Catalyst

Re: Natoxia, Home-Brewed Game - Need expert advice (Long) For anyone interested, my campaign now has a wiki, complete with map -- it's a work in progress, haven't ported all the content over yet. http://rpg.roxanne.org/natoxia/index.php/Main/HomePage

Re: Natoxia, Home-Brewed Game - Need expert advice (Long) This is all very helpful feedback. Just got back from the first session, and players seemed quite happy with what I've come up with so far, for the most part. There were certainly several questions that were a bit tough to answer, but that's every GM's burden I must say, Fantasy Hero is FAR more complex than DnD. We spent the vast majority of our time figuring out the more complex rules together (and this is after I've spent a great deal of time with both the 5ER and the Fantasy Hero book) I decided to go with the "divide spell cost by 3" system, which seems like it might have been the right way to go, based on the player's reactions and how their characters are shaping up. Thia - there are a lot of great questions there, and I imagine most of them are meant rhetorically. I will certainly give these issues some careful thought, as I can see how important they are to immersion. Some of them I have a pretty good idea how it will work -- truly fantastic monsters will be pretty rare, though humanoid creatures/monsters aren't uncommon in the untamed, frontier lands. My intention is for caster types to not necessarily compete with fighter types in terms of raw damage, but instead would have more diverse powers and overall wouldn't be significantly weaker than their warrior counterparts. My current plan is to have magic appear in many different forms, but overall it would be significantly less common than standard DnD fare. Initially, players will be able to choose arcane or divine magic. One player, for example, is making a character who has made a pact with a powerful entity (tbd), in exchange for his magical abilities. His concept is pretty cool -- part of the deal was he accepted the services an imp-like follower who is ostensibly his "familiar", but is also watching him to be sure he is keeping his end of the bargain. Eternal_Sage: Thanks for taking the time to do that. I'm not familiar with the RPG you mentioned, must be coincidence. I would say it's "medium" fantasy -- it's not used in everyday life, people are aware of wizards and their ilk but you don't bump into them on the streets everyday. Both magic and gear will be hard to come by, after the initial characters are created. The Kingdom where the campaign begins has economic trouble, so that will make it easy to control prices (ie, swords/armor will be expensive or hard to come by). I have a pretty good grasp of magic item distribution from years of DnD DM'ing, so I'm not concerned about overpowering them in that way (I tend to give out charged or temporary items, and an occassional low powered permanent item). Whew. Lots to think about. Thanks again for all the input. The burning question I have at the moment is this: how in the world do you balance the personal "Force field" power in Fantasy Hero? From what I can tell, a 30 Active Point FF can be built to easily block all the damage that the most powerful attack that our best warrior can dish out. Am I reading this wrong? If I'm not -- sheesh, it seems ridiculously overpowered and I'll either have to increase the cost dramatically or ban it altogether.

Re: Natoxia, Home-Brewed Game - Need expert advice (Long) That's precisely the kind of feedback I needed. I had seriously considered the "divide cost by 3" system but wasn't sure if it would overpower mages. The other thing I was thinking was that arcane mages could scribe scrolls to increase their power that way. I wasn't sure if that would unbalance things, but my thought was that since I could adjust the flow of scrolls into the campaign as needed, it could be kept under control. Has anyone tried this / would it work?

Re: Natoxia, Home-Brewed Game - Need expert advice (Long) My 29 page player's guide is now complete, as is the overland map. Anyone interested is welcome to a copy -- just send me a PM (I promise, it's much more organized than my sloppy post above)

