Recent content by justinhalliday

Hero Kids is a D&D-style fantasy RPG for kids aged from 4 to 10 from the designer of Heroes Against Darkness. Hero Kids offers a fast and fun introduction to RPGs, perfect for younger kids who are just getting interested in role-playing games. The game is for sale as a downloadable print and...

Yep, and that's an important lesson in 'don't post angry', for which I apologize. I didn't want to make my post about my game (which is why I didn't mention it), because that isn't my actual point. What I wanted to draw attention to the fact that all of the nominally 'Free Products' are ads...

In the effort to make a point, I succeeded in only douching up the place. So I shall try to make that right. Here's what I should have written: Congratulations to all of the ENnie nominees! It's great to see a huge range of systems represented. Let the voting begin. On a personal note, it's...

Yeah, but that really penalises fighters who are closing to attack (but have no intention of moving again). Sounds pretty complicated, which is obviously what they're trying to avoid. A simpler rule would be just to change the wording of the current movement rule from this: "You can break up...

But both are supported by the RAW. The second is an unfortunate side-effect of dividing each 6-second round into its own action time. So the only way to get around it involves setting up reactions, which means that you have to drop your inititative lower.

Some egregious uses would involve: - Cycling multiple monsters/characters in and out of a narrow corridor so that all of them could get attacks at the front rank of the enemies trying to block the corridor. - Jumping monsters/characters in and out of cover (during their initiative) to make...

The thing is that the rules specifically allow the splitting of movement before and after other actions: "You can break up your movement to move both before and after your action". So this is something deliberate in the rules. I personally think that movement should be before <i>or</i> after...

It's very powerful. 4th Edition let you either approach and attack, or attack and retreat (unless you had some other pounce ability). Without Attacks of Opportunity (AoO) in the game, the Move/Attack/Move action is great for wizards to dart into the fight, attack (with their touch attack) and...

A spell points system allows you to include scaling costs for higher-power spells (and also to spent more than the minimum on a specific spell to power it up further). Spells in Vancian systems often include scaling within the spell (without increasing its actual cost), but they also give more...

I base many of the concepts for the anima system in <i>Heroes Against Darkness</i> on M:tG. So most of the spells have X costs, and the magi can put in as much anima as they can (or as much as they <i>have</i>). It's better balanced than Vancian magic because it doesn't explode in power at...

You could always drop the AC against which you're testing, or simply live with a reduced hit chance... There seems to be a gradual but clear trend to higher frequency of successful attacks. D&D Next is the most recent in this line (especially with advantage).

So true, I did a lot of work in Heroes Against Darkness to ensure that the spell-casters didn't overshadow the other classes with those sorts of game-breaking spells: Heroes Against Darkness: Remaking Magic Heroes Against Darkness: Remaking Magic: Balance Heroes Against Darkness: Remaking...

Damned right. The bell curve is in the ability score generation method (to represent the various proportions of physical ability in the population). The scale of the possible scores is linear, so that it can encompass all of the total range of capabilities, from a 40lb weakling all the way up...

So true, I did a lot of work in Heroes Against Darkness to ensure that the spell-casters didn't overshadow the other classes with those sorts of game-breaking spells: Heroes Against Darkness: Remaking Magic Heroes Against Darkness: Remaking Magic: Balance Heroes Against Darkness: Remaking...

Dammit, I thought it was dice roll or Con mod, whichever is higher! Robbed! I'll kick the wizard's player next time I see him! I had some fun, but we do make our own fun. The fast combat was good, but the boring aspects of the combat were bad (shutdown on the undead, limited tactical...