Markdoc

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance True ... and yet actually not true at all. It is true that assigning an absolute scale, that everyone can agree on - this is 19, that is 20, that is 21, is impossible. It's equally impossible for DEX, or CON, or indeed, any other stat. So arbitrariness is a feature of characteristics in general, not COM specifically On the other hand, anyone one who doubts that physical attractiveness (or perceived lack thereof) is a very real, quantifiable effect, and that it has a significant flow on effect on all sorts of of social interactions, is frankly, not living in the same world I am. After all, to take your own question ... Chris Hemsworth or Chris Christie? George Clooney or George Raymond? Kate Moss or Kate Smith? You might not get 100% agreement, but you are likely to get 90%+. Who was stronger: Muhammed Ali or Sugar Ray Robinson? Hard call. Does that mean that we should dump STR? I'm thinking not. cheers, Mark

Re: Multimedia Examples of Stats in Action, Vol. I: COM/Striking Appearance Not sure I get your point here. COM (or Striking appearance, if you prefer) clearly affects any kind of social interaction, even something as mundane as getting a bank loan (call it a Bureaucratics roll, if you like). This point is basically beyond dispute: not just from my personal experience, but from the dozens of studies looking at the effect of height/weight/attractiveness on salaries, promotion, etc. If you are asking about how we'd translate those clips to skills, I'd say the first is COM and the second PRE. If, on the other hand, your point was just to post videos of Cameron Diaz ... well, by all means, carry on! cheers, Mark

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance Right. It's hard to argue that COM wasn't simply a modified version of PRE, because really, that's mostly how it functioned (mostly, not entirely: the math/odds are quite different if you build it that way). But you can also argue (and people did, during the 6E prep debates, some quite forcefully) that PD and ED are just modified DEF - as indeed are forcefield and armour, and that all of them should be scrapped in exchange for a single power. Again, mechanistically, it's hard to argue about that: PD and ED are just modified DEF. But you reach a point where "simplifying down" - a theoretical consideration - becomes "making more complicated" in real life. If almost all characters and objects had more or less identical PD/ED, then actually replacing them with DEF would make sense. If that's not the case (and in practice it wasn't), then forcing people to do the extra math - while not hard - is essentially a waste of everybody's time. That's where talents come in. Yes, they are mostly simply power builds. But they are commonly-requested power builds. So to me, the talents section serves as a series of examples and also as a time saver. You could make the rulebook a bit slimmer by removing talents entirely and just add a paragraph or two about building "Mundane powers or Talents" in the power section, to expand what's already there ... but the price would be a rulebook that is actually slightly less useful. cheers, Mark

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

Re: Advice for new campaign using home-brewed setting My take is that you seem to have a pretty good grasp on the magic. Some things that aren't there are the limitations extra time and concentration. As it stands, even with - for example - gestures and incantations, magic can still safely and easily be used in combat. If that's what you envisage, cool. If you want a more traditional S&S style game without armoured spellcasters slugging it out in the front line, you might want to look at those two limitations in addition. For my own FH world, all spellcasting (at least by mundane creatures)has to take 4 limitations: extra time (at least a full phase) Concentration (at least 1/2 DCV), requires a skill roll, and "uses Mana" - a custom -1/2 limitation that means that all spells must cost END (at least at the -1/4 costs end to start, level: they get an extra limitation, of course if they don't normally cost end) and that all END use for spells is LTE. This reflects the fact that in that game world, magic is an "unnatural" process (at least for humans) requiring great strength of will, years of training, and arcane knowledge to work, and is since the caster is working with his own lifeforce, physically exhausting as well. More prosaically, in-game, it limits the use of magic is stress situations like combat and also limits how long and how often magical effects can be invoked, so that casters don't overshadow other archetypes. Secondly, you don't note how characters will actually "buy" spells. Are you going to allow power frameworks? The mutable effect you describe would work well with a VPP, for example. Or will you require that spells be bought individually? Or are you not going to charge for spells at all, and hope that the skill roll will keep power levels under control? (My own experience with that approach is that it doesn't work, but you can always try ) Lastly, I'd second the note of caution with regard to things like combat luck. I personally have no problem with people buying multiple iterations of Combat luck and scorning armour. If it's good enough for the Grey Mouser, it's good enough for me. I do however, have big problems with them then piling armour on top, and ending up having the same defences as a main battle tank. A house rule I use in all my fantasy games is that "free equipment" does not stack - either with itself or with powers. So a wizard in plate harness with a forcefield gets the better of the two defences, not both added. A character with combat luck does not add it to his armour to calculate PD. Likewise a wizard can't buy (for example) "extra stun multiplier" as a naked advantage and stack it on top of a free weapon to get a cheap, very nasty attack. If he wants a very nasty attack he has to buy it. Abilities bought with points, on the other hand, do stack. Note also that powers specifically designed to affect external powers (like Aid, or Transform) still work on free equipment, so wizards can still enhance objects: it's just that they can't "incorporate" the points in free equipment into a power. cheers, Mark

