M-3

Re: Tie Me Up

Re: Best way to model a booming voice? Distinctive Features: Booming Voice (Concealable with major effort [keeping quiet]). -10 points.

Re: House Rules Revisited Mine: Base CV = 1+DEX/5. This makes the progression the same as for other Characteristics and makes Combat Skill Levels very nearly worth their cost. Everyman skills count against the cost of buying the skills up. An RSR limitation where the relevant Skill is one that has little or no practical application apart from being used in an RSR lim is worth an extra -1/2 (Magic Skill, mainly). A power may draw straight from Long Term END rather than regular END for a -1 Limitation. Package bonuses ruled back in. You recover from being stunned in your own phase even if you take more damage unless that damage is enough to stun you again. Non-resistant defenses never, ever give any protection against killing damage even if you do have some resistant defenses too. In heroic campaigns, every 5 points of STR above the weapon's STR Minimum results in +1 DC regardless of what weapon you're using and what advantages it may have.

Re: Where else do you roll down? The roll-over method becomes significantly more complicated than the roll-under method if you use the optional rule about critical hits.

Re: Frozen Feet: Entangle? I'd simply do it with a Drain vs Running, perhaps with an "all-or-nothing" limitation. In fact, I have done it that way for a very similar power: A character I was running in a FH campaign had a spell that would cause roots to come out of the ground and cling to an opponent's feet. My Drain vs Running worked fine and was relatively cheap.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? In a campaign with hit locations, I'd require it to be taken with the "Limitation" Must Target Specific Hit Location (-0), and the benefit would then apply only for hits against which the character has already found a weakness. The reason I'm making it worth -0 is that it's also advantageous as I'd allow the character to attempt a different location as a new "target" if he fails.

·I don't like the "once you're stunned you'll remain so" rule but it's a rule that doesn't affect anything else and is easily ignored. ·I also don't like the rule that if you have any resistant defense whatsoever, you get to subtract your nonresistant defense from a KA. But as the stunning rule above, that's easily ignored too. ·I don't like the vehicle rules at all. Specifically, I don't like that vehicles have a SPD characteristic which makes it nightmarishly difficult to keep track of the turm sequence if someone is steering a vehicle with a SPD score different from his own. I don't think giving inanimate objects a SPD score is a good idea. I liked the vehicle rules from Justice Inc. much better. ·I don't like that CV is based on DEX/3 (or EGO/3 for ECV). It's both inconsistent with just about everything else that's based on characteristics (effect dice for STR end PRE and skill and characteristic rolls) but it also makes Combat Skill Levels ridiculously cost-inefficient. In my own games, I simply change it to 1+DEX/5 (or 1+EGO/5). ·Using Transform to add powers to others instead of Aid. I can't see why the rules for temporarily giving somebody a new power should be any different from the rules for temporarily increasing a pre-existing one.

It's 10 minutes/level of caster or until you attack someone. Emphasis added by yours truly. The Aid-like build of the Bestow power avoids that whole bit with the quasi-arbitrary duration. In addition, it lets me create a power that costs END to give to someone else but none to maintain. (This could be an issue in a fantasy world where the END used for spells come from a pool that recharges more slowly than a character's regular END - a power that costs no END at all would be extremely powerful in such a campaign, but one that cost END every phase would be impossible to maintain for more than about a half minute or so)

