TSandman

Re: Dragons

Well, I'm biased... I'm starting an Iron Kingdomesque campaign and there, Dragons are few and far between... all descendent of Lord Toruk (not a god, but powerfull enough to give magic to his "priests", mostly Necromancy and Necrotech)...

They're all Unique and to give you an idea of the power they have, the "lamest" is, in D&D terms, CR 30.

Drakes takes the place of "regular" dragons...

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

and who knows what's in the depths of r&d.

traitor!

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

I see Susano beat me to it. Starting SAN was 5x Power in CoC, at least way back when I played it. It was not a primary attribute.

 

CoC is a different game, and it appeals to fans of Lovecraft's horror because it maintains a lot of faith to that genre. It doesn't convert it into heroic monster bashing. It is bleak and dismal. Combat is quick and deadly (weak creatures being only a bit more powerful than tough PC's). Sanity loss is a major part of the source material. Maximum SAN is, IIRC, 99 less your Cthulhu Mythos skill. The more you understand about the way the universe really works, the more fragile your sanity becomes.

CoC is also one of the few games where the Player *wants* to retire his character instead of having him going raving mad in the middle of an adventure (and keep him as an NPC for the GM..)

Re: Skunks

I'm tempted to give him a "skunk attack": some sort of high-power AVAD, indirect, AOE, DOT, with a really low Requires a Roll limit. 1 Charge per adventure, with a really long delay built in (to reflect the time it takes the skunks to show up). But it would also need to be extremely variable in effect, depending on where you are.

Had to re-read what you had written... I thought you wanted the character to have a Skunk-type Attack (ie: smell REALLY bad ;p)

If you want *real* skunk to show up, I'd go Daltwisney's way, a summon. could be funny if the character had a Change Environment (Smells Really Bad) to cause other persons to have some problem around him ;p

Should I just buy the Bestiary?

I wouldn't say that you *SHOULD*, but having bought it, I'd say it *IS* a really good book... ~500 pages of Goodness and many power examples for beasts/animals..

.. so maybe you should

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

That's a good point... People specifically looking for something new are probably less likely to react badly when exposed to it.

When you go to a Con and you see a few really obscure RPG being demoed, it is sometimes played by fans of that RPG, but mostly by curious gamers who likes to try stuff.

There is the gamer who "Collects RPG" in the sense of having many RPGs/supplements from almost everything and those who "collects RPGs" in the sense of having everything of a few RPGs...

Both are Gamers, but one is most likely to say XYZ is the best and ignore the rest...

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

The only math issue I've really seen' date=' and see as the "problem" though not much of one is the (from a new player standpoint) (X+11)-Y. People often ask me, why, do we need that... once I show them the closed system, and how when both OCV and DCV cancel each other out, that plus 11 gives you your avg target number, and then moves the difficulty around from there, creating a sliding range in that system. After that they seem to "get it." and we have no more issues. But yah, I've been asked many times, "why add 11?"[/quote']

 

When the newbies get that at equal aptitude, you have to roll 11- and if you are better in offense that he is to defense, your success goes up by that much, or down by that much if he's better than you at defense, and that the math is only to "hide" one part of the "opposed" roll... so that the player tells what he hits instead of what to hit (to keep suspense up), many things "clicks" in their heads (at least it did in mine and in many other in my group).

 

It's not always explained like that by GM, some who might prefer to use the equation because they had "gotten" it years ago and do not need to think about it anymore

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

I've played with complete RPG newbies' date=' little kids, old ladies, D&D grognards, everyone under the sun. [/quote']

 

Could it be that...

 

... you've played with gamers wanting to try something *GASP* different???

 

Habits are hard to change (ask any Grognard) When you do not really want to change, you'll pick out whatever bothers you most and complain about it... Hum.. isn't that what we're doing? ;p

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

Some folks can't work a toaster. That doesn't mean toasting is a bland and over complicated art and that there is a problem with toasters.

 

~Rex

TOASTER: Howdy doodly do! How’s it going? I’m Talkie, Talkie Toaster, your chirpy breakfast companion. Talkie’s the name, toasting’s the game. Anyone like any toast?

