> I don't recommend
>pre-declaring Hero Points at all. I can't even think of any other game that
>uses this mechanism - Plot Points, Fate Points, Luck Points, are almost
>invariably post-declared.
Doesn't Star Wars (d6) pre-declare Force Points? But the mechanism there is different in that it gives you more dice to roll (and thus more options), so you *will* always benefit. The problem in HW is that if you pre-declare your HP and then roll a 1, you can't do any better. (and if your opponent simultaneously rolls a 20 then they can't do any worse). I can understand the argument for saying that you should decide up front if you are really putting your all into something, rather than deciding later, but I don't like the idea of burning a limited resource which might not achieve anything. And even though I understand it, I'm not sure I agree with it for a game Like HW, which is not trying to simulate a blow by blow description of the Combat...
>Hero Wars is supposed to be a heroic game - if
>you change this mechanism round then you change that completely. That may
>be what you want, though, and as ever YGMV.
I suppose if you have a problem with players capriciously deciding to boost their victories you could enforce a semi-declared HP rule.
A player can always use a Hero Point (if he has any) to bump his result one step providing this does not give him a better result than his opponent. A player can only bump his result to a result higher than his opponents if he stated he would take this option before hand. If he can not make this bump up then he doesn't spend the HP. (Optionally he can choose not to make this bