From: cdr@kpc.com (Carl Rigney)
Subject: Re: Streamlining Hero
Keywords:  hero system, fantasy hero, speeding up combat
Organization: Kubota Pacific Computer Inc, Santa Clara, CA
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 06:17:02 GMT

In article <1992Sep03.140505.13256@lunatix.uucp> lmollett@lunatix.uucp (Laura Mollett) writes:
>In article <1992Aug29.090939.13438@ecst.csuchico.edu> tdunn@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tim Dunn) writes:
>>Laura Mollett writes:
>>>I'm a beginning Hero GM [asking] how to speed combat up
>I'm having some trouble making decisions between what is "reasonable" and what
>will end up being the most fun role-played.

If you want a broad swashbuckling sort of campaign;
err on the side of Fun of cinema.  Few players get upset because you
let them get away with something stylish.  "Who Dares, Wins" is my motto
as a GM.

So yep, that leap down the spiral staircase sounds pretty risky, but
assuming its a spiral with a hollow center (as opposed to a spiral
around a solid core, which is no fun), I'd let him try it.  An
Acrobatics half-move followed by either a strike or a Move-through.
Keep in mind that holding a sword on someone still leaves as much a yard
between you and them.  So he could vault over PC #1 (using him like
a vaulting horse, much to his annoyance perhaps), going over Hostage PC
and hitting a (very much) surprised Villain.  Then roll knockback on
the villain and if there's any at all, backwards he goes until you run out
of knockback or tenpins.

If Errol PC misses his attack, he's in bad shape, and if he misses his
acrobatics roll, he's in *very* bad shape.  I'd probably let him take
a minus on his acrobatics if he wanted to (depending on how flashy
he wanted to be) and give it as a bonus on his OCV.  That part's just
chrome.

But then, that assumes you want to have a flashy cinematic sort of game,
the kind the Hero System is ideally suited for.  If you want it to be
duller but more realistic, have him plummet to his doom if he misses
the acrobatics roll (with another roll to save himself on the way down by
grabbing something or (ooops!) someone).

>I know the basic rules well enough (11 plus OCV minus
>DCV - that one's not too bad :), but when we add STR for
>weapons, or combat maneuvers things seem to really bog down,
>and we end up looking stuff up in the book (ug).

One thing that's very useful is to write in the numbers for the
combat maneuvers.  If some maneuver gives +2 OCV and -2 DCV and 1.5x damage
then write in the actual numbers and then in combat all they have to do
is look and they'll see their OCV, DCV and damage dice.

One trick some players find useful is to add 11 to your OCV ahead of time,
then when you attack subtract your 3d6 roll from that and announce the
result as the DCV you hit.  That way you can tell at a glance whether
they hit or not and you only do one subtraction in combat instead of
a subtraction AND an addition.  This sounds really trivial but if your
players can do two-digit subtraction in their heads it can speed things
up.  Also they know instantly that if they roll higher than their (11+OCV)
number that they missed.

>My 2nd major problem (other than the judging stuff) is that I want to make
>combat "bloodier" (deadlier) at least for the NPC's and "faster" at the same
>time,

One excellent way of doing that, if the PCs are Heroic and not just Average,
is to reduce the stats for the rabble.  Give them 5 Body and 10-15 stun
instead of 10 Body and 20 Stun.  I use this in Champions to make the
heroes stand out more from the common herd, and it would probably work
in Fantasy Hero too.  Another tactic would be to do double or max damage
when you roll less than half of what you needed to hit.  Even bloodier
with the 11+OCV
minus 3d6 method I mentioned above, if the result is twice their DCV do
double damage, 3x DCV does 3x damage, etc.  The advantage of this over
the hit location system is that the roll to hit also determines the damage
multiplier, so you don't have to waste time making a 2nd roll and looking
up the damage on a chart.

Example.  I'm OCV 6 attacking a poor scum with DCV 3; I roll 3d6 and
subtract it from 17.  If my result is 3 or higher I hit him.  With my proposed
system above, if my result is 6 or more I do 2x damage, and so forth.
For example, if I roll an 8 then 17-8 is 9, which is triple his DCV so
he takes triple damage.

This is *very* unfair to characters with low DCV, but since those are
precisely the lowlifes you want to sweep up quickly, I view that as
a good thing.  You'll hardly ever see characters with high DCVs take
2x damage, so they'll last longer, unlike just using hit location.

>>   b) The Speed chart is nice and all, but you can condense it down to a
>>      4 SPD being max (or 6) with a minimum of work.
>I'm not sure I understand this, but it sounds like a really good idea...could
>you give me an example?

If you only allow Speed 1-4 then throw out all the segments that 2, 3, 4
can't go on, so instead of counting 1 through 12 you just do segments

3	4
4		3
6	4		2
8		3
9	4
12	4	3	2	1

In which case just renumber these as 

1	4
2		3
3	4		2
4		3
5	4
6	4	3	2	1

And voila!  You've cut your combat time in half! :-) :-)
The first time you get something moving at Speed 5 you're going to slow
way down, but since that'll cost a player 20 points its unlikely to show
up for a loooong time (with luck).

>I do this.  But only one of the PC's really knows the system, and the others
>forget what you have to add and subtract.  That'll get better, I suppose.

This is the advantage to the modified system I stated above.
Everyone just has to remember one number and subtract 3d6 from it.

--
Carl Rigney
cdr@kpc.com

"A really skilled GM runs an adventure intuitively, primarily from the
mind and imagination alone and that what props and aids she uses exist
more to support her and give her confidence than to actually structure
the adventure or campaign, which stays fixed as a concrete image, real
in her mind." -- David Nalle