Toadmaster

I'm trying to figure out a night operations skill, the skill of working, moving, fighting etc at night as you would see with certain special forces type soldiers. I'm not talking about seeing at night, or blind fighting just a skill to represent experience working in dark conditions, noise and light discipline, experience "feeling" the ground as you move to avoid tripping, being aware of the sounds around you etc. Any ideas?

Glad I could help, I think its The great gate of Kiev or something like that. That is an advantage to having a Dad who really likes classical music, I got a good informal education on the subject. Throw in a younger wife who grew up in a rural area (country and rap ) and my growing up with 80's rock and I've got quite a weird CD collection. Someday I'm going to have to burn a CD combining a little bit of everything just to annoy the neighbors, perhaps as a celebration for the release of Starcraft 2 "I am about to distribute some indescriminate Justice!!!"

I wonder if you are thinking about Mussorski's Pictures at an exhibition? It is often put together with Rimsky Korsikov music in collections. Carmina Burana by Orff is good (used in Excalibur), Wagner's Ring (ride of the valkarie etc) has several good bits (several also used in Excalibur). Gloria by Vivaldi (particularly if you can get the version done for the movie Runaway train). Joe Satriani's surfing with the Alien has several good songs (particularly the second side, I've always thought Hill of the skull would be good for a last stand Boromir vs the orcs kind of scene). The sound track from Backdraft also has some useful stuff.

For Morse and Semophore I'd allow it to be bought for 1 pt each but also allow it to be part of appropriate skills if the player can convence the GM that it should be part of the skill / character background (systems ops - communications for Morse, PS- sailor for semophore etc). I haven't really dug to far into 5th for languages but under Danger International I thought that literacy was bought for each language, only the base language got it for free in a literate society (so basically an illetereate socity gets their base language at a 4 points and a literate society gets 5). As far as Cryptography and using other languages for code, I would allow a character to use a mix of languages to make up a "code" but anybody who can read those languages or at least the bulk of them to figure out the message if they were going to try to make a "code" by skipping words etc I'd require them to at least have Fam with Cryptography with a roll being required if they want a chance to fool somebody with that skill but not to make the code unreadable to someone without it. I would not make somebody pay points to know a code, I consider that part of cryptography, most "real" codes require a code book to read them, and they change far to regularly to reqiure points for them. I suppose if somebody really wanted to memorize a code I'd let them spend 1 or 2 points on it but it would not be a regular occurance.

Well forget about all that get to the important stuff... The Toad people, I'm still waiting for my copy but Steve said there were Toadpeople so lets hear it.

Western Hero had a sort of speed factor based around fast draw but I've been thinking of using something similar to what you mentioned but in reverse. Dex penalties for determining initiative, that way they only come into effect when two characters of the same speed and similar dex face off (or at least speeds with common phases). Ex BoB Spd 3, Dex 18 is fighting with a Broad sword (-2 Dex), while Joe is Spd 3 Dex 18 and has a Bastard Sword (-3 Dex), they would have been equal but Joe's weapon is bulkier allowing Bob to take the initiative. This could also help break characters out of those most efficient point cost stats, it would have been a good idea for Joe to buy an extra point to off set the penalty. I suppose skill levels should also be allowed to reduce these penalties, perhaps even do like fast draw and allow characters to make fast swings taking off from their OCV to offset the penalty. Of course high quality or magic weapons could reduce these penalties or even add to dex. Anyway just a thought I've had to help give weapons more personality otherwise why would anyone take a short sword over a broad sword unless it was the strmin (unlikely) or character concept (the horror... the horror...).

No, I'll have to take a look for it, do you have a more exact title for the magazine? I skim the gun magazines occasionally but so many focus on the M1911 clone of the week that I don't regularly buy any of them. But an article on British .577 revolvers would definately be interesting. I think the last gun magazine I bought was last year it had an article on the .475 and .500 Linebaugh revolvers. A .577 should fit that role nicely for the pulp era. I used to buy alot of gun magazines but I've found the internet to be almost as good for getting stats and much its much cheeper. Thanks for the tip, I will be looking for the article on my way home tommorrow. BTW thanks for starting a gun thread, I was starting to get the DTs, its been awhile since the HERO boards have a good gun thread.

