Anima, Art, Classes, Combat, HAD, Heroes Against Darkness, Magic, Mechanics, Monsters, Powers, Rules, Spells

Heroes Against Darkness Version 1.0 Released!

Well, editing has taken several weeks longer than I anticipated but it’s done now, so v1.0 of Heroes Against Darkness is released:

The major changes and updates for this revision are:

• Changed Stabilize to be a major action, not a full action
• Changed opposed movement to be a major action, not a move action
• Rewrote Introduction and Character Creation intro
• Updated character sheet
• Updated character creation instructions
• New art for races
• Added Smack It Off power for some monsters
• Added Shake It Off by default for all monsters
• Edit pass over entire document (kill me)
• New cover art, take that!
• Clarified that magic doesn’t stack on Attacks/Defenses
• Fixed Divine Strike anima cost
• Changed immobilized condition to be –2 to Defenses
• Clarified rogues’ Backstab Attack power
• Added ghouls, kobolds and lich to Beasts & Bastards
• Adjusted several necromancer spells to have X costs
• Clarified that allies are other creatures, not the character
• Added swooshy thing at the top of all pages
• Updated monster art
• Added cover art page
• Split Acknowledgements from Art Credits
• Moved Combat and Role-Playing Encounter sections

Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness – Game Rules.

HAD, Heroes Against Darkness, Rules

Elements of Style: RPG Edition

Welcome to the most anal (and banal) blog post ever.

Seriously, do yourself a favor and don’t read this post. Skip it. Alt-tab. Do some work. Check your email. Post a status update. Or just press page down a few times and there’s some really nice art. You could be looking at that instead of reading this.

Still here?

Okay. Read on (but don’t say I didn’t warn you).

In working on Heroes Against Darkness I’ve come to the point where I need to edit the book to set a consistent and logical style, which is one of the most tedious and sucky tasks ever…

Apart from various speling and grammer issues (sic), the major task of the edit pass is to establish a consistent style for all of the key terminology used in the rules. For example, I have a terrible habit of capitalizing all of the terms that I can find, such as Anima Points, Health Points, Melee Bonus, and any other pair of words I can get my hands on.

So this post attempts to codify and document how all of the key terms in the game should be used.

Here are a few examples of style guides for other games and companies:

Icosahedrophilia’s D&D 4e Style Guide
Steve Jackson Games style guide

A few quick definitions:

Sentence case: Follows normal grammar rules, with the first letter of the first word of the sentence capitilized, and the same for the first word after a colon.
Title case: First letter of most words capitalized (except words like ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘and’, etc).
First word capitalized: The first word of the phrase is always capitalized.

Ability Scores

Format: First word capitalized
Terms: “Strength”, “Strength modifier”, “Strength bonus”
“Dexterity”, “Dexterity modifier”, “Dexterity bonus”
“Wisdom”, “Wisdom modifier”, “Wisdom bonus”
“Constitution”, “Constitution modifier”, “Constitution bonus”
“Intelligence”, “Intelligence modifier”, “Intelligence bonus”
“Charisma”, “Charisma modifier”, “Charisma bonus”
Abbreviations: Str, Dex, Wis, Con, Int, Cha, mod, bon
Example: Each character has six ability scores, Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Constitution, Intelligence and Charisma. Each of these ability scores has an associated modifier and bonus, such as a Strength modifier and Strength bonus.

Classes

Format: Sentence case
Terms: “warrior”, “hunter”, “hospiter”, “mystic”, etc
Example: Warriors, berserkers and barbarians are martial classes, while hunters and rogues are specialists.

Races

Format: Sentence case
Terms: “human”, “elf”, “half-orc”, “dwarf”, etc
Example: Human civilization is full of discrimination; usually targeting outcasts like half-orcs and tartareans.

Levels

Format: Capitalized when referring to a character’s specific level, otherwise sentence case
Terms: “Level ##”
Example: Characters can use martial and spell powers of their level or lower. So, a Level 4 character can use all powers up to Level 4.

