MrKinister

Hmm... I suppose it is overpowered if you have misgivings about it. I would recommend that you review this power in comparison with everyone else's and check with your campaign power guidelines. I would say this is a "legal power", just as 40D6 RKA is a "legal power". Would I allow it in my game? Heck no. In my games I consider 40 to 60 Active Points the running normal/average for attacks. You can go above it, but for exceptional reasons and good play. I was checking out the numbers on this: 10D6 (50 Active points), Armor Piercing + Autofire, 3 shots (+25 Active Points) for a total of 75 Active Points. This would definitely make it into the upper range of my games. Not to mention all the investment in the maneuvers and skills for this happen. But crunching numbers: assuming OCV 10 vs DCV 10 (just to make it even) and Two Weapon Fighting would hit with the first shot on an 11, with the second on a 9, and with the third on a 7. Good odds, but hitting that 7 is infrequent. Let's assume the enemy knows what's coming and decides to abort to dodge: first hit on a 8, second hit in a 6, and third hit on a 4. Chances are he may not hit at all. And if the enemy is a trained fighter (using martial dodge): first hit on a 6, second on a 4, and the third hit on a 3. Extremely unlikely. You did mention he had (at least) three skill levels with this attack, not to mention martial maneuver bonuses (passing strike +1). That will definitely shift the numbers in his favor. But notice the rarity of the effective strikes. At even combat values he will likely hit with one or two, three is he's lucky. Then again, he could just as easily miss with both. However, 10D6 AP is probably going to hurt, no matter what. Not to mention that he'll be at 1/2 DCV for the rest of his phase, and into his next phase.That's pretty vulnerable. I suspect that in practical terms, he will hit a few times, but the vulnerability will cost him the fight. Ranged counter attacks will hit him easily, and if he demonstrates the attack in battle against several enemies, he will seen a "significant threat". I would certainly have smart opponents take the chance to hit him when his DCV is down. Not to mention he can probably be flashed, entangled, tripped, etc, etc. And someone else here also mentioned that the END cost will be astronomical. I doubt he could attack more than twice before succumbing to exhaustion. At 7 END a single punch, 21 per full sequence, twice, that is 42 END per complete attack. Maybe he can do that once, twice if he's got lots of END. So, that in itself may balance the power. But in the end it is your choice to allow it. Since you are actually asking for help because you fear it may be overpowered, I would say if you don't like it, don't allow it. If all else fails, here's a quote from 6E2, page 73: "Unless the GM permits it, characters cannot use Two-Weapon Fighting with unarmed HTH Combat attacks, innate powers like Blast, and so on. As the Skill’s name indicates, it’s generally intended for use with weapons, not personal powers or abilities." And from 6E1, page 327, Autofire: "Similarly, if the GM believes a Power with Autofire would be extremely useful or likely to unbalance the game at its normal cost, he may increase the cost by +1 (or more)." Let us know how it goes. =)

Interesting. I can see why you would be somewhat upset at a spell roll. To each their own. =) Do notice though, that Shapers have no restrictions to their spell designs other than the spell roll. They can build their magic to any theme or idea, by what ever tools and abilities they wish to bring to bear. You can have shapers who are elementalists, dark mages, mentalists, rogues, body transformation masters, nature magicians (druids?), water casters, martial masters, you name it. Shapers do happen to have that freedom. It was designed to be in stark contrast to the academics, whose spells, once created, never change. I like the character summoned from a book concept. Certainly quite doable. I think it would have been interesting to witness your game. Now, I don't have too many strong opinions on how a magic system is supposed to work. I don't work towards mix maxing or extreme optimization of the system. I like a flavorful character who has skills and details that make him unique. On another note, the spell system I am creating is something that is present so the world can have an existing spell system when new players join the game. I don't actually force the system on anyone, but it makes for a soft landing if you don't want to spend too much time coming up with your own spells. I think this may come from yet again another D&D trope: "the spell system written for the game is the only one you can use". Not necessarily true in Hero System. I am glad you had good players that were able to create a magic structure for themselves. That is actually rare where I am at. New players have the typical uphill curve to learn the system, and some players just don't want to bother. Having experienced and capable players is a great fortune. =)

