Crypt

Note: i don't want to argue about low roll vs high roll. Here instead of rolling 3d6 under a score or 3d6+mods vs 10+ the player rolls 2D6-2D6 vs 0+. But there is something more = symetrical open ended. Each 6 or -6 has a 1/2 chance to become a 7 or -7 which has 1/2 chance to become a 8 or -8, etc.....no limit. Those open ended are simultaneous. Positive opens and negative ones may occur at the same time. For instance: you roll 2D6-2D6 and get 4,6,-6 and -6 The sum is -2. But you reroll the 6 and the two -6. Do not add their results now ! If you roll 4 or more with the 6 dice then it become a 7, etc.... If you roll -4 or less with the -6 dice then it become a -7, etc... Let say we get: 4, -3, -5 This means we add +1,0 and -1 to the sum. We have to reroll the first and third dice. (the second one was -3 so we stop rolling it) 2, -6 The first one does nothing (because 2<4), the -6 brings an additionnal -1. We reroll it. We get -3. So it stops here. Total = -2+1-1-1 = -3 Example 2: you roll 2D6-2D6 and get 6,3,-2 and -3 = +4 Reroll the 6 => 4 so you add +1 Reroll it => 2 so you stop here. Total = +4+1 = +5 Now, please, before saying it looks slow, weird or complex please try it with real dices ( ) That's more intuitive than it looks. (Don't forget you may group dices : 4+1-5-2 = 0-2 ....) http://cryptmaster.free.fr/HERO/2d_2d/ In this URL you will find the results for 10.000.000 rolls and the corresponding graphics. You may see that the probabilities are not too far from those of a classical 3D6. 6- = -5 : 13 % 8- = -3 : 27% 11- = 0 : 55 % (that's under 62% but in the other hand high or low results have higher probabilities than with 3d6) You may also see that the possibilities of simultaneous open-ended rolls tend to calm down the potential explosive results. The cumulative 1/2 chance does the same. About the advantages of a 0 centered method: - your basic score is you average score. - smaller numbers than a classical roll high method. - you know you are under or over your average capacities when you roll a negative or positive dices score. - when you don't want to make rolls (for instance for you NPCs) you simply use their basic score+mods as if they were final results. PS: After that you may link effects rolls to the (pure) action roll this way if you want: http://cryptmaster.free.fr/HERO/chart_4d.php But this is another story...

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Just make this simple test: get a small hammer (tool) and hurt your skull. Then come back here to tell us the result. You'd probably be killed by a single hit of a warhammer on your skull. That's a lot better than a bell rung, isn't it ? A metal helmet would give you a chance but not as much as HERO DEFs suggest. With enough kinetic energy (*) the pointed side of the warhammer would pierce through the helmet like a knife through butter. That's what they were made for. A non-lethal weapon is not a weapon. (*) the long handle is made to improve angular velocity

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) that's a possibility......arrrrghh too many possibilities !!!

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) As Detect is, by default, No Range so it is not subject to range penalties. So if a source is supposed to radiates, it must be AoE or Explosive in order to get the following scene = the mage, whose Detect has no range, feels a light magical presence where he stands. If he moves (in the right direction) the feeling becomes stronger. Range is another story. The default Detect would find nothing out of the stinky area. It would need range. Because the default explosion means a -5AP/hex and we said that the stink gives +1PER/10AP so, by default, the PER bonus would dissipates are the rate of 1 PER for each 2 hexes from the source. But i would use AoE or Explosion only for very potent artefacts, magical nods, demi-gods who stink a lot (feel the presence of Sauron, etc...) so default Detect still only detects the magic of an "average" item at 1" or less.

Re: Limitations Actually me too. But i will try the modified FH option only for Incantations, Gestures and Concentration because of three reasons: - Their characters are already built. I prefer not making too much modifications during the campaign. - The Merlin laws (cf previously) It may be nice, i think. - Even if it's possible to ignore I or G during a casting those limitations still are mandatory. With a Variable Limitation it would not be the same.

