Geryon

Re: FH Grimoire 2: Who has it? Have you guys ever considered posting your reviews to http://www.rpg.net? Or does enworld have some sort of exclusivity rule? Why not spread the love?

I am about 1/2way through alien wars, and I am really enjoying the fluff. Its not the most original stuff ever, but its very entertaining and does a good job of setting up the types of campaigns you could run in the setting. The plot hooks and campaign ideas in the back of the book I also have checked out, and a lot of them sound good too. Is anyone running an alien wars/space military/alien invasion type of campaign? If so, how is it going and what is your campaign centered around?

Re: What do you think is the best way to balance armor use? Laz: Your rule is beautifully simple, and I appreciate that. However, doesn't this lead to even more graininess than the def for dcv/dex?, for example your rule means almost no one will get armor with only 1 or 2 def. Why lose SPD (an expensive stat) for 1 or 2 def, when you can just wear the 5 def armor and lose the same amount of SPD? I also don't see anyone wearing 6 def or better armor. Even Fantasy "speedster" types with 4 or 5 speeds would be severely hindered by -2 SPD. I can see how a simple straighforward rule like this would be easy to implement, and I am saving it to use in an upcoming swashbuckling pirate type of campaign I am going to run, but I don't think it is going to be good for my current high fantasy hero game. Its going to be great for the swashbucking game though since it is higher speed as well as wanting to discourage armor a little more.

Re: VPP for magic use- encouraged? I used to game with a guy like this. He would take huge amounts of disadvantages and limitations, using the points to try and out-cheese everyone hoping against hope that the GM wouldn't notice them and enforce them. He would have a broken character for about 2 actions until the GM went "Let me see that" looked at his sheet, and then he would promptly do nothing for the rest of the turn. Ummmm......No. I think you might be misunderstanding what the limitations do for his VPP. They ONLY lower the cost of his control pool. He still can't have more than 60 points of powers active at one time because his base for his VPP is 60 points. Either you didn't understand the VPP rules, or this player explained them to you in a way that would benefit his character immensely. In theory, he could have an infinite number of different spells written up for zero points (see shrike's many spells listed on his blood mage character sheet) BUT you can only have one of them active at any one time since you can only have 60 points active at once. Plus, changing which spell you have active takes time unless you buy some limiters which effect it. See VPP section in FREd. This is the point of VPPs, you pay for a control cost to get lots of versatility. Hero won't let him do what he wants to do? He wrote a power that can only be used once every on minute, or 5 turns (thats 60 segments for those of you counting at home) that means my speed 2 "average bob" character will act 10 times before his spell goes off. Bob has 10 shots to hit you and screw up your incantations, at which point you will have to start over on the spell. He also has to roll 8 or less on 3d6 to activate it, which is unlikely, and if he fails he will have to start over. I won't even go into the recoverable charge. If this VPP is what he wants to do, then he doesn't want to do much. If Hero won't let him do what he wants to do, tell him to post what he wants to do somewhere on these boards and we will show him how Hero can handle it. When I first started playing hero, I would sometimes get frustrated that Hero couldn't do one effect or the other, but now that I understand the rules better, I see that it was only my limited grasp of them which prevented me from constructing the powers/spells I wanted. Another thing that could help you is purchasing a book like the FH Grimoire, or the UNTIL super powers database. These books have many examples for spells and powers, including a few VPPs. I would also take a look at killer shrike's site which is probably the most expansive look at fantasy hero character generation and magic systems thusfar. It should help you figure out what you want to do with limitations on magic systems, magic systems through vpps, etc. And post again if you have any more trouble..... we are here to help.

What do you think is the best way to balance armor use? Armor in my campaign seems to be a little on the strong/common side, so i'm looking for a MINOR way to inconvenience these players for this powerful effect they are getting without paying any points. The encumbrance rules, while effective for balancing armor against lower strength characters, have little effect against heavy fighters who tend to have a high strength anyway (unless they are carrying around some extra heavy equipment with them). It just isn't restrictive enough. Has anyone tried basing encumbrance (for armor only) on casual strength? Or another way of saying this is doubling armor weight for encumbrance only? I've looked at the armor chart and encumbrance chart and I think this seems like a really good solution. It means a 15 STR gets -1 dcv for wearing chainmail, and 20 str can wear plate with only a -1. The light fighter types will probably have to stick to def 3 armors or less, which is about what I was looking for. I feel like the optional DCV/Dex roll restriction is a great idea, but with the Def 1-3 (-1dcv/dex) def 4-6 (-2dcv/dex) def 7-9 (-3dcv/dex) method described in FH, you get a lot of graininess as only def 3 and 6 armors are worn. I feel like the encumbrance rules with their sliding scale based on strength offer a better solution. I have also considered something with the long term endurance rules, but I don't want anything that would slow down combat and I feel the DCV/dex restrictions have a more immediate effect. What does herodom assembled think?