By the way, Wardsman, I apologize for taking the thread a little off-topic. All I meant to do was to illustrate my opinion that you can use or not use the "spell" limitation to your heart's desire. I personally do not use it in this system I describe. I don't see any cons or pros. However, I do "assume" the following ideas apply to the spells I design in this system, some of which are borrowed from D&D's high magic: - Spells are usually "single target" unless designed with areas in mind. This usually implies that multiple attacks usually do not occur, unless the spell's context and circumstances justify it. - I have no problem with Haymakers, move-throughs and move-bys, as long as the spell facilitates it. (It's kinda hard to do that if you have to concentrate.) - You can "beam" your spell as a separate disadvantage, but it is not implied in any spell. I consider "beam" when the spell actually looks like a beam and behaves like one: it's a narrow (maybe 1" wide) stream of magic, intended to hit a very small spot with precision, and so can't quite do the same thing to objects that a regular spell can. - I agree with no "suppression fire". It is an automatic weapon quality that is hard to recreate. However, given the right special effects, and the right build, I could conceivable see this "suppression fire" maneuver being used as a specific spell, but not necessarily available to every spell. But to be honest, I have yet to either create one, or see anybody using it. - All the spells I design for this campaign require END. - I rarely, if ever, see the other maneuvers used with spells. This often has to do with the spell's other disadvantages, like gestures, incantations, or concentration. They tend to make snappy maneuvers hard to apply. Now, power stunts I have never seen, to be entirely honest. The underlying assumption in many of my games has been a spell is a spell, and works just this way. But I do follow your train of thought: if a spell in the right context can use a particular option (a modern urban magic campaign where a machine pistol is enchanted, or perhaps the machine pistol IS the special effect of the spell), I don't see why not. However, I would adjudicate the stunt based on how far from the original spell it intends to go. Some will fit, some will not. But it all depends on the special effects and partly on the spell's mechanical design. Again, I think you may want to experiment with your ideas. Perhaps tell your players that you wish to have some time allowing variations in the system to see how they work. I think your clever players may run with it, and they may surprise you with their ideas. Perhaps not so clever players may feel the tried and true way is to leave the system as they know it, because they may feel more comfortable in a system they know and trust. Or some other result. Your mileage may vary. If you give experiments a try, let me know how they turn out. =)

Cantriped: out of curiosity, how do you structure magic in your games?

Thank you for your observations. I understand your concerns with the differences. All of those ideas are things that have already occurred to me. I am not trying to say that this set of ideas is better than any other, it's just a set of ideas that I happen to like. Differentiation is present in the way the various "types" of magic users appear in the world. About 1 in 100 to 1 in 1000 people is trained as an academic spell caster (depending on the region), because all you need to learn academic magic is a basic apprenticeship that lasts about six months. A Shaper is "born", and is actually available as a PC class. Maybe about 1 out of 50 magic users is a Shaper. A Wilder is so rare that it is not a PC class very often. You can roll to play a wilder, but odds are against you. And there are many social complications to playing one. I am not trying to mix max the classes to the most efficient uses of points and methods. I am looking at a series of ideas that I enjoy, and that describe working elements of a world I am creating. Optimization is not necessarily my goal, but I do keep track of power and point balance. It's more story telling and observation. Yes, it does fit the concepts of the two available power frameworks in Hero System 6, and no power framework at all. That part is clearly transparent. The ideas of this "mastery spectrum" I had do seem to fit quite nicely into it. In order to understand the concepts you have to see this in terms of how a person in that world would experience it. There is the classic mage, the Academic. Everyone knows those. They are very common. Then there is the "strange" mage, who works with intuition instead of study, but needs practice and time to learn her spells. Academics wonder how that is possible. Their minds accustomed to the formulas they use, and they can be dogmatically rigid at times. And then there is that rare and almost forgotten legendary individual who can design magic, much like a Shaper, or perhaps an evolution of a Shaper (?), with little effort and even less time. It's not about point efficiency, it is about the rarity, complexity, frequency, and the "wonder of magic" that makes the difference here. That is where my focus plays. It is about roleplaying. =) The idea of a magical war is a possibility, but it would mostly happen between academics, the ones sponsored by nation states, the ones loyal to nation states, and a handful of Shapers, if they chose to fight. But the academics, being the most numerous practitioners, would be the ones filling out the ranks and files of any participating magical support in a military conflict. As it is, they already have the most dominant place in "magical" society. But I digress. These ideas are meant to be taken as different social and interactive roles to play, based on your preference. You can reach great heights with either academic or shaping magic. That's what PCs are for, to break molds.