I'm seeking the advice of any veteran Fantasy Hero GM's who have built their own world (or aspire to do so). I've spent the last several months working on mine, and feel I have a pretty solid start but as I've never done this before I'd be interested to hear if there are any glaring holes. I'm a long-time player (20ish years?), done quite a bit of DM/GM'ing, etc. I have a pretty well-organized Word document that I can send to anyone interested, but I'll try to summarize what I've included in this "Player's Aid" so far: World Introduction: contains several pages of world background. Exerpt: The world of Natoxia is vast and everchanging, and rife with dark secrets. Nations, lands, races, and individuals – all things in Natoxia have a predictable outer appearance. In an uncertain world, however, vulnerabilities can be exploited. What is unknown cannot then be used by others to gain advantage. Thus, most things are not what they may at first seem, and what you observe with your primary senses may be misleading. Careful investigation is often required to determine the true nature of a thing, whether the lowliest creature or the mightiest empire. Character Creation Guidelines: Lists detailed guidelines on how to create a character. Provided "Maximum Starting Values" (at creation), a "Soft Cap" (the point at which costs double), and a "Hard Cap" (maximum possible value before equipment). Races: 5 Human races (A spartan-type, seagoing people, two clans of savages, two clans of northmen), and four non-human races (mountain dwarves, rock gnomes, fae, and minotaurs). A huge thanks to Killer Shrike for such great source material -- I shamelessly used some of his work in creating races. Archetypes: 8 types, Arcane and divine magic skill types only at this point (my watchword at the moment is simplicity, can add complexity later as needed). Magic is restricted by maximum active points and requires a skill roll, no EC/Multipowers/PP structures (both for simplicity and balance). Archetypes are proposed characters, nothing more, suited to help novices get started quickly. A page on custom character guidelines, and other suggested archetypes. Deities: A pantheon of six deities, along with some alternate "Lesser" deity suggestions. A few adventuring groups/guilds, though the specifics are not fully fleshed out at the moment. A world political map, and an overland map for the area where the players will start (both using Campaign Cartographer 3). The players begin within a struggling Kingdom bordered by a rapidly expanding empire. The Kingdom is still currently resisting overtures by the empire to join them, though the pressure is increasing for the King to surrender his sovereignty, but he steadfastly and stubbornly refuses to do so. The empire has recently established the Legion, a powerful organized fighting force unmatched in the land. Epic Storyline: Players begin performing routine quests and tasks as part of an established adventuring group. As they go on missions, over the course of the first few sessions it becomes apparent that something strange is occurring. Initiialy, only a few NPC's that the players get to know suddenly begin behaving erratically and out of character. The first major introduction to the epic storyline occurs when the players discover proof that an NPC the players know and trust has committed an unspeakable act. Things will naturally progress and become more interesting from there... Regarding calendar, coinage, and # of suns/moons, I don't have a strong opinion either way though I recognize the need to make a decision on those -- my instinct tells me to keep it simple and use something that aligns with our world. This is my first time GM'ing Hero, and my player's first time with the system as well (yay!) I'm seeking any tips you all might have to shore up my gameworld's weaknesses and also any "gotchas" about the system in general. Also, do you think there's a need to regulate the amount of magic hybrid type warrior-mage characters can obtain, or does the system do a fair job of self-regulating? Thanks in advance. C P.S. If anyone wants to see the Word doc with my character races/archetypes and provide suggestions/critiques, I'd be eternally grateful

Re: Minotaur Racial Package Wow, all these great responses! I've been on vacation so my apologies for not popping in sooner. Thanks very much for all the input. I'll make a post soon with some of my world information -- I'm about a month away from starting my new campaign, and would love some feedback from all the experts here. Again, thanks so much -- I truly appreciate the intellect and thoughtfulness of this community.

I'm thinking of making a playable minotaur race, but before building I wanted to see if anyone knows of an existing package I could use as a basis. And a follow up question to that: As a player, do you like the idea of having a large-class race such as minotaurs available as an option? Would it bother you if someone else was playing one and you weren't? It would certainly be the most expensive race in terms of cost, and my plan is to have several low, mid, and high cost races so there's careful though put in by the players during race selection. Any links or advice anyone can offer would be appreciated. Catalyst

Re: Campaign Planning Sheet Nice work - I'll definitely use that outline. Thanks KS!

Re: Campaign Planning Sheet Nice, thanks for the responses -- got what I needed now.

With my renewed interest in Fantasy Hero, I am in the very early stages of generating a fantasy world/campaign, and recall once seeing a set of guidelines that were very helpful. If I remember correctly, it was a single sheet that sets the guidelines and limits on all aspects of the campaign -- low magic v. high magic, character maximum guidelines for OCV/DCV, etc. It was very well designed and helped immensely as a baseline tool. Does anyone know if there is a supplement that contains such a thing? I'd also be fine with something unofficial, either way works