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) Interesting. (even if at first i will try to use the standard rules as possible) Another thing = the magical stink could be explosive () The more distant the source, the weaker the PER bonus which comes from AP.

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) Finally i think i should use a Change Environnement, with x penalties to PER (the Detect Magic "sense") at 2 pts, with or without the long lasting mod, with or without range, linked to an item's powers, used as a spell, bought as a talent, etc..... (The same thing would apply to a concealment VS clairsentience (limited to). One of my players regularly uses a Retrocognition spell and i'd like some of my NPCs being able to hide themself from this kind of spell.) Here the only problem i see is that at some point, by buying enough PER modifiers,the CE may become more expensive than an equivalent Invisibility power which is definitely more efficient.

Re: Limitations or start at X1 END, as in the FH option

Re: Limitations maybe i will use the following only for Gestures, Incantations and Concentration = Limit. / END / ROLL / SideEffect 1/4 / X2 / -2 / 15 pts 1/2 / X3 / -4 / 20 pts 3/4 / X4 / -6 / 25 pts 1 / X5 / -8 / 30 pts etc..... and the player must choose another limitation of the same value. If he doesn't choose one then he get the effect of twice limitation. For instance: he want to cancel a Gestures 1/4 and an Incantation 1/4. He must choose 1/2 of alternate limitation and END is multiplied by 3, his ROLL is at -4 and if he fails he will suffers a 20 AP side effect. If he choose to ignore taking an alernate limitation then he suffer the penalties of a 1/2+1/2 = a 1 limitation (=X5/-8/35.) It only works for gestures, incantations and concentration. It reminds me of Merlin (the movie) where it's said that a true master of magic may cast spell without speaking nor making gestures. It may be seen as a ground campaign rule. As a side effect Gestures and Incantations, which are default for every spells, can not be sold back. For other ones the only solution would be the standard Variable Limitation (or a framework, but i do not allow frameworks right now) Do you think it's balanced enough ?

Re: Limitations Yes. At full cost. They play characters i've converted from HARP to HERO. Characters are built on 200 pts. Average magic level. The most powerful spell they have is a Retrocognition at 50 Active points. Spells basically have Gestures and Incantations. About 30 % of their spells has Concentration. Attacks spells has the Spell limitation. As a default all spells need a half phase. 1 Power Skill per magic school. (the same schools as in the Grimoires) A fairly standard FH magic system, i guess.

During my Fantasy Hero campaign two of my players (magic-users) asked if it was possible to ignore some limitations like Gestures, Incantations or Concentration on the fly. The general idea is that some RPGs (for instance RM or Ars Magica) allow this kind of things. I thought about the "Endurance as a substitute for other limitations" option from FH page 246: (for every 1/4 worth of limitation the character wants to avoid the effects of, the power's END cost increases by one step down the increased Endurance cost table...) Because i really fear it may become unbalancing i think i will add a cumulative -2 to magic Roll and a 5 pts Side Effect per 1/4 ==> Limit. / END / ROLL / SideEffect 1/4 / X2 / -2 / 5 pts 1/2 / X3 / -4 / 10 pts 3/4 / X4 / -6 / 15 pts 1 / X5 / -8 / 20 pts etc..... Even then it worries me because it may be easy to cast a very low level without the bought limitations. (note: they have one Magic skill per school. One of the player has Divinitation at 21- .) Do you think this is ok ? Do you think i should limit it to gestures, incantations and concentration or allow it for any limitations ? Do you think i should forbit it and say them to sold back gestures, incantations and concentration and buy a Variable Limitation instead ? (or should i buy a Mental Defense against Players ?)

