The Hero Scale 2 (split)

[soru]

There's a passage from the Iliad that shows the greek gods used the HQ rules:

Now Dawn the saffron-robed was spreading over all the earth, and Zeus whose joy is in the thunder let call an assembly of the gods upon the topmost peak of many-ridged Olympus, and himself made harangue to them and all the gods gave ear: "Hearken to me, all gods and all ye goddesses, that I may tell you what my heart within my breast commandeth me. One thing let none essay, be it goddess or be it god, to wit, to thwart my saying; approve ye it all together, that with all speed I may accomplish these things. Whomsoever I shall perceive minded to go, apart from the gods, to succour Trojans or Danaans, chastened in no seemly wise shall he return to Olympus, or I will take and cast him into misty Tartaros, right far away, where is the deepest gulf beneath the earth; there are the gate of iron and threshold of bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth: then shall he know how far I am mightiest of all gods. Go to now, ye gods, make trial that ye all may know. Fasten ye a rope of gold from heaven, and all ye gods lay hold thereof and all goddesses; yet could ye not drag from heaven to earth Zeus, counsellor supreme, not though ye toiled sore. But once I likewise were minded to draw with all my heart, then should I draw you up with very earth and sea withal. Thereafter would I bind the rope about a pinnacle of Olympus, and so should all those things be hung in air. By so much am I beyond gods and beyond men."

That's the difference between a greater god and your everyday, namby-pamby weakling gods like Poseidon.

soru

[Scripty]

...i still want a:

frame of reference

Christian

I'm confused. Didn't I just give you one?

Mundane Level: 0-1 Masteries (Jimmy Olson, Lois Lane)
Heroic Level/X-Men level: 1-3 Masteries (Beast, Wolverine's Fighting Ability, Nightcrawler, Batman)
Super-Heroic/JLA level: 4-5 (even 6) Masteries (Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Captain America)
Cosmic Level/Silver Surfer - Captain Marvel: 7-9 (Superman, the Hulk, Thor)
Godlike/Galactus: 10+ (Thanos with the Glove, Mephisto)

Here I've added a few examples. These are fairly close approximations and, while not detailed to the finest degree, I think it would be difficult to take a bevvy of references and say "Here, this is (blah)" For instance, Wolverine's Healing ability may be at 4 or 5 masteries, but his fighting skills only at 3. The Flash's speed may be at 6 or 7 masteries, but his science skill at 2 or 3. It's really difficult to set an authoritative scale here without branching it out. Perhaps something like the supers conversion found on this site is more what you're looking for:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bferrie/

Go to "Resources" and then to the Super-Hero conversion. My only issue with his scaling is with the speed chart. It doesn't seem to progress on the same scale as the other charts, IMO.

If you are familiar with Mutants & Masterminds, my rough conversion from Power Levels to Masteries follows:

(PL/4) = W* (Fine for X-Men level heroes but add one W for JLA level heroes)

Target number = (REM(PL/4) +1) x 5

The result is that a Mutants & Masterminds character with an Energy Blast of PL10 would have an Energy Blast of 15w2 in an X-Men level game and 15w3 in a JLA level game.

Further, a conversion from D&D3e skill bonuses that I use for "normal" settings is "Ability Rating = Skill Bonus + 15". For converting supers, I've found myself using "Ability Rating = Skill Bonus + 17" more often, however.

I hope this is more in line with what you're requesting. Frankly, I'm rather confused as to what you're wanting here. Beyond Bruce's charts, my PL conversions and a D&D3e rough conversion, I don't know how much more I could do to give you an idea of what level of mastery corresponds to what you're asking about.

[Donald]

The confusion comes from the fact there are 2 different scales used for numbers in published supplements.

On the Anaxial's roster numbers, starting PCs are already low-grade mythic heroes, they can outrun a horse, wrestle with a grizzly bear (without using any explicit magic), and so on.

In all other published sources, starting PCs, (with the same numbers) are amongst the best in their clan, but still nothing that would look out of place in a realistic historical film.

If the player selects a keyword which gives them an appropriate skill and then put ten points into that skill a beginning hero can outrun the average horse or wrestle the average bear. However races between men and horses was fairly common in England in the 19th Century and there are recorded cases of men successfully wrestling bears. So that seems to me to be the same scale.

[soru]

yeah, you are right about the bear wrestling, my bad.

From the Louisiana state law:

Whoever commits the crime of bear wrestling shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both.

The fact that a punishment is needed implies that the match itself isn't always punishment enough.

soru

[Der_Renegat]

If the player selects a keyword which gives them an appropriate skill and then put ten points into that skill a beginning hero can outrun the average horse or wrestle the average bear.

