DnD Feats, GURPS Advantages, HERO Talents?

[Nightshade]

Ive been having similar feelings and problems with my Fading Suns and Dragon Star conversion games. Since both games are D20 and level systems, its hard to judge how and when a character is allowed to certain class abilities and feats.

I decided at first to take a MRG-like approach with Heroic Abilities. But really, since BRP doesnt really use a XP system I find that to be too arbitrary and never really feel players are willing to sacrifice the notion of Hero Points on small flavor advantages or feats.

After-the-fact acquisition probably should be done with training of some kind; at character generation, you probably should trade in either some skill points or some attribute points depending on the specifics of the advantage and how strong it is.

[Tywyll]

I would also submit that becoming an Agent/Champion of Law/Chaos/Balance

(or reaching Apotheosis) in Stormbringer/Elric! also granted new "feats" -

special abilities that went beyond simple percentile adds.

-V

Absolutely, as did becoming a Priest/Rune Lord (Divine Intervention) in old RQ. Joining a faith did in some cases as well (the specialist skills).

The downside to a lot of those is that some of them are overly restrictive (why could only members of one faith become Courtisans in Glorantha?) or limited to high level/high skill characters.

There should be many such abilities that are available 'out of the gate' (like ambidexterity... though I suppose that would require a decent two-weapon fighting system in BRP).

[vagabond]

Absolutely, as did becoming a Priest/Rune Lord (Divine Intervention) in old RQ. Joining a faith did in some cases as well (the specialist skills).

The downside to a lot of those is that some of them are overly restrictive (why could only members of one faith become Courtisans in Glorantha?) or limited to high level/high skill characters.

There should be many such abilities that are available 'out of the gate' (like ambidexterity... though I suppose that would require a decent two-weapon fighting system in BRP).

Hmm, I'm on the fence here. I think I prefer that you "earn" those abilities

later. One of the things I disliked about D&D3 was the whole "Feat Management

and Optimization" system. I don't mind that feats have prerequisites, nor that

you can potentially learn more than one, but getting these special heroic and/or

legendary abilities from the get go and at regular intervals seemed way too

much for my tastes.

I think that is also one of the reasons I never latched onto GURPS or HERO.

Some of the advantages were severeley overpowered, and having those

kinds of skills from the start did not appeal to me.

-V

[Simlasa]

why could only members of one faith become Courtisans in Glorantha?

I don't know a whole lot about Glorantha... but I'd guess that in a lot of fantasy/historical settings that certain professions are controlled by guilds... and that skills inherent to that profession might only be (legally) available to members of said guild. So... maybe the faith that the Courtesans in Glorantha belonged to worked the same... keeping an eye out for non-faith courtesans and either forcing them to join the club, or forcing them out of business.

[Harshax]

I don't know a whole lot about Glorantha... but I'd guess that in a lot of fantasy/historical settings that certain professions are controlled by guilds...

Remember, Glorantha was a bronze-age world. You were and did what you worship, and as such, a lot of specialized training could only be had from certain cults. You can't become a courtesan by being a member of Humakt's cult, for the same reason you can't become a farmer by being an initiate of the Storm Bull.

That's a really simple answer, but then again, I haven't run a game in Glorantha for a long, long time.

[Simlasa]

Sounds like the Gloranthan cults were almost something of a caste system... were they hereditary? Could you hop from one to the other?

It does seem like the idea of everyone being able to learn whatever he/she likes... to practice whatever skill suits their mind... is a fairly modern concept.

I like the idea of restricting skill sets as a way to delineate a culture... and era.

I'm not so big on ad/disads though... and I don't really understand what 'feats' are but they sound kind of annoying... kind of like something from an MMORPG.

[Tywyll]

Hmm, I'm on the fence here. I think I prefer that you "earn" those abilities

later. One of the things I disliked about D&D3 was the whole "Feat Management

and Optimization" system. I don't mind that feats have prerequisites, nor that

you can potentially learn more than one, but getting these special heroic and/or

legendary abilities from the get go and at regular intervals seemed way too

much for my tastes.

