Talon

Re: DARK CHAMPIONS: What Do *You* Want To See? Er...going to find that name thread, as I just found out now that Dark Champions no longer means superheroes. Given how firmly "Champions = Supers" is ingrained into the minds of the gaming public, I suspect this title will cause a lot of confusion. Anyway...stuff I'd like to see: Less of the "pick 2 of the following 10 skills" lines in Package Deals. The point of a Package Deal is to have a ready-made character. Better to have a couple options showing the different skills that can be chosen. A list of guns that is balanced, so some players aren't penalized for picking weaker guns for roleplay reasons. In the skills section, having as many time requirements, modifiers, equipment requirements, etc. as possible means that the players can have a good idea what their skills do, rather than be surprised when the GM starts making up modifiers.

Re: Combat Balance The only objective-ish technique I use is to imagine an NPC (or monster) hitting the PCs, and taking a hit from the PCs. If the results are too heinous, then I either make sure there is a mitigating factor (very slow monster, lack of surprise, etc.) or adjust things a bit. But yeah, it's really an art form -- and I've found that's true in D&D as well, despite their having the CR system (which is better than nothing, to be fair). You just get a sense for what works and what doesn't. In addition to point levels and obvious things like SPD, CV, DC, and defenses, number of foes makes a big difference. It's easy for a single yet powerful monster to get swarmed, whereas a large number of weak guys can do a lot of damage before the PCs can get them all.

Re: Taking the plunge into Fantasy Hero ... help! Here are a few observations. Definitely run a couple short adventures using disposable characters (or allow rewrites), so that you and your players can get used to the system. I find that using Encumbrance, Hit Locations and the Impairing/Disabling rules is very good, but the Bleeding and Wounding rules are less good. I also use a house rule making characters less effective as they lose END. If your players are accustomed to Champions, they will probably come in and design characters with very, very high stats and defenses. If you want high-fantasy, this is fine -- if you want low fantasy it may not play so well. Expect to have some back-and-forth over this. Keep in mind that there's a bit of a high-magic bias in the FH material -- if your world is lower fantasy, don't feel bad about toning stuff down. When producing your magic system, write down how it works in non-game-system terms first -- then translate it to Hero. If you start thinking about it as game mechanics, you can lose the fantasy atmosphere. Come up with a scale for combat levels, so you can roughly rate characters based on their DEX and CSLs, and provide a measure of what NPCs are likely to have (city guard = this, veteran guard = that, duelist = something more, etc.). This gives both you and the players a metric to look at when making their characters. Good luck!

Re: Can Terran Empire be played with Sidekick? I'm sure it would work fine -- I don't have Sidekick handy, but I'd be very surprised if TE has more than a handful of things that invoke non-Sidekick rules. I'm not sure how much of the vehicle rules are in Sidekick...that's the only sticking point I can think of.

Re: Y R axes better than swords??? The issue I have with the FREd weapon table is that, as is the case with axes and swords, some weapons are strictly better than others. I don't like the fact that players who choose swords are going to be at a disadvantage vs. those who chose the axe (perhaps "because it gets the most plusses"). This is a game...and one of the things that helps make a game fun for players is promoting choices. Ideally, the axe and the sword should be /different/, but equal in power level. An axe might make more sense for a offensive character who wants to dish out damage; a sword might be better for someone who is parrying and dodging more. As it stands, minimaxing the weapons table is far too easy.

Re: Limits on CSL's? General consensus? I provide a chart which measures combat ability based on DEX + best levels (i.e., using the weapon to which the most levels apply) and establish a baseline for PCs ("I expect PCs will be at the Experienced level of the chart"). Going above that requires consultation.

Re: Ambrethel Map in Free Stuff Very nice -- thanks Keith! Looking forward to receiving TA later this week to see the detailed maps...

Someone attacks me with a ranged attack, and in response I Abort to Flying Dodge and fly around the corner, breaking LOS. Does the attacker get a chance to hit me, or is the attack guaranteed to miss?

Re: Help with map drawing techniques Like Markdoc, I use a vector-based draw program for my maps, and have for many years. I'm no master artist, but I've acquired enough skill to do fairly decent maps. For the kind of city map you're talking about, I will generally sketch the overall layout of the city (sometimes on the computer, sometimes on paper and then scanned), then refine it within the draw program so that it looks pretty. This usually includes walls, gates, major roads, castles, main trade districts, temples, and terrain features. Then, I create a repeating pattern of random-looking buildings, copy and paste it next to itself, rotate it, and place it in the background so the whole city looks "populated". The end result is something like the enclosed graphic.

Re: Balancing Attacks and Defences Power Levels It is as bad as it looks -- if you want to run a fantasy-style game where defenses are low, rather than a Champions-style game where defenses are high and it takes a long time to drop a combatant. Take a look at standard fantasy equipment: you have weapons that do up to 2d6 (30 active points) and armor that goes up to 10 DEF (20 active points). A 30 active point Force Field will hit 15 DEF -- 50% higher than standard equipment, for what is generally considered to be a starting power level for spellcasters. To create a spell equivalent to lesser armor is trivial: leather armor (DEF 3 or so) is a mere 6 active points, while chain (DEF 6) is 12. Thus, any spellcaster who cares to can easily achieve defenses equal to the best-clad warriors, without the crushing Encumbrance penalties. This is not typical for the genre. As spellcasters become more powerful, the defense levels get even higher, while actual armor and weapons do not. Fantasy Hero attempts to address this with Deadly Blow and extensive martial maneuvers -- but what results is a Champions-like escalation, with characters doing insane amounts of damage to keep up. (4d6 -- enough to knock down castle walls with impunity -- is easily achieved.) Can the GM control all this? Of course; GMs can control everything. It would be better if the system helped them do this, however. The solution I'm thinking about is some sort of "Active Point Equivalent" for powers and/or effects which the GM wishes to limit. For example, the GM could say that powers providing DEF/PD/ED have an Active Point Equivalent of 3x their face value for purposes of END use and RSR. Thus, a 10/10 Force Field would cost 6 END and have a -6 to the Magic Skill Roll.