LISTER: Look, I don’t want any toast, and he doesn’t want any toast. In fact, no one around here wants any toast. Not now, not ever. No toast!

TOASTER: How ’bout a muffin?

LISTER: Or muffins! Or muffins! We don’t like muffins around here! We want no muffins, no toast, no teacakes, no buns, baps, baguettes or bagels, no croissants, no crumpets, no pancakes, no potato cakes, and no hot cross buns, and definitely no smegging flapjacks!

TOASTER: Ah, so you’re a waffle man!

Re: A Whole New World

I'd suggest reading the page about Discworld ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_(world) ) either for ideas-to-do or not-to-do

At least you'll be aware of it if a player mentions it...

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

Like golf scores and work weeks?

When Luck (as in dice rolling) or any competition, the majority of times, Higher is Better...

Anyways, those having problems with Rolling Low might not be the ones who plays golf, as those asking why HERO doesn't use D20 most probably do not play anything else than the "usual suspect"...

Re: Circle of Protection

Tough Barrier coupled with a Suppress AoE vs "effects from Evils"?

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

The Index is the mindkiller....

I must Index.

Lack of Index is the mind-killer.

Lack of Index is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will finish my Index.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the Index has gone there will be Everything.

Only It will remain.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

All good times. Certainly not bland and Overcomplicated (watching the kids dis the next two rounds of the 4th Ed DnD RPGA stuff and the Pathfinder Society material in order to work on their OWN HERO stuff, was cool as well.).

~Rex

For me, HERO is to D&D as Lego is to GI-Joe...

One is quick and easy to play with, while with the other, you can have lot of fun with the unfinished product...

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

Don't get me started. I have very little patience for this frankly. If you can't get you roll under your stat roll number ( in which a higher one is better BTW) I sure wouldn't hire you. I freely admit dealing with various groups of the public for years however has made me the general IQ to lower than I would tolerate in people I associate with socially.

Oh, but I agree with you...

but then, there is a part of the gaming population that don't understand why HERO doesn't use a 20 sided die... "as most of them do"

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

Hehe. If I could get them to do the simple maths required to do that' date=' then it wouldn't matter whether it was roll high or low. When in the middle of an intense fight, having to do coordinate substitution in your head (while strapped to a centrifuge) can take you out of the moment and back into reality. My players function better when they're in the gamespace and can simply roll what the sheet tells them instead of having to think about it.[/quote']

 

Just do it from the get go.... substitute it right on their sheet before giving it to them

Re: Need input on how to build Iron Kingdom troll regen...

If we decide that the little trolls are far more likely to attack the enemies of the Trolls than their Troll "mothers" instead, then it's worth a separate Power, and the both of them get Unified Power, but there's no separate Side Effect Limitation -- the Summon is Linked to the Regen, and that's all the discount on points that it gets.

 

Thing is, with the delay on creating the Whelps, I don't know that I would do the Summon. I assume it takes at least 30 Minutes for a Whelp to form?

I guess I'll use it more as a plot device than anything else...

the Whelps are not as strong as the troll that spawned them and depending on the troll type, can take from a few minutes to a few days to form. they're of no immediate help/hindrance for either the troll nor the other that would be fighting it...

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

I fail to see why the "high or low" is an issue. It's very simply' date=' to hit and skill rolls is low, damage is high. What's so hard about that?[/quote']

 

It's counter-intuitive for some that rolling LOW means Success, when almost everything in society is Higher the Better.

 

Not everyone *understands* the mechanics, many will just want to roll the dices and be done with it... would it be the other way around, HERO would've been more popular than other "simple" (limited) RPGs

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

There's definitely a moment when players, having made a character and had a few of the concepts explained to them, light up and suddenly go 'OH! I get it!'

 

With character generation, anyway. Making characters really does require a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the system, which is why I tend to make characters with my players... most other systems, they can go away and come up with dudes all on their own. HERO has a much steeper learning curve. I have one player who can do that; even then, I have to craft it a bit with him for purposes of balance and house style (moreso style than rules).

That's the path I have taken with my group... I asked them what they wanted and built them characters, which I revised with them afterward. as it's our first "official" Hero game (we've tried once before but it was only a tranfer of another campain into HERO... too many relics of the old ) they want to see what they can do with what they have right now...