½ Level Bonus

Format: Title case
Terms: “½ Level Bonus”
Example: Each ability score has an ability bonus, which is the ability score’s modifier + ½ Level Bonus.

Class Health Points

Format: Sentence case
Terms: “class health points”
Example: The character’s class health points value is used when working out starting health points or when gaining levels.

Anima and Health Points

Format: Sentence case
Terms: “anima points”, “health points”
Abbreviations: AP, HP
Example: A character’s anima points and health points can be recovered by taking a short rest.

Attacks

Format: Always capitalized
Terms: “Attacks”
Example: Increases character’s Attacks by +2 until end of character’s next turn.

Attack Bonuses

Format: First word capitalized
Terms: “Melee bonus”, “Ranged bonus”, “Magic bonus”
Example: A character’s Melee bonus is usually added to the damage of the Melee Attack.

Defenses

Format: Always capitalized
Terms: “Defenses”
Example: Increases character’s Defenses by +2 until end of character’s next turn.

Specific Defenses

Format: First word capitalized
Terms: “Armor defense”, “Evasion defense”, “Magic defense”, “Resilience defense”
Abbreviations: AD, ED, MD, RD
Example: Increases character’s Armor and Evasion defenses and by +2 until end of character’s next turn.

Spell and Martial Power Names

Format: Title case and italicized
Terms: All spell and martial powers
Example: Each character has a Melee Attack and Ranged Attack, hospiters also have Healing Touch and other spell powers.

Game Master

Format: Sentence case
Terms: “game master”
Abbreviations: GM
Example: The game master (GM from now on) is responsible for creating interesting situations for the players.

Conditions

Format: Sentence case
Terms: “immobilized”, “stunned”, “blinded”, “baned”, “restrained”, “mired”, etc
Example: Target is immobilized (cannot move intentionally, -2 to all Defenses) until the end of their next turn.

Rules

Format: Boxed. Each rule is prefaced with “Rule:” which is capitalized and bold, and then sentence case for the rule description.
Example: Rule: Characters increase their current health and anima points by half of the amount that they’re depleted when they use their Rally power.
Rule: Characters can use Rally during a short rest.
Rule: Characters recover all of their health and anima points at a long rest.

Example Boxes

Format: Boxed. First line contains “Example:” which is capitalized and bold, and then the example text follows in normal sentence case.
Example: Example:
At Level 4, Charlange can cast the Level 1 spell Burning Ray (1 anima + X anima) for up to 5 anima (level + 1), giving a maximum X value of 4.

Narrative Boxes

Format: Boxed. Narrative text italicized and in normal sentence case.
Example: Delic stepped from the shadows and thrust his knife between the guard’s ribs, then lowered him to the ground.
Within moments his companions had spread through the bandits’ camp. The clash of swords and shouts of alarm soon woke the rest of the bandits, who joined the fray.
Delic weaved in and out of the combat, using the distraction of his allies’ attacks to inflict his own.

Dice

Normal: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20
Plural: d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, d12s, d20s
Multiple: 2d4, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10, 2d12, 2d20
Variable: Xd4, Xd6, Xd8, Xd10, Xd12, Xd20

Ability Tests

Format: “ability test”, then the test is bracketed, (ability score vs. target number)
Example: Characters must beat the target in an opposed Strength or Dexterity ability test (Str/Dex vs. 15) to move through the target’s location.

Skills

Format: Capitalized and followed by the relevant ability score which is abbreviated and bracketed
Terms: “Tracking (Int)”, “Negotiate (Cha)”
Example: If the character has a background skill that could aid in the ability test, such as Tracking (Int) or Hunting (Int), then they can add +5 to their ability test.

You can find the full rules over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness – Game Rules.

Art, HAD, Heroes Against Darkness

Cover Illustration Preview

I’ve been neglecting you all lately, but only as I polish up the v1.0 release of Heroes Against Darkness.

So, I’ll make it up to you guys with a preview of the cover painting:

As you can see, there are several heroes in the foreground and the collective darkness is represented by one very angry wyvern.

The cover’s by Trevor Smith, and you can find more about him and his work here:

http://trevorsmithart.com

Check out the Beta rules for Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness – Game Rules.