I think that is also one of the reasons I never latched onto GURPS or HERO.

Some of the advantages were severeley overpowered, and having those

kinds of skills from the start did not appeal to me.

-V

See it entirely depends on what they do.

Should a beginning character be able to have Rune Lord like divine Intervention? Well, maybe, depending on the story and the campaign.

I agree completely that optimization should be avoided, I do loath it. However, I disagree that /all/ such abilities, or even the majority of them (especially in Gurps or Hero) come close to unbalancing.

I mean, things like Time Keeper, Eidetic Memory, Ambidextrous, Bump of Direction, Good Swimmer, et al are hardly overpowered, but they are relavant to some concepts and allow for thinking of character aptitudes beyond simply what they've been trained to do (skills).

They also represent traits that beginning characters could have, and aren't exactly the kind of thing you 'earn'.

[Harshax]

I mean, things like Time Keeper, Eidetic Memory, Ambidextrous, Bump of Direction, Good Swimmer, et al are hardly overpowered, but they are relavant to some concepts and allow for thinking of character aptitudes beyond simply what they've been trained to do (skills).

They also represent traits that beginning characters could have, and aren't exactly the kind of thing you 'earn'.

Bump of Direction? I'll pass on that one, but Time Keeper and Eidetic Memory can both be handled with Idea rolls. If the GM agrees, he can let Time Keeping be a skill, to reflect those with a knack but poor INT. Eidetic Memory is a strange one, because it implies a character will remember everything their told/experienced. But the way I see, INT isn't just about capacity for facts, its capacity for paying attention long enough to listen to them. Anyone that wants to play Rainman should just take notes or to hell with them.

All in all, as I told frogspawner, feats aren't important in and of themselves. They're only important if the reality of the gameworld makes them important. So while I balk in general at the idea of creating feats, its not because I'm against anything that isn't a d100 skill, or dirived characteristic roll, its because my default gameworld; the one I perceived when asked to evaluage something new; doesn't call for them. So I'll bow out of this conversation, because clearly there are some people who do like them and want them, and those of us who don't want them (regardless why) are just crowding their workspace.

[Agentorange]

Sounds like the Gloranthan cults were almost something of a caste system... were they hereditary? Could you hop from one to the other?

Not so much castes as the fact that certain cultural groups had a tendency to worship certain pantheons so you got skill sets available depending on that pantheon. Also people had a tencency to worship deities associated with their profession or lifestyle, or was it that they had a particular life style depending on which deity they worshipped ?

So take a cultural group like the Orlanthi ( think hill dwelling, storm worshipping barbarians and you're pretty near the mark )

The warriors and Thanes tended to worship Orlanth ( big storm god ) himself in one of his forms and so then tended to get spells like Lightning Bolt, Fly etc etc and all sorts of martial skills. Whereas a farmer might worship Barntar the ploughman and get skills like animal husbandry and spells like Bless Plough. Hardly the stuff of heroic adventuring I'll grant you but it filled a social niche. Add in the fact that until fairly recently in real world history social mobility was a dream for most people. Not so much a formal caste system as such more of a case that you learnt what was useful to you in your place in society.

[vagabond]

See it entirely depends on what they do.

Should a beginning character be able to have Rune Lord like divine Intervention? Well, maybe, depending on the story and the campaign.

I agree completely that optimization should be avoided, I do loath it. However, I disagree that /all/ such abilities, or even the majority of them (especially in Gurps or Hero) come close to unbalancing.

I mean, things like Time Keeper, Eidetic Memory, Ambidextrous, Bump of Direction, Good Swimmer, et al are hardly overpowered, but they are relavant to some concepts and allow for thinking of character aptitudes beyond simply what they've been trained to do (skills).

They also represent traits that beginning characters could have, and aren't exactly the kind of thing you 'earn'.

Ambidexterity, in my experience, was pretty substantial.

And, I disagree - all of those traits can be learned. I knew a kid in high

school who taught himself to be ambidextrous. He definitely wasn't when

he was younger, but by the time he graduated, he was.