This is playing a game with hypothetical exploitation of the rules.
But the rules for improving abilities have no direct relation to the story a narrator wants to play with his players.
If you want, for your adventure, a hero to outrun a horse, fine, but if the narrator wants a universe where people arent able to outrun horses, then he will assign the horse a rating thats unbeatable by the hero, whatever his rating is. Even if this would mean, talking about "my" scale, that this horse had the power of a saint...!
Maybe you can explain it as a view: an inside and an outside view. Any adventure and its ratings are always from the inside of the story. So the numbers relate to the playercharacters, depending on how much dramatic impact you want any opponent to have.
The outside view, thats what my interest in this thread was, is a look on a complete story/a universe, where everything has a relation in power to each other. But its a "closed" universe. One that needs change to the powerrating of your playercharacters, to be of any game-use.
I would define narrativism for HQ as that all ratings are related to the story.
For me, soru explained perfectly in his post, where all the confusion comes from.
all the best
Christian

[simon_hibbs]

That's the difference between a greater god and your everyday, namby-pamby weakling gods like Poseidon.

In HeroQuest, I'd say that the game provides ratings for Gloranthan entities. The Invisible God for example is considered by the Malkioni to be beyond, or to exist in a higher state than creation (including the otherworlds), and is therefore beyond any rating. Great Gods may also be considered to embody transcendent concepts that are beyond any numerical rating. The game already includes provision for transcendent powers that break the normal rules in the form of Secrets, which are low level manifestations of this. Saints may also fall into the same category of powers that break the game rules and therefore it's ratings system to some extent or other.

That may not be very helpful, bu I think the fact is that nobody has any experience running games at such very high levels, and so any approach to actualy using very high ratings, or working out how transcendent powers should affect the way the game plays is just speculative at the moment.


Simon Hibbs

[droog]

Ian Cooper:

W - Journeyman/professional, among the best in the village
W2 - master, one of the best in the clan / tribe level
W3 - hero, among the best in the country / region
W4 - superhero among the few in the world (Glorantha) who have achieved this level in any ability

When augments are calculated into the equation we get the numbers you suggested.
.

My guesstimate for Harrek:

(Slashing Death Fighting 10W4)

Augments
- Skin of the White Bear +7
- Claws of the White Bear +7
- Arcas Power +5
- Ferocious +5

=14W5

[Mike Holmes]

Here are some off-the-cuff ratings for what I consider the best abilities possessed by various Lord of the Rings characters:

[*]Aragorn -- Isildur's Heir 10W4
[*]Boromir -- Swordsmanship 10W3
[*]Elrond -- Ward Imladris 10W4
[*]Frodo -- Master of Samwise 10W4
[*]Galadriel -- Ward Lothlorien 10W4
[*]Gandalf the Grey -- Inspire Others 10W3
[*]Gandalf the White -- Inspire Others 10W6
[*]Gimli -- Axemanship 10W3
[*]Legolas -- Archery 10W3
[*]Ringwraiths -- Cause Fear 10W3
[*]Smeagol/Gollum -- Covet the Precious 10W4
[/list:u]

I'd support these numbers, or something near these. Gandalf I'd handle a bit differenly; see below. Sam I'd handle as a follower, but I'm not sure the level. His slaying of Shelob is definitely highly augmented in a number of ways, and has to be the result of the expenditure of HP.

Remember that all those previous numbers from way back came with a ton of caveats, and were mostly for relative ratings. One of which is that I didn't realize the somewhat exponential nature of the curve (actually, it's geometric, not exponential, but that's a quibble).

For the more powerful folks I'd give the following stats, now.