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) Time to clarify and add new needs: - This is not about effects (IPE do not applies here), this is about potential or residual magic. - No absolute. 1 - the more powerfull an item, a character, or a spell is, the easier is to detect its magic (potential or residual.) Proposition: +1PER/10 Active points For a character use his average spells AP. 2 - the older a spell has been cast (but no longer in effect) the harder is to detect his residual signature. Proposition: - Detect Magic needs Tracking in order to detect such a trace. - -1PER/Standard Time Step or use the Tracking Chart from Ultimate Skill. 3 (the delicate part)- but a spell, an item or a character may be concealed to Detect Magic = 3.1 - (permanent) an item may be built to be concealed to Detect Magic Proposition: 1pt adder / -1 PER 3.2 - (""permanent"") a spell may be built to be concealed to Detect Magic Proposition: 1pt adder / -1 PER 3.3 - (permanent) a talent may gives the character permanent concealment to Detect Magic. It has no effect on items he creates nor spells he cast. It only affects the magic which radiates from himself. Proposition: 1pt / -1 PER ? 3.4 - (on the fly) a character may cast a spell to conceal him (potential), a item (potential) or an area (where a spell has been cast ; residual) to Detect Magic. Only the area cleaning (residual) could be Permanent. The character version (potential) should be Constant. The item version (potential) should be Independant or Constant. 4. - An item, character or spell may be stinky (noisy.) 5 EDIT: I think that the final mechanisms of concealment could also be used for defenses vs magical clairsentience. This is not the same as Detect Magic but the concealment PER mods could work the same. An invisibility (sight group) with a (only vs clairsentience) limitation could be used but it would be an absolute power. So the question remains the same => what about PER penalties ? An intermediate possibility could be to use Armor Piercing and Hardened modifiers. EDIT: Finally i think i should use a Change Environnement, with x penalties to PER (the Detect Magic "sense") at 2 pts, with or without the long lasting mod, with or without range, linked to an item's powers, used as a spell, bought as a talent, etc..... Before ruling chapter 3 do you think those general "laws" are ok ?

Re: What's Hero System good for? Ash nazg durbatulûk !

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) just some tests: - Lightning Bolt RKA 2d base: 30 - Concealment adder -4 PER (4pts; only vs Detect Magic) (= it cancels the +4 PER from APs counted without this adder) - Indirect (+1/4) active points: 37 without the concealment adder. 42 with it. (or 47 if the adder costs 2/-1 PER) Gestures (-1/4) Incantation (-1/4) Requires a Magic Skill Roll (-1/2) Only works under an open sky (-1/2) real cost: 17 (or 19 if the adder costs 2/-1 PER) - Avanced Teleportation (H5R p233) 20" base: 40 - Concealment adder -8 PER (8pts; only vs Detect Magic) (= it cancels the +8 PER from APs counted without this adder) - No relative velocity (+10) - Position shift (+5) - Armor piercing (+1/2) active points: 82 without the concealment adder. 94 with it. (or 106 if the adder costs 2/-1 PER) Gestures (-1/4) Incantation (-1/4) Requires a Magic Skill Roll (-1/2) real cost: 47 (or 53 if the adder costs 2/-1 PER) Some of the reasons i tend to prefer a 1 pt/-1 PER instead of a 2 pt/-1 PER = - its uses are limited to very specific situations (magical investigations.) - because a high level's signature is more "odorous" than a low one it requires more concealment adder points to counter its "smell." So a very powerfull residual magic would need a lot of conc.adder pts to be hidden. but maybe those reasons are bad. (?)

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) the example in the book is : 3 points for a -1 OCV then we probably get something similar to what i've previously proposed (except for the "2pts to cancel" part) = Saying this is a Concealment Level or a PER penalty is quite the same. Let's ignore the "2pts to cancel" part. We get: 1 point adder per -1 PER because of the limitation (only vs Detect Magic; 1/2.) +1 level of standard skill cost 2 pts. With the 1/2 limitation it becomes 1 level per point. This is the same cost as = +1 level of Enhanced sense with a single sense cost 1 point. So, in my opinion the adder should cost 1 point per -1 PER. Do you agree with this cost ?

