Markdoc

Funny that you should post this now: I'm just back from a holiday, and offered to run an impromptu game for my buddies. I wanted to use Hero, since that's what I am most comfortable with as a GM, but given that we had one - and only one - evening, I also wanted something that would let them put characters together in a vey short period of time. I took an afternoon and very quickly "reskinned" Hero to do exactly that and the game went off without a hitch. It took the players about 15-20 minutes to make characters, and all concerned seem to feel that the game was great success. Luckily, I still have my notes on some scraps of paper, so I can post the exact conversions I used if anyone is interested but the concept is really simple. Instead of asking the players to define the characters in great detail I gave them few sheets of notes, letting them define their characters in loose detail, by distributing 12 Xp among: 4 "characteristics" - Toughness, Quickness, Combat and Smartness A career (this was for a Japanese Sengoku Jidai game, so these were samurai, warrior-monk or ninja) Feats The way this worked was that each "characteristic" cost 1 Xp, but was actually a 10-point package - for example, Toughness was +3 STR, +3 CON, +1 BOD, +2 STUN, while Quickness was just +1 SPD. Likewise each career was a package, ranging from 1 Xp (Warrior monk) to 3 Xp (Ninja) containing 10-30 points of skills and talents Finally the feats were simply powers such as "unarmed combat" (+3d6 HA) or "Fast runner" (+3" running, +2" leaping) broken down into 10 point chunks and charged at 1-3 Xp. As stated, using this approach, the players put their characters together in about 20 minutes, and we kicked the game into action. Although two of them had little or no Hero system experience, they got right into it, and we were able to play an impromptu scenario where the PCs were dispatched to find out why important reinforcements for the army were late and ended up fighting a delaying action against overwhelming forces. I didn't bother to convert NPCs, because for them I could just use stand Hero system characters and we were easily able to cover a range of activities - scouting, information gathering, building stuff and then 3 large to medium scale combats. cheers, Mark

I'd go for a simple build: + x END, only for casting (-1/2), OAF. That's simple to run and avoids the difficulties you get with a naked reduced END advantage and powers with nonstandard END requirements, like spells with reduced END, autofire or the increased END disadvantage. It also avoids the nonintuitive issue you get that a staff built as a naked advantage only helps weaker spells, so when you really need help to cast a powerful spell with a high END cost, the staff built to help with END use ... doesn't help. Cheers, Mark

I treat casting an enchantment on an item (ie; using a power with a focus) as different from creating permanent items. The former can always be dispelled, but the enchantment can simply be cast again, like any other power. For the latter, I use a custom modifier (-2, Independant). That permanently transfers the Xp to the item, so it cannot be destroyed by a dispel, any more than a character's own powers can be. The downside, of course is that it can be lost, stolen, physically destroyed, etc. But the upside is that it can be lent, or borrowed, and will persist past the maker's death (in my games, it's the only way to create permanent enchantments). As a GM, it has the advantage that the need to "pay" Xp keeps a lid on the creation of magical items, which in consequence are quite rare. cheers, Mark

Sure - just as a master whitesmith might have a couple of journeymen and several apprentices to make a suit of armour, the mage could work with a whitesmith and his apprentice. But he'd design the suit and (for example) take a rerebrace crafted to his precise design and cut the runes for a strength spell into it ... He doesn't have to do everything with his own hands, but he has to guide every step of the process. cheers, Mark

I use a really simple system: For crafting permanent magic items, it takes as much time to make, as it would take to make the actual item. Magic is worked into it as the item is crafted., and thus the item actually has to be made by the mage. Active points simply don't figure into it. I figure it's easier to write a scroll - be it never so powerful - than make a flying castle: even if the castle has fewer active points. cheers,Mark

Sure, assuming you actually WANT a complexity factor. I'm still not seeing why you (generic you) would, which is why I suggested talking about your magic system's look and feel first. Once you've worked that out, you'll know if you need a complexity system and have some pointers on how it needs to be built. Cheers, Mark

OK. Real cost. Bing! Done. Is that what you meant? Cheers, Mark

I've used frameworks extensively. Multipowers are very good for the traditional RPG mage with many, defined spells, but have other uses VPPs are good for magic systems that either have many, many defined spells, or which allow significant flexibility. Spells bought straight usually require quite a lot of limitations to be competitive with frameworks, but also have their place - they're good for "casters" who have one special power. All of these different approaches can coexist quite comfortably in the same game, in the same party, or even in the same character. cheers, Mark

