tomasina

Re: Sample Pages I did not look close enough I guess... will take a look now. Thanks, - Tomasina

I was excited to see the following message listed on the 'News' page of the HeroGames website: "I’ve already posted a couple of sample pages so y’all can see just how awesome the graphics stuff is! " I have been searching the site and the forums for the last 30 minutes trying to find where these are posted, but can not seem to find them. Anyone know where these are? Thanks in advance, Tomasina

Re: Components and Failed Spells Thanks for all the info... it was extremely helpful. I have a follow-up clarification based on one of the responses to my question. I remember reading somewhere that if you fail a skill roll, you can normally not try it again without taking some sort of a bonus to it... which is normally done by moving up the time chart. Does this apply to casting spells in combat? If a caster fails his power skill roll, can he not cast that spell again unless he moved one category up in the time chart, or find some other way to provide a bonus? Thanks as always, Tom

Re: Components and Failed Spells We do track END... but for spells that take place out of battle, it seems as though END is somewhat pointless since they can just take a 'breather' for a round or two and get all their END back. In battle, it becomes a bit more of a balancing act... but for enchantment type effects that take place before battle... or destruction spells that take place out of battle... it seems that there is no limit to the casting due to quick regeneration of END. I can see the benefit of having charges on spells... but I am hesitant to apply this yet, as I wonder if this concern is just due to my DND background. Do most players stick with the END limitations? Thanks, Tomasina

It has been a while since I have posed a question... which is a good sign as to our adoption of the Hero System into our gaming sessions. I have two questions though that have arisen, and that I am hoping for some insight from all of you. 1 - One of our casters uses rune magic from the Grimoire II and thus all of this spells use components consisting of a rune painted or carved. My question is what happens to the component if the Power skill roll (Rune Magic in this case) fails? Is the component lost, resulting in the caster needed to create a new rune, or can he simply try to cast again on his next phase? Do they also lose the END cost for the spell if it fails? 2 - We come from a DND background... which, I am sure, is resulting in this question. In DND casters have a limited number of spells they can cast a day... but in Heroes (using the Turakian age book) this is not the case. It seems strange to me that my casters can pick an incredibly hard spell and just keep trying to cast it (ecspecially if it is a non-battle spell) until it succeeds since they lose nothing by doing so. I am just not used to casters having an endless supply of spells... and am wondering how you balance this... or if any balance is even needed. Thanks, Tomasina

Alright we having a gaming session tonight, and a player just called me with a couple of questions that I could not answer. I am hoping you all might be able to help me out again... For reference, the character is playing a Cleric. 1 - We are somewhat confused about STUNx. According to the books, when doing killing damage, you times the BODY by the stun multiplier (which is 1d6-1, min of 1) to get the STUN damage. Does the STUNx apply to result of this die? ex. Sir Knight attacks EvilMan with a sword that does 2D6 of damage and has a STUNx of 2. He rolls his attacks and does 7 points of BODY damage. He then rolls the stun multipler and gets a 4, which is times by 2 (the weapon STUNx) to get 8. Thus, the total stun damage is 56. We are also confused as per the STUNx listed for hit locations. Do all these multiplier stack? ex. Sir Knight attacks EvilMan with a sword that does 2D6 of damage and has a STUNx of 2. He rolls his attacks and hits him in the head for 7 points of BODY damage. He then rolls the stun multipler and gets a 4, which is times by 2 (the weapon STUNx), and then by 5 (the hit location STUNX) to get 40 (4*2*5=40). Thus, the total stun damage is 7*40=280. The stun amounts get HUGE very quickly, which makes me wonder if I am doing this right. 2 - When casting offensive spells, there is often a required attack roll. For example, my cleric has the spells Sacred Fire and Voice of the Divine: Sacred Fire: Killing Attack - Ranged 4d6, Penetrating (+1/2) (90 Active Points); OAF (Holy Symbol; -1), Only When Serving The God's Purposes (-1/2), Requires A Faith Roll (-1/2), Spell (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4) Voice of the Divine: Mind Control 20d6 (Human class of minds) (100 Active Points); OAF (Holy Symbol; -1), Only When Serving The God's Purposes (-1/2), Requires A Faith Roll (-1/2), Spell (-1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Single Command Only (-1/4) Sacred Fire requires a standard attack roll, and Voice of the Divine requires an ECV attack roll. Can CSL's be used to increase these attack rolls? I got confused when I started reading about the DCV levels - since I am not sure how a spell could be used to increase the DCV of the caster - and began to feel that maybe this was not the right way to do this. If CSL's can be used to increase your efficiency with attacking with spells... what would be the best way to buy this Thanks as always, Tom [EDIT] One last question just came up as well. If you are moving... how does this effect your DCV? I think I read this somewhere... but I can not remember where. If anyone can point me to it, that would be awsome.