Certainly: I made it up arbitrarily. Well, okay, I started with the Aid power. One average, Aid gives an extra 3.5 points worth of abilities per 10 character points of Aid. However, since Bestow costs END and adds to existing powers (where Bestow merely gives a redundant power to somebody who already has the power being bestowed), and it's all-or-nothing (you can't grant a power a little at a time, and the whole thing fades at once), I found it fair to let it be a little cheaper, so I made it 5 points granted for every 10 points worth of power, which works out to the same as 1 point for every 2 points of power. So, basically, I looked a bit at Aid, then made it up arbitrarily. The same way that Aid does: Not at all. That is: The points bestowed are to all intents and purposes "real points" for as long as they last. So first you design the power to be bestowed, then buy the power to bestow that power. Example: Let's say I want something like D&D's invisibility spell and I'm designing it with the "default" HERO magic system in mind. First I buy a power that works like the invisibility spell from D&D: Invisibility to Sight (20pts), No END Cost* (+1/2), Only when not attacking (-1/2), Cannot become invisible again after having become visible for any reason (-1/2). That's 30 Active points and a Real cost of 15 which is the number of points which I'll have to bestow. Since it's 2 points worth of Bestow to grant 1 point worth of a power, that's 30 points base, I'll have to put into my Bestow. Since I obviously want the invisibility to last more than 12 seconds, I'm moving it 5 steps up the Time Chart for a +1 1/4 advantage, so it's now a 67 Active points power. With RSR, Incantations, Gestures and perhaps an OAF, this works out to 22 Real points, a -7 to the Skill roll, and an END cost of 7. *The no END cost is for the bestowed power: The invisibility costs no END to use, but bestowing the power on someone still does. Whenever I cast this spell on somebody, I make it possible for them to turn invisible for 6 hours or until they attack someone. Yes, but it seems somewhat impractical that the default duration is effectively "forever and ever" when the effects are beneficial and that reducing it is a limitation. And it doesn't seem very reasonable to me either, that it's tougher to grant a beneficial effect to somebody with high BODY than to someone with a poor BODY score. There's two parts to this, and I'll start with the last: The options for reducing the cost of spells: I only want to make it a little cheaper (and IMO a lot simpler) to cast spells that have temporary beneficial effects - not to reduce the costs of other types of magic such as, say, fireballs. Now for the first: It's not just the cost of UBO that disturbs me but also the complexity. And the Bestow power as described above is pretty expensive. Also, the ability to grant any number of people special powers that they never paid points for is IMO no more unbalancing than granting any number of people more points of a power than they paid points for as you can already do with Aid. (If I had spent the points above on an Aid to DEX, I could have given them 3D6 points worth of DEX that would fade at a rate of 5 character points/6 hours. Or on average 3 extra points of DEX for an extra +1 CV. Compared to 6 hours worth of invisibility that ends if you attack someone or choose to become visible, that sounds about right to me)

Hi and thanks for your input, everybody. I've decided to go with the NND and "not being evil" as it's the easiest and most elegant solution (IMO) and fits my concept best. I'll just clarify what the original question was about (or was meant to be about), though: I'm converting a specific campaign world to the HERO system, one in which Good, Evil and Chaos are actual forces as real as light or gravity and there exists such a thing as "objective" evil. Every character must be aligned to one of these three and they get no points for it (just like you have to describe what your character looks like in any game but except in extreme cases you don't get points for that either). Players are, of course, wlecome to choose Psych. Lims to reinforce this "alignment" and are forbidden from choosing Psych Lims that flatly contradict it (ie. "Enjoys ripping the heads off babies" for Good characters). While the PCs will probably often find themselves fighting opponents who aren't evil but chaotic (or even good - animals in this world are considered good unless they've been corrupted by some supernatural evil), having a power that will enable them to inflict damage on evil creatures only in an area is definitely a huge advantage, since I'm not permitting PCs to be evil.

I'm working on creating the magic systems for a fantasy campaign at the moment. A relatively common type of spell is one that does effectively gives some power to whomever it is cast on - the caster himself or somebody else - for a limited time. Now, I'm finding that there isn't really any good way of doing this in HERO. I mean there are ways, but they're not really good ways for my purposes. There's transform but it's a bit handwavey how long a power granted this way would last. The options for recovering from Transform assume that the effect of the Transform is something undesirable. If you've been transformed in a beneficial way, you could just avoid whatever would cause you to recover and thus retain your power effectively forever. Also, the caster wouldn't be able to use the power on himself. Then there's the Usable on Others advantage, which at first seems about right, but I find it annoying that the number of people who can enjoy the benefits of the power at any one time is limited to a set number. I don't really think it makes sense for tha mages in my fantasy campaign to be unable to turn more than a handful of people invisible at the time, if they have the END to do so. And then there's the whole END cost mess. Either the target pays the END cost (it's exhausting to be turned invisible?) or it's bought as Usable as an attack which makes the whole thing horrendously expensive. *phew* Excuse, I'll just need a cuppa - my throat is all dried up after all that typing. *Sllrrrp* Ahh, all better. All of this brings me to the Aid power which the book explicitly instructs me NOT to use for this purpose. However, since it fails to provide me with any reason not to do so, I'll just ignore that admonition for the moment and go straight ahead and at least consider doing it anyway. The problems with using Aid for this purpose are: ·The randomness of the dice rolls. Okay, I'll just use average rolls. 3.5 points granted to target for every 10 character points. ·The power fades a little at a time which isn't really what I want. I'll just apply a lim that makes the whole power fade away after one time increment. ·I don't want the power to add to any existing powers the target may have, so I'll just use another limitation to make it always start from scratch. Now I have a neat system for giving powers to other characters or myself. And with the Costs END, I can even create a power with duration that costs END to activate but none to maintain. However, it's still a bit complex and nature of the limitations above suggest that perhaps I should just treat this as a whole new power. So that's what I've decided to do. I'm calling this power "Bestow": Bestow Adjustment power Instant No Range With this adjustment power, a character can temporarily bestow a power upon himself or another character. The character can grant 1 point of power for every 2 points in Bestow. The power to be bestowed must be fully designed with whatever Advantages and Limitations are desired when the character buys Bestow. The bestowed power lasts for 1 Turn and then fades completely. This time interval can be moved one step down the Time Chart for every +(1/4) advantage. A bestowed power can be affected by other Adjustment powers. Bestow costs END. Bestow: Cost is 2 pts for every 1 point of power(s) to be bestowed upon somebody else. Does anybody see any really catastrophic problems with this power?