Interesting that you bring VPPs up, Cantriped. I didn't mention the third element in this triad, which are the Wilders. These are the mages that use a VPP as a framwork to work their magic. In this game world, they are exceedingly rare, and, because of that, quite often hunted as valuable commodities or treasured sources of new magic knowledge, depending on the moral compass of whoever is doing the hunting at the time. And because of that, they are often living in hiding. The rest of this entry is just to share ideas: The way I envision Shapers, is like freewheeling magic users with great aptitude for magic in general. They typically learn by observation and repetition, not by study. It's more like a craft than a science. It requires a bit of intuition and a lot of natural talent and predisposition. Actually having a copy of an academic spell formula would do little for a shaper, unless said shaper has the academic skills to understand the concepts. Shapers would have to either watch said spells in action, or get a description of it by which it can be visualized. The reason I call them "Shapers" is due to the concept that they can take magic from the environment and "shape" it according to their imagination. Practice makes good, so after a number of tries (read: research), a shaper will have a spell understood and be able to repeat at will. But, again, since this is not a science for them, every time a shaper works to recreate an effect, s/he must take into account the environment, magic in the air, subtle and numerous variables of mystic currents, what they are doing at the moment, what ever they are paying attention to, or perhaps even trying to stay alive in a battle. All of the factors added up account for the skill roll. Now, compare the academics to the shapers, and bring in the wilders. Where academics learn spell formulas like they were written in stone, the shapers practice their spells and have flexibility. Finally, the wilders, with their VPPS, enjoy the greatest freedom of all: they think it, and it happens (as long as they make their rolls). No practice, no learning, just "doing".

I have to admit that many of these tropes of conventional fantasy spells are things that were defined by Dungeons and Dragons, or at least popularized by it. I have to admit that I am quite used to them, so the convention sticks and I don't question it. However, I have seen examples of magic I enjoy that are different from those tropes. I have one example: Haku (the river dragon) in "Spirited Away": there is a scene where he is escaping from I forget what, but as he's running all he does is move his hand and stuff happens (he opens and closes a door). Very simple magic, but done in a very stressful situation, with great mastery and skill. No incantations, no grand gestures, not even special effects. He merely exercises his will and he achieves his goal. I enjoyed that feel of magic for a while, but it's expensive to build spells like that for a fantasy hero game, so most schools need to dial down the cost by piling on the disadvantages or the power frameworks. Nowadays, I would reserve that kind of magic as the pinnacle of magic in my games, where spell casters have a group of spells that are fast and easy, but so subtle in their execution that they seem like a natural extension of themselves. But that is a different kind of magic flavor as well. =) As an aside, I am currently working a grimoire of spells for a group called "Academics". They have "fixed" spells, or formulas, meaning that once you learn them, they cannot be altered. You increase your power by learning the next more power version, which requires having learned the previous less powerful version. The costs are low, because not being able to change the spell is a good disadvantage, and all such spells are bought into a multipower (which serves as the game power balancer: you can't have a spell with more active points than your multipower) into fixed slots. This drawback (spells being immutable) is balanced by the fact that you don't have a "Requires A Skill Roll" disadvantage. The spell formulas are "tried and true" and never fail. So, here's where the above effect comes in. Master wizards can research new versions of their spells, rebuilding their spell books with spells that are designed to have very few disadvantages, effectively creating a feel of wizards that only may need to "wave their hands" to make a spell happen. Like in the above example. =) (As a point of cultural flavor, different academic schools across various nations have different philosophies on how they build spells: some favor physical expressions (gestures, incantations, concentration, etc), some favor risks (side effects), some favor different devices (foci: wands, staves, rings, ect), some favor charges or components. The schools maintain a level of "friendly" competition that keeps their adherents "loyal" to each school. A bit political.) Academics are balanced by "Shapers", which are the D&D equivalent of sorcerers. Shapers cast spells by what ever way they wish. They don't use any power frameworks, so the disadvantages are pretty strong, but they have the freedom to alter the spell's parameters, do maneuvers with them, cast them at lesser power levels, haymaker them, or do research to alter their structure. Where an academic wizard may have to learn 3 or 4 spells, a Shaper only learns one. The balance point for Shapers is that they DO require a "Skill Roll", so have a magic skill they have to pay for, and have an actual chance of spell failure. I am slightly off topic, but I only bring this up in because I still feel it will be up to you to establish the flavor of your campaign's magic. You can go with the already know "high magic" D&D concept, or you can play to any level or feel you desire. It's pretty much open territory as I see it.