Re: Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower Came I had begun such a project, but i didn't get much further than the plan-the-planning stage. I decided to wait until dark champions comes out (gun tricks being a huge part of any gunslinger campaign) as well as the final chapter in the dark tower series, which should clear up a lot of the questions raised in the series. I realized there really were no racial character packages (as 99% of the PCs would probably be humans unless you really want to stray away from the Canon) and as far as class-like character packages go, basically all you have is some "gunslinger-specific" skills which essentially every PC would take. Playing in the prior, more fantasy oriented, world described in wizard and glass then moving on to the "world has moved on" era probably has the most appeal for a fantasy hero game. Some Recommended reading: All the dark tower books (duh) The Eye of the Dragon (by King) Robin Furth's Dark Tower Concordance (nothing closer to a DT sourcebook than this) The Talisman AND Black House (by king and straub) This is a different fantasy setting, and I think it might almost make for a better setting than DT. In any case, the two are linked in many ways. Also check out http://www.thedarktower.net/ I was using it heavily when I was researching this setting for a campaign.

Re: Thoughts on Shields Most definitely, a shield bash should do less damage than a punch. You have to keep in mind that most shields are not designed to be used as offensive weapons. If you had one that was, then sure, build it differently to show that. But your average shield is not designed to be used as a weapon. Think about the weight of a shield. If your arm does X amount of force (via strength), when you try to hit Orc with your fist, you get X damage. When you hit him with shield you get X- whatever force it took just to heft the shield in his direction anyway. In other words, you are swinging a heavy, unwieldy object, usually with your "off" hand, while holding a weapon in your "on" hand. If you really want to beat people with a shield, drop your sword and two hand the shield. It works much better. Also, think about how a shield is attached to the arm its user. Basically, everything above and below the arm has a pretty big amount of give to it because of a seesaw effect (think of the arm as the part of the seesaw in the middle and the top and bottom as the parts of the seesaw you sit on) This means unless your strike is directly with the part of the shield over your arm on directly on the target, a good bit of your force is lost. This seesaw "give" is required, or a lot of weapon strikes would go through the shield instead of being deflected. Of course, too much give would be bad news, and this is often compensated for with denser materials. This goes back to the earlier point about how heavy and unwieldy a shield is. Shields are also much bigger than fists, which means your force is distributed over a greater area. See real life examples such as getting poked in the ribs by an empty plastic cup, then getting poked in the ribs with the same force by the eraser end of a pencil. Or if available, get punched in the arm by a girl (small hands hurt worse than they should!). Force distribution over a much greater area also effects how effective a shield bash is. If you really want to test this out for yourself, find some innocent bystanders of roughly the same size, duct tape a piece of plywood to your arm, walk up to an innocent bystander, and hit them with it while holding a heavy object (to simulate sword) in your other hand. Then rip off the tape/board, walk up to another bystander, and punch them in the face. The shield bash might knock someone back a few feet, but the punch in the face is definitely worse. Back to Hero, there are still many uses for the shield bash. In a lot of cases, your primary weapon is tied up and you would prefer to shield bash than drop the shield and punch. Anyway, for those of you who would like to learn more about the physics of shield and sword, join your local chapter of the SCA (http://www.sca.org) or just go watch them sometime. Its a blast.

Re: Should this be called Dark Champions? I really don't think the name is going to be that much of a problem. The cover says a lot, and what it says is most definitely NOT supers. Even people who go "oh, the word 'champions' is in the title" and assume that it is a superhero book will still probably read the back cover or possibly browse through the book. I'm sure after witnessing this thread Steve & Friends will be sure the back cover accurately explains all that DC is going to be. Overall, I think NOT calling it Dark Champions (and thus getting all the name recognition, plus its just a much better name than action hero) would produce more problems than calling it DC. Neither solution is perfect but one is definitely much better than the other.

Re: Doing traps SHHHHHH! Don't give away how to get out of the trap? What if the PCs are reading this? Seriously though, if you upped the shrink on the rune and made the hole smaller (smaller than a finger) it would solve this problem. Plus, all your friends would think you just disappeared since the hole will likely be tough for them to notice.