I'm fortunate that I have another player who read the books (it's the other one pushing the group for HERO) who can help me, as you've had yourself.

Maybe the players cannot come up with their character fully formed, but at least, they can play what they want (and not being limited to a race/class/clan/house/template mix). when this happens and they see that what they have is really what they asked for, or the basics of what they ask that will just need a few XP to become it, they'll want to play it.

However, what continues to be a bit of a barrier is the constant question of 'do I want to roll high or low this time?' One of the revolutions of D&D 3 was the unified dice mechanic that meant you ALWAYS wanted to roll high. I can't for the life of me figure out why Hero didn't go that way with 6th. I'm guessing that's been discussed already, however.

 

And I'm serious with that -- the question I get asked MOST often is 'high or low now?'

 

I'd houserule it, but with my group, using Hero Designer is pretty much non-optional and so it just ain't possible.

I've seen enough threads on the boards to see that it's mostly irritating on those comming form an Always Roll High game... and many that just used the equivalent Roll-High for Hero (it does exists, it's a simple mathematical manipulation.

This can be done after creating the character in HD... all you need is to replace the xx- for yy+ using the formula, or better, a small chart that gives it all to you... would be nicer if HD would let you swap from Roll-High to Roll-Low, but unless you can convice Simon to implement such an option...

Re: The HERO Basic Game Box

Because HERO is not GURPS.

And what does HERO not being GURPS have to do with it?

Taking your reasons for not having PDF to the extreme would be "Since D&D prints book and HERO is not D&D, should DOJ continue to print Books?"

I've hang around my FLGS long enough to see that Books that aren't D&D attracks much less players and that Big Books attracts even less, whatever the system. Box set even less (been ages since I've seen many RPG box set... many gamers didn't like what Fantasy Flight did with their latest Warhammer Fantasy RPG - putting it in a box set)

A "Virtual Box Set" might be nice... even if it's only a few PDF that is put together to form a Startup Bundle for "newbies". Another way would be having a bundle made up of already printed stuff (can be put together "on-demand")

HERO presently does well, but it's still a niche player. trying to hook-up new players should be by giving them a low cost of entry into that big family. PDF is one way for that (but not the only way).

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

I submit to you that the same thing can be done by paying for a good copy editor.

Maybe, maybe not...

Hero is complex, not complicated...

The Books are full of Crunch, but to keep it digestible, it needs redundancy(1) in the text (clarification, examples, etc). As it is more building blocks than finished rpg system, it has a lot of flexibility, but it comes at a cost. The more Redundancy there is the easier you can grasp the info but the more space it takes up.

HERO is so different from the "average" RPG that it has to explain a lot. It's not just "pick a bloodline and a clan, distribute a few points". If you know other RPGs, then you have to "unlearn" many concept they taught you. If you knew nothing at all about other RPG and picked up HERO on a whim, then you have a whole world (RPGs) to take in and learn about. None is quick and easy. (I was "lucky", I already had unlearned D&D when bending my mind around Mage)

Once you "get" the paradigm you have to use, everything starts to fall in its own place and make sense.

Now, being able to distillate the essence of HERO so it is not daunting for newcommers is not easy. 6th has cleaned up things quite a bit and there is still work that could be done. How much and how it would be done, I do not know.

(1) redundancy in the linguistic sense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_(linguistics)

Re: Need input on how to build Iron Kingdom troll regen...

First off, I wouldn't give it Always On. It's not really Limiting the Troll's use of the power. If there was a really nasty Side Effect, that might be different, but you say above that Spawning Whelps is kind of like making your own food source...

 

Similarly, I don't know if I'd put Unified Power on it. There's two trains of thought here:

 

• Usually, Unified Power is for things like (for example) a Holy Blessing that gives a character +2 CSL with Swords and a Flash Attack he can use whenever he's wielding a Sword. They're unrelated Powers, but if anything affects the one power, because they're both manifestations of the same thing, he loses them both. If the Summon is part of the Side Effects, the character doesn't have to pay for it, and Unified Power is not needed. This is the preferred solution if the Summon power is detrimental to the character. If it's not really a detriment or a benefit, then it's probably a Side Effect worth -0.
  