It sounds like you intend to maintain the video game feel of Diablo. I think in that case I would award powers instead of experience after each "quest", you could award a few xp for random encounters so that people could buy up skills. I'd also use these xp for weapons skills instead of making the characters select weapon bonuses or a power after each quest. Be careful about large groups of monsters, in general HERO rewards the side with lots of attackers, you will probably find you need to tone this down the numbers a bit unless you make the critters pretty weak. Other than that it sounds pretty reasonable even if a little unorthodox.

Re: More GURPS... That depends on what you want to do with it. Some HERO players hate GURPS, some GURPS players hate HERO, some play both. GURPS was influenced by HERO and they say so up front, but GURPS was also based on an older game Steve Jackson did The Fantasy Trip which may or may not have influenced HERO so the two systems have something in common. GURPS is desperately in need of a revision, the third edition (the current version) came out in 1989. Variuos changes over the years have made it rather difficult at times to find information since it is spread through many books. This has made GURPS more complicated than it really is. OTOH since the current version has been out so long you can probably find a used copy on ebay fairly cheap. HERO is the more flexible of the two and handles multi genre games much better, it also works better for higher powered or more fantastic genres (Superheroes) better. GURPS has more detail if you plan on a "realistic" genre (low magic fantasy, post apacalypse etc) many prefer GURPS. For a realistic game I'd give GURPS the vote as the better game but I have no issues with using HERO for these kinds of games and have done so many times, but I would never use GURPS for the really high end or really weird stuff though. GURPS Toons would never work but would not be that hard to do with HERO. Personally I like both systems, and will play either depending on mood although since HERO 5th came out I am more into the HERO system. The various GURPS books are excellent though and the GURPS basic set is useful too since the advantage disadvantage system is less open ended (GURPS you buy fear of the dark, in HERO you buy Psycological limitation - and then determine how much of a problem a fear of the dark is) so it can be helpful for ideas.

I don't know of anything specific to HERO but there are d20 Diablo books for sale which would probably be a good starting point for a conversion. As far as the random monster violence of the game I agree you would need to tone it down, probably just a random encounter or two to give the feeling of an overwhelming parade of evil outside the few hold out human holdings and then the source of the quests (the Den of evil, rescue Caine etc) and then the final quest in each act. I like the background for Diablo & Diablo 2 but as an RPG it amounts to little more than an above average dungeon crawl. It would take some work to flesh out the plots but I think it could be very interesting (add something more than go to point X and kill something).

It is possible to play GURPS with just the basic set but unless you were playing a minimal magic fantasy game or a game set in modern times with only a little gun play I think you would really need more. The basic set includes a small selection of firearms and melee weapons, and a small section on magic (a few elemental magics, fire ball etc). If you want to have any kind of real magic in your game you will want the magic book, if you want voodoo type magic you will want the voodoo book, if you want psionics you will want that book etc. Unlike HERO where you could "build" all of these things yourself and the specific books just reduce your workload GURPS does not really provide a method for creating all of these things for you game. A reasonable expectaion of the books you would need for a fanatsy game as an example is GURPS Basic set, Gurps fantasy, and Gurps magic. Also highly desirable would be one or more of the beastiaries, fantasy folk and 1 or both of the compendiums. Of course Psionics, voodoo etc may also be desirable. Other genres have similar needs.

Of course it is GM manipulation, the player is asking for it with that combo. Need I repeat the speel about a disadvantage which is not a disadvantage is worth no points? The character hates orcs a strong psyc lim, I don't take this to mean he makes nasty faces at them in the bar. The character becomes enraged by orcs, see above. The character is hunted by orcs, do we need to guess why? I think 1 and 2 cover that pretty well. Now it may be that 1 and 2 are perfectly justified in character but this combination of disads will override much of the campaign. If orcs were already going to be a major part of it these disads may not be justified (everybody already has them by default). I think these disads are legal but are a death wish for the character and party. This campaign will degenerate into a orc hunting festival because of this character otherwise the character is getting free points.

