4e Fan Creations and House RulesWorking on variant powers? Statting up a PC race or your version of a monster? Creating or converting an adventure? Put it here!
This is a super-power themed game that uses 4e mechanics to make a simpler, classless, more fast paced, and easier to pick up game. No RPG is perfect, but so many of the good ones feel too limiting or too complicated or both. Heroes of Legend is my attempt to make an alternative that bridges those problems. I have taken systems, rules and abilities from many games and combined them in a way that I feel is easy to learn and use and that is also a solid system in terms of the math behind it.
The basic premise of this game comes from the movie Unbreakable, where Samuel L. Jackson’s character proposed that comic books are exaggerated tales of real people that were extraordinary. The characters in this game, for whatever reason (up to you and/or the GM) have abilities greater that normal humans, but they aren’t unlimited.
This game uses the 4e system as a base, so conditions, ability scores, traits (feats), skills and most of the under lying math are derived from it. You will need a 4e Player’s Handbook to play Heroes of Legend since a lot of terms and system elements are derived from it and fully explained therein. Most campaigns I have been in have utilized house rules, and this system was designed with that in mind (see the Game Master’s section for more details).
Like in 4e your characters are the “heroes” or main characters of the story, but unlike 4e they don’t just choose a power-tree to follow, instead they are capable of improving in many directions simultaneously. You create your character from scratch, then build them however you want them, and they can exist in any setting, world or time line.
If you have any feedback please let me know here or at nerdoflegend@yahoo.com. I haven't been able to get a group together to play test it yet, but several longtime gamers I know gave it an OK and I've made several characters and things seem to balance well.
I have attached the basic rules (version 1.6 now), a (very) rough character sheet, a quick reference page, two enemy sheets and a combat tracker page.
Last edited by invokethehojo; 10th December 2008 at 04:04 PM..
Reason: updates
After looking around the fan creation threads it looks like I'm not the only one to try something like this, a super-hero type off shoot of 4e. So to save you some time Heroes of Legend is similar to 4e but simpler. The game is also easy to modify, so making house rules (or incorporating old rules like disarming or tripping) should be easy.
Also, utilizing some of the included house rules examples, HoL could easily be simple enough that kids could pick it up fairly quickly (In fact I wrote this with the premise of starting my kids into RPG’s with it). Or maybe this could be a good stepping stone to teach new players the 4e mechanics without getting them bogged down in all the detailed powers, magic items and condition tracking of 4e.
If you like 4e and don't find it overly complicated then this might not be for you, but give it a read, maybe you'll get some good ideas out of it.
Last edited by invokethehojo; 1st December 2008 at 09:01 PM..
Pros
- I like the no AC part. I think that the SWSE use of reflex as AC is wonderful.
- Cover/Concealment changes are good.
- RAM to hit/damage is good.
- I love supers. I don't truly think that the encounter/daily part of 4e lends itself well to a genre where the daily power of a character is the characters whole idea, but, so be it
Cons
- Initiative bonuses for order takes some of the fun out of it.
- Energy resistance is underpowered. Energy Aura might be underpowered, too, IMO.
- Various powers ranges are too short. The superheroes in the world that max most of these at every single turn would only have about 200 ft range... powers included: ESP, Sense Ability, Telepathy, Teleport, etc.
What I find sort of funny is that Bonded weapon is level in miles
- Regeneration should also get an additional healing surge, IMO.
Mixed
- I think that no opportunity attacks will make the game go faster, though it does suspend reality a bit at times and make casters much faster... What about making certain things that SHOULD provoke an opportunity to attack have that in their descriptions specifically?
- Second Wind as a move is alright. I think the bonus to defenses as a move is a bit overpowered, and a few people already have the ability to do it faster. i'm torn on this one.
- A Flat XP advancement is a bit weird for most people. It shoudl generally take longer to hit higher power levels as the gaps between then in power get bigger...
- Action points refreshing at every encounter is good. Getting another action point at every level is unbalanced if both are used. That means that a level 10 person (who only needs the 10 XP to get to level 11) can use 10 action points per encounter, of which there might be many, and it only gets more out of hand as the levels go on... What about every other level? Or what about a power that lets you get additional action points?
Good job on the writeup. I look forward to seeing any additions/changes that you make.
Ok, I did version 1.2 and made a few changes based on some observations and caml's advice (thanks caml). I have updated my answers to his questions, and edited them to reflect changes in version 1.2.
I love supers. I don't truly think that the encounter/daily part of 4e lends itself well to a genre where the daily power of a character is the characters whole idea, but, so be it.