I don't think there there are any actual pros or cons. I think it will very much depend on your particular flavor of fantasy. In my games, I allow most maneuvers that make (dramatic) sense in a game. As for spells not being able to make some maneuvers, that depends on the type of maneuver. Many maneuvers in the "Spell" list are actually done by characters, not spells. For example, if a wizard has a very fast flying spell, and they can charge their staff with mystic power for a good wallop, then, by all means they can fly by a hapless orc and smack them over the head. Presto, you just did a Move-By. The spells had nothing to do with it. It was the character that did the maneuver (although the spells helped). Same with Move-Throughs, Grab-Bys, etc, all depend on "what" is doing the action. I also consider some tropes on the genre: any maneuvers that are based on fully automatic fire (as in machine guns) are usually unknown in my fantasy games. And since I always require some modicum of END to be spend, autofire in my fantasy games has a very limited viability because its costs too much. Bouncing things off walls only works if your spell manifestation allows it. For example, in my games, if you are using Fire spells, then they cannot, by default, bounce off things because fire doesn't bounce. But if you were to throw a physical rock, it could conceivably bounce. I also usually define energy attack spells as "blasts", meaning they are usually about 1 to 1 1/2 foot in diameter, so they do not "beam". You can get that as a separate disadvantage, if you wanted to. But most players don't, mostly because they want to be able to blow holes in walls. It's the convenience, you see. =) But overall, I think the fantasy flavor is up to you. =)

To be honest, everything looks good. You'll have to suffer through making your own cuts to pare down to an acceptable staff level. =)

Don't forget the bricks. Gotta have a strong one in there somewhere. You know, PE (danger room) teacher.

Mostly because the focus then becomes the ability to cast the spell. In the case of materials, it would a -1 1/4 modifier for obvious, accessible and expendable. I wanted to create a simple way to create a very slight limitation (-1/4) that would allow for the effect of "I need this doohickey but it's not that important, because I have plenty of it". The interesting thing about Foci, is that the power is defined as coming from the object (however you choose to define it). I wanted to make sure the power remained with the caster. It is mostly a flavor component, and for me, Focus was too great of a disadvantage for what I wanted to create. This way, I can have a simple detail like materials be a slight disadvantage, without giving the house away. But yet, an OA focus with Expendable will do just fine. I just didn't want it to be a focus.