I'd say this is legal but a bad idea. As GM I would play up the hatred by making it hard on the character, if he hates orcs he should not go along with plans to avoid killing orcs or in general causing mischief for them. So the party has other plans but the opportunity comes up to kill orcs, the player should forcefully resist following the other goals and try to go after the orcs, if it is tactically unsound (vastly outnumbered) the player should be the one arguing to go anyway, if it is inconveniant such as being sent out to bring back a specific orc alive for questioning or punishment, the player should try to kill him anyway forcing the other characters to have to guard the orc. None of these should be absolute but everytime orcs come up the other players should should be groaning, not again, why orcs. The enraged should eventually lead to the characters distruction, properly played the character will eventually go to his doom fighting against the odds, the other players may follow when the enraged character won't accept the need to surrender or flee. The hunted should lead to many problems, eventually this character should gain a reputation because villages will get tired of orcs tramping through a day behind looking for this guy. Also another chance to hinder his party, given the opportunity for a truce the orcs should insist on bad things happening to the character before accepting any quarter. So while this character is "legal" in my opinion it is also a perfect case of other characters disadvantages bleeding over to the party and would be a great example for the players of the hazards of taking so many specific realated disadvantages. I'd try to get the player to change at laest one of these 2 of the 3 would be better and if he insists this is what he wants, make sure it eventually causes the party major headache, injury and maybe death, its a lesson and justified too.

Pinnacle actually mentions this in their Wierd war books and includes rules for haunted vehicles. The authors of the books quite obviously were fans of the Weird war comics as well as others like Sgt. Rock, Haunted tank etc. I was sceptical when I first heard about them but I've been looking forward to playing a game at some point, they obviously had fun and did their homework.

Now thats funny read FRED AND the FHonebook in one weekend . I'd also pick up a tube of ICY / HOT for your postman when they arrive, they are big books. Seriously though HERO is a great system and has excellent online support from the company and the fans. It managed to remain fairly popular despite nearly 10 years of neglect and DoJ has actually managed to improve the game since they took over.

I'm sure it is, and I'll be getting it eventually but FH and the grimoire have turned my gaming budget back to fantasy. I just picked up GURPS Low Tech and Middle ages 1, and Warhammer's Stone and steel (the dwarf book). BTW anybody looking for mini's for a WW2 game I've found Battlefront to be very good and reasonably priced. They are 15mm so should be played with 1/2" hexes instead of 1". http://www.battlefront.co.nz/

Re: How unbalancing would this be...? I think this is how I would do it, just like military time (1300 hrs etc) but on a speed chart, subtract 12 from the characters speed and those are the phases he gets 2 actions. I'd allow the first at Dex and the second after all other characters moved. I see no reason to mess with the speed chart since this should be very rare, for one thing it is insanely expensive, not just in speed but also in support (increased endurance and REC or 0 end on many powers). I have made one "Flash" type character speed 9 and I didn't find he worked very well, too much was invested in that speed to allow the rest of the character to develop. As many have already mentioned this should be rare if allowed at all and there are going to be better ways to do this for most occasions, the character you are describing is one of those situations, there have been several suggestions I think would handle you need better. OTOH if you have players who are building characters with Speed in the 9-12 range it might be worth a shot just to teach them a lesson.

I am working on an online one which hopefully I'll have ready to put online next spring (I'm hoping to run a game around a recon team D-Day to St.Lo at Dundracon next year). I did one a few years ago for Twilight 2000 so I have a large library on the subject. I've got a lot of the infantry weapons done already and a few tanks started but I've been fooling around with ideas to make tank combat more "realistic" (tanks are too close together in power level), I think I've got an idea that is going to work by making all "real weapons" do a majority of their damage SE and expanding the tables from TUV. As far as HERO doing one I think a Military HERO book would be better with bits from various periods and additional sourcebooks as sales dictate. I have all the GURPS WW2 books (except for Wierdwar) and all of Pinnacles Weird War books. All are great, even if you are not into the supernatural aspect of Weirdwar these books include so much real world info that they are worth getting plus they already have Russian Front, Pacific and North Africa books which Gurps doesn't. If you are interested in supernatural stuff in a WW2 game then I highly suggest Weird War 2, they are very well done, I'd even consider playing them in D20 if it came down to that, but I'd prefer to play them with HERO.

