In previous posts in this series I’ve listed a few examples of spells with X costs in Heroes Against Darkness, but costed scaling isn’t just limited to damage and bonuses or penalties, it also encompasses other areas like healing, manifestation, and animation. Let’s look at some examples that demonstrate how scaling works for healing. Healing Flash […]
In this entry in the Remaking Magic series, we take a look at the steps taken to ensure that no spell gets left behind. The side-effect of changing most spells to have scaling X is that they never become redundant as the character gains levels. In the previous examples, Burning Touch and Burning Ray, the spells […]
Heroes Against Darkness employs a number of techniques to keep magi relatively balanced against the martial classes. First, the combination of the total pool of anima that magi have (5 + Magic Bonus) plus the speed with which they can spend their anima (Level + 1 anima per turn) limits the speed with which they […]
Let’s get this out of the way: I strongly dislike Vancian magic. When I started work on Heroes Against Darkness we’d just finished playing a long 4th Edition campaign followed by a shorter Basic D&D campaign. The switch from 4th Edition to Basic was caused by a general dissatisfaction with 4th Edition (don’t get me wrong, […]
One of the goals for the classes in Heroes Against Darkness was that each of them should be easily able to gain +2 to their Attacks, whether it’s a melee attack, a ranged attack, or a spell attack. The game’s combat powers are all based on class specialties, situational bonuses, or trade-offs, so each of […]
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• […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
20 Questions about my Heroes Against Darkness campaign from Brandon at Untimately: 1. Ability scores generation method?The system supports 3d6, 4d6 drop lowest, point array and point buy: Method 1: Normal Player CharactersRoll 3d6 six times, then choose which ability to assign each score. This method gives an unadjusted cumulative total of 64. Method 2: […]