Re: Blocking Maneuver Question Ahhh... that is a whole new level of paranoid! Tomasina

Re: Blocking Maneuver Question

Having read the book multiple times... I am a bit confused at how to use block. It states that I have to declare the block prior to the attack roll by the attacker. So is this an Abort to Block maneuver? Or on my turn do I state that I am going to block any incomming attacks? Tom

Re: First Adventure Questions The spell is Wall of Earth on page 80 of the Fantasy Hero Grimoire... if you do not have the book, let me know and I will type it in. Wow... how I messed that up is beyond me... thanks a TON. So in your campaigns the martial artist buys his maneuvers as powers... including spending points to get them? This makes sense... but if this is the case, do they get to divide the final cost by 3 (Turakian Age Magic System) just like wizards and priests? Thanks, Tom

Having created all of our characters, we started our first adventure yesterday. We had to have a dedicated 'page turner' to look up rules for our contstant questions... but overall it went fairly smoothly. While most of the night went smooth, we did run into a couple of questions for which we could not find answers in the books... and I am hoping some of you might have some input. 1 - The wizard in the party has a spell that creates a stone wall... it is listed as having the duration of instant. We could not find out anywhere how long the wall lasts for though. It does not seem right that it should last forever... or the world would be covered in stone walls by now... but we could not seem to find out how long it lasted for. Does it simply stay as long as he pays END to maintain it? 2 - How much END do martial combat maneuvers cost? For example, our monk had the ability Martial Disarm which is defined as a 1/2 phase action that results in a +35 STR to disarm at the cost of -1 OCV +1 DCV. If the monk had a STR of 20 and used all her strength in the disarm... does it cost 4 END (1 END per 5 STR, and the 35 Bonus STR is free) or is it 11 END (1 END per 5 STR (including bonus STR))? 3 - What is the balancing factor of martial arts character? It seemed that the monk in the party was a 'super character'. For example, she had a roundhouse maneuver (from the Ultimate Martial Artist) that added a +6D6 of damage for a -2 OCV and +1 DCV. And the Disarm maneuver (as listed above) is almost impossible to beat... which left all the bad guys without weapons very quickly. Our fighter, who was fighting with a hammer, could do nowhere near as much damage as the monk... and ended the night feeling that his character was very underpowered. I feel like I am missing something here. 4 - I am a bit confused about Stun Multipliers. As far as I can tell from the book, STUNx only applies to killing damage (times body damage by STUNx to get amount of stun damage). Where I got confused is how this applies to certain weapons. For example, our fighter fights with a hammer that does 1D6 damage with a +1 STUNx (according to Fantasy Hero). Since a hammer does normal damage... what good is the +1 STUNx? Again, I think I am missing something. 5 - If someone does not have a skill... can they attempt to use it unlearned? For example, our party does not include a rogue and is thus as the mercy of most of the traps they have encountered. Can they attempt to search for traps even though they do not have a security systems skill? Does this apply to other skills as well? 6 - Does the Hero System differentiate between active Perception rolls and passive Perception rolls? I am assuming the Perception roll is passive, and a specific skill (concealment, security systems, etc.) is the active perception... is this correct? Thanks as always! Tom

Hello All, I am now beginning to create the character I have been dreading somewhat... the martial artist. After reading the Martial Arts section of the core book, I am not nearly as daunted as I was originally... it appears that you simply buy the maneuvers that you wand, and then you can improve them with DC levels and CSL's. I have some basic questions as I prepare to create our first Martial Arts character: - When you buy a martial arts maneuver is it usable both empty handed, and with a weapon... or do I need to buy each seperately? For example, if I want to buy Martial Strike and know how to use it empty handed, as well as with a knife... do I buy it once, or twice (once for empty handed, and once for the knife)? - When buying CSL's for martial arts maneuvers can I simply buy 5pt CSL's and use it as a +1 to all HTH attacks (and thus all martial maneuvers)? - One page 407 of the core Hero 5th Edition Revised book there is a section titled Combat Skill Levels, Haymakers, and Martial Maneuvers. This section explains that Damage bonuses from Haymakers, Martial Maneuvers, and Combat Skill Levels are not affected by advantages. They add to an attack that has Advantages at the same rate as they do an attack with no Advantages. This is proceeded by the following example: I can not figure out what this is trying to say... can someone explain to me what the point of this section is. - Lastly, there is Thanks as always! Tom