One of the commonest failures in game design is to take some of the designer's assumptions/preferences as absolutes and then code them into the system. It's not that there's anything wrong with coding preferences into the system: that's one way to give "flavor" to the system. But you need to be clear that that is what you are doing, otherwise you risk ending up with all sorts of unclearly stated assumptions, which may or may not play nicely with other parts of the game system. So no, you don't need to generate a complexity value to have a magic item creation system. It's one approach, true, and in principle, I don't see anything wrong with it, if it gives the flavor you want. But the complexity system outlined, for example, seems like a lot of additional work, and extra rules, for little to no apparent benefit. It might make more sense to me, if you explained the sort of "feel" you intended it to provide. As an example, to choose two simple systems I have used in the past: Raw power: the caster creates the magic item by simply infusing some object with some of his own mystic energy. For example, in "A Wizard of Earthsea", Ged creates a wizard's staff, simply by pulling up a blade of grass and willing it to be a wizard's staff. There's no crafting, no gold cost, no complexity, no great investment of time ... just willpower and raw power. Mechanic: This works well with a magic system using a VPP. The caster simply channels some of his power through a focus to create magic items. As long as the points from the VPP are assigned to the item, it's magical, and if he chooses to make it UBO, anyone can use it. The GM can decide that if the character dies, the item is still viable - which means it is well suited to games with lots of magic items, from trivial utility items to things that archmages created with the entitreity of their VPPs, when in their fading years. As an alternative, the GM can allow the custom -2 limitation "independant" which means the wizard actually has to have his hands on the item to reintegrate those points into his VPP: if he loses the item, those points are gone, and the item becomes an independant magic item that anyone can use. Pros: simple, easy, flexible, very specific flavor Cons: works best with VPPs, very specific flavor Item crafting: magic items are carefully crafted using all manner of strange arcane ingredients, an exacting process that requires money and specialist tools, and possibly specialist skills or powers. This is how D&D 3.5/3.75 does it. Mechanic: you need some way of calculating the cost of the item, since it is cost, not Xp that is the controlling mechanic for creating items. Cost can be simple gold, or it might require the acquisition of strange materials (ie: time and danger, not money). You may also want to require that the creator(s) has/have the skill to physically make the item - whitesmithing to make armor, woodcarving to make a staff, etc, and you might also want a specific item creation skill (an "Xp tax" on item creation). You'll need to decide how you want to define how long the process takes. Here you could choose to generate some sort of complexity number, or you could just riff off how long the physical item takes - if it takes a half hour (say) to carefully scribe a magic scroll then any scroll takes half an hour, regardless of content. In that case, it'd take longer to carve and craft a wand than write a scroll, and longer still to craft a suit of magical armour: it's the physical medium that counts, not the content. What design decisions you make here will affect your "look and feel". Are there magic stores where you can just go and buy a tail feather from a phoenix? Or do you need to personally travel (or hire someone to physically travel) to the fabeled desert known as the Anvil of the Sun, to steal one? In the first case, most adventurers will have multiple magic items, and you can expect them to make their own since items are usually better than money. In the second case, not so much. Pros: Familiar to people from D&D, not tied to any specific style of magic Cons: requires a lot of design decisions, which may have unexpected consequences down the line for the game. Regardless of the system you choose, you also need to decide how you want to handle mechanical issues, such as item stacking: how many magic items can a person acquire/use at once, and how they interact with his own powers - does magical armour stack with defensive spells, for example? As I noted in another recent post, think first about the feel you want, then build mechanics to fit. It's a lot easier than starting out with mechanics and then trying to assemble a coherent system from that. cheers, Mark

I was going to write what both Lucius and NuSoardGraphite have written: so I'll just note that I agree. If you have a problem with RSR, just don't require it. That said, I have required it for most forms of magic in games spanning many years and it has never been a problem simply because there are so many ways to mitigate high penalties - high skill rolls are just one way and not always the most effective. But - if I may be so bold - y'all seem to be going about this bass-ackwards. Instead of discussing mechanics, I have found that the best way to start designing a magic system (or anything, actually) in Hero system is to start with "look and feel", and then build the system to fit. Right now, reading the comments here, I haven't the faintest idea of what your proposed magic system will look like ... which makes proopsing mechanics difficult, if not impossible. I'd suggest some discussion instead of what your prosped magic system will look and feel like. Is it a D&D 3.5/Pathfinder style system where magic use is restricted to specialists, and requires resource management, but experienced casters can know many spells, routinely travel between planes, create pocket universes, stop time, etc? Is it a Runequest-style system where magic is universal, and pretty much everyone knows a bit of magic, but truly powerful reality-altering effects are very rare? Do you want magic to be a routine affair, where spells don't malfunction and spell X always produces effect Y, or do you want a Mage-style game where what magic can do is flexible and magic is potentially dangerous to use? Do you want mages to primarily be scholarly types full of arcane knowledge, or do you want them to mostly be helicopter gunship equivalents? Do you want to split magic into "Arcane" and "Divine", into different schools, or just have one style? Do you want all mages to have mostly the same spells, or do you want them to be specialists by default? etc. Once you have agreed on what you want magic to look and feel like, then building the system should be relatively straightforward. cheers, Mark