• If the Summon power is really a hidden benefit (i.e., the Trolls tend to chop bits off themselves when they're about to attack) then it's part of the Troll Regeneration power and gets Unified Power, but the Regen itself doesn't get the Unified Power limitation.
  

So, if the Whelps are more a hindrance than an advantage (they spawn as hungry buggers with no real combat potential and compete with the trolls for food) then it gets Always On and Side Effect but not Unified Power, and the Summon part goes away. If the Whelps are advantageous (they can be used as cannon fodder, and make a decent food source for the trolls) then the Always On and Side Effect go away but it gets Unified Power, and the Summon part has to be paid for.

I didn't think about the Always-On limitation still getting the hang of things and was scrolling down the limitation lists in HD

The trick is that the Whelps take time to mature, depending on the type of troll (normally, it takes days for them to be nothing but a nuisance/food) but not *that* a nuisance (the "mother" can always easily kill the whelps.)

Thing is... would adventurers do it? A battlefield where trolls were could be... Ugly afterwards...

Also, in 6E1-395, it was stated that Unified Power MUST be taken to represent the fact that they are all aspects/facets of one over-arching meta-power. maybe I haven't understood it as I should have ? if their Regen ever gets negated (with magic, for example) then whelps would not form either...

So I get that it would depend on the Whelps being either a side-effect or an additional power. Maybe just remove the side effect would fix things up a bit

Re: The HERO Basic Game Box

Since many are using the web to search/shop for RPGs nowadays, why not have those bundles available via PDF and/or Print On Demand (just have it shipped directly to the customer)?

Alleviates the need for a minimum print run to have reasonable price, and that doesn't take up a lot of warehouse space either.

Incidentally, having maps that could be printer on normal paper (just needing some trimming of the margins and a bit of tape to hold it) would be very nice for beginners

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

And at one point' date=' here in Maryland, we had 6-8 people who could/would run HERO games. The numbers dropped a bit due to two of them moving away, one going to HEX, another to M&M, and some who've stopped gaming. But if you are willing to run a HERO game, you can get 4-6 players easy, none of whom complain about the rule books (much.)[/quote']

 

We have to face it... the Barrier to Entry in the hero world is HUGE...

 

Less Known than many other games (D&D, Vampire, etc)

Huge Books to read before even attempting to play

Players need to think a lot more than just slap on templates to create characters

 

Many just want to play nearly immediately (instant gratification anyone?) I know, I was like that when I first started D&D over 20 years ago. I didn't want to read the whole DMG (1st ed was BIG) before playing ...

 

The Younger generation have a lot of option to spend their times. CCG, Videogames, Internet (facebook, twitter, youtube), etc. They go for the easiest and fastest to learn/play. Which is why the two Big Blue Books looks pretty intimidating for most of them.

 

Many adult simply do not have the time to go through all the books they'd need to play Hero... many sticks with what they already know, which would be mostly D&D, GURPS, Vampire, etc... better read a few small books that each add to the others than two HUGE books that contain everything.

 

Some, like my own group, finally got fed up of the mechanics of certain RPG and finally wanted to play OUR game with OUR characters. so we ditched D&D/Pathfinder for Hero (we still might play some Mage:The Ascension, but not the latest version of it - we do not like what they did with it).

 

Unfortunately, HERO cannot be "toned-down" more that it really is, unless you want only the Basic Rulebook. there would be too many building block missing and we'd all need to come up with houserules ourselves to make it fit together (not that many don't, it's just that it takes more time to create them).

 

If you remove the Time factor in the equation, much more people would play...

Re: Need input on how to build Iron Kingdom troll regen...

First off' date=' welcome to Hero! Happy to have you, and I hope you find the Boards to your liking! Keep in mind, there's no One True Way to do anything so every suggestion here should be taken with a grain of salt; that said, I hope it's helpful![/quote']

 

Considering I've been on the board on and off for two years, yes it is... now that my group have finally decided to PLAY Hero, much more so (we had a few Resistant, until we proved to them that they finally could have the character they wanted, and not try to shoehorn what they wanted in the rules (Pathfinder)... We had some enlightening fight that helped

 

Second' date=' let's take these items one at a time:There's a special Limitation for Regen, [b']Does Not Work On [Defined Type Of] Damage[/b] (-1/4 to -1) (6E1 275) that should cover that. Acid is Uncommon and Fire is Common, so this might qualify as Very Common; it's your judgment call as GM.