HAD, Heroes Against Darkness, Monsters

Heroes Against Darkness: Beta Released Now!

I promised that Beta was right around the corner, and here it is. I’ve updated the downloadable Heroes Against Darkness rules to Beta (v0.255).

Those who’ve been checking out the previous release (v0.244) already have the bulk of this update. As ever there are a bunch of small changes, but the largest revisions have been in the Beasts and Bastards section.

The Beta release raises the question of when we should expect v1.0. Right now, I’m planning the v1.0 release before the end of the month (to qualify for the ENies). v1.0 will have the following updates:

• More monster art (there’s a bit of art now in this Beta version)
• New logo for the site and the rules
• New cover art with a specially commissioned illustration by Trevor Smith: http://trevorsmithart.com/
• More editing and clean-up of terminology
• Minimal changes to mechanics, spells, powers
• Possibly more monsters in the Beasts and Bastards section (depending how I feel)

Head over to the download page to grab yourself a Beta copy of Heroes Against Darkness.

Anima, Classes, Combat, HAD, Heroes Against Darkness, Magic, Mechanics, Powers, Spells

Alpha Rules Updated to v0.244

I’ve updated the downloadable Heroes Against Darkness Alpha rules to v0.244.

This is a huge revision of the rules, and incorporates many of the significant changes I’ve been discussing here on the blog and over on the Game Design & Development forums at rpg.net.

Healing, Anima and Resting

The biggest single change to the game system has been a full overhaul of the Healing Powers and resting in the game.

First, the old Healing Powers (Rally, Recuperate, Rejuvenate, Regenerate) have been removed and replaced with a single Rallypower that is available to all classes at Level 1.

Previously, the Healing Powers healed fixed amounts of Health Points, didn’t regain any Anima Points. They also had some fairly fiddly rules for when they could be used. The new Rally power rolls up the regeneration of Health Points and Anima Points during encounters and in short rests into one single power.

Instead of healing fixed amounts of HP, Rally now allows the character to regain half of the amount that their Health Points and Anima Points are depleted.

This change also meant that I made a slight (but significant) change to the formula for Anima Points:

• Anima Points: 5 + Magic Bonus

The final part of this package of changes was to allow the Rally power to be used at short rests, and to allow multiple short rests to be taken between encounters (but each with a longer duration than the last, starting at 15 minutes, then 1 hour, then 4 hours).

Rally

Action Time Full action
Power Effect Character regains ½ of the amount by which their Health and Anima Points are depleted.
+4 to all Defenses until end of character‟s next turn.
Special This power can only be used once per encounter

With this change, I’ve also changed to rules for Resting:

Rule: Characters can take short rests after encounters.
Rule: At a short rest, characters can use their Rally power to recover Health Points and Anima Points.
Rule: At a long rest, characters recover all of their Health Points and Anima Points.

And I’ve updated the examples of resting:

Example:
Rothgar the berserker, Brythil the warrior, Charlange the warlock and have just fought and defeated a vengeful spirit, leaving Rothgar with just 9 HP (out of 31) and Brythil with 16 HP (out of 28). Charlange has emerged unscathed, but his remaining AP is just 3 (out of 10).
When they all used their Rally power at a short rest, Rothgar regains 11 HP, taking him up to 20 HP. Brythil regains 6 HP, so he goes to 22 HP. Charlange regains 3 Anima, taking him to 6 AP.