Like the others here, I've used all sorts of things: old D&D modules, ideas from books, films and comics, etc. Waaay too many to mention specifically. I've also used plenty of Hero stuff, pretty much regardless of genre: take a sci-fi robot, call it a golem and give it another description - ta da! Ready to go. Take a superhero, do the same and it makes a great monster to challenge a party with. Ninja, samurai, super-agents ... I've certainly lifted stuff from sourcebooks like Valdorian Age or Monsters, minions, etc. But for adventures it's pretty much all non-hero stuff because that's pretty much all there is and honestly, converting stuff is pretty simple ... once you have a bit of experience. cheers, Mark

Actually, I'd say the exact opposite is true: capturing the tone and style of a setting is one thing, but one of the beauties of Hero system is that I can look at an NPC/items/power and know pretty much instantly where it will sit in the game and what effects its introduction will have. I routinely take items or NPCs from one setting (say a science fiction setting) change the description and use it directly as is, no problems. In contrast, in D&D, almost everything is an exception: how it works is defined by the description, not by a specific rules mechanism. That makes it possible to take two powers that by themselves are more or less useful and combine them to make "super-smacky". Example: my current PC took a feat that extends his threatened area - and he has a manuever that allows any movement in his threatened area to trigger an attack of opportunity. Either thing is innocuous enough by itself, but the two combined provide what's now popularly called "the zone of death" around my PC. It's almost impossible to pass into or retreat out of, without taking a beating. Add to that the fact that he has two other ways to trigger AoOs, and he becomes literally lethal to get close to. That's just one of many examples: there's literally millions of potential combinations, so understanding how every single one of them interacts with all the others is beyond any human brain. cheers, Mark

Haven't heard about that one, but a ship was quarantined in Italy (Genoa) when it was detected as emitting unsafe levels of radiation. It took robots about a year to pick through nearly 25,000 tons of scrap metal on board to find the source .... a cobalt-90 rod about 20 centimetres long and 1 cm thick (say, about 8 inches long by a third of an inch thick). It's nasty stuff. I don't recall the exact number but safe exposure time at close range was just a few minutes. cheers, Mark

For "classic" fantasy dwarves, I've always thought the heaviest armour available, a big shield, a short, heavy stabbing spear or halberd, backed up with a heavy broad stabbing blade. All pretty well suited to close quarter fighting.In the second rank, a few dwarves with arbalests to shake up enemies out of sword range, by shooting out gaps in the shield wall. When fighting dwarves on their home ground, I'd basically expect to see a wall of shields and armour with spiky things pointing out through the gaps and occasional glimpses of beard . cheer, Mark

Oh, true enough - but to be fair, the mongol bow has gained some fame for exactly the same reason, despite the fact that it's essentially identical in both power and use to the bows used by the people they fought. It was mongol discipline, tactics and leadership that was the deciding the factor. But you'll find plenty of rhapsodising about the "mongol bow" if you look online, or in books. The same with the longbow: while it is true that other European countries used bows en masse, none of them could draw on such a huge corp.s of trained archers (and to be fair, the Longbow was also technically superior to the smaller selfbows more generally used). Agincourt is a classic example: despite the fact that the French army was significantly larger than the English, our best estimates are that they fielded significantly fewer archers/crossbowmen. The fact that the English army was predominantly archers, naturally cast the spotlight on them after the battle. cheers, Mark