I have managed this question by going a little outside of the existing rules and creating my own disadvantage. Mind you, this is a custom house rule definition, so your mileage may vary. However, it is at least defined by a common Hero System disadvantage: Limited. "Materials: Limited Power, Uncommon: -1/4 Materials is a limitation defining a spell that requires a physical item to be consumed when cast. Unlike charges, which establish an absolute limit on how often a power may be used in a given period of time, materials are easily recovered and do not limit the caster to a number of castings as long as the materials are present. Normally, there is no need to keep track of the materials while the caster remains close to a source. If a caster maintaining a constant spell loses access to his materials, the spell is immediately interrupted. Materials have an inherent "obvious" disadvantage: it is clear to anyone observing that the caster is using these materials to maintain or fuel her spells. Materials are common in nature: sand, bugs, incense, water, twigs, braided long grass, special colored stones, bound strings, etc. They are easily accessible (normal combat maneuvers to grab, disarm, etc. may remove them). However, for all their vulnerability, they are also extremely easy to replace, and pose relatively little delay if they are lost. Preparing new materials in battle from your own storage (in next pocket, in another pouch, from the backpack, etc.) is a 1/2 move action. Examples: Lored, the Druid, uses acorns to cast his “Nature’s Wrath” spell. Whenever he wishes to smite a disrespectful interloper, he hurls a charged acorn at his target, which explodes on impact. While he casts the spell, the acorn glows brightly green, is hot to the touch, and hums audibly. If he was to lose his bag of acorns, he would not be able to cast the spell, but it would be easy to obtain replacement acorns… as long as he was close to a forest. Kayl, the Water Master, uses a small water pouch to feed his powerful water spells. He shapes and guides his water to form a wall to protect his comrades from the archers on the tower, while they attempt to escape by climbing the keep’s outer walls. The water in the pouch glows and floats around him while the spell is active. As long as he has the water pouch on him, he can maintain the spell. However, a clever magician, knowledgeable in Water magic, spots Kayl’s pouch, and correctly deduces that he is using it to power his spell. With a well placed fire bolt, he burns the pouch to a cinder and all the water spills out. Kayl’s water wall collapses. Fortunately, his friends have already reached the other side, and are out of sight. Kayl knows all he has to do is get a new pouch and fill it with water to be back in the magic business again. But first, he must run away."

Technically, the opposite of guilt is blame. However, since your hero wishes to prove himself because he feels responsible, a completely callous, psychotically misanthropic mind is needed here. Where the hero breaks himself to do "good", the villains demonstrates a complete disregard for the wellness of others (putting people at risk, breaking train tracks, flooding dams, setting fires, pure psychotic stuff). Each one of these "endangerment" cases should trigger the "guilt" and bring the "hero" out in the character. Point of contrast: if you make your villain's background a tragic love abandonment story, where the villain decided to hate everyone and everything as a way to handle his inner pain, it is possible for a "redemption" arc to play out. But this would be a challenging story to weave. Your hero would have to learn about your villain's backstory, and realize that the villain is acting out his/her emotional trauma (just like the hero is acting out his emotional trauma). A point of compassion would be to have the hero confront the villain's past, and battle over those differences. (Pure drama here.) The villain and the hero may arrive at a reconciliation and a forgiveness point, which would eventually allow the villain to redeem himself, and the hero to find forgiveness for himself, by learning to let go. In the end, both hero and villain would learn they are fighting for the same reasons, but on different sides of the "coin". How each reacts to the other's "sameness" is up them. These are merely setting up possibilities for a very dramatic set of encounters with a great deal of "human failings" touch. This sort of story arc may not be for everyone ("I just want to punch things!"), but I think it would make a good story for a roleplaying group. My $0.02. =)

Variable Special Effects =)

Good Mage When I run FH games I always think of the PCs as "established heroes". Unlike the old stand-by, D&D, where the concept of a "beginning" character is one of low skill and experience, FH heroic characters are supposed to be already fully developed. These guys have 150 pts more than your regular chump at 0 points, and are still pretty competent when compared to your experienced regulars, around 20 to 50 pts. So why should a FH wizard not be able to kick ass when casting his spells? He's a 150 pt character! This is where I find the concept of the "beginning" wizard in a FH hero game to be out of place. But to stick to the point, this character write up is largely fine. It fits the style of the creator, and if he's enjoying it, then more power to him. I sure won't tell him how to play his character. I will agree, though, that perhaps a few more skills to round out the character might come in handy, perhaps something related to his childhood, before he became a wizard. After that, all points ought to be funneled into wizardly pursuits. If he had no weapons training, and learned to use his "brain" instead of his "brawn", then the concept is quite on target. Looks OK to me. Ready to play.