Other Major Changes

Here are the other big changes:
• Changed some fonts! 🙂
• Split example character sheet section into two pages for clarity
• Major edit pass over the whole book.
• Added a 7th Role-Playing Tip to the Role-Playing Encounters section.
• Updated the Combat Encounters section with more examples of powers.
• Conditions section revised, including sections on how to remove ongoing, enforced and area conditions and effects.
• Clarified the healing rules for dying or stabilized characters (returns them to 1 HP, but dazed until the end of their next turn).
• Changed magic Armor enhancements (e.g. +1) to apply to all Defenses, not just AD.
• Updated Powers: Attacks & Spells section with more examples of each of the components of powers.
• Major revision of all class powers.
• Recuperate, Rejuvenate and Regenerate have been removed and replaced with three all-new attack powers for all of the martial classes.
• Unified all ability test powers to use the same difficulty (15 + level of caster or creature that applied the spell effect or condition).
• All martial classes now have five Level 1 powers, two powers each level between Level 2 and Level 5, and one power each subsequent level up to Level 10.
• Improved the presentation of Attack and Spell powers to reduce the amount of wasted space and split lines.
• Reworked many spell powers to scale with X Anima.
• Expanded and differentiated spell lists for all magi classes.
• Added huge section for GMs on Ability Tests and difficulties for lots of tests (Perception, Break Doors, Lifting, Diplomacy, Lock Picking, Climbing, Tracking, Swimming).
• Added section on Magic Weapons & Armor with level breakdowns for appropriate pieces.
• Added section on Magic Items with level breakdowns for appropriate stuff.
• Expanded the On Magic section with lots more detail on the Anima cost of specific spell components.
• Updated the appendix tables and stuff at the back for printing for a GM screen.

Beta Soon?

With all of these changes, there are only a few things to clean up before we’re Beta!

Head over to the game rules download page to grab yourself a copy of this bad-boy: Heroes Against Darkness – Game Rules.

Anima, Combat, HAD, Heroes Against Darkness, Magic, Monsters, Role-Playing, Spells

Heroes Against Darkness: Session Report

Some readers might be wondering how Heroes Against Darkness works in play, rather than on paper. So here’s a quick recap of our Monday night session.

In the lead up to the session, the six adventurers had been captured by goblins while traveling through an ancient dwarven tunnel that linked a series of beacon towers along a range of mountains. We pick up the story with the adventurers in cells in the goblin’s tower, and negotiating with the goblin shaman to rescue the goblin chief who had been captured by human bandits based out of the next beacon tower to the south.

The goblin shaman returned to the cell-block with an ultimatum: Help the goblins or else. Luckily, the various members of the party had come to their senses, and negotiated the release of four of the party to rescue the goblin chief from the bandits who were holed up in the next beacon tower some 12 miles to the south. After some discussion, they decided that it was best to leave behind Gorlock the barbarian and Wraistlin the warlock, and to take the Boags the warrior, Stark the hospiter, Sting the hunter and Maza the warlock.

Their decision made, the shaman knocked out the four heroes, who woke up on the mountain pathway that led away from the goblin’s tower down to the foot of the mountains. At this point the path widened somewhat, but through the middle of this wide section ran a deep crevasse. The goblin shaman and his minions stood on the other side of the crevasse, waiting for their captives to wake.

Once they were awake, the goblins threw the characters’ equipment across to them and pointed the way to the bandit’s tower, which was visible some distance to the south. The goblin shaman also threw across a small pouch of healing potions to aid the characters in their quest to rescue his chief.

The smaller party struck out down the path, then followed it into the woods at the foot of the mountain range. During their journey south, the group discussed their plan and decided to try to enlist the help of the bandits in a counter-attack against the goblins.

Some three miles from the bandit’s tower, the group came upon a human lookout asleep at his post up in a tree. The party woke him and demanded that he take them to the tower. The lookout claimed that the tower was haunted (been there himself) and warned the party away. The party members insisted and ended up scaring the lookout, who fled into the forest, pursued by the hunter. The fellow proved evasive and lost the hunter to make good his escape.

Resuming their journey, the party came across another person on the side of the road, just a mile or so short of the tower. Again the second lookout warned them away from the tower, but the party convinced him that they had come from the goblin’s tower and were here to see his leader. The lookout fetched the bandit leader, Jenton.

Jenton, the bandit leader, came to meet the party, with the first lookout in tow (and looking slightly worse for wear). Jenton told the party that the lookout had claimed that the party tried to kill him. The party convinced the bandit leader that the lookout was lying, and they had not attacked him. Furious, the bandit leader killed the hopeless lookout, and warned the heroes not to lie to him.