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance Yeah I did. I see multiple stat.s all with about the same amount of descriptive text, all (apart from STR) with 2-3 sentences suggesting possible uses. I really, truly honestly, don't see a significant difference, and it baffles me that people continue to spout the line that there are no rules for COM. The section on CHA contains exactly as many rules on COM as it does on DEX, and that's simple fact. In the CHA description section of RAW COM got exactly as much attention as anything else - STR excepted. The difference, as I have noted is that there are no skills or secondaries based on COM - not that there are no rules for it. So yeah, it bugs the hell out of me when people say there are no rules on COM - when in fact the same amount of text and exactly the same amount of rules guidance is given as for other stat.s, STR excluded. I always assume people who state that simply haven't read the rules. The rules are pretty basic: you can allow a COM roll when appropriate. Of course that's the same rule as for CON and DEX (or PRE or INT): you can allow a CON or DEX roll when appropriate. I'm still not seeing a practical difference here. cheers, Mark

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy Right. I use LTE in my FH campaigns to keep a lid on magic use. And in the last campaign, one PC started learning a very Vancian style of magic, which in many way resembles D&D spellcasting. But those are exceptions, not rules. A scenario writer in Hero system cannot assume that characters will have use-limited capabilities: and it's hard to make any assumptions about capabilities at all. In contrast, in D&D, if you are writing a scenario for 11th-13th level characters, you can with a great deal of certitude assume that they will have at most 2-4 6th level spells per day, and no 8th level spells. This is the whole point: writing pre-prepared scenarios for D&D provides you very solid guidelines not just for what PC capabilities you can expect will be present, but equally importantly what will not be present. Hero system doesn't offer that luxury/crutch. The specific game worlds differ - Dark Sun operates under very different assumptions than Ravenloft ... but a 5th level D&D Cleric, for example, still has mostly the same capabilities, regardless of game world. In contrast, Hero system characters can vary very widely in their capabilities, even within the same game world. cheers, Mark

Re: Elven Rune Magic More to the point, the focus may be universal, but the aid is not: so giving them the rune would let them use the power - in which case the delayed effect would still affect them as normal, when they wanted to use the power. Lucius is right that the extra time takes effect when you want to use the power. Usually (for things like potions) this is gotten around by using the "trigger" advantage - you do the setup - which takes time - and use the power: but then define a trigger which will set off the power at a later point (for a potion that's usually "drink the potion"). If they're writing it with extra time but without trigger, then they are almost certainly doing it wrong: it wouldn't be the first Hero system product to contain errors, alas. cheers, Mark

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance Actually, I've seen COM used in-game, to affect Gambling and PER rolls (to be noticed, not for the PC to perceive) as well, though those are both INT-based. Not a house rule, so much as application of the RAW. Where do people get this rubbish from? Doesn't anybody actually check the rulebook before making statements like this? COM gets a half column of descriptive text on its effects - about the same or slightly more than any other characteristic (apart from STR, which has about as much text dedicated to it as all other primary stat.s combined). Yes, the text includes the phrase "are sometimes used" - but this is directly in line with the text on all of the characteristics (again, apart from STR), where it is suggested that rolls against various stats "should be used" "might be appropriate" "can be used" etc. The major difference from the other stat.s is not the vagueness of its effect (the description is no more vague than that for EGO, or INT), but the fact that it doesn't have any skills or secondaries based directly on it. cheers, Mark

