Champions/HERO System Ruleset - FG 3.0

[Blackfoot]

I added a bunch of new screenshots in the HERO Group.







Enjoy!

[DrakosDJ]

Nice progress so far.

[Blackfoot]

I want to take a moment to thank all the folks here on the boards who have been so helpful with answers to stupid questions as I pull together this ruleset. In particular, Dakadin, Trenloe, Moon Wizard, and Dulux-oz who have all given me really valuable information when I was at the point of pulling what's left of my hair out. These guys don't get nearly enough appreciation.

[Blackfoot]

Added a new Desktop Image to the group:

[Blackfoot]

Obviously there are many ways to represent information and statistics when it comes to gaming.. I've found in the past that things that seemed obvious were counter intuitive to others. One person wants to put in the points spent to get the value... another person wants to put in the value to get the points. Anyway... recording damage is one of these things.
For HERO ... these are things everyone probably agrees on:
Total STUN, BODY, and ENDURANCE values need to be represented somehow.
We need to represent BODY DAMAGE, STUN DAMAGE, and ENDURANCE USED in some way.
After that.. it gets a little shakier...
Do we represent Damage as:
BODY/STUN/ENDURANCE Damage Taken
OR
BODY/STUN/ENDURANCE Remaining
Do we represent damage as positive or negative?
So far I've built the ruleset around the principal that 'damage' is a negative value... so when you look at the tracker values shown are the damage we've taken and negative to represent that it is lowering the value of our characteristics.
I felt this was better than positive damage taken values as they seemed to imply additional characteristics rather than a reduction.

It was suggested to me today that it would be better to handle this as the sum .. the remaining value .. rather than having everyone do the math all the time. Obviously there is a time to do the 'up' math as well... when healing/recovering/what have you... but this is a less common occurrence than the other.

What do folks think: Which way is better?
Obviously all this applies to this ruleset.. but it could apply to any and every other ruleset as well. The 'norm' is to represent damage as 'damage'... but would it be better to represent it as 'health remaining'
STUN: 50-15
OR
STUN: 35/50

Or would some other way be better?

[DrakosDJ]

I would say that displaying the amount remaining is the way to go.

[Lectryk]

I've applied to the group, just posting here as well. Long time Champions player. I've just started to see what the FG app is like, and I'd love to see this version.

[Blackfoot]

Some new screenshots for the revised Combat Tracker:

[wbcreighton]

Haven't been on FG forums in a few months. This is looking awesome. Can't wait to get to a point in our PF campaign where we can switch over and test this ruleset out. I guess I better get those Champions scenarios set up.

[Blackfoot]

I posted this up to the Group 'Ideas' thread but nobody jumped in so I'm hoping for a bit more luck here.

The next 'big' idea is to clear up the Actions Tab. Right now it is built based on the 3.5 setup.. with Weapons at the top and 'Spell Classes' below. This is a workable method but really something of a kluge as it doesn't exactly fit with the game system. What I need to work out now is what IS a good system for doing it and then how to implement it... while keeping as many updateable features from CoreRPG as possible. I 'think' for the most part that all this code is all isolated from CoreRPG... so currently things like the changes to how damage dice are handled in 3.5/PF did not pass on to this ruleset. We have a lot of our own damage features now that are not available to other rulesets... which is cool.

Here is the issue:
Spell classes are set up with levels and spells for each level can have 3 different types of tracking. Memorized (x number for each spell per rest), Spontaneous (x number for each level of spells per rest), Pool (x amount of points to spend on spells costing various amounts of energy). The last is the closest match to Endurance and so I piggy backed into that our endurance functions. I then set up a 4th type that basically emulates the 3rd but instead of using the characters Endurance for points it uses a separate number for an Endurance Reserve. This part is all well and good.

The thing is that it all feels muddled since the code is really still mostly the 3.5 setup and 'levels' don't really exist in our game. So obviously I need to pull out the levels but some of that functionality is interesting and I'm wondering how much of it to keep.
Here are some of the issues and factors I came up with:
Since ALL powers cannot be handled as weapons others have certain basic needs:

• Some Powers have Charges - Uses per Day
• Some Powers are only Effects
• Some Powers have an END Cost
• Some Powers have an Endurance AND Charges
• ID Each Line as to which type it is rather than grouping them by END cost?
• Allow for multiple Power Groups? END Reserve vs Normal END?
• If the Power has an END value then show it, otherwise treat it as a 'Level 0' Power.
• If the Power has Charges then show the Charges.
• How should I group them or should I group them at all?

I considered setting up Endurance as a 'Fixed' Spell Class (need a new name for this.. Power Class?) but we do still need the option of Endurance Reserves or multiple Endurance Reserves...