Sting the hunter immediately lied to him about what they wanted from him, prompting a final warning from the bandit leader.

Chastised, the warrior told the bandit leader of their captured allies who were held in the goblin’s tower, and how they had severely weakened the goblin forces. Eventually, the bandit leader was convinced, and the party reached an agreement with him to assault the goblin’s tower to wipe out the goblins and to rescue their captives.

After some discussion, together they came up with a plan for a three-pronged attack, with the bandits assaulting the tower from the northern and southern dwarven tunnels, while the remaining party members would take the goblin chief back for delivery to the goblin shaman. Ahead of the meeting time (sundown the next day), the party drugged the goblin chief to keep him out of the fight, and Enshrouded the hunter (extending the duration of the spell as well) so that he could take up a strategic position in the rocks above the rift-breached mountain pathway.

At the appointed time, the party arrived for the handover. When the goblin shaman arrived, along with two strong guards, two archers, and two weaker guards.

The party attacked. The goblin shaman acted first and knocked out the hospiter with a Restrain spell, but not before the hospiter immediately used an interrupt spell – Seize Initiative – which increased the initiative of all of the party members. Maza followed up with Wall of Ice, which he used to fashion a bridge across the rift. Boags the warrior grabbed the downed hospiter and dragged him across the ice bridge as he charged at the shaman and his guards. Up in the rocks, the hunter had been sighting the shaman using his Steady power and was ready to fire, a shot which struck the goblin a terrible hit.

The battle then began in earnest, with the goblin shaman Bane-ing the heroes to reduce their attack rolls and also calling forth a Mystic Warrior, whose attacks distracted the warrior by forcing him to attack the apparition. The Restrained hospiter managed to use his Shake It Off power to end the effects of the shaman’s spell, and re-entered the fight as well as offering some limited healing to the other party members.

Maza the warlock used as much of his Anima as he could on several Chain Lightning spells, which coursed through the battlefield and electrocuted the shaman’s cohorts. As the battle raged, the shaman and his archers managed to knock the hospiter unconscious with a few good arrow hits. With the hospiter down and their healing potions all gone, the party members were out of healing (having forgotten about the own Rally powers). Just as Boags himself was knocked out, Maza used the last of his blood Anima to cast another Chain Lightning which killed another two of the goblins, leaving just the shaman and three of his guards (one of the tough ones and the two archers).

Up above, the hunter sighted carefully and loosed an arrow which struck and killed the goblin shaman. With the shaman dead, the remaining guard fled towards the ice bridge (created by the Wall of Ice spell), just as the spell expired, and promptly plunged into the crevasse as the ice gave way beneath him. The two archers fled back towards the tower, but then came screaming back, pursued and quickly cut down by human bandits who’d made their way from the dwarven tunnels and had successfully overwhelmed the remaining goblins inside the tower.

As the smoke cleared, two of the adventurers lay dying on the ground (Stark the hospiter and Boags the warrior), Maza the warlock was on 4 HP (having spent a great deal of blood Anima through the course of the fight) and the hunter was unhurt!

Total combatants:
– Stark the hospiter (Level 5)
– Boags the warrior (Level 5)
– Sting the hunter (Level 5)
– Maza the warlock (Level 5)

– Goblin Shaman (Level 7)
– 2x Goblin Guards (Level 3 each)
– 2x Goblin Minions (Level 3 each)
– 2x Goblin Archers (Level 3 each)

Total Party Level: 20
Total Enemy Level: 22

Combat Rounds: About 8?
Combat Duration: 60 minutes (this was probably a bit slow because one of the players was controlling two characters he wasn’t familiar with; the hospiter and the warlock)

Anima, HAD, Heroes Against Darkness, Mechanics

Rethinking Healing at Short Rests

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the current rules for healing during short rests are not achieving their goals. The goals of the healing and associated gameplay are:
• Allow characters to heal some damage during the course of an adventure day, and all damage overnight
• Gradually deplete the characters’ Health Points and Anima over the course of multiple encounters.
• Encourage players to engage in multiple combat encounters each adventure day by offering additional XP (double) for each encounter after the first.