+ I put those restrictions there to make sure characters weren’t too powerful and to keep in an element of strategy. But one thing I like about using a simple system like this is that as long as you change things across the board the game stays equal. So if you want teleport to be at will then go for it, just make sure it's like that for everyone.
Energy Aura might be underpowered IMO.
+ I don't know, a play test may tell. It does lower damage than other powers, but can hit multiple targets, and with extras can either expand to burst 2 (which i think is pretty powerful) or can put conditions on multiple targets... again, a playtest would help here.
- Various powers ranges are too short. The superheroes in the world that max most of these at every single turn would only have about 200 ft range... powers included: ESP, Sense Ability, Telepathy, Teleport, etc.
+I used those ranges because they fit within a standard battle mat and they were close to 4e weapon ranges, but again, house rule it however you want.
- Regeneration should also get an additional healing surge, IMO.
+ I can see your point but when would you aquire that healing surge? I want to be careful to not create powers that everyone wants to take 1 rank in because it is so obviously beneficial (see d20 Modern and the Fast characters defense bonus).
- Second Wind as a move is alright. I think the bonus to defenses as a move is a bit overpowered, and a few people already have the ability to do it faster. i'm torn on this one.
+I did this purely because when playing 4e I would constantly here players say "I need to use my second wind, but I'm not going to because I don't want to sit there for a round doing nothing."
- A Flat XP advancement is a bit weird for most people. It should generally take longer to hit higher power levels as the gaps between then in power get bigger...
+Your probably right on this one, but I did this on my own in my free time so I decided not to go crazy on details and mostly just try to get it finished. I welcome ideas.
- Action points refreshing at every encounter is good. Getting another action point at every level is unbalanced if both are used. That means that a level 10 person can use 10 action points per encounter, of which there might be many. What about every other level? Or what about a power that lets you get additional action points?
+I’m thinking of players using AP's to use extras, which at 10th level means they can do 10 unique attacks or moves, which feels right for a high level character. However, players might use them in ways I haven't fully thought of. A playtest would help to clarify, may 1 per level is too much.
I'm close to getting a group at my local nerd store to play test Heroes of Legend, then I can see how some of these rules work and what is good/bad about them.
Thank you for the constructive feedback.
I didnt track all the changes (sorry) but most of them revolved around house rules. I made shifting and opportunity attacks the norm and put my alternate in as a house rule.
Last edited by invokethehojo; 1st December 2008 at 09:05 PM..
I'd also like to mention something, the leveling system in HoL is a little different. It doesn't have any nuances really, but I think it makes up for that in that players can us XP to gain new abilities very frequently. If you break it down 10 XP to get to each new level, and 1 XP per encounter a campaign goes like this...
Average of 2 encounters per play session= 50 sessions to max out XP*
Average of 3 encounters per play session= 34 sessions to max out XP*
Average of 4 encounters per play session= 25 sessions to max out XP*
(* assuming you start at 1st level)
Some people might find this too short (In 4e I think the general estimate is 75 sessions to reach 30th level with 4 encounters per session on average) but I find that my players don't want to stick with characters forever, they like trying new and different things. In fact, I have a hard time getting players to stick with one campaign or character for longer than 5 or 6 sessions. If this isn't the case for you, or you simply don't like the leveling system, feel free to house rule things and make them different however you see fit. Over the years we mostly just had the house rule of leveling up every other game session.
Last edited by invokethehojo; 1st December 2008 at 09:05 PM..
I disagree on a few points with my own Supers ambitions, namely I love At-Will/Encouter/Daily (reskinned as Page/Chapter/Issue or something similar, cant decide on the terms).
it clearly makes it so heros in the RPG act like heroes on the page, they don't just go in and blow their dailies constantly, they have to use their At-Wills for most attacks.
I also like Reflex because I don't want to fiddle with Resistance to simulate sloe bricks who resist normal weapons but don't often negate Reflex attacks totally.
Basically added a paragraph in the introduction that explained my outlook a little more. I moved the Delay and Ready action changes to the house rule section, and I also added several more example house rules.
Last edited by invokethehojo; 3rd December 2008 at 04:21 PM..
I'm finally getting a group around to playtest this, and I don't want to mess with all the checks for increased skills (jumping, swimming and climbing) so I'm thinking up a house rule. It's pretty easy to just say that for each rank in climbing or swimming your climb or swim speed goes up by one (so three ranks in climb means you have a climb speed of 3)... However jumping isn't so easy. I think I'll say that for every rank in jump you get a jump speed of 1 horizontally and 1/2 vertically, so with 4 ranks in jump you can jump 4 squares horizontally and/or 2 squares vertically.
