Markdoc

Re: Rough Magic

Re: Mana ( END ) Reserve Help? Actually, since it's a focus it doesn't need UBO - you simply define it as "universal", which costs nothing. cheers, Mark

Re: Re-vitalising the speed chart I like the idea of multiple actions, but found the SPD chart both too wargamey and too time consuming for combats involving multiple characters. OTOH, I love SPD as a concept. What I've done is (sorta) randomised the SPD chart, by simply determing phases with a dice roll. On average a SPD 4 wil get twice as many actions as a SPD 2, and 2/3r'ds as many as a SPD 6. They'll get the same number of actions between recoveries (which happens when I roll "top o' the chart"). I like the way it makes combat a little more chaotic and as a GM, I like it because all I have to recall is who's holding actions, not who went when, what phase are we now, etc. It also gets rid of "I'll hold until 7 then haymaker, because I get to act on 8 and can recover, unless he moves on 6, in which case I'll..." Players can still game the system, but it becomes much more a calculated risk, not a cert. cheers, Mark

Re: Mana ( END ) Reserve Help? A very simple approach: let the players buy extra END via a focus. This extra END will use their own REC, so they can either charge up the focus, or their own END and of course, if they are not holding it it does not recharge, since it has no REC of it's own. Since this is their own END, they can use it as you suggested - meaning they can draw from it for normal END. The only drawback is that this very cheap, so player can buy lots of extra END cheers, Mark

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien? Both. I can (and do) re-read both authors (and I don't re-read most of the stuff I have read). Of the two, there's no question Tolkien was the most influential - Howard's work languished out of print for many years until Tolkien's success kickstarted the modern fantasy genre. Of course, Howard has inspired all too many barbarian pastiches since he was revived, but there's no doubt that without Tolkien, many of would be going "Conan who?" cheers, Mark

Re: Why is Strength so underpriced?

Re: orichalcum

Re: orichalcum Hmm. Good point - could be. Derrow turned up in one of the compendiums as Derro - which to me always sounded like some guy sleeping in an alley with a bottle of Mother Winslow's Soothing Syrup for Babies sticking out of one pocket. It didn't help that the picture looked like a crazy street person with a pick. Deriving things from scandanavian roots always struck me as pretty pointless - Trow/Trold/Hekse all basically mean "magic being" anyway. The idea that there were elves and dwraves and trolls and they were all different distinct beings is a very, very recent thing. In our recent game a tall, muscled, hairy guy was described as a "hekse" (witch) which led me to comment "Nå, han ser nok ud som han væger mere end en and" (Well, he certainly looks like he weighs more than a duck) - which cracked half the table up and made the rest look at me like I was nuts.... cheers, Mark

Re: Shapeshifting and experience Right to to take a totally analogous example: the Rakshasha reverts to his normal shape when asleep. OK. Maybe he can learn to hold his shifted form when asleep, maybe not. You might be able to improve your perception - but can you use that sight perception bonus when asleep? As a GM, I would rule you couldn't: no matter how good it was when awake. cheers, Mark

Re: house rule for c.s.l. It's true - but that's what makes them worth having. Many people complain that DEX is underpriced, but the counterweight is that that's only true if you want a character who excels in *all* DEX-related aspects (if you are playing a light fighter or a rogue type you probably do - if you are playing tank-boy you probably don't). Levels allow a partial counter to DEX in combat - they're cheaper and more flexible, but less effective overall. In games where levels were greatly restricted, everyone ended up pretty smartly at DEX 20. High CSL characters are great in duels, for example, but lousy in massed fights, whereas high DEX characters do well in either setting. As noted, in my last FH game had a fighter-type who could generate OCV 16 - but she rarely did, because she had learned the hard way that throwing all your levels on OCV invited some 25 point punk with 6 points spent on +3 OCV, sticking a spear through your gut... cheers, Mark