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy We're going off a real tangent here, but I'm guessing part of the reason for the apparent confusion between posters is that you haven't played a lot of D&D prior to 4E (which is what most people still play). "Stunlock" is an 4E mechanism: there is not and never has been anything equivalent in earlier D&D. Nor, for that matter does "focus fire" (another MMO-style concept) really work in earlier D&D, since there is no cycling of defences, almost all of which tend to be passive in earlier versions of D&D. You can inhibit movement (much harder to do in 3.75) but lockdown builds in classic D&D typically work by punishing movement, not preventing it. And high CR singleton monsters tend to have high damage/high BAB attacks, reach, SR and/or DR, all of which negate most of the advantages of lockdown. 4E was built very much with MMO styles of play in mind. So what works in WoW, or Diablo (or 4E) does not necessarily translate to the tabletop game most people have played/are playing and think of as D&D. Maybe fore the same reason,you're also wrong about the cleric: yes, it takes him one hour to prepare his spells: but he can also only do that at a predefined time of day: once every 24 hour cycle (3.5 PHB, column 1, paragraph 4: the same is true in 3.75). The same is true of the other classes: Sorcerors don't need to prepare spells in advance, but their spells per day are defined by the table in the 3.5 PHB on page 54. Like Clerics, it only takes wizards 1 hour to prepare spells, but they need a good night's sleep beforehand (and items like a ring of sustenance that decrease the need for sleep, specifically note that they do not affect the need for 8 hour's rest before preparing spells). The spell allotments for casters are what they get per day: no more. The same language is actually used for all primary casters, where the fact that the respective casting tables give maximum output per day is specifically noted. So yes, the adventuring day is defined largely by the 24 hour spell cycle: that's where the concept came from, and why it's still valid (outside 4E). The concept of attrition is also very valid, as your own examples make clear. Yes, for sure you can blow away minions as you rise in level: that's a major design paradigm. But an equally important design paradigm is that this is attrition. Yes, you can slow down or remove a mass of minions with Blasphemy/Holy Word (design note: minions are typically character level -4 or less: above that they are regarded as level-appropriate foes). But you just used up a 7th level spell to do so, and even high level characters don't have a lot of those. That significantly degrades your capabilities for the rest of the adventuring day: especially for prepared casters - odds are good that you will have - at most - 2 of those slots loaded with Blasphemy/Holy Word and pretty good you will only have one. Again, outside 4E, attrition remains one of the defining features of D&D and D&D design (Monte Cook, in particular, talked about it at length and about how "resource management" was a crucial part of the game). An encounter chain doesn't have to follow the traditional minions -> level appropriate foes -> BBEG, to make use of attrition. You can, just as easily start out with a BBEG and then challenge the party effectively with minions, because by the time the party hits the minions, you can be certain that their resources will be severely degraded. A real life example (so to speak) comes from our current game, where a while back we ran into a single higher-CR challenge (some kind of a fey creature). It had sufficient DR that our melee types were getting just a few HP through her defences per round and sufficient SR that most lower-level spells were fizzling. In the end, we were able to drive her off with a mixture of martial attacks that avoided DR and assay spell resistance+Flamestrike to get around SR and DR. But that fight took place in the morning and cost us a couple of horses. More importantly, was the constant problem with attrition. The primary casters had used up most of their higher level attack spells and the cleric burnt off a bunch of lower level spells on healing. That gives us the choice: press on to the next village - and face any subsequent encounters at greatly decreased capacity - or return to our starting point. We pressed ahead, but a subsequent encounter with trolls - which would normally have been but a speed bump - turned into a bloody encounter, with near death for one PC, because we had burned through most of the party's magical firepower and we had to take them down in the end, in HTH combat. More importantly - to get back on track - this is a feature that D&D doesn't necessarily share with Hero system. I don't see that as a design problem, although it is something to take into account when adjusting D&D modules. The real problem with writing Hero modules is what has already been noted: there's really no such thing as "level appropriate challenges" since every party in Hero can be very different in capability. Another simple example: a ghost is a CR7 monster (and actually quite a nasty one). But if you throw it at a level appropriate party, unless you are running a very abberant D&D game, you can be pretty sure that they can affect it, because by then they are pretty much guaranteed have spells and magic weapons that affect incorporeal creatures. In contrast, in my own game, I have twice excited panic in the party by throwing a ghost at them ... and nobody, in either party, had an "affects desolid" attack. We didn't get TPK, because the scenario was set up to challenge, not kill, the party and I knew in advance that they would be unable to affect it directly. But that makes the point, I hope: what might have been a minor challenge to one party in Hero system could easily have been a TPK in another. t's why I don't think we'll ever get a useful CR-like rating. cheers, Mark