Ok, version 1.5 just went up. Fixed a few typos and clarified a few things. Changed the extras for Strike and Melee Weapon a bit. Changed Second Wind to drop the +2 to defenses (since there could be multiple second winds in 1 encounter). Added some more house rules, including updated rules for tripping and disarming.
Ok, I found a group to playtest my game and we begin soon... might have to wait till after the holidays. It's an apocalyptic modern campaign. I found a few more errors and things that needed fixing (deleted the Multi-tasker trait entirely... what was I thinking?) so version 1.6 is up. Also fixed the character and enemy sheets a little. I won't bother putting anymore versions up here till I run a few sessions and see how it goes.
With such a detailed and thorough argument he has totally deflated my hopes and dreams.
"Doesn't feel very super"... those words will haunt me forever.
With such a detailed and thorough argument he has totally deflated my hopes and dreams.
"Doesn't feel very super"... those words will haunt me forever.
I'm not attacking you or your work, relax, it's a summary of how I feel about it, which is all I had time for at the time.
Here is some commentary then:
-20 points for abilities seems low for a supers game, still in the normal range of D&D characters really.
-This is further hampered by your ability score cap, which restricts players from having truly "super" scores.
-"maximum rank in an ability"; seems very 3e and not 4e. Also not very heroic to limit the character in such a way, if I want to put all my points in teleport or regenerate for example let me.
-for trying to keep things simple, several new terms are introduced.
-taking multiple second winds is very heroic, fits the genre.
-not going to comment on all of the powers, but regeneration could actually give regeneration?
-dice scale: seems unnecessary, why not allow the buying of more dice instead of scaling automatically?
-The Super Ability bonuses seem better suited to extras and unnecessarily complicated to remember if I have multiple super scores
-extras seem like they could be purchased instead of being restricted to one/level.
-traits: see above.
-having to build the opponents from scratch seems like a lot of work(very 3e), suggestions on reflavoured monsters from 4e would have been a nice touch, or some standard foes of each type at levels 1-3.
In summary there are too many restrictions on what I can build as a character inherent in the system. Your suggestions at the end help, but to make it do what I want would require some large rewrites.
So too many restricitons= Doesn't feel very Super.
Sorry. I don’t use EnWorld much anymore because I see so many people who only want to flame and complain, so that’s what I thought you were doing. I apologize.
I wrote up a detailed response to your post but my computer crashed and I lost it. I hope I can say it all again correctly.
This past week your post and comments from my soon-to-be playtesters have made me realize just how bad a communicator I can be. I thought I had explained my vision of this game but I can see now that I needed to be more clear.
I like super-hero games, but, in my experience, they are too over the top to be serious and hard to define in terms of a battle mat and other things. When I started writing HoL I wanted characters to have powers that they developed and that defined who they were and what role the played in a group… which to me seemed similar to a super hero type character. But I wanted them to still be vulnerable and very human so they would still be interesting to play and not apart from the rest of humanity. I chose the term “super-themed” to describe this.
I envision this game allowing you to play a campaign in a largely normal world where characters stand out from the normal populace because have incredible abilities that allow them to shape world events. But they are still people, they still have to eat & sleep, they still need shelter from the cold, and they still must rely on their wits to get them through tough situations.
The leveling dynamic in HoL is designed to start characters off as barely better than the average person, and eventually bring them to a very powerful position… but one that is still vulnerable to large numbers of average persons. This way the players always have to keep in mind their place in the setting, they can’t just forget how they effect the world around them, because that world can still come back and bite them.
I suppose a more apt analogy would be to liken HoL characters to characters from martial arts movies, like “Hero” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. Above normal, but still firmly anchored in the normal world.
I hope that clarifies what I intended this game to be.
I’ll address some of your comments that weren’t covered by the above explanation.
-"maximum rank in an ability"; seems very 3e and not 4e. Also not very heroic to limit the character in such a way, if I want to put all my points in teleport or regenerate for example let me.
That was purposeful. My goal in creating HoL was to use 4e as a base, but combine it with elements from other d20 games. These other elements have the benefit of being playtested (albeit in a different context) and players will also probably be familiar with them.
As far as your other concern: I always felt one of the drawbacks to super games was that characters were usually one sided. HoL isn’t intended for true super hero characters, and I like that it makes well rounded characters the norm (this also keeps it similar to 4e so it’s not a totally different experience).
-for trying to keep things simple, several new terms are introduced.
I wanted to keep my powers separate from 4e powers, so I called them abilities. This kind of thing happened a few times.