Re: Cavalry Charge , House Rules ? In my game, the moving is regarded as being done by the mount, so even at NCM, that would not prevent the rider from using his own (full) OCV. He does, of course take movement penalties to his OCV, however. OTOH, most mounted charges are at full move (FM) not NCM. The simple reason is that your mount becomes largely uncontrollable. So a rider moving at half move or less takes no OCV or riding penalties. A rider moving at FM would take -1 to -5 depending on how rough the terrain was. I require riding rolls to make the horse (or giant riding bird or whatever) do what you want. Things like charging into a wall of men or oncoming mounts definately requires a roll, and that's penalised by the same amount. So for example, light skirmishing cavalry might ride up at FM, shoot and then try to go NCM to get away. First, remember you can't instantly accelerate and decelerate. Even though running has no turn mode, you still need to decelerate, stop, then reverse back up to speed. Secondly you can't instantly go NCM - you need to get turned around and pointed in the right direction and do a phase moving at FM. That provides a window of vulnerability during which your opponent is moving towards you - if they accelrate to NCM first they might catch you. Of course, unless they are really good horsemen, they'll be an ineffective rabble when they hit. This tends to encourage historical tactics - timing is crucial. Even if they don't go NCM, if your opponent outguesses you and holds an action so that they are accelerating towards you when you are decelerating prior to reversing, they might (depending on range) it you before you can get away. and since they'll be coming from behind you, expect heavy casualties. Other mounted combat house rules: Mounted vs foot get a high shot hit location for free. Foot get a low shot hit location unless they take -2 OCV to "aim high". Mounted charges use the STR and velocity of the mount to do damage, but the weapon and OCV of the rider, unless it's a trample attack, in which case mount OCV is used. Trample attacks are move throughs - the mount takes the damage. If it's stopped the rider will have to make a riding roll at -5 to stay on. Other mounted charges are movebys - the weapon takes the damage. Again the rider has to make a roll if the damage on the weapon is enough to do knockdown on him (pretty rare, since the damage taken on the weapon is only 1/3 of total - but it can happen) - he either drops it or falls out of the saddle. That's it. Pretty simple and gives a consistent and "commonsense" outcome. cheers, Mark

Re: orichalcum Yep, Lich comes from the scandinavian Lig (meaning corpse). the scandanavian aspirates the g at the end so it sounds more like LI-uh (witha slight hint of a g in there). English doesn't do aspirates anymore so the i is hort and the word rhymes with itch. Same with drow, actually. If it really is related to trow, the scandanavian pronunciation would be partway between Crow and Cow. Still "Cow" seems to be the consensus - if you think "sounds like crow" is better, well, whatever - just say that's how it's pronounced in your game. cheers, Mark

Re: Why is Strength so underpriced? To actually answer the question, STR is underpriced, because Hero system started as a superhero game, and superheroes commonly have lots of really, really strong guys running around. So they made STR cheap. Things broke down a little when the game became more generic, because then, in many cases STR became TOO cheap. People have been pointing this out forever, but the stock answer has always been - "if we change the cost of STR, it affects every single character ever published/designed. It's too big a change." So cheap STR is a legacy of Hero system's roots. If you don't like it - and I don't, myself - a very common house rule (especially in heroic level games where most or all characters are human) is simply to adjust the cost of STR to 2 points per and treat it the same as all other powers (for example STR costs 1 point of END per 10 points not per 5) and that hand attack now simply costs 5 points per d6. Simple, easy, works well. cheers, Mark

Re: Valdorian Characters

Re: Valdorian Age Game: Campaign Suggestions Needed When I ran a "big city" campaign, I started by having the players arriving from outside the campaign city and then framed by the local guard captain and arrested. He then offered them the "thieves normally lose their hands, but if you do a favour for me, I might let you go" routine. His motivation was to get outsiders who could not be involved in the political machinations he thought might be going on - if they turned up anything embarrassing, he could always have their throats slit and then dump the bodies in the nearest canal and pretend it never happened. Once the players successfully completed the mission, they had become used to working together and had some links to the city's overclass that let them get jobs - and it just kind of ran from there. For me it worked well, because it explained why the players were unfamiliar with the city, letting me feed it to them bit by bit. It also led to a story arc that ran for over a year. cheers, Mark Edited to add that I have the adventure fully written up with maps, NPCs and so on - you're welcome to look at it if you like.

Re: Valdorian Characters As I pointed out, if your Sorceror finds himself relying on his magic in combat, then he's screwed up - but it does make it possible to pull one out of the hat, when you really need it. Given the heavily-limited nature of slots in the multipower, it relatively little to add two slots, enabling - just for example - a lethal attack or a very good (if short term) defence. Now I'm not suggesting your character would want to take those - in both cases, they are last ditch measures because you'd surely end up with negative favour ifyou used them in combat. But you could just as easily add a variety of useful noncombat or precombat powers. The trick, of course, is to think about what the character can do APART from combat. In a swords and sorcery setting, if you want to fight, play a fighter! So I think the sorcerors are viable characters - they're just not going to suit every player (or every GM, for that matter). cheers, Mark

Re: What in genre bit do you like that no one else seems to enjoy ?

