Heroes Unlimited: Phenomenal Paragons - Introduction

Inspired by Jacob Possin over at Walking In Shadows I have decided to world build a super hero setting using the Heroes Unlimited 2nd edition from Palladium Books and populate it with characters. The downside is I haven't heard back from Mr Possin from my attempts to contact him. So I'm probably commiting a terrible intellectual faux-pass just posting this.

For those of you who don’t know it Heroes Unlimited is a class and level based super heroic ruleset with more than a passing resemblance to old school D&D. In fact it uses the same system as all the other Palladium books. I talked about the system when I created a version of the Magpie for Palladium Fantasy over on the weareassassin blog here and here.

Most people are familiar with the Palladium rules (officially the Megaverse system) either through the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG, and/or Rifts; the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink post apocalyptic setting. Kevin Siembieda, the creator of Palladium Books and Games, not only managed to get licenses to create games for the TMNT and the Robotech IPs back in the 80's but kept and maintained them for years.

But from an OSR perspective it's more interesting than that. In fact I'd argue it's the original OSR game system. Scratch deeply enough and you can see AD&D 1e beneath the surface. You can tell Kev's table played with psionics and comeliness back in the day. Of course 1e psionics are a horrible, almost unplayable, unbalanced mess. I suspected that Kevin might have tried fixing that, realised he had something worth money, and built Palladium around it. File the serial numbers off AD&D enough that TSR can't sue, bolt on a percentile based skill system, replace combat with your own home-brewed thing with 15 second rounds, individual actions and this whole active defence thing going on. Suddenly you've got the core of a whole new system.

It's a system which is a mass of subsystems, not all of which mesh well with one another, but as a whole work. A system that will support any setting you might want to drop on top of it, with minimal chance of collapse. Sure you might have to get a hammer out to bash it into shape but it'll work. However we're not encouraged to do that; only licensed game designers (Kev' and his people at Palladium). There is an air of what I've read described as "Cargo-cult game design", with Kev' just following the same steps as worked before; the system as a whole hasn't really been updated since the 80's. However I think it's more of bench-thumping game design. Each subsystem works on its own and they're essentially modular, so they can work together. Right? You just have to hammer in a subsystem to get them to gear. Psionics and magic? Leylines. Giant robots and squishy normal people? Megadamage (which is normal damage x100 and you have to do at least 100 damage to do 1 point of megadamage or nothing happens; humans can take less than 100 damage before dying). Modern setting? Make skills separate from character class and base them on character education. Or on their jobs. And so on an so forth.

There's something like a dozen settings for the rules, each vaguely compatible with the rest. Heroes Unlimited doesn't have an official setting as such. But there are sourcebooks. So we're going to use the characters we generate to flesh out a setting as we go.

I’m going to follow Possin’s rules (where unchanged I’ve made them italicised), as he followed them, with a few minor changes of my own. Here they are.

1.      I will be using only the books I have: Heroes Unlimited 2e, Powers Unlimited books 1 through 3, Ninjas and Superspies and whatever else I can get my hands on. If any of you feel like treating me I have a wishlist here. Any of the Palladium Books listed there would be wonderful, thanks.

2.      All percentile rolls with mechanical benefits or downsides get chosen rather than rolled. Other percentile rolls can be rolled or chosen as needed. Although in practice I tend to roll anyway.

3.      Attributes all start at 11, unless something else is required for the power category. In which case the first boosted attribute will be 20 and all subsequent boosted attributes 15, or the minimum required; whichever is higher.

4.      When rolling for any other non-percentile roll count the first die gets the low average, the second the high average and so on. For example: If I were rolling 3D6, the total would be ten, the first die would be a 3, the second a 4, and the third a 3.

5.      Do not worry about the percentages of the non-combat oriented skills. They might be useful, but the nature of the palladium house system means they will take hours to properly fill out, and that is just a nightmare. The combat stuff will be complex enough on its own. I’ll fill them out if I need them, but not before.