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy It depends on your situation: it's pretty silly to wrap up your adventuring day after 15 minutes, every day, as well, which is why the "15 minute adventuring day" also became a D&D trope. I don't think the "4 encounter day" (or for that matter the "15 minute adventuring day" was ever meant to be taken completely literally: it was simply a metaphor for the fact that PCs' capabilities degrade fairly swiftly with each encounter. In a recent game, for example, we had 3 encounters over the space of about an hour (game time) - but by encounter #3, something which would have been reasonably challenging at the start had become "cut and run" because most of the party had used up a substantial part of their spells/hit points. Rope trick or similar "hide up for 9 hours" tactics are not going to work in that setting. So it is fair - and more to the point it is accurate - to say that the degradation of capabilities remains a significant factor in design for games like Pathfinder (it's still present in 4e, because you use up your healing surges and daily powers, but to a lesser extent). And it fits nicely with the standard D&D trope of "building up to the boss fight": you wear the PCs out - to some extent - on minions, so that they don't overwhelm your "boss encounter" at full power. The fact that this isn't usually the case in Hero system isn't such a big deal: the GM has more scope to customise his encounters anyway. My point was simply how easy it is to "break" the challenge rating system if you operate outside outside the expected parameters. And the parameters in question are fairly rigidly restricted. In Hero system, it would be very hard indeed to put together a rating system which gave even a rudimentary idea of what to expect from the characters: I've been playing/GM'ing Hero system for nigh on 30 years and still, the only way I can do it is by actually eyeballing the characters one by one. That said, you could provide prewritten scenarios in "relative scale" format. Instead of writing "The players enter a 10x10 room with 14 Hobgoblins" and providing the hobgoblin stat.s, you could write "The players enter a 10x10 room with X number of Hobgoblins" and then write up a basic hobgoblin stat. package, with notes like "2 Hobgoblins per PC, base OCV is equal to highest PC OCV -2, PD/ED is equal to DC of highest PC attack, DCV is equal to average PC DCV, weapons are of a DC equal to 1/2 highest PC's PD", for example. You'd also need to make notes on what to do about various potentially game-breaking powers. As an example, when I put my old Sengoku era game online, each adventure included notes on how to pick up the thread from the last adventure, what could go wrong and how to fix the storyline if it did. It wasn't (couldn't be) comprehensive, but it's a start. It adds a significant extra level of complexity to writing scenarios, but it can be done. cheers, Mark

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

Re: Requesting help re: lost y cool combat chart. Hmmm. I find Sean's idea intriguing. Additionally, quite a lot of groups already use the inverted to-hit roll, which does away with the problem that an OCV advantage on the dice results in less damage on average (of course, it adds instead the problem that a good roll is both more likely to hit and will do more damage). Currently, our group uses the "high is good" attack rolls approach, and I don't have a problem with the idea that a higher roll results in more damage, since we already use a critical hit system where an '18' gives you a choice of either choosing your hit location, or doing maximum damage. This is a very much more granular approach, but the concept is not too different. As for Old Man's comment, just eyeballing the numbers, they look like they are adjusted to give roughly the same % chance across the different number of dice. cheers, Mark

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy The problem with the "1 from column X, one from column Y" approach in Hero, is that a PC with a CV of Y also doing damage of Y is more potent than a PC with a CV of Y doing damage of X. If - added to that - he has defence of Y, then he's much more potent. And if he relies primarily on mental attacks, then CV isn't very informative anyway. In a game like D20, with very-clearly defined roles, it's virtually impossible to get a high BAB, and a high AC, and a high damage output, relative to the other PCs: you have to choose one or two of those options. In Hero, it's possible, though of course you are going to have to cut somewhere. And in some ways, non-combat powers are even more problematic. If you are setting up a game for d20 levels 1-3, you can safely assume that they won't have access to flight, teleport, telepathy or high output area effect attacks. None of those things are necessarily the case in Hero system, even with 100-150 point PCs. On the other hand, if you are running a module for D20 PCs of 13th-15th level, you can pretty safely assume that they will have access to high speed overland travel, flight and/or teleport, high output area effect attacks, etc*. But none of those powers will necessarily be present in a group of 300-350 point Hero system PCs. There have been multiple attempts to set up a "rule of X" for Hero, but none of them have worked very well. Truly is it said, the price of versatility is variability. cheers, Mark *Edit: and even then, the guidelines don't always help: last weekend, after our group tore through 2 encounters that - in theory - should have been too high CR for us, I helped the GM downgrade my character. And yet on the face of it, he's not overly powerful. The reason we're out of sync with the CR system, is that I deliberately designed a character to operate outside one of the design paradigms (namely that PC capacity will degrade through multiple encounters). Hero system doesn't operate with such clear design paradigms, which means many characters will behave in ways that cannot readily be predicted from combat stat.s.