Re: Valdorian Characters This is a perfect example of what a VA sorceror should be. He's no combat monster, but he can fly, go desolid, has telepathy, TK and retrocognition. As a spy and infiltrator, no rogue built on the same points can touch him. And... don't forget, he can summon 200 point nasties from beyond the grave. Sure, it has a 5 minute buildup period, but once the summoning is done, the nasties are his for a certain period of time or number of services. Nothing puts a city guardsman off his interest in bribes like a black shadow flowing out of the target's sleeve and trying to suck his soul out through his nostrils... Last of all, you are forgetting the way the system works. Let's say your necromancer has a 4d6 RKA described as the hungry ghost appearing and behaving as above. Useless in combat you say. It has severe penalties to the roll you say. Think about it. GM: "The guardsmen are starting to get threatening." Player. "I call on a hungry Ghost to suck the life out the lead guardsman!" GM. "That's a -12 to your roll if you want to do it fast" Player. "Huh. I roll an 11. I fail by 9. The ghost turns up anyway and I take 9 negative favour points. But that's OK, I'm still up 6 from drowning that old woman in the waterbarrel behind the inn last week." Other players: "You did what?!" In other words, the system is set up to allow the odd roll at severe penalties - you just can't afford to do it very often. It's also possible for the mage to set up triggered powers so that he can call on them at need. That's very much in genre. Still, to play a sorceror in VA is similar to playing one in my game - as I said, you need to think of backup and support: NOT fire support. If the sorceror is having to rely on his magic in a fight, then he (or the party) screwed up. Combat mages are pretty rare in fantasy literature. It's pretty much a DandD thing. cheers, Mark cheers, Mark

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules they are 4th, but since almost none of the NPCs use funky builds or powers that have changed significantly, you can use it with 5th pretty much as-is. The vast bulk of the NPCs are human fighter and rogue types. The only change I can think of that would affect the characters is that one or two use damage shield for counterstrike type attack and that some of the characters have healing bought as Aid. Those can still be used as is, but the price would change slightly. cheers, Mark

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules Another reason that Fantasy (or any) modules are not common as commercial products? The links I posted to my Sengoku game have actually been pretty popular - literally hundreds of GMs have contacted me for the downloads and even today (about 4 years after I posted the adventures) I still get a couple of emails a week asking about them. Even if all of those GM's were willing to pay 10 bucks to download the adventures (pretty damned unlikely, of course) that meant I would have made maybe 8-10,000 bucks, max. Shucks, if I did this full time, I could maybe make 10,000 bucks a year OK, a real game company with some advertising could attract way more eyeballs, but most of those won't turn into sales, and in any case authors are unlikely to walk away with 10 bucks per copy from a commercial product (to put it mildly). It's just not financially viable, when you consider how much time and effort is invested. So it's down to the fans. cheers, Mark

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules Yep, I'd love some too. Just to show I'm not all take, take, take, here's a fantasy campaign I wrote up. Volume I http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/markdoc/marks_books/Adventures.zip Volume II http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/markdoc/marks_books/Sengoku_NPCs.zip The setting is medieval japanese, but it'd be dead easy to file off the serial numbers and drop into your own setting - especially if you drop out adventure #20 and add in "stop evil conspiracy of your choice" instead. The first quarter of the campaign started life in my fantasy game anyway - I just adapted it to Japan I am writing a new Fantasy campaign at the moment (sword and sorcery level), but I won't post the adventures until I've used them myself, so don't expect the first installment for 6 months or so It should end up being another 600-page epic though! cheers, Mark

Re: Buying up Char in FH Aye, and there's the rub. I always have a quiet snicker at people who are so concerned that players can add +3 to their STR over one or two gaming sessions, but have no problem with gaining conversational japanese over the same period. It's a GAME. Player advancement is part of the game, and often a part which creates much of the attraction and involvement for the players. Unless it creates an issue in game balance terms, I simply can't work up any enthusiasm for changes to the rules. Now I'm a polite person, so I won't publically mock anyone who bleats "but it's not realistic" (you can can imagine me laughing at you, though)- but the truth is that NONE of this advancement system is realistic and frankly, we wouldn't like it if it was. How would your players like it, if on entering a new culture they have to have three months downtime to learn basic conversational language skills? It took them 8 years to acquire PS: Doctor? Compared to that, a sudden outbreak of muscles is pretty small potatoes... cheers, Mark

Re: Valdorian Characters

Re: How HERO helped me at work! I've also noticed that Hero system experience has come in damn useful in legal situations too. After years of perusing the rules looking at ways that certain powers/rules can be exploited, it was a cinch to apply the same reasoning to legal contracts. So much so, that I've become the "Go To Guy" on how to break biotech patents and routinely consult with our legal group on tactics. Powergaming for the real world! cheers, Mark

Re: Shapeshifting and experience Depends what you want. It's not abusive and in play should be OK - but as a GM I would not allow it. Not to be a bastiche or anything but simply to underline the fact that the guy is playing a *monster*. So he has difficulty living a normal life. Big deal. He's a *monster*. Fantasy literature is full of stories about the human who has a spouse with otherworldly powers who says things like "We can live together but I must sleep alone and you must promise never, never to look in my bedchamber when I am asleep". It becomes a roleplaying hook and some compensation for the fact that he has access to neato-kewl powers that PCs of human origin do not have. (to be fair, he should also have access to disadvantages that human players don't have - like this one - so he should get the points for those too). cheers, Mark