6.      All budgets will be maximum, unless I feel otherwise.

7.      I’ll roll for random alignments so I can decide if this is a hero, villain or whatever. However I’ll waive this if I have a clear idea for a character.
The alignments I’m using are the main 7 from the rules: Principled, Scrupulous, Unprincipled, Anarchist, Aberrant, Miscreant and Diabolic. I’ll also use Taoist from the Mythic China source book and the two of my own creation: Conformist and Non-Conformist.
This gives me 10 alignments to play with. I’ll roll d10 and read off from the list  above so that 1 is Principled and 0 is Non-Conformist

8.      I’m using the classes chart from Powers Unlimited volume 2 to randomly pick which class I generate next. I’m aiming for a minimum of 1 of each class and subclass but I’ll happily pad things out with repeated classes, just not back to back.
Also every character has a 1 in 10 chance of being either a Crazy or a Mega Hero (1=Crazy; 0=Mega)

9.      I’ll be using the P.P.E. channeling rules from the Best of Rifter when it comes to magic. But more of that as and when.

10.   I’m using Cameron Corniuk’s house rule for repeat skills. Namely +10% for the first repetition and +5% for each thereafter. For weapon proficiencies it’s +1 level per repetition. For hand to hand styles I can either increase their levels or add them together to get the next style up.

Okay those are the ground rules laid. I’ll see you back here next week for... 68...

The Immortal!

Orphaned Magical Research Rules

I'm still working on my homebrewed fantasy heartbreaker. Although it's gone from being a house-ruled version of B/X to something else. I might write about it, and my other projects, later.

What I want to write about today is the research system I think I developed; my memory isn't what it was. It's a d6 based system but 1d6, while I've gone onto using a 3d6 system for the bell curve. While I'm still planning on keeping the core of the system with its stages of development, the core die mechanic is going to change. This means that the old version, this version, is orphaned. So I thought I'd share.

It all starts with intelligence:

Some explanation:

Additional Languages.

This is the number of additional languages a character begins play with. It also dictates their initial literacy. See Research Roll below to discover how to learn languages in play.

• Nil language: The character lacks language and is forced to communicate through grunts and gestures.
• 0: The character can only speak fluently in their native language.
• +#: The character speaks fluently an additional language, wherein n is the number of additional languages spoken.
• Illiterate: The character is unable to read or write.
• Basic literacy: The character is able to read a few words and possibly write their own name. Their penmanship is poor though.
• Literate: The character is able to fluently read and write; they can communicate as well in written form as they can in speech.
• Literate +#: The character is able to fluently read and write an additional language, wherein n is the number of additional languages the character is literate in.

Research  Roll:

This is the chance on a d6 for a character to learn a new spell or do magical research. It can also be used to learn new languages. Among other things.
In general a roll to do research, or learn something new can happen once every set period of time, possibly with some extra cost or some-such.
If there is a research penalty applied to the roll then one starts at the intelligence score of one’s character and then counts down. So an INT 10 character with a -2 penalty would roll as if they were INT 8; which remains a 2 in 6 chance anyway. More about spell studying and research can be found in the chapter on Magic & Spells below.

Learning new languages:

There are three stages to learning a new spoken language, each of which takes a month of game time during which the character should be exposed to the language in question on a daily basis. The character is able to do other things, including adventuring, during this time. Difficult languages or writing systems should have a research penalty to learn.
After a month and a successful research roll the character achieves Basic Fluency in the new language; they can speak a few key phrases, such as “Hello little girl,” “I speak your language very well,” “Which way to your mother,” “So is your face,” and “My flying carpet is full of salmon.”
After another month and successful research roll the character achieves Conversational Fluency. They are able to hold a conversation with a native speaker of the language well enough to make themselves understood. However complex topics are still beyond them.
Finally after a third month and successful research roll the character achieves Full Fluency, where they can speak the language like a native.
Literacy follows the same procedure, but only takes a week per roll. Literacy can be gained at the same time as fluency but cannot exceed a character’s fluency in that language.