-V

[Simlasa]

A lot of left-handed kids end up learning to be ambidextrous because so many things are set up to presume right-handedness.

I'm ambidextrous but I've never found it to be a huge boon... just a convenience at times. Then again I'm not trying to juggle swords.

[seneschal]

I'm a longtime HERO System fan and don't have a problem in general with Advantages balanced by Disadvantages. On the other hand, I agree with previous posters that it isn't necessary to try to port over game mechanics from HERO (or whatever other system) if an existing BRP rule will achieve the same overall effect. For instance, if my goal is to create a James Bond style spy with an amazingly fast draw and maybe a nifty gadget or two, I might be able to create a reasonable facsimile of my envisioned character in each system even if their abilities (and the mechanics that enable them) don't quite match.

For the type of unusual innate abilities represented by HERO Talents or Action! System Traits, I'd first try to adapt something from the existing BRP magic, chaotic traits, or powers systems. If I couldn't find a reasonable candidate, I might create a new skill or power using the existing ones as guides. For instance, if BRP doesn't have an "ambidexterity" ability I might create an Ambidexterity skill; the player would have to make his skill roll to use the "off" hand without penalty. Of course, doing so would add an extra roll (and layer of complication) to combat, which is what some previous posters have objected to. Conversely, the player could buy up his skill level with his favorite weapon and say that he had to make his skill roll at a certain higher difficulty level to succeed with the "off" hand. Of course, that wouldn't help him if he wanted to write a letter or pick a lock with the "wrong" hand.

Just thinking out loud ...

[Nightshade]

Bump of Direction? I'll pass on that one, but Time Keeper and Eidetic Memory can both be handled with Idea rolls. If the GM

But that's the point; its not everything everyone's good at, and there should be some mechanic for recognizing the difference.

agrees, he can let Time Keeping be a skill, to reflect those with a knack but poor INT. Eidetic Memory is a strange one, because it implies a character will remember everything their told/experienced. But the way I see, INT isn't just about capacity for facts, its capacity for paying attention long enough to listen to them. Anyone that wants to play Rainman should just take notes or to hell with them.

Over and above the bad attitude, that doesn't solve the problem because they can't take notes on things their character would remember but that the GM never detailed.

All in all, as I told frogspawner, feats aren't important in and of themselves. They're only important if the reality of the gameworld makes them important. So while I balk in general at the idea of creating feats, its not because I'm against anything that isn't a d100 skill, or dirived characteristic roll, its because my default gameworld; the one I perceived when asked to evaluage something new; doesn't call for them. So I'll bow out of this conversation,

Game worlds don't call for a lot of things that a game supplies; in many people's games APP means next to nothing, but its still in the game, and in games not using the skill modifiers, often INT isn't much different.

[Nightshade]

guides. For instance, if BRP doesn't have an "ambidexterity" ability I might create an Ambidexterity skill; the player would have to make his skill roll to use the "off" hand without penalty. Of course, doing so would add an extra roll (and layer of complication) to combat, which is what some previous posters have objected to. Conversely, the player could buy up his skill level with his favorite weapon and say that he had to make his skill roll at a certain higher difficulty level to succeed with the "off" hand. Of course, that wouldn't help him if he wanted to write a letter or pick a lock with the "wrong" hand.

Just thinking out loud ...

This only works for trainable Ambidexterity; but there really are people who simply naturally don't favor one hand over the other. Any skill-like approach isn't going to work for them because talking about a dominant hand is simply not the way they work.

[seneschal]

This only works for trainable Ambidexterity; but there really are people who simply naturally don't favor one hand over the other. Any skill-like approach isn't going to work for them because talking about a dominant hand is simply not the way they work.

Quite true, in real life. But we're brainstorming about how to use BRP game mechanics to achieve a certain end result for our characters. Why a character is ambidexterous is less important than the fact that he is. The GM could simply rule that our proposed Ambidexterity skill is something players must choose at initial character generation; they can't pick it up later. And that's how HERO System handles Talents. An established character can't suddenly acquire a photographic memory or an innate sense for true north, even if he now has the experience points to buy the Talent.