Re: Creating Armor Just in case anyone is interested... I have attached my armor spreadsheed... which includes all the information I use to create sectional armor, including: Mayapuppies Calculator Ghost_Archer's Armor Descriptions/Cost/Weights etc. It is basically all the information I found from this thread in a single location for use by my players in assigning sectional armor to their characters. -- Again, thanks to Mayapuppies and everyone else who helped me to understand armor in this system... I very much appreciate it. Tom

Re: Creating Armor Got it... so in the equation above... I would have a -1 to OCV and an END cost of 1 per turn. Thanks for sharing your spreadsheet... I am looking forward to using it. Tom

Re: Creating Armor Thanks! So just to make sure I am using your spreadsheet correctly... If I buy sectional armor that covers every part of my body (all hit locations) and each sectional piece has a DEF of 5... and assuming that there are no ManAF or ENDAF modifiers... Than (assuming I used the spreadsheet correctly) I would have a -5 to OCV/DEX rolls when wearing the armor... and would have a END cost of 5 per turn. Did I use this correctly? I was a bit confused by the END Cost cell... since below you state that I should use the AF cell for the endurance cost and OCV/Dex roll penalties. Thanks, Tom

Re: Creating Armor

Hello, I am having a hard time with understanding shields as described in Fantasy Hero. On page 198 of Fantasy Hero it reads (copied verbatim) with bolded text added for emphasis: Quote: Shields A shield is a large piece of wood and/or metal, usually roughly disc- or rectangular-shaped, worn by a fighter on his off arm (typically his left arm). The fighter uses it to block attacks and protect himself from harm. In game terms, a shield is bought as a two-slot Multipower. The first slot provides bonuses to DCV, bought as DCV Levels with the OAF (-1), Real Armor (-1/4), Mass (Normal Mass; -1), and STR Minimum Limitations. For every 5 points (or fraction thereof) a shield user's STR is below the shield's STR Minimum, reduce the DCV bonus it provides by 1. Additionally, the wielder may apply his shield's DCV bonus as a bonus to his OCV for purposes of blocking (see page 155). Being new to the game, I bought Hero Designer and have been using it to help me create characters and equipment. When I got to shields, however, I ran into a problem. Unfortunately, it is not possible in Hero Designer (that I am aware of) to build the first slot. I tried building it using 5pt CSL's (for the DCV levels) and got a warning that I should not include CSL's in a power. Luckilly this was a warning, so I could simply ignore it. I then found that Real Armor was not an option... so I selected Real Weapon, and renamed it to Real Armor. Mass simply could not be assigned, and I could not find anyway around it. I checked on the Fantasy Hero section and was told to simply leave Mass off as it can not be added. STR Minimum I was able to add without problem. It seemed odd to me that I could not use the Hero Designer to create such a simple thing as a shield... so I posted it as a bug in the Hero Designer support forum. Simon then responded with the following: So now I am utterly confused. The reply above (according to my interpretation) goes completely against what was stated on page 198 of Fantasy Hero (and quoted above). To check my interpretation, I then proceeded to use Hero Designer to build the following Tower Shield (located on page 199 of Fantasy Hero): Tower Shield DCV: +4 HA: 3D6 N STR Min: 18 Body: 7 DEF: 3 Mass: 8 kg Total Cost: 9 The only way to build the shield for 9pts is to include all the limitations (including Mass) as listed on page 198 of Fantasy Hero (and quoted above). If I take off the Mass limitation from the Tower Shield, the cost increases to 10 pts and is then out of synch with the book. At this point, I am hoping you can provide clarification to the issue since your early reply to Simon appears to be at odds with the book. Thanks a ton for you time and help, Tom

Re: Creating Armor

Re: Fantasy Hero Modules While the text is limited, I would at least include the basic level of the module... but perhaps most people will look at the sample pages. I have looked at your other modules, and yes... they are much more orthodox. I am impressed with your Beastiary and other materials, and look forward to seeing what other materials you release. Tom

Re: Fantasy Hero Modules Sorry for the string of replies, but I wanted to clarify a line of feedback I gave regarding the somtimes confusing order of the module (in my opinion). Most modules have a somewhat familiar thread: I found your format of having locations prior to how to get the players involved, and without a real adventuer overview (what is generally supposed to happen) somewhat confusing. I figured it out... but I think it could have been clearer. Again, overall I really like the adventure... and I think it fulfills a very needed niche... and I am very glad to have purchased it. I just think the overall structure of future modules could be a bit more clear. Tomasina

