone in the spanish community playing HERO, they're only playing DnD5e, so it's very frustrating 😱.