Again, though, our goal is to achieve a desired affect for our characters. If Ambidexterity can be better handled by creating a new minor Power or by reinterpreting an existing chaotic trait, fine. The latter approach would tend to slide us over into HERO/GURPS Disadvantages territory, implying that maybe characters will have to pay a price for having that extra special something. "Yeah, I can write equally well with all my appendages, including that tentacle beneath my left arm." >:->

[sladethesniper]

Hmmm, as much as the idea of "adding" all of that stuff to BRP strikes me as really nifty, BUT since I have done just that over the years, I can say there is really pretty much no reason to do so if you haven't done so already.

One, BRP is about Basic, Simple, Fun gaming rules...adding more "crunch" to it, in my opinion, just detracts from the simplicity.

Two, IF you want to use DnD, GURPS or HERO stuff, play those games...

BUT if you want to have a character with Whirlwind Attack and Favored Enemy or Full Life Support and a CAK, what I have found works best is to use another gaming system for character creation, convert the character to BRP, play that character in BRP.

So, basically after 10 years of modding BRP by adding on Storyteller, DnD (2nd, 3rd and 4th Editions), Interlock, Fuzion, GURPS, etc...I have just gone back to bare bones Cthulhu flavored BRP.

For my munchkiny players, they still make their RIFTS/DnD characters...only they make them completely in RIFTS or DnD or WoD and then when complete, they are just modded straight over into BRP.

It is much, much, much easier that way...if only I had been that smart 10 years ago, I could have save so much time and effort and just "converted" characters instead of "modifying" rules sets... ;-(

Alas, it is only my opinion...

-STS

Edited January 30, 2009 by sladethesniper

[frogspawner]

So I'll bow out of this conversation, because clearly there are some people who do like them and want them, and those of us who don't want them (regardless why) are just crowding their workspace.

Please don't feel excluded. Your translation of Feat-type abilities into BRP Super Power equivalents is interesting and useful (even though, for reasons stated, I'd prefer abilities which don't use PP). At very least, the POW rating gives a good check they are not too imbalanced.

[soltakss]

The downside to a lot of those is that some of them are overly restrictive (why could only members of one faith become Courtisans in Glorantha?) or limited to high level/high skill characters.

Well, that's not strictly true. In Glorantha there is the cult of Uleria, one face of which is Goddess of Carnal Love, and many of her members are courtesans. However, there are many other courtesan goddesses whose worshippers are courtesans and there are other courtesans who do not worship a courtesan goddess.

But, in a setting like Glorantha you are going to get certain professions being dominated by members of certain cults in certain areas. So, Blacksmiths in Sartar will normally belong to the Gustbran cult but those in troll areas will belong to a subcult of Lodril. This is because these cults provide useful magic that helps people in the profession and anyone else will be at a disadvantage, also many professions are very conservative in nature, often passing from father to son or mother to daughter and generally they follow the same worship patterns.

In a medieval Guild-setting you might get a similar efect where anyone in a particular profession must belong to a particular Guild. It is probably more restrictive than the Glorantha-style model.

[RosenMcStern]

In a medieval Guild-setting you might get a similar efect where anyone in a particular profession must belong to a particular Guild. It is probably more restrictive than the Glorantha-style model.

I might add that in the Real World each medieval guild had its patron saint, possibly a different one in each city. A saint is not a god in the Christian tradition, but a Christian character is usually portrayed as being a "Devotee of ST. xxxx" rules-wise, either in the HeroQuest game system (Mythic Russia) or in D100-based games. This means that even in a realistic setting, most members of a profession are devotees of a certain entity, be it god or saint.

[rust]

BUT if you want to have a character with Whirlwind Attack and Favored Enemy or Full Life Support and a CAK, what I have found works best is to use another gaming system for character creation, convert the character to BRP, play that character in BRP.

We create the characters for our campaign with Mongoose Traveller, and then

convert them to BRP to play them.

However, there are still some possible additions that would make a lot of sen-

se in the setting, like the Allies and Contacts and the Influence rules mentio-

ned above, and which are not a part of either Mongoose Traveller or BRP - at

least not in the way we think we need for the setting.