If I liked the transform power designed in general, I'd just allow it for free because I'm such a swell guy. Especially since I'd allow my NPCs to do the same.

But that would only be usable by one person at a time. What if somebody else were reading over the user's shoulder?

I've already done something similar although the other way around. I've changed CV to be equal to 1+DEX/5 and ECV to be equal to 1+EGO/5. This makes the combat values follow the same sort of progression that skill rolls do. It also makes Combat Skill Levels reasonably cost effective (in a superheroic game, 8pt levels are still pretty points-ineffecient, but in a heroic game, they make sense once your DEX hits 18). With CSL's becoming more cost-effecient and DEX losing some of its importance, players have also started giving their characters DEX scores that actually fit their concept. Previously, a "large, strong but somewhat clumsy, ogrish type" would probably have a DEX of about 14 which is well above average, because giving him the DEX that concept actually calls for (let's say about 8) would completely cripple the character and compensating for it with CSLs would be more expensive than just buying more DEX.

That's actually an excellent way of doing it. I feel kind of dumb for not having thought of NND myself. And it's a big Juju sort of attack that nobody's going to be using lightly. Thanks.

Re: clairification on damage Maximum 1D6 RKA/HKA?!? Those are some pathetically puny characters. A guy with STR 11 wielding a small knife does 1D6+1 HKA. There aren't any penalties for taking BODY if you don't get impaired or disabled. Sounds like the penalties the players were reading to you were the OCV penalties for targeting the locations in question. The "right" way (and the easiest) to determine the negative modifiers you get for taking damage is this: You get no negative modifiers for taking damage! Simple, yeah? There is no death spiral built into HERO (fortunately). However, disablements and impairments can, of course, make certain actions more difficult or impossible. Fx: Biff the Barbarian is wielding a greatsword and is fighting the terrible Dreadful Gazer (gasp!) and the horrid beastie manages to disable Biff's left arm (oh no!). Since the greatsword requires two hands to be employed properly, Biff's in a bit of a tight spot. If Biff should decide to attempt to swing his greatsword at the Dreadful Gazer with just one hand, he's going to do so at a substantial penalty if the GM allows it at all (I would but with a penalty). What would you like rectified? The rules or the players? (I'd rectify the players...) Tell them to think of it this way: If the arrow didn't inflict damage at least equal to half the ogre's BODY score, it's not actually lodged in the ogre's arm. It's just nicked it and caused superficial damage. After all, if it had penetrated into the actual muscle or bone... well, it would have disabled the arm, wouldn't it? (Of course, if all they've got are 1D6 HKAs they're going to have a tough time causing serious damage to a mean-spirited chicken - let alone an ogre...) Because keeping track of exactly how much damage goes where would be a bloody great pain in the posterior? Alternatively, give the players precisely what they're asking for, then have the attacked by a bunch of angry housecats (maybe the kitties are posessed by spirits or something) and slap penalties on them for every last 1 BODY hit inflicted on them by the pussycats. See how realistic they think it is now.

You may be thinking of the Robin Hood campaign book. I know that had some sample NPC stats. There's also rather a lot of sample NPCs in the previous edition of FH.

Allright, here's the problem: For a fantasy campaign that I'm thinking about, I want to have this spell that causes damage to all evil creatures within a certain radius of the caster while having no effect on other creatures. There is objective "good" and "evil" in this setting so there's no ambiguity here as to what constitutes an evil target. The problem here is how it should be designed. The spell is available only to good characters and it doesn't seem reasonable to let "only affects evil" be a limitation - since it's actually advantageous in most circumstances. (One could imagine some set of circumstances where a PC would want to harm some evil creatures around him but not others, but generally...). Taking the Selective Target modifier to Area Effect doesn't seem quite right. For one thing, evil creatures with good DCV would probably go unharmed. What I'm thinking of would be to fudge it a bit and simply let the limited effect be an advantage rather than a limitation. Has anybody got any better ideas?