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming? I haven't ran star hero yet, but in the "game-that-would-have-been-star-hero-if-I-was-playing-HERO_System-at-the-time" near future space smugglers game I ran a few years back (97) my players spent a lot of time in: 1. on board their ship 2. in space stations/urban space settings, and 3. in cities on the surface of various planets. They were a group of smugglers, each had his reasons for being criminals (mostly good, it took place in a universe with an oppressive government and rampant xenoracism) so they were a combination of pirates, mercenaries, smugglers, and han solo type entrepeneurs. In the star wars campaign I played in a couple of years ago 80% of the action took place on the surface of the planet so most of the maps could be converted from other settings. The only thing I recall the GM working on heavily was the outlay of this palace/base which we got contracted to protect... which he could have just stole from any random fantasy supplement. That group was 2 young jedi types who kept getting sent on this or that errand by the jedi council, and the rest of the group (4 of us) were the crew of the ship which they used to get around Basically just a game designed to let the players play jedi or pilots or gun bunnies, or whatever we wanted and still have it fit the plot pretty well. This was done since half of us wanted to do a grittier pilots/engineers with blaster pistols type of game and the other half wanted to do jedi knights. I would love to see a star hero battlegrounds. I would like to see it include basically things you can't get from other supplements. For example no futuristic space bar (ala star wars) even though they are probably pretty common in star hero campaigns, since bars are something we can get elsewhere and probably would be in a Dark Champions battlegrounds, if that ever happens. I would like to see 1-2 spaceship layouts, with some details on areas where combat might take place as well as main areas for character interaction like "the bridge", maybe a space or docking station, a map of a futuristic colony (maybe one not located on a normally inhabitable planet for added flavor), and maybe a layout of a sort of complex galactic marketplace. Of course, my terran empire hasn't come in the mail yet (thank you, 50% off sale!) so its hard for me to say.

Re: Star Trek-type shields? I think I would just buy FF with the "Ablative" limitation and buy it high enough so that 4d6 RKAs don't typically do enough damage to get through the FF. If the stun or body doesn't exceed your PD/ED, the ablative doesn't come into play. This is like the smaller weapons which don't hurt the ship. If it does exceed your pd/ed, then the ablative comes into play. This is when the "shields at 62% captain" comes in after getting hit by the big weapon. So, IMHO, straight up FF with ablative limitation should cover it if you buy enough ED with it. I'm not sure what else you need to simulate, except perhaps shield repairs, and you could do that with a "requires an engineering skill roll to repair". I think Ablative even talks about this, and refers you to the entry on charges to look at some options... But I don't recall and don't have my book in front of me. If you go with SCUBA's Body route, which I think would also work, you might want to buy the BODY with the limiter "Only vs. Energy Damage" if thats how your shields work.

Re: Gathin As far as the generational problem goes, I would solve that by saying that they are "hunted" in any society that believes in them and that many Gathin find and mate with other gathin when possible (ending their breeding cycle, effectively, since neither can get pregnant). The hunted thing makes a lot of sense to me, you could even throw in an old "myth" of a society/race/clan (depends on the scale you want the gathing known and hunted) that was wiped out by Gathin interbreeding. Here is another thing to think about: Do Gathin remain the same race? Or, say I am a female human gathin, and I have sex with a male elf, do I become a male elf gathin? Could make for a more interesting racial package deal if they mimic the race as well as the sex. Probably a small VPP with pretty heavy limiters on it (like the mimic example in fred). I don't recall how much FREd lists for "Only powers from the race I most recently had sex with" (I think Steve is saving it for the upcoming "Porn Hero" I have heard so much about) but I would say give it the +1/2 no skill roll required (though you could go with seduction skill or something), -3/4 requires sex (i'm basing this off a HTH attack giving -1/2, so i figure sex has got to be harder than a HTH attack), -1/2 for limited class of powers, and -1/2 may only be as powerful as target's powers This way, if you wanted to do a 30 point VPP (Racial-abilites-of-the-last-person-you-banged) It would cost you 38 points. Most racial packages can be done fairly well for 30 points or less, unless your gathin player is out there having sex with trolls or star vampires or something.

Re: Doing traps You know, a trap book or a trap section in another book might be a very good addition to the game. There are some other things you could throw in too. Maybe "The Ultimate Dungeon"?

Re: Warlord class Superdreadnought Found it! Its on the first page of the equipment chapter in FREd.

Re: Warlord class Superdreadnought Here is a stooopid question for you spaceship design gurus: I keep looking for this in FREd and can't find it. When you have a power (laser turrets or phasers) that costs a certain amount, then listed underneath it says something like "8 more phasers) and it costs a much smaller amount, where in FREd is the rule covering this? I've looked and looked but can't find it. I'm going to bust out my copy of star hero and look through there today. Thanks.