Re: 2 more questions From http://herschel.jpl.nasa.gov/science/solarsystem02.html, apparently the expectation is that Uranus and Neptune would be expected to have more deuterium than Jupiter and Saturn; however, given the sizes of these planets, I'm sure you could stop off at any of them and get more than you could use. It seems that deuterium is found wherever hydrogen is, so anywhere that has hydrogen bound in some form will have deuterium as well, so icy asteriods, gas giants, and the Oort Cloud should all be dandy candidates.

Re: Memory Stealing Power I don't really advocate using the following method, but it was too amusing not to post. Use Extra-Dimensional Travel to travel back in time to the start of the memory loss period, then hit the target with Mind Control: "Do what you would normally do" with the "target forgets actions" modifier.

Re: Sidekick I'll just put my two cents in and say that a "how to balance stuff" resource would be a great help to new players; anything that helps in gaining that kind of experience is a Good Thing.

Re: HERO Resource I don't think there's a 5th Edition book yet which has more firearm details; you'd have to go back to 4th Edition Dark Champions (which I believe had firearms, though I could be mistaken) or way back to Danger International, for more detailed gun info.

Re: Hero Character Portfolio -- What Do *You* Want To See? Equipment lists should have space for weight, cost, and location (where the character carries it). A chart for noting armor at each hit location would be useful, along with a section for noting wounds to each hit location (required whenever you take an Impairing or Disabling wound). For fantasy spellcasters, a section for noting all of the summary items from FHG spell listings (Effect, Duration, Casting Procedures, Roll, etc.) would be wonderful. And second the idea for a points-free version of the sheet. I'd certainly buy at least one, more depending on how useful I found them.

Re: The great armour race... I would toss Combat Luck (IMO it's way too cheap for what it gives in a low-end heroic campaign), rule that no defense powers (magic spells, armor, etc.) stack, and apply appropriate cultural limitations (my usual line is that walking into the tavern in plate and a sword is like walking into a bar with a flak jacket and M-16). Furthermore, I alter the Encumbrance table so that movement END goes up for each Encumbrance category (divide by 4,3,2,1 instead of 5 for movement END), and then apply penalties when character cross 3/4, 1/2, and 1/4 total END. Even with all that, I am not surprised when everyone tosses on armor for the big fights. The point is to make armor one option among many, so that sometimes the PCs will be unwilling or unable to armor up in time for the big battle.

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power Ah, you may be right, don't have my book with me. I personally disagree with that ruling -- but that's just me. So toss the Detect and save all those points.

Re: Need Help With Teleport Power I would add: Detect Object, Range, Targeting, lots of Telescopic, only for targeting Teleport (-2). Otherwise, there's no way you know where the object is to Teleport it. For the Teleport itself: Megascale (or lots of non-combat multiples) Can Only Teleport one object (-2) Can Only teleport object to self (-1) Of course, depending on what the object is, this might just be a special effect of an Obvious Inaccessible Focus -- for example, if the character has a magic sword that he can summon to his hand whenever he needs it. OTOH, if the object is a videocamera or robot spy, the power might be appropriate.

Re: mystical challenge Counterstrike, defined as an HKA Damage Shield, character must be wielding a weapon, damage limited to weapon damage, attack roll required. Special effect is a fighting style involving instant response to all attacks. (The more daring might construct this as a Naked Advantage.) Teleport 1", Usable As Attack, reduced weight limit (say 5 kg or so), No Range, only to character's hand -- a character so skilled at Disarm that the target's Strength is irrelevant. Also handy for pickpocketing if you buy Invisible Power Effects.

Re: DEX vs. CSLs The problem with the NCM argument is that it means that the balance only kicks in at DEX 20. Most GMs don't want every PC running around at DEX 20.

Re: What character concepts make you cringe? Just about any concept involving a trenchcoat.

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up? Also, before you start figuring this stuff out, do the math for the number of cubic hexes available on the larger ships. If you don't scale size pretty radically for higher AP items, the big ships will be packing an awful lot of stuff.

Re: Older FH Products No, not really. 4th Edition FH had a good section on making your own magic system, but otherwise 5th edition exceeds it in all ways.

Re: RSR. Can you think of a different way? You could always require a "trimmed down" RSR that effectively works out to 18- most of the time, and then apply penalties for hazardous situations (i.e., casting with an armed opponent next to you). I think the reason RSR is so popular is that's it's perceived as a way to limit spell Active Point totals (which is true to an extent). If you get rid of RSR, make sure you have a good method for limiting / normalizing spell AP totals.

Re: Statistics Challenge See this thread for another method (make sure you read to the end ): http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3005