-not going to comment on all of the powers, but regeneration could actually give regeneration?
If you can find a way of doing this that doesn’t destroy the healing surge/short rest mechanic let me know. This was the best solution I could come up with.
-dice scale: seems unnecessary, why not allow the buying of more dice instead of scaling automatically?
Either one would work, I just chose this way because I don’t like rolling and adding up a handful of d6’s every round.
-The Super Ability bonuses seem better suited to extras and unnecessarily complicated to remember if I have multiple super scores
They are extras actually, I just seperated them for organization purposes. At the beginning of the extras column I state this.
-extras seem like they could be purchased instead of being restricted to one/level.
They are purchased actually. Reread the extras section, you’ll see that you have to buy them (2 points a piece) but you can only have as many as you have levels.
-traits: see above.
You could easily make traits purchasable, I just did it this way to emulate the feat mechanic. If you wanted to make them purchasable you would have to assign them costs.
-having to build the opponents from scratch seems like a lot of work(very 3e), suggestions on reflavoured monsters from 4e would have been a nice touch, or some standard foes of each type at levels 1-3.
As I make enemies for my playtest I’ll post them here. I found that when I DM’ed 4e I constantly forgot enemies powers so I usually ended up rebuilding them anyway so this method doesn’t bother me. Also, it allows for house rules to be implemented easier, since the rules are the same for everyone, when a house rule change something everyone is still equal.
Ok, first off, let me admit that I have only skimmed some of the comments on this thread. I have 2 children under 4, so it gets hard to focus on any one thing most of the time. So I apologize if I restate something that has already been posted or if it's in any other way apparent that I hadn't read the thread thoroughly.
First, I'd like to comment on c_m2008's post
Quote:
-20 points for abilities seems low for a supers game, still in the normal range of D&D characters really.
I kind of agree with this, but I'm also aware that a super-super comic books style setting was not the goal here. More of a mild super-heroes setting a bit like the Heroes TV show.
Quote:
-This is further hampered by your ability score cap, which restricts players from having truly "super" scores.
I agree with removing the caps. I think it would be much simpler to just remove the ability score caps and then not bother with super-ability scores as a power
Quote:
-"maximum rank in an ability"; seems very 3e and not 4e. Also not very heroic to limit the character in such a way, if I want to put all my points in teleport or regenerate for example let me.
again I agree with the abolition of caps. I understand the designers reason for these restrictions. To maintain control and keep things from getting out of hand. But that could be easily enforced by the GM rather than the mechanics. Removing the option to min-max is too restrictive I think. I think it's better left to the GM to enforce natural consequences of having a min-maxed character
Quote:
-not going to comment on all of the powers, but regeneration could actually give regeneration?
I thought the exact same thing when I looked at this power. I don't really see it as being true regeneration. I don't think true regenartion would destroy the short rest mechanic because it would be a power that would need to be triggered rather than constant. And the healing surge would give you a bigger healing bump on top of what you're regenerating so that mechanic would be fine too
Quote:
-dice scale: seems unnecessary, why not allow the buying of more dice instead of scaling automatically?
I don't think the dice scale is complicated. But I do like the idea of buying more dice.
Quote:
-The Super Ability bonuses seem better suited to extras and unnecessarily complicated to remember if I have multiple super scores
Again, I would prefer to simply have no cap on my ability scores rather than a separate mechanic for 'super' ability scores.
Like C_M2008, there are some things I would have done differently, but that's to be expected. No game system is EXACTLY the way any player would have done it. That's why we have homebrew games. IMHO this system is fine as is, no gamebreaking flaws or bad mechanics. I think there are things that could be done to improve it, like some of the suggestions already given, but only as a matter of personal taste and preference.
Last edited by Tripgnosis; 17th December 2008 at 07:38 PM..
Ok, let me explain my thoughts on two of the above issues.
1) super ability scores. Since I'm making this system myself I don't have a large group of proven designers to help me or a bunch of people paid to playtest things. Because of this the safest route is usually the best. If there are no caps on ability scores then you'll have dudes with +20 to thier attacks rolls at level two. Min/Max characters will hit on any roll that's not a 1, so other characters will be forced to go this route to keep from getting killed... no fun.
2) regeneration. yes, you could make regeneration a power that is triggered granting true regeneration for a certain amount of time... I just couldn't think of a way of doing it that fit with other powers and seemed solid. How will you define how often it can be used, how long it will last, and how much it will regenerate without making a new mechanic? I figured this was the easiest way of doing it that fit with the existing mechanics. If you do figure out a way that everyone in your group likes, just make it a house rule.
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