 

I had put it at Uncommon... even tho people know that Trolls are less resistant to those, they rarely pack Acid expressly for those encounter... as for fire, well.. those Trolls love Swampy areas

 

[Faster Regen with Food] There's something in the Advanced Players Guide that can help here' date=' an Advantage/Limitation called [b']Proportional [/b](APG 139-140) which basically breaks down the variation on the power -- if Trolls regenerate up to four times faster while eating food, that's a x4 increase in power (worth +3), but they require lots of extra food (Very Common, which is worth 1/2 less Advantage), then the Proportional Advantage is worth +2 1/2 in this case.

 

I haven't read the APG (I have the PDF, just wanted to be familiar with the regular rules before heading there) but it seems to fit the bill quite nicely (doesn't give a lot of point break for that particular power, but greatly simplifies everything!)

 

[Limb Reattachment] That's basically a special effect of the Can Heal Limbs Adder (6E1 274). If you feel it's worth an extra Limitation, then you can make it a Partially Limited Power, which is explained in excruciating detail on 6E1 366.

Again, in my game I would call that special effects of the Can Heal Limbs Adder.

 

I treat it the same way

 

[Whelp Spawning]That's a limited form of the Summon Power (6E1 287).

 

Exactly... tho I have some reserve for that (more in a moment)

 

Right now, here's what I have:

 

Cost    Descr.
27      Troll Regeneration:  (Total: 110 AP, 27 Real)
           Regeneration (1 BODY per Minute), (43 AP, 17 Real)
               Can Heal Limbs, Inherent (+1/4)
               Uncontrolled (+1/2) 
               Always On (-1/2)
               Does Not Work vs Fire & Acid (-1/2)
               Porportional (x2) (very common) 
                  (Regenerative capacity Doubles when eating a lot of food; +1/2)
               Unified Power (Troll Regeneration; -1/4)
               Side Effects (Spawns Whelp whenever lost limb not reattached within 1 minute; -1/4)
                   (Real Cost: 13)

            Spawn Whelps - Summon 150-point Whelps (67 AP, 10 Real)
               Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2)
               Trigger (Whenever Severed Limb not reattached within 1 min; +3/4)
               Extra Time (1d6 Day, -4)
               OAF Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; Severed Troll Limb; -1 1/4)
               Unified Power (Troll Regeneration; -1/4)

 

Since Summon is typically for a certain number of Tasks, how would you go about getting a summon that lasts for months, where the summonee is free to do what it pleases it(but sometime the summoner can just bully it to do what it needs, or even simply snack on it)?

Hullo everyone...

I've started doing my Iron-Kingdom Hero games with my long-time gang and after two games to get the "feel" of Hero, I'm taking some of my vacation time to actually put numbers and stats on some of the setting's beasts...

I'm now quite used to Hero Designer but there is still some grey areas on how to pu-up those powers themselves, before inputing them into HD...

Take for example the Iron Kingdom Troll... which bears resemblance to the D&D troll only in name. Its regeneration powers are quite... hum... unique. and so straight Regen is not enough.

Here is the gist of it:

• They can regenerate any damages except some type of attacks (depending on the troll type), forex: Fire and Acid for "regular" trolls
  
• They regenerate faster while eating lots of food
  
• They can reattach a limb immediately if done within 1 min. of it being cut-off
  
• If not, a brand new limb begins to grow and is functionnal again in a about 30 mins
  
• If the limb that was not reattached will (if not too severly damaged) Spawn a Troll Whelp (smaller version of the troll, with limited abilities (cannot spawn other whelps) and lifespan (They're a good source of snacks for Trolls needing food for regen - no wonder the Trolls have been described as "Chaotic Hungry" )
  

Right now I mainly have that as a compound power (normal regen + eating regen + spawning whelps), as each can happens simultaneously, but I was wondering if there was a better way to do that

Any ideas?