I was just looking at your preview pages... and saw that there is a more detailed description (as per desired character level/inclusions) at the end of the preview pages. You might want to include this information in the overall description... I almost did not look at your preview pages, and would have missed it. The adventure states that it is for 4-8 players of up to 750 pts combined. Do you mean 750 pts for the party (combined meaning combining all the players pts) or do you mean 4-8 players of up to 750 pts combines (where each character has 750 pts combined (combined meaning basic/disadvantages/etc.)? I wanted to make one additional comment as per the desired adventure level. Starter level adventures (150pt characters) are nice for new gamers, as this is something I looked all over for when we switched to this system (about a month ago) and could not find anywhere. Update:I actually just ordered the DL of the module, and took a quick look at it. It looks nice and overall I am impressed. I am glad I bought it, and would buy additional modules based on this one. Feedback Based on First Look:Once again the overall adventure description (players/level/inclusions/etc. should be included at the beginning of the module... I could not find it). I also found some of the ordering of the module to be a bit confusing. It started talking about areas, and I did not know what it was talking about until I flipped to the maps. I would think the maps should be included prior to the Surrounding Areas section since the jump from story overview to Surrounding Areas is quite abrupt (or at least reference the maps prior to talking about the areas)... but this is just my opinion. Since Fantasy Hero is a hex-based system, the maps should be hex-based as well (instead of their current grid form). Lastly... I occaisonally get a PDF error regarding a token... but hopefully that is something on my side. Tomasina

Re: Fantasy Hero Modules As with any pricing scheme... there is rarely a set and specific answer. I definitely (as a GM new to Fantasy Hero) have an interest in available modules. What would I pay for said module... that all depends on quality, content, readability, etc. Your current module, which is available via download for $3.50 seems to be a very attractive price. But what is included? Graphics, maps, treasure, relics, etc.? What power level of characters is the module designed for? Is it self contained (Are descriptions provided for all creatures/monsters, or will I need to have monster/beast/etc. books from the Hero System)? The more descriptive you are, the more likely you are to get buyers. I noticed that your module is "set in the world of Jolrhos"... this might a feature limitation to some (like me for example) who are using the default Turakian age setting and do not know what is required to change to your setting. As per what levels of adventures there is a demand for... that as well is a very difficult question to answer. Beginning levels are always great for newer groups (such as ours) whereas more advanced groups might like a higher leveled setting. The easiest way to address this in modules, is to include notes for how to modify the challenge rating of the adventure. So if you design an entry level adventure... include some modifications that would allow it to work for a more advanced group. As it is now... the price is very attractive... I would not hesitate to spend $3.50 for a downloadable module... but I would not buy it in its current state due to the limited description. Anyway, I hope that helps, Tomasina

Re: Creating Armor So after posting my message, I read the Balancing Armor Use section more closely, and I see where I am going wrong. I believe the following is correct: - Armor counts against overall Encumbrance which can effect battle (DCV and DEX roll penalties). The above rule does not seem like it really balances armor use... and so I am interested in the "armor fatigue factor" which lists a per Turn END cost based on the DEF of the armor (average DEF I am assuming if using sectional armor). It lists the following costs: DEF END Cost 1-3 1 4-6 2 7-9 3 I am wondering if anyone has used this, and how it worked? Lastly... Am I still correct in my assumption that a fighter must pay END (per phase) based on the STR used to attack with a weapon? E.g. A fighter attacks with hammer which has a STR min of 10. He chooses to use a 17 STR in order to increase the DC by 1. He therfore must spend 3 END (17/5=3.4) to perform the attack. Thanks, Tom

Re: Creating Armor So we have been assigning armor to the characters when one of my players asked me about the END cost listed next to each item of armor (we are using the sectional option)... to which I had no answer. Weapons include the Reduced Endurance Advantage, which I assume means that wielding a weapon does not cost END (which makes sense since using a weapon uses STR (which I am assuming uses the standard END) and thus the END should not be based off the Power(s) of the weapon. Armor, however, does not include Reduced Endurance Advantage, and thus the endurance cost is based upon the Power(s) of the armor. This does not makse sense to me since a fighter should not have to pay a Power END cost to wear armor. Why is this included... shouldn't armor have the Reduced Endurance Advantage too? This brings me to a similar question... I have always assumed that wielding a weapon costs END (per phase) based on the STR used with the weapon (I think it is 1 endurance per 5 STR (in Fantasy)). Does a similar rule apply to armor (END per phase in which it is used)? Thanks, Tom

Re: Grimoire Spell (Power) Questions Thanks a ton, as always. Your answers have helped a TON. Tom