Waterbrick Down

Bones are seriously one of the most broken parts of this system.

Just so everyone's aware, this final quest will not have a maximum number of slots.

A page from the Eubric Herald floats into the Hall.

Yay, CMP's still alive! Good to hear from you, don't worry about 150, I think we were all suffering from fatigue on that quest. Yeah, it sounds like Heroica RPG was the spring board for a lot of us.

Heroica RPG is actually what introduced me to RPG's. I'm currently DMing one D&D game and playing in another and have played/DM'd multiple systems, gone to conventions, and even started working on my own system, all thanks to this game. I've sprinkled Heroica stories, characters, puzzles into my home games and they're always well received. I think we all created something special here and hopefully this finale brings it to a good conclusion.

What did you have in mind for a fig?

Not a dumb question, it looks like the old moderator, Sandy's, pictures are now unavailable. I've gone ahead and posted a text version of the rules at the beginning of this topic. You can also find more here at the Heroica RPG wiki. As a heads up, the game is unfortunately wrapping up. There will be one last quest to cap the several years the game has existed. Something may eventually take it's place, but it may be a while. Thanks for your interest though.

That is kind of the intention. We're limping along at this stage and I figured I'd give it something of a wrap up for those who have stuck with it for this long. I'm not sure what the plan is afterward. I know all new games need the approval of the Games Moderator and if something were to replace Heroica I'd like to see a good amount of time spent in development to build on the learnings of Heroica.

Right there with you. Since I started in Heroica, I started dating my wife, graduated college, got a job in my field, married my wife, and have had my first kid. Lots have happened in the lives of our membership and I'm not surprised how things have changed.

Coming soon!

There was potential, I think the way the game developed though, the characters had greater loyalties to other Heroica members than to the factions.

Thanks Flipz and yes, you along with others have shared many of the things that I think led to wrapping up of this enterprise. I've got a lot more to add, but I'm going to save it for when this thing really wraps up, Zepher, JimBee, and I discussed all of the issues quite a bit of how to potentially bring Heroica back, but I think we all were of the same opinion privately that there wasn't much hope in that and that the least we could do was offer some fun for those who were still with that. That all being said, I do want to give this a proper ending, if nothing else this thing that we all created is deserving of that, hence why I am taking my good time in making sure it's done right.

Exactly, early level PC's the calculations aren't bad, but once you've got heroes at high levels with 4-5 pieces of custom magic items unique to their build, it becomes really difficult and more of a trial and error approach.

All comes down to system, because there is so much customization of builds within Heroica, it is difficult to prescribe a system for encounter design. The closest thing we have to that is the Fields of Glory and even then with predefined monsters, it can still be difficult trying to figure out how many to send against a party.

Thanks Endgame, there is probably room in this ending for your dragons, I'll PM you. Yeah, QMing really is demanding. Unlike a traditional RPG where there are resources for DM's to use, Heroica QM's are required to come up with and balance custom monsters, abilities, treasure, on top of the story. There are no pre-written modules in this game.

All of these. While a very good game I don't think any of us ever thought it would go for six years. The game in some ways wasn't built for that, mechanically speaking. On the bright side it's been a really amazing experience and I think it will serve as the foundation potentially for something greater maybe down the road.

There's probably a lot of reasons for the decline that have compounded over the months.

Well, we'll let the current quests wrap up and I'll see about getting something of a finale put together.

Most of my quests are one-offs, no big things to tie up. Good to know, thanks.

Well the fate of Eubric is the big one. Xu, Baltarok, and Dastan have smaller things going on, but I don't think they're as pressing. Of the remaining QM's I can't speak for KotZ as to where his story is at, I always figured Zepher might want to wrap up his as well.

Hi folks, looks like things have definitely quieted down here. The extended break has been great, but as I'm looking at what remains of this group, I'm wondering where we go from here. My first thought would be to run a large quest wrapping up the major story lines, giving Heroica the ending it deserves. Thought I'd get all of your ideas on it.

For high level disparities Enemy Level = X*Heroe's Level (As suggested by UsernameMDM) Separate Fronts (Stick your high level heroes on one front and low on another) Passive Specials (Something like "Passive Special: Overconfident - Heroes less than level # ignore this enemy's SP." or "Passive Special: Unguarded - Enemy takes extra damage if already hit this round.") Mobs (High level heroes wear them down, low level heroes finish them off) Cover/Armor (Provides enemies with SP or extra HP, allow it to be destroyed after a certain number of hits) Non-standard Victory Conditions (Land a certain number of hits on an enemy, successfully impart a specific negative effect to an enemy, steal a certain amount of gold, stay standing # rounds, get KO'd a # of times, use a certain number of items, heal NPC's, cast elemental spells in a certain order, Puzzle Battles [see quests from Flipz, WBD, Endgame])

The trick is it's difficult to enact any new rules such as slots without either heavily editing nearly a hundred artifacts or starting everything with a clean slate. Hence the easiest strategy is to simply limit the amount of potential for it to occur. There are two schools of magic item enjoyment, some people value magic items that they find vs. other people who value magic items that they have customized.

Actually I'm not as worried about Mage's gaining access to gems as I am about non-mages being able to purchase Gems and Scrolls and boosting up their defenses. It's difficult enough for QM's to balance everything already, an endless supply of magic items would not help that problem.

-------------- A new quest has been posted by KotZ Quest #158: Color Me Shocked! --------------