Ah the joy of weapons minutæ! Smallsword can be confusing. The light fencing weapon that goes by that name today is not the same as the earlier double-edged weapon often called a smallsword (which is why the modern version of it used to be called a "True small sword" or a "Court sword" (also town sword, walking sword, etc, etc). Earlier, the name "smallsword" was often used for lighter piercing/slashing swords carried by infantry, as opposed to the knights' swords or heavier hacking or stabbing infantry blades - and it's that general class of sword that the rapier apparently evolved out of. In English it was also called a "Short sword" - not to be confused with things like the gladius or spatha, or occasionally a "Backsword" (though this covered a pretty wide range of infantry swords) or if you are a real sword geek, an Oakshott Type XVa Sigh. As moderns, we are used to thinking that things have specific names, but in medieval times, nomenclature was a bit more freeform. Most of us think that a "Flamberge" is a two-handed sword, but the truth is that the word was also used widely to describe ... yes, that's right, an early version of the rapier! All of which is a bit beside the point - in general, I think we agree that having 6 buddies close alongside stabbing things is better than stabbing them on your own. As to the original comment, I think the point was that the longbow gained its renown due to its use by massed archers rather than any vast technical superiority over other powerful bow types. A point oft overlooked is that the English longbow also typically fired a much heavier arrow than composite or self bows from the same area, trading penetrating power for overall range. regards, Mark

Actually Spanish school fencing has its origins in the Rodeleros - sword and buckler soldiers who supported the pikemen ... and who fought in close order. They were a great deal of the reason the Spanish army was so feared in the early 1500's. Their job was to work alongside or even in the pike block and when the pikemen clashed with the enemy pikes, the Rodeleros would dart into the fray. Up close - very close - and personal, their light thrusting swords were far more usable than the pike or the halberds carried by the front-liners of their opponents. The rapier after all, is primarily a thrusting weapon, well suited to use in the press. And the modern rapier evolved out of the older smallsword, at least in part for the need for a greater reach in the press. So ... Cheers, Mark

So ... a small, smart object, rather than a big, dumb object? cheers, Mark

Actually, history is full of medieval or ancient cities plonked down in deserts: Petra, Palmyra, Agadez, Zaoula, etc. Some of these cities sprang up around oases in the desert: an oasis in the middle of a desert is pretty valuable real estate, so it makes sense to set up on top of it and defend it. But Petra does not even have a sizeable oasis: the Nabateans built aqueducts to carry in water and tried to capture every drop of rain from the infrequent storms that blow in across the desert, and the sparse winter rains. They dug cisterns and drains to extract as much water as they could from the run-off from the surrounding mountains. All of these cities outgrew the ability of the local area to produce enough food and all of them suffered from water shortages to a greater or lesser degree. But they thrived anyway, because they were not built on local resources but were built on trade. Agadez and Zaoula were part of the thriving trans-saharan gold/slave trade in medieval times (and you can’t get much more arid than “in the middle of the Sahara”) and became so wealthy that they imported much of their labour force: echoes of today’s Gulf petro-states. Palmyra sits in the middle of the Syrian desert and for centuries was a stopping place for east-west caravans heading from the Med. to the Euphrates. The Babylonians called it Mari, the Romans alternately allied with, and fought with the Palmyrans and it was still going strong under the caliphate. Petra had a shorter lifespan, but served the same function for trade passing from the Red Sea to the Med. These trade cities didn’t exist despite the arid terrain, but because of it. They were places of respite from the surrounding deserts. But of course, once the trade dried up, the natural rigors of the area meant that people just left: these cities could not support themselves without trade. Medieval Zaoula is just a heap of dusty dried bricks today. Petra, before being resuscitated by tourists, became a small town, but as the work to keep the water collection systems functional was too much for them, was gradually abandoned to wandering pastoralists. Palmyra survived as a backwards little town, because after all, it still had an oasis, but even today, the ruins occupy a larger area than the town itself. Just as I noted earlier with regard to underground cities, humans will build anywhere. Underground cities, floating cities, cities in the middle of deserts, cities on mountaintops, cities in jungles: the only thing fantasy has given us that history hasn’t, is flying cities and that’s only because we could not get them to stay up J Cheers, Mark

Here's another picture: the basic concept is the same - a recent incident from one of our games. The main reason for the image though was me trying to work with light emitters. Once I'd done that, I thought to try and jazz the image up with some motion blur, make it more dynamic ... I dunno if it worked, but I learned some stuff cheers, Mark

Which was why it wasn't in my build I was referring to the build above mine - sorry if that was unclear! Cheers, Mark

All honey badgers are dire, so it's included in the basic stat.s I'm also reminded of the conversation from the Goblins webcomi: Fighter: "Summon Celestial Badger? Seriously?" Cleric: "Give me a break - I'm only level 2" cheers, Mark