[*]Gandalf the Grey -- Spirit of the West 5W5
[*]Gandalf the White -- Spirit of the West 5W6
[*]Sauruman -- Lord of Isengard 15W5 (It's important to note that it's the character's investment in the fabric of Middle Earth which is their undoing.
[*]The Witch King (head Ringwraith) -- Bring Doom 10W4
[*]Galadriel's Ward should be augmented with a +11 (5W5) for the Girtle of Melian. Or something like that; could be that she uses that as her base score. Should be enough to challenge Sauron, but not stop him.
[*]Sauron -- Lord of Mordor 5W7
[*]The One Ring -- Empower 10W8
[*]Tom Bombadil -- Lord of the Old Wood 5W6
[*]Glorfindel -- Elf Lord 15W4
[*]Gothmog (Half-Troll named for the most powerful of Balrogs from the First Age) -- is he a follower of Sauron as general of his army? In any case, he's got about 15W4 in Destroy.
[*]The Mouth of Sauron -- must be a follower. But a tough one. Impress 15w3?
[*]The Balrog of Moria -- Flame of the Deep 10W5
[*]Shelob (spawn of Ungoliant) -- Lethally Poisonous 15W4 (The benefit of being the offspring of a demigod powerful enough to have stolen the light of the trees).
[*]Smaug -- Rate him like a Gloranthan shadow dragon. He's largish for the third age, but he's small as far as dragons go overall. The dragons of the previous ages were the size of real Glorathan Dragons (one once fell and sank an entire land).
[/list:u]
The "problem" is that the whole story of the War of the Rings is akin to one big Hero Quest. So, though it may look like I'm slanting a favored setting, I don't think that I am. These really are the Harreks and the demigods of the setting. Sauron, Bombadil, Gandalf, Sauruman, and the other Istari are, in fact, demigods. The Istari have essentially been sent to recall a demigod (Sauron) who has decided to live in, and dominate, the mortal world. All without the aid of the gods who are only invoked in name for morale bonuses. So it really is the story of the most powerful beings of the time.

Mike

[Donald]

This is playing a game with hypothetical exploitation of the rules.
But the rules for improving abilities have no direct relation to the story a narrator wants to play with his players.

I would define narrativism for HQ as that all ratings are related to the story.

I don't agree that this is exploiting the rules, merely using them to create interesting characters. It is a choice for beginning characters to put all their HP in a couple of abilities or spread them more evenly between several.

Sure you can decide that in your Glorantha heros can't outrun horses but that's changing the published Glorantha to suit your game not correcting an inconsistency especially as an athletic human can outrun an average horse in the real world. That doesn't of course prevent a narrator having an exceptional horse to provide such a player with a challenge - indeed it could enhance the story.

While I'm only new to the concept of narrativism I like it but feel that just changing the numbers to make the game go the way the narrator thinks it should is too much like railroading. If a player chooses to create a character who's heroic abilities allow him to outrun a horse then that's what happens - if it's important then it's a contest with appropriate modifiers. That with another group of players the result is different doesn't bother me at all.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Christian,

About this "not letting the PC run faster than a horse thing" --

Let it go.  Just. Let It Go.

You can't guarantee a PC won't run faster than a horse in HeroQuest.  (I think.)

The PC will start with base speed.

The player will have the choice to bump successes with APs.

And, most importantly, he'll be able to augment with skills, passions and relationships that you'll never be able to anticipate.  Never.  It is possible that in a weird bit of narrative all-the-planets-align kind of moment, he's ablet to pour 10 augments onto the race.

Add in the random rolls, and you just don't know.  It could happen.

I think you're driving yourself nuts looking at this the wrong way.

Because the augments can be added depending on the narrative circumstances (espcially passions and relationships, as well as traits and goals and whatnot) the game isn't designed to keep a steady relationship between objective, real world values.  The numbers attached to the stats ARE objective -- but how many stats can come into play in one die roll can change according to the circumstanes of the story at that moment.

Just relax about this.  It's not that kind of game.  If our hero has to outrun a horse to win the hand of the princess and he adds in his "Sore Loser" "In Love with the Princess," and "Hate Lunar Empire" (and his romantic rival is a Lunar) as augments for the race and he makes a couple of smart bids with cool dramatic description -- that's not a failure of physics and a disappointment, that's a cool HeroQuest moment.  Everyone will cheer.

Christopher

[simon_hibbs]

This is an interesting discussion (about horses), more interesting than I thought it would be since I have been over this ground many times before.

If you want, for your adventure, a hero to outrun a horse, fine, but if the narrator wants a universe where people arent able to outrun horses, then he will assign the horse a rating thats unbeatable by the hero, whatever his rating is. Even if this would mean, talking about "my" scale, that this horse had the power of a saint...!

First off, I don't see why any narrator would ever want to impose an outcome in this way. If you are adamant that the characters will not beat the horse, why even assign it a rating? What's the point? But beyond that, why would you ever want to impose an outcome in this way?

Maybe you can explain it as a view: an inside and an outside view. Any adventure and its ratings are always from the inside of the story. So the numbers relate to the playercharacters, depending on how much dramatic impact you want any opponent to have.

That's fair. Racing an old nag to win a few clacks is obviously a very different proposition from racing the Feathered Horse Queen's favourite thoroughbred Goldeneye stallion to gain the Grazers as allies in a war. However impact isn't about absolutes, it may be about how much the characetrs want to win that race. What lengths are they prepared to go to, in terms of rustling up augments or using up resources such as one-use spirits and Hero Points.


Simon Hibbs