Geryon

WWI? This is inspiring me to do a fantasy world war one type of thing where the Goblins that live in europe manipulate the various nations into war. Very bizarre... If I go any further with the idea I will keep you guys updated. I'm thinking Orcs as nazis, dwarves as russians, goblins as austria-hungary and human kingdoms in the west. maybe elves as french? This is total Weirdness, I need some sleep.

I was thinking the same thing Markdoc. V for Vendetta would make a GREAT campaign, but i might be inclined to wait for the dark champions book before I do it.

Thanks for the ideas, I like the idea of using the opposed skill rolls for counter-magic as well. Have to include that in my arcane magic system. Now I just need to figure out what disad "only vs. faith based magic" should be for pd, ed, etc. Maybe -1/2? I figure priests will be about as common as in most fantasy campaigns, one in every 100 citizens or so, and about 1 in 5 adventurers. I don't know, I'll check with my compadre whom I am running the game with.

Hey Herophiles.... Myself and a friend are about to run a fantasy hero campaign, and we want our divine magic system to be based on faith somehow. We thought about using BOECV for a lot of the spells, to capture the "success based on opponent's weak will" sort of thing, but after taking another look at it, it doesn't really work. Our second thought was to have some sort of opposed skill roll, like a "faith" power skill for divine spellcasters. However, we thought this should probably be an opposed skill roll against the target's faith, or something similar to that. The "requires a skill roll" disad in the book doesn't really mention opposed skill rolls. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had any comments about these approaches, or if anyone had any suggestions for other ways to properly capture this sort of mechanic, or if anyone has had any experience trying to run a magic system like this in their campaigns. Thanks!

I second someone's opinion that some FH "signature" creatures would be cool. Just as Orcs, Umber Hulks, and the Tarrasque defined D&D, it would be neat to come up with a few monsters (hopefully very new and unique ones) which would be the sort of things that would end up on the cover of the book. I also really like the idea of trying to include an equal (or close to it) number of monsters for the different fantasy subgenres. Grendel-like uber-monsters and Sauron-like demon king types for epic fantasy, typical stuff for high fantasy, some monsters for swords & sorcery and low fantasy as well. I also like the idea of little one line plot hooks for different monsters.

I know a lot of non-hero gamers have been buying it as a sourcebook at the local gamestore here. Hopefully they'll pick up FREd as well once they get a look at FHonebook...

Slaughter, if you are in durham, the game I am thinking of starting is going to take place in chapel hill around the beginning of september, if I can get my stuff together in time.

Thanks, Shrike, lots of good suggestions. I may give up on the low-magic idea and move more towards something with more magic and less of the cultural structure that is present in say for example, forgotten realms, and more towards the conan type world without nuking magic in the process. Hack and Slash isn't what we are after, but I do see what you mean about how easily such a game could become hack and slash. I was thinking about using rituals or more bizarre focuses for the magic, not your typical "eye of newt, toe of beetle" but something more interesting (not sure what) and perhaps have magic items that have to be "bound" to a person for them to perform right as an option instead of independent. This is decent flavor, I will have to get out fred and double check on how the costs work out and such. I like your idea for a VPP for available magic items, though I wonder what sort of limitation should be on the VPP to represent "only items the GM gives your character/lets you have?" Obviously, if it works like a regular VPP, that will be far more flexible than your average character's "magic item stash" even in a high magic game.

Has anyone had any long term success with this type of campaign? I want to run a fantasy hero campaign in a low fantasy type world, like that of Robert Howard's Conan... Basically, my players want something different from the typical high fantasy fare, plus I think it will encourage them to be more open-minded about character design. If the game LOOKS like D&D, I'm afraid they will buy their characters like they are D&D characters, which is what we are switching to hero system to avoid, we want total creative control over the characters. What I was going to ask of you veteran Hero Fantasy-ites was this: Does anyone know where I can get any solid information on this type of game for Hero system? Has any of you ran a game similar to this, and if yes, how did it go, what advice would you have, etc? Thanks

Toydarians, Hutts, and a number of other races in star wars are immune to mental force tricks of all kinds. I remember because I had a great Toydarian character though it was a long while before Watto came about. This immunity was mentioned in lots of the novels too.

Thanks a lot Keneton! I do mean to buy that issue of DH, but there are other things higher on the totem pole, like star hero and automobile repairs (yes, in that order).

Thats odd...... I've never heard it pronounced anything but Drow as in rhymes with Cow. I've heard a million of these stupid arguments about pronunciation though..... from demon, daemon potayto potahto baatezu bayatezu it seems pretty common amongst gamers.

I will probably run the game in the Forgotten Realms setting, a fairly high fantasy game, in a world where magic is common, but not usually powerful. I've been working a little on some guidelines for magic, and I was just wondering what sorts of point totals are "typical" for most Fantasy Hero games. Also, after looking at a few characters with similar point totals online, I think I am going to run with the 200+150 disads. Thanks chaosliege. Also, I am still interested if you guys have any good house rules to help dictate balance in the game. I know a friend of mine recommended I restrict multiple uses of find weakness or possibly make FW a full phase action, what are your thoughts on this or other house rules? Also, regarding the ER spreadsheet, is the "Capabilities" section asking for how many different ranged attacks? That is what it seems to me but since many of the other fields want active points i wasn't sure. Thanks,

I have just gotten into Hero, and I was wondering if there were any commonly used house rules which I couldn't do without. I would particularly appreciate any regarding game balance. I switched to this system because I heard it was very balanced, and so far I have been pretty impressed overall, and particularly with that aspect of the game. What house rules (especially balance related ones) have you all implemented with success that you think really improve the game? I have heard a lot of talk about ER, and I downloaded the excel sheet. Is there a way I can get the document which goes along with it without purchasing DH#3? Finally, what is a typical point total for different Hero settings? I was thinking of starting my Champions game at 250 points total and allow either 100 or 150 disads. What is an acceptable level for fantasy hero? That is what I am planning to run next. 100 points total, 50 disads? Thanks in advance.

Newbie Thoughts. Hey Steve, total newbie here, I just bought my copy of 5E 3 days ago, and just got through reading the whole thing today. Its Great! First off, I'd like to say its incredibly cool that there is this much interaction and input with the game designer. Anyway, on to the things i'd like to see in the UNTIL powers DB. 1. At least a little bit of stuff on the power frameworks and gadgets. These are the thing that confuses new people the most, and tons of characters use them. To leave them totally out of this book would be a travesty. Obviously, you are going to save a lot of the stuff for the gadgets book, but some mention, even only a few pages, would help new people immensly. I would love to see a lot of stuff on power frameworks, because I know that was the section of FREd I had to re-read the most to understand. 2. Examples of powers which aren't obviously recreatable with the rules. Stuff like time travel, body stealing etc... I know you said to check out digital hero, but it would be nice to have this stuff in a book, and what better place for it than in a powers database. Also, in response to your idea that these powers might unbalance the game, I don't care if the writeup is a 1200 active point power no GM with any sense would ever allow, I just want to know how you could do it so I can keep telling myself you can do anything with this system. Also, aside from the really difficult stuff, any really weird stuff would also be cool. 3. Please please please make this book something gear towards newbies: plug and play powers are good. Even if you don't discuss frameworks and gadgets at length, using them as examples would be much appreciated. That way, a new person could say "I want to play an iron man type" and you could drop out this gadget multipower for the armor, add a couple other things, and have him a quick character to play while he learns the system.