The problem with "no range modifier" is that you still have to be able to hit the hex you are aiming at. The major trouble is, you don't know where that hex is going to be. And you can't actually see it, necessitating some additional sense power. The victim could open his email at home in Iowa - or on plane 10,000 metres above Germany. He could do it 5 minutes from now or he could do it 2 days from now. You could assume that the trigger goes off when the mail is read, and that you then perform your triggering action and target his location, but then you are in houserule territory (it would want to be a clearly defined houserule, as trigger doesn't currently work that way, and frankly we wouldn't want it to, in most cases, because it opens up some rather abusive builds. As the rules currently stand, you have to define where the power goes off when you set your trigger. See second to last last paragraph 6E1, page 351) The fact that you don't know what area you are going to have to target is the major reason for the area effect approach. That way you don't need to know in advance where they are going to be: they are already in the target zone, when you set the trigger. As minor asides, you neither need, nor want, delayed effect, since that is only for games where characters can only have a limited number of powers active at any one time. You are also going to need both megarange and indirect to be able to reach your target unless you only email people physically close to you. Last of all, I'd also drop "Character does not control activation of personal Trigger", since that's for powers you cannot yourself control: if you have it here, it means you fireball some, any or all of the people you email: you don't get to decide who or when. Last of all, you can save some points by dropping the zero phase action on trigger. Since you have to write and send the email you are going to be using a phase or two: so it gains you nothing significant. If I understand what you might have been going for - a power where you personally attack the victim immediately they open the mail, rather than setting a trigger that they then set off, you could do so with a detect power allowing you to identify when and where the mail had been opened. You could then attack that site. You could use a zero phase or even a free action trigger to do that, but it gains you very little: you still have to have a phase (6E1, page 350) meaning it would not work if you were asleep, or unconscious, had just acted, etc). If you are going that route, all you really need is a detect and a power with indirect and megarange. cheers, Mark

I actually used something like this in the last campaign. Not all spellcasters were inherently evil, but there was a style of magic (employing a multipower) which tended to push some of them that way. The multipower allowed casters who used that style of magic to "tap" significantly more power (active points) than ordinary spellcasters, but it required a skill roll and on a failed roll, the caster got hit with a transform. Depending on their patron (casters using this style of magic had an otherworldly patron who could teach them spells) the transform would affect Body, Soul or Mind, gradually warping them physically or mentally. They could acquire strange physical deformations (tentacles, extra eyes, extraplanar holes in their body that housed parasitic creatures, etc), mental quirks leading to madness or vulnerabilities to holy objects, ability to see things that might or might not actually be there etc. Essentially, the transform represents accumulated eldritch debt. Users of this style of magic could avoid (or at least delay) their transformation in several ways. 1. Moderation. Don't use magic too much, and don't try to cast too powerful spells. As long as you can make your spell skill rolls, you're OK. Of course, few mages can do this: the whole point of this style of magic is access to gonzo power levels, after all. And the ease of boosting up spells in your multipower, tempts users to push it to the limit - or a bit beyond 2. Scapegoating. If you can persuade someone to accept your eldritch debt, you can "heal" the transform damage by giving it to them. If you do this early on, your scapegoat might not even take any harm from it, especially if they are not a spellcaster themselves. They will, however, be psychically marked, by the eldritch debt they are carrying, which at the very least exposes them to the interest of extraplanar creatures 3. You can "heal" the transform damage by accepting a task from your patron. These tasks are almost always odd, usually distasteful and occasionally dangerous. The more eldritch debt you have, the worse the task is likely to be. This system meant that sorcerors using this style of magic were frequently accused of being demon worshippers, and even if they were not (strictly speaking) evil, at the very least were considered mad, bad and dangerous, simply because they often had to perform bizarre tasks. You might not want to burn down that orphanage, but if you are starting to go blind from magic use, you might feel like you have no choice. Anyway, it worked really well. It made this style of magic risky and pretty sketchy, but half the PCs ended up learning this style of magic simply because it was so powerful and flexible compared to the standard "safe" styles of magic (which used a VPP or spells bought straight). The good thing is I didn't have to deal with problems about "evil". Spellcasters of this style behaved in ways - of their own free will - that made them highly suspect, if not outright hated. That meant in turn isolation, hiding your magic use, and hanging out with fellow cultists were perfectly logical ways for these mages to behave, which just made them even more suspect regards, Mark

Sweet!