Re: What do I need? New to HERO. Oh, and it strikes me that no-one has made one important comment: that although the Hero system looks pretty complex, most of that complexity is front-loaded. Meaning it is all about character generation. Because what characters can and can't do is pretty clearly defined, I find actually running the game pretty straightforward. The combat section does repay reading through a few times to get a sense of how it's meant to run as a GM, but many of my long-time players have never "learnt" combat as such - they just tell me what they want to do, and it's easy for me to work out the results. cheers, Mark

Re: What do I need? New to HERO. Actually, I'd also note that while the Fantasy book is a good read, there's absolutely nothing in it that is essential. The same goes for the bestiary: a lot of low fantasy games don't run to vast menageries of weird-ass monsters, so that's optional too. The core books and some good ideas are all you really need to get going: the other books are luxuries that give you source material you can quickly draw on. cheers, Mark

Re: What have you used? I'd say the books that get the most use (apart from the core rulebooks) are the bestiaries and Ultimate martial artist. I've lifted some stuff from Valdorian Age and Tuala Morn, as well. In general though, I tend not to use very much as written, instead using the book materials for basic templates to save me some work, and and then simply grafting stuff on top of that. cheers, Mark

Re: A Question of Balance & Lethality This is hero system - you can call it and model it as you like. For many years before "combat luck" existed, we used a similar effect (or effects) One version - called "Toughness" or "It's only a flesh wound" worked somewhat like combat luck, but with the limitation that it did not stop the first 1 BOD of damage. Unlike combat luck, though it was reliable. Another actually called "Combat luck" or "Glancing blow" worked pretty much as combat luck does now - it prevents damage normally - but is subject to "plot effects" - so it doesn't work if you are whacked on the back of the head while surprised. It doesn't work if you have no way to avoid the force of the blow, etc. As a GM I have no problem with either of these, and they don't introduce logical problems, since for effects that require a touch, they both allow "touching". cheers, Mark

Re: Gods with Off Switches vs. Loaded Guns. DC vs. Marvel in Character Design.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested Fair enough, but it is what he said (PC1 actually posts to the board occasionally, so his name is redacted to spare the guilty ) cheers, Mark

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested PCs have (in my opinion) a natural limit on how much they can carry - which is dictated by encumbrance and common sense (a player might be able to lift and carry a pike, for example, but in many cases it's going to be problem due to its length). As noted, I (and most of the GM's I game with) keep an eye on this to avoid the leather Tardis problem. The problem with resource pools is precisely that they have nothing to do with encumbrance, or indeed, any form of carrying capacity. If you have a situation where a character can pick up, carry and use a two-handed battle axe, but not a small paper scroll "because he's got too much stuff" then it causes a logical fallacy*. You could just say "Guys, it's a game balance issue: get over it" - and one of my friends did do that for a while but the issue cropped up frequently enough that he abandoned the pool concept in the end. There are other, better ways to address the game balance issue, IMO. *We had this conversation in a cyberpunk game a few years back: PC1 "OK, you're taking an assault rifle with a grenade launcher, right? After last time, make sure to take some AP grenades." PC2 "I can't. I can carry AP grenades or fragmentation grenades but not both. Why do you think I didn't have any AP grenades last time?" PC1. "But you can carry as many frag grenades as you want?" PC2 "Up to 15, yup." PC1 "So you can carry 15 grenades, but only as long as they are the same type? That's retarded." And you know? PC1 had a point. In contrast, I've never had a problem with pointing out "Dude, that weighs 100 kilos - yes you can lift it, but you're going to burn all your LTE and be exhausted before you can walk a kilometer". Carrying capacity isn't the problem. cheers, Mark

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested I don't think the problem being discussed is so much about equipment: certainly that hasn't been a problem in most of the games we have played. I give away relatively few magic items (maybe a dozen or so in the course of the last 5 year campaign, 4 or 5 in the 4-5 year campaign before that). The flipside is that those magic items I do give away acquire great significance, but that's OK: I let the PCs get them because I want the PCs to have them. The problem from my point of view is player balance. That's always a difficult area, but in general (not always, but in general) most players will have less fun if their PC is significantly overshadowed by other PCs. (As an aside, we're having exactly this problem in our Pathfinder game: my wife confided in me after the last game that she has been considering dropping out because she was sick of her character being relegated to a support role: the GM agreed to let me rebuild her PC). It is a real issue.