So, some rules tinkering is still required to make the setting what we want to

play.

As for advantages like ambidexterity or eidetic memory, we do not use any ru-

les for them.

Each player can give his character one or two special traits during character

generation, provided they make sense with the character's background, and

the other players do not object to them.

Characters can also learn some traits during the campaign, if it makes sense

within the setting. They have to spend training time to do so, so the players

have to describe to me how their characters intend to learn the trait, and we

then discuss the time (and perhaps money) needed for the training.

Since there probably are hundreds (if not thousands) unique traits the players

could come up with for their characters, I prefer this free hand way of dealing

with them.

To write down rules for all possible cases, or at least for the most common

ones, would just take too much time and effort, I think.

[jkeown]

I have created rulesets for HERO Magic Items and Magical Afflictions that would work for High or Dark Fantasy that I think would plug into BRP just fine. The rulebook is great... no mistake, but I've created material that really anchors the characters to the world.

Additions like these should be embraced. Heck... anything from the various generic systems should be looted like mad. (And by that I mean re-written to be consistant with the rules as written)

That's just the stimulationist in me typing, though.

Here's what I've got:

• Magic Item Creation
  
• Magical Afflictions
  
• Mounts and the Creation of Custom Breeds
  
• Arcanomechanical (Created) Beings
  
• Arcanomechanical Grafts
  
• Necromechanical Matters
  
• Magic Sinks, Calderas, and Springs
  
• Mana Flows and Flowtapping
  
• Contacts and Allies (From this thread, even)
  
• Nemesis Characters
  
• Undead Creation
  
• Soulwind
  
• Channelling and Formulaic Magic
  

My intent is to publish all of it as BRP PDFs. All of these have a common trade off during Character creation but I'm not sure of the exact mechanics just yet. I want to make sure that it's consistant with BRP.

Reactions?

[RosenMcStern]

Check with Chaosium if they would be pleased with this first. This is not a supplement but a rules extension. BRP is not OGL.

[jkeown]

Check with Chaosium if they would be pleased with this first. This is not a supplement but a rules extension. BRP is not OGL.

My use of "publish" was a bit hasty... I'm not sure if I intend to get into the PDF business.

By "publish" I mean handy, free copies of the articles on this forum or a 'zine of some kind.

[SDLeary]

Please don't feel excluded. Your translation of Feat-type abilities into BRP Super Power equivalents is interesting and useful (even though, for reasons stated, I'd prefer abilities which don't use PP). At very least, the POW rating gives a good check they are not too imbalanced.

No PP... hmmm....

Impose some sort of Fatigue from the extra exertion required?

SDLeary

[Nightshade]

Quite true, in real life. But we're brainstorming about how to use BRP game mechanics to achieve a certain end result for our characters. Why a character is ambidexterous is less important than the fact that he is. The GM could simply rule that our proposed

Its not when you purchase it that's the issue, but how it works; an Ambidexterity skill would presumably operate as a limiter as to how well someone can operate things with their off-hand; but a true natural ambidexterous person doesn't have an off hand. A limiter makes no sense. Its the fact it isn't an all-or-nothing property that's the problem.

That's the real issue here; some things are simply not well represented by skill-like functions, or frankly anything with a die roll; they're steady-state traits where no die roll makes any sense. When I was younger, before the joys of age cut in, I had a much higher range (as in I could here frequencies above what 99.99% of the human populace could) hearing; while hearing at all was something a die roll could represent, there were sounds I was simply going to be able to notice than most people wouldn't. It was an either or sort of thing.

Again, though, our goal is to achieve a desired affect for our characters. If Ambidexterity can be better handled by creating a new minor Power or by reinterpreting an existing chaotic trait, fine. The latter approach would tend to slide us over into HERO/GURPS Disadvantages territory, implying that maybe characters will have to pay a price for having that extra special something. "Yeah, I can write equally well with all my appendages, including that tentacle beneath my left arm." >:->

That's what I'm really arguing; that some things can't be properly represented any way _but_ that.