To support these goals, the healing rules are:

Rule: Characters increase their current Health and Anima by half of their maximum at a Short Rest.
Rule: Characters can use Healing Powers during a Short Rest.
Rule: Characters recover all of their Health and Anima at a Long Rest.

As the rules are currently written, the characters recover half of their Health Points and Anima during a short (1 hour) rest between encounters. This means that unless the characters are reduced to below half of their totals for HP or Anima, they will recover all the way to full during these rests.

In order to achieve the goal of a gradual depletion of their health and to stop characters from recovering to full health points during a short rest, I am going to change the wording (but not the intent) of the short rest healing, thus:

Rule: Characters increase their current Health and Anima by half of their maximum at a Short Rest.

Becomes:

Rule: At a short rest, characters increase their current Health and Anima by half the amount that they are depleted.

With this change, the characters’ Health Points and Anima will never return to full once depleted.

Check out the full rules for Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness – Game Rules.

HAD, Heroes Against Darkness, Powers, Spells

Heroes Against Darkness: Beta Update

Almost two months ago I posted about what I was working on for Beta:

• More monsters from the extended list on page 35 of Beasts and Bastards
• Further development of the On Magic section on page 18 of the Game Master’s Guide to determine the Anima cost of each component of a spell
• Refinement of the magi class spell lists, including Anima costs and scaling costs of multiple target and longer duration spells
• Additional combat powers for martial and specialist classes
• Update to combat rules to clarify allowable movement directions
• More market costs for scrolls, potions and wands
• More magic artifacts

So here’s an update on what I’ve achieved (so far):

Monsters

So far I haven’t done much on the monsters, other than add in some Dragons as boss monsters. Boss monsters are designed to appear on their own and to challenge an entire party. So they have two initiatives each round, and lots of abilities to really mush the player’s characters!

On Magic

The On Magic section has had an overhaul, with a lot of work to really establish what the factors are that contribute to the Anima costs of each spell. Of course, this has meant that I’ve had to go back and actually review all of the spells in light of their component costs, which has been a long process.

Magi Spell Lists

Following on from the review of the On Magic section, I’ve reviewed all of the spells of all Magi classes to re-cost them based on their components (range, damage, targets, duration, etc) and also make more of the spells use scaling Anima costs. Furthermore, I’ve also reworked the durations and ranges to be based scaling factors (1 round + 1 round per caster level for durations and 10′ + 10′ per caster level for ranges).

So where the old version of a spell looked like this:

Bane (1 Anima)

Spell Effect Decreases target’s attacks by -2
Target Single target
Attack d20 + Magic Bonus
Against Magic Defense
Duration Magic Bonus rounds
Range 10’+10′ per caster level

The new version looks like this:

Bane (X Anima)

Cost 1 Anima for each –1
Spell Effect Decreases target’s attacks
Target Single target
Attack d20 + Magic Bonus
Against Magic Defense
Duration 1 round + 1 round per level
Range 10’+10′ per caster level

The goal of this sort of change to all of the spells is the ensure that the spells never become irrelevant, and put the power of the spell back into the players’ hands.

Martial Combat Powers

All of the martial classes have had their power lists expanded up to Level 10. I’ve also added the Reflex Strike attacks that operate a bit like Attacks of Opportunity, by these are different for each class and they leave the character Hampered on their next turn (so they only have a Major Action and a Minor Action).

Combat Rules Updates

I’ve added a diagram to the combat rules that clarifies the valid movement directions, and also added guidelines for allowing creatures to ‘push past’ others as an opposed Ability Test.

Market Costs for Scolls, Potions, Wands

I haven’t really expanded the list of market costs for the scrolls, potions and wands, and I’m not sure that I will end up doing this for Beta.

Magical Weapons, Armor and Items

I’ve added a bunch of level-appropriate weapons, armor, and items that you should be able to drop straight into your games.

Beta Rules release

I hope to have the Beta rules out before the end of the month, with a version 1.0 of the system available towards the end for April so that they qualify for entry into the ENnie awards.

Check out the full rules for Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness – Game Rules.