Re: What's Hero System good for? before i bought Hero 5 i was a Gurps/Rolemaster/Hârnmaster/Chivalry & Sorcery gamemaster. Now, even if i think Hero can be improved, i think i will never get back to those games. I tend to make low level and gritty scenarios, mercenaries/ghost hunting/Lovecraftian horror/relatively hard SF/, etc..... IMHO Hero works, even with low level genres and it's a lot nicer to master than any of the games i was used to. About powers = don't see them as supernatural capacities. They are mainly mechanical tools which may be used with any genre to simulate effects, even in a campaign without any supernatural. (just think about the french word "pouvoir" which is also a verb meaning "being able to" and you get the very broad definition of what Hero's powers are.) I takes time to read the book(s) but it's really worth the effort because thereafter you will save time on parts where other games stacks more and more rules.

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) any suggestion about the cost ?

Re: Open ended damage or you could use a simpler method, a non-explosive one, so you would not need to counter its explosive effects with a cancelling method. For instance: - roll damage dices. - for each 6, roll 1 die, if the result is 4+ (1/2 chance) then it becomes a 7. Reroll until the die result is 3 or less. eg: 4d 6 3 2 6 roll two dices (there were two 6) => 3 and 5 (5 is 4+ so you add +1 to the total) roll one die (one of the two previous dices was 4+) => 6 (so you add +1) roll one die => 2 (so you stop here) total 6+3+2+6+1+1 = 19 instead of 17.

Re: Open ended damage I wonder what is the point of using open-ended damages, by themself, if they are not linked to the action roll just my two cents: i (sometimes) use the action roll (the pure roll, not the success margin) in order to get the effect result (without rolling effect) 1- it uses the roll high variant (roll+mods vs 10) for action rolls. 2- when you roll a pure 18, reroll 1 die, you have 1/2 chance to transform this 18 in a 19, which himself has 1/2 chance to become a 20, etc...... (1/2 chance = roll 4+ on 1d6) 3- then i check the following table => http://cryptmaster.free.fr/HERO/chart.php For instance, for a 2d damage weapon, if the attacker rolled 14 (pure roll) for his action roll then, if this is enough to hit, he does not roll the 2d damage, he knows that it may do 9 stun and 3 body. (or 9 body for a killing attack) As it's possible to get a pure open_ended action roll (non-explosive, eg probability for a 24 is only 0.0036%) so are the damages. It has a side effect i like = if you succeed to hit a very hard to hit foe then this is for a high % damage. (no bad luck dmg after a good luck hitting roll) It doesn't use the success margin, it only uses the pure roll because CSL, location modifiers and maneuvers may already modify the final effect.

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) yes, maybe. Another possibility, which would be more interesting for my players, would be a Magical Concealment Skill instead of an adder. Eg. The spell gives +8 PER because of his AP. The character succeeds a MCS roll by a 3 margin. (this roll is not modified by the AP/10 penalty) Then the spell only gives +5 PER. Such a skill (wich can be used for several spells, maybe one skill per school of magic, etc.) would be cheaper than an adder, that's why the base AP modifier is not cancelled here. With the adder version i think it would be too expensive, not interesting enough, if the base AP modifier is not cancelled by the very first 2 points. hmm, yes, maybe i should only allow this kind of action if the character has taken this modifier. It makes me think about another thing = How to build a spell of Signature Concealment ? (a spell which dissipates residual magic in an area) With a CE ?

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) No, no, no, there is no concealment roll here. I actually thought about Concealment skill levels used as an adder = Concealment (Only vs Detect Magic; -1/2): 2 points to cancel the PER bonus coming from AP; 1 points per -1 PER thereafter. So, for instance, a Ring of Invisibility (45 AP, cf p192) : - without concealment adder: give a +4 to Detect Magic PER rolls - with a 3 points Concealment adder it would give a -1 penalty instead of +4. No imagine a magical thief use Teleportation (82 AP, the one page 233) to escape the place of his crime. One day latter a mage comes to the place, at less than 5 " from the place the spell were cast and tries a Detect Magic. Without a concealment adder the mage the mage has a +8 bonus (from the teleportation AP) and a -11 penalty (one day) = - 3 to his PER roll. If the teleportation spell of the thief had for instance a 2 pts concealment adder then the +8 bonus is cancelled and the total modifier to the mage PER is -11. If the mage succeeds his PER roll he knows that a spell has been cast here. The amount of information depends on his Detect Magic spell (discriminatory, analyse, ....) With discriminatory he may know that a teleportation spell had been cast 1 day ago. With analyse he may know what was the maximum distance of the teleportation spell..... If he fails his PER roll then he doesn't detect the spell signature.