Re: Trek Hero PDF available

Re: A Circle Of Rings http://plato-dialogues.org/tetra_4/republic/gyges.htm Another link to the story of Gyges' ring. I also remember reading something about a "Ring of Eucrates" in ancient greek/roman stuff somewhere but I can't recall what it did or where I read about it. I know it had something to do with prostitutes. Not the ring that is, but the story.

Re: Which NON-Star Hero Book For Star Hero? I would go for MMM over the vehicle book. It doesn't have a whole lot of stuff I can see using in a star hero campaign, while MMM can be used for a whole lot of different things, especially in an old-school-trek sort of [shatner_voice] creatures.....on...the..planet....must......rescue.....bones...[/shatner_voice] sort of way. Honestly though, I would think about TUMA. I find it hard to do Star Hero without being able to write up the klingon or wookie or whoever martial arts style.... The spacers toolkit is a decent book as well.

Re: Trek Hero PDF available This PDF is incredible. I want badly to take it to kinko's and get it bound, but with all the updates I should probably just wait.

Re: New Guy Name It could be worse. I once had a player (guy was totally new to RPGs) act very interested, serious, he picked up HERO fast (surprising due to RPG Virginity) and even had a great concept for his character...... Then I saw his character sheet and saw the name he had written down. It said, "Air Jordan".

Re: Character: Belit, Queen of the Black Coast (Hyborian Hero) Tanya, this anthology even includes a couple of unfinished conan stories, and a few of the stories in "first draft" format. Very fun reads if you are a big fan. It also includes a couple of howards' own maps which are very good if you are planning a conan conversion. They aren't detailed enough (IMHO) to use as "master map" for your campaign, but they are perfect for the sort of thing a character might receive. There is also howard's personal notes so he could keep geography and whatnot straight. Its invaluable stuff for running Conan HERO

Re: Al-Qadim? I would love to see someone's al-qadim write-up. I would work on it myself, but I lost my al-qadim book a long time ago (loaned it out and never got it back) I'm thinking of doing a dark sun conversion sometime in the next 6 months.

Re: Character: Belit, Queen of the Black Coast (Hyborian Hero) I am a Conan purist, and let me tell you that "coming of conan the cimmerian" the new anthology by del rey is actually quite good. I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't got a look at the new conan d20 sourcebook, road of kings, which is supposed to have a story to rules ratio of over 3:1, making it probably good for a hero campaign, but from what I heard they did screw up and use some material from the comic and from other (non-howard) writers. Still, from what I heard it should be pretty good for a conan HERO conversion.

I am thinking about purchasing the TA book along with MM&M for my upcoming fantasy hero game. I'm probably going to buy it regardless of the answers I get, but I like to pretend i'm a picky buyer, even though I buy every hero book that comes my way Anyway, for those of you who own it, I got a couple questions for you: 1. What do you think of the magic system? Is it well balanced? Cumbersome? Easy? This will be my first Fantasy game as before we played champions (though I am a d&d vet) and for a few of my players this will be their first hero game period. So, my main concern is how simple yet good is the magic system? 2. I have heard different things about the story/background/world, one is that it is just another vanilla fantasy setting, another is that it is easily the best vanilla fantasy setting. I'm guessing its probably somewhere in between. Thoughts? 3. What other books will I need if I am going to run TA? I don't have a lot of time these days to come up with my own stats for monsters, systems, etc., so I plan to buy MM&M and I already own FH (duh) and the Grimoire. Is TA "plug and play", or will I be doing a lot of research? (I plan on writing my own modules/adventures but I don't want to spend my extra time researching/writing up some monster, magic item, etc. that should be included but wasn't) 4. Is this a good setting for folks who are veteran fantasy gamers but who are new to the Hero system? Is it a good setting for folks who are veteran hero gamers but are new to the fantasy genre? Thanks for all your help. Tom

I had one about halfway planned when myself and my co-GM decided to go with one of his ideas instead. It was shaping up to be a good campaign, but we never got to execute it. One thing to keep in mind: You will need players who are very interested in character personality and background development because of the lack of some of the fantasy "cornerstones" like races other than humans. In coming up with stuff for the campaign, I found that reading king's other novels which have dark tower connections really helped. Eyes of the Dragon and The Stand were probably the most helpful, but almost all of his works tie into the dark tower in some way. I also recommend these books for anyone looking for a totally original and different sort of fantasy novel.