Weapon Proficiency:

All characters begin proficient in certain weapons, as by their character class description. Typically their starting weapon. When using a new weapon, in which they are not proficient, then they fight with a penalty of -3. After a week’s practice with the weapon they can make a research roll and if successful the penalty drops to -2. With each additional week’s practice and successful research roll the penalty reduces by a point until it reaches zero, at which point the character is proficient with that weapon.
Fighters and Outlanders have their own methods of developing weapon proficiencies and do not need to make research rolls to do so.

Spell Memorisation.

These are bonus spells that a character who can cast Arcane spells can add to their repertoire. These modifiers stack so a character with an INT of 15 would be able to memorise an additional three extra first level spells.

That gives a brief foundation in what's going on. The core column in this case being the research roll. Next onto the meat of the system.:

Spell Study: 

If and when a magic using character finds a new spell from some source and are able to study that source it is a relatively easy thing to learn to use the spell themselves. If the source is something like a spell book or grimoire that the character is able to readily read then they get to make a research roll every game time day of study (including a good night’s rest). If the source is a book that the character is unable to readily read, perhaps because it is in a foreign language or is in some way encoded then they must first decode or translate it into some readily readable form. This may require additional adventures.
If the spell is from esoteric source, such as a standing magical effect, an anomaly, a magic item or similar then first the character must use the Spell Research rules below to research the effect so that they can develop enough of an understanding of it to study it as a spell. Although with a bonus to the research. In the case of a standing magical effect or anomaly this will require setting up a laboratory at the site. More portable effects can be taken to previously established facilities for study.
In any regards spell study carries a research penalty equal to the level of the spell being studied. A failed roll just means that the time spent studying was wasted, or the character was distracted. There’s nothing stopping them returning to their studies tomorrow.

Spell Research: 

If a magic using character wishes to create a new spell, item or similar they must first research it. There are three stages to research: Breakthrough, Experimentation and Completion.

Breakthrough. 

The magic user must first make a number of successful breakthrough rolls equal to the level of the spell being researched. Each breakthrough takes one week of game time to research, and costs 100sp per week, outside of other costs. A failed roll for a breakthrough just wastes the time and resources put into that week’s research.

Experimentation. 

Once they have made sufficient breakthroughs the magic users moves on to experimentation. Again they must make a number of experimentation rolls equal to the level of the spell that they are researching. These each take a day of game time and cost 10sp per level of the spell being researched. A failed roll represents a setback which forces the magic user to go back and make another breakthrough to counter it. Thankfully any time spent experimenting counts towards the week making the new breakthrough.

Completion. 

When they have finally made all their breakthroughs and experiments the magic user can finally move onto codifying and recording their discovery. This takes one game week of time and costs 100sp per level of the spell. A successful roll leaves the magic user with a collection of their research notes, the spell memorised and copied into a format that they, or another, can use to memorise it in the future. A failed roll means that the magic user has wasted the time and money without getting anywhere.

Reconstructing a spell from a magic user’s completed research notes (their own or another’s) just requires going through the completion stage again. However a failure here means that the magic user fails to comprehend the notes and they are pushed back to the experimentation stage. A successful experimentation roll returns the magic user back to the completion stage while a failure has its normal result.
This is also the case if the research notes are incomplete and come from another magic user, or more than a year has passed since the magic user last worked on the research. But here the completion roll takes a day, cost nothing but time, and reveals where the notes end. Success permits the magic user just continue where their peer left off. Failure counts as a setback. Magic users who have taken a brief break (less than a year) from their own work don’t have to make this roll.

Peer Review. 

In some circles spell casters are expected to share their findings with their peers. Of course said peers don’t just want to see the finished product they want to see the workings too. This takes them a number of hours equal to the level of the spell and a single research roll. This roll gets a bonus to their intelligence for each level the spell is below the maximum level they can cast. It is penalised for each level above the maximum level they can cast and by each setback that was encountered during research. Failure here means that they can’t comprehend (nor learn) the spell in its current format (the fools!). This will require the researcher to make a further completion roll before they can attempt another review.