I think the spelling "Magesty" should be kept - misspelling things s clearly in the spirit of TROGDOR. I think you should try to misspell more things! Also, I see no reason for giving Trogdor an almost superhumanly high DEX score. He just doesn't strike me as being particularly graceful or agile. Maybe his armor should have the limitations No protection against arrows (-1/2) and No protection against swords wielded by knights (-1/2)?

My opinion is alomost the exact opposite of Markdoc's: The new version is much, much better. The critter stats makemore sense although I still feel animals have been made too weak. On the other hand, I feel the new FH is greatly inferior to the previous edition, and I rather wish I'd spent that money on something else.

In a campaign I ran, a player actually made a spell called "Now You're Here But I'm Not Because I'm Over There Where You Were Just A Moment Ago.". It was a teleportation spell that mad him switch places with another character of roughly the same size and mass. I gave up on finding a way to do it By the Book and just fudged it - I'm sure it could be done by the rules in the BBB (the latest edition at the time) but it would be a pretty complicated mess of advantages and limitations. A spell that Ijust gave up on giving a HERO system character is a first level witchcræft spell from Dangerous Journeys (*shudder*). It's a pretty neat little spell, that causes the target to produce a rude bodily noise. The problem here is, that we're talking about a Mind Control effect (since we don't want to create the illusion of a fart or a burp - for proper embarrassment effect, we want the target to actually burp or fart). In any situation where this will make much of a difference, making a rude bodily noise is clearly something the target will be highly reluctant to do, so we'll need a large number of dice. And a Mind Control that can only be used for one specific command is (according to BBB - this is in the BBB era) only a -1/2 limitation, regardless of what that command actually is. And I can't even put Gestures or Incantations on the spell to make it cheaper, because it's important that it doesn't appear as if somebody other than the target is causing the effect.

One of the old Daredevils Adventures books (Lost World Tales I believe) even has conversion notes for Justice Inc. Although I'd almost certainly pick up a 5th Ed. Pulp HERO, I don't really need it. Between FRED, Daredevils, 1st ed Justice Inc., Gangbusters, Adventure and possibly one or two others that have slipped my mind I think I've got the genre and period pretty well covered! (The old Daredevils Adventures are highly recommended BTW. Converting from Daredevils to HERO is pretty easy and some of the adventures are pretty good.) M.

First, I don't think mages are going to overshadow everybody else. You can create a pretty cool fighter-type or thief on 50pts. Second, I think it looks pretty good. You should probbaly elaborate a bit on which powers, ads and lims are available with each type of magic. I also recommend letting characters with natural magic choose more than one power (possibly linked) in order to create one "ability". If you want to prevent characters from taking completely horrendously powerful spells to begin with, simply limit starting characters to having skills at 15 or less. Noone is going to spend a donkey-load of points on a tremendously powerful spell that they have only a 25% or so chance to actually cast... Cheers, M.

Well, I suppose it could be made to work out to something that isn't completely horrendous with some creative use of ads and lims but by default it strikes me as being a bit overpriced. Especially considering that Succor bought to 0 END only costs 7.5 pts per +1D6. I predict that a lof of people will want to buy Succor when I start am FH campaign and noone will even consider standard Aid for even a microsecond. Well, okay one of my friends is bad at math, but other than him... Cheers, M. Edit: BTW, thanks for the reply. Nearly forgot my manners there.

Hmm... A whole lot of stuff that's already been mentioned by others. I'd also like to see some optional additions to the default HERO 5 rules such as the Package Bonus as it appeared in 1st ed. FH. I always thought the idea of reqarding players for taking skills that probably wouldn't be very useful in an adventure just to flesh out their characters was a good idea with bonus points being inversely proportional to how useful the GM felt the skill/power in question was. It could probably fit in a sidebar or something. In a fantasy game, I'd definitely like to see some way of modifying the CHA Maxima. It strikes me as weird that age affects CHA Maxima but species doesn't. This too could be anoptional rule. As it is, I just rule that characteristics gained from size or a racial package deal is treated as being a CHA bought as a power. I'd like to see som solid advice on doing really weird and unusual magic systems like, for example, the one in SwordBearer where what spells you could cast was based on Nodes you had. Nodes were sort of little "bits" of a pure element that you could find in areas where there was plenty of that element around. When you found one, it would already be "aligned" to a specific spell, and if you wanted to cast some other spell with it, you'd have to "re-align" it. And whenever you used a node for anything (casting a spell, re-aligning...), there was a chance the node would burn out. Like others here, I'd also gladly pay more for a hard cover. (Even though my previous ed. FH still looks beautiful and pristine.) Oh, and something I DON'T want to see: Artwork by Larry Elmore. Please. Cheers, M.