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) so don't you think that a limited form of Concealment (*) would work better than an Adder taken from CE or Image ? (*) errata : i'd better say "Concealment" instead of "Stealth" because this is about the capacity or the nature, not the effect.

Re: About Detect Magic (FH) maybe i'm wrong but it doesnt seem to satisfy the following needs: 1 - the more powerfull an item or character (...edit: or spell) is, the easier is to detect its magic. 2 - but in the other hand some items or characters could be stealthy vs detect magic. and i also add this: 3 - the older a spell has been cast (but no longer in effect) the harder is to detect his residual signature. None of this 3 campaign "laws" give absolute effect. Magic may be extremely stealthy but never fully indetectable. I think there is a confusion. I do not speak about the effects (eg. a staff firing a lighting bolt or you are invisible when you put on this ring), i speak about the magical "capacity" (eg. the staff is magical, the staff is able to fire a lighting bolt or this is a ring of invisibility. Also see the Detect Magic chapter in Fantasy Hero.) An IPE only covers the effect and is absolute so it does not cover the campaign laws i spoke about.

As campaign ground rules let's say that: - the more powerfull an item or character (...) is, the easier is to detect its magic. - but in the other hand some items or characters could be stealthy vs detect magic. How would you rule it ? I've thought about something like: - for items: their Active Points/10 act as a bonus to the PER roll (eg AP 60 => PER+6.) For character use the stronger (or the average ?) spell he knows in order to compute the PER bonus. (still Active Points/10) - if the item or character has Power Defense it/he may automatically have some levels of Stealth (Only VS Detect Magic.) For instance Power Defense 10 could give a -5 malus to the PER roll. - about spells: it could be possible to detect the "signature" of a spell which has been cast but is no longer in effect. Maybe a malus of -1 to the PER roll per Time step ? (it would stack to the AP/10 bonus so a powerfull spell would keep being detectable for a longer time) What is your opinion ? EDIT: see this post : http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1845041&postcount=19

Re: Throwing distance About my first post: i won't use it because i lose the nice equality where the thrower's STR = thrown item's MASS + thrown item's Velocity found in the Kim's version: http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/herosystem/move/ http://cryptmaster.free.fr/HERO/kim.php I will keep using the Kim's version but it lacks one variable = the thrower velocity. So i thought about using a simple variant of the Movement & Strength rule where 2" may be convert into +1 STR (H5ER p364-365.) In order to convert this rule in the VF way and keep consistancy it would be 1 VF = 5 STR. So a moving character would add his own VF X 5 to the (Str-Mass) column in order to find the distance of throwing. In order to keep inner consistancy and the STR=MASS+VF equality it's needed to say that the thrower VF is added to damage dices. STR + thrower's VF = thrown item's MASS + thrown item's VF + thrower's VF. You may see that it follows the Move Throught logic where VF increases damage. EDIT: Actually this is the same as a Range "Move-throught" so you may use VF as a malus to OCV. It also means that throwing and movement are combined (as in a Move-throught where movement and attack are combined.) EDIT: Option: if you think that it gives too high distances results in the everyman range you may state that the chart gives distances for VF 2 as a default. So the actual addition from VF is (VF-2)X5 instead of VFX5. So a non-moving character substract (0-2)X5 = -10 to the (Str-Mass) column. (actually a non-moving character doesn't have a VF0, his VF would be negative infinity, but this is simpler to say so here.) It goes against the M&S rule because it's said that the M&S conversion doesnt allow to use the converted movement nor to use it in order to do more damage in combat. There is not doubt about the fact that IRL speed increases kinetic energy so i wonder why the M&S rule limits its own uses (and is in contradiction with the Move Throught logic.).