I don't remember how GURPS stun works, its been quite awhile since I played. Lately most of my GURPS purchases have been because the source books are so good. Stun in HERO is sort of like an extra set of "hit points", Stun is non life threatening, Body is life threatening. I find it is a really nice system, but since you sound sold I won't go to far into the details. Mike Basinger is a regular on these boards and he is in Salt Lake City, I think you can do a search for his posts to see if he is looking for any players, I know he is planning an introductory game at a library for some kind of teen game day, you can look into that on the FH forum under "looking for ideas". There is also a thread in the player finder for a game in Ogden, UT not sure how much of a commute that would be for you. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=9926 Good luck, I can't imagine Utah being a hotbed for RPG's but who knows.

Dinofreak2000, I think you can tell we are all very happy with HERO, as you can see we like it so much we are going to keep telling you how great it is even though you've already decided to buy it. As far as low end, I've never had a problem with it and I typically play at the 50+50 or 75+75 level (above average normal to heroic levels, for comparison superheros typically are 200+ points). I used to think GURPS gave more variety at the lower end but I've found that even though there are more options most of my characters looked very similar regardless of genre, there are just too many very effective things to buy and so few stats you tend to always buy the same stuff. HERO on the otherhand has so many stats that actually do something other than effect your combat ability or skills that I see more variety. HERO also has Stun, I think this is one of the best game features out there and I'm surprised that so few games have copied this feature. Where GURPS really out shines HERO is detailed combat, GURPS started as a combat game (Man to Man) and it shows but this is also what holds GURPS down to lower power levels. HERO combat on the other hand works well for a wide range of power levels and grittyness from pretty realistic and deadly to cinematic or comicbook depending on which options you use.

Re: Need an adventure idea for kids Another thought is go to the library and look for fantasy books popular with the age group (check with the librarian, they should be able to help), this might help with ideas and the level of complexity of plot. Avoid the use of devils / demons / witches etc (at least in name), no need to get into the old D&D is evil thing. You might also include more problem solving than normal, particularly word or math types (word jumbles, double meanings, riddles, math problems etc) to reinforce to the adults the positive sides of RPG's, my mother was never to thrilled with them but eventually she learned that my association with RPG's improved my handwritting, spelling, vocabulary and math skills and was much more supportive after that. So consider the view point of the parents too when developing your plotline, can't be too helpful if you get the kids hooked on gaming and the parents ban it.

Great!!! I'll be looking for it. I'm going to give the head of my East Coast branch of The Organization for the Advancement of Amphibious Denizens (TOAAD) the Amphibian of the year award. The UMA and Ninja HERO have proven themselves quite useful as training manuals, I bet you didn't even notice the toads whispering "include toads" in your ear each night as you slept for your customary 30 seconds between projects.

Ok, I've finally had time to give both of these a good read through and I must say I am very pleased. I know FH is a big book but I was surprised at how much is jammed in there. I was worried about the Grimoire being tied to the official FH setting but the way it was done works nicely, it has flavor because of the setting but remains generic enough to be useful even if I don't use the official setting (some of the Starhero supplements had me worried on the direction DoJ was taking HERO). Far superior to the old spellbook and magic items which I always found boring. If this style is used for other books you won't hear me complaining about official campaign material. If the 3M's is anything close to these books, then I will be a very hoppy toad. Keep up the good work.

Ok, with the larger pics the similarity is much less, your avitar could be him, still some similarity but clearly not clones. He looks very much like Mark Mcguire (or at leasst MM from his Oakland A's days) if you're curious as I don't have any handy digital images. Thanks for indulging my curiosity. You may now return to your life citizen, the restraining order has been signed.

At first I thought a more linear approach would work, it certainly allowed more range, but then little problems popped up like a tank could blow up the Earth with one below average shot, so I started playing with ideas for the effect on armor, one option was to recreate piercing from Champs 3, but this still required large amounts of armor to be taken, then the SE idea struck me, it could almost cut armor in half and be varied depending on how much of the attack is allowed to stay "normal", your description of the Star Wars mechanic is probably the best way to describe the idea I'm going for. Not so much differant damage but differant effect based on the target. I suppose I could always just strip armor combat from Twilight 2000 or a war game but I'm trying to stay within HERO as much as possible. Caveman Damage resistance is after the fact and effects damage that passed DEF, I'm looking for an armor effect to stop damage before any gets through, once it passes the armor it should do full damage, I picture damage resistance as a target that has no real vulnerable points so armor is not as much of a factor, which is why I'm not going that route. Thanks to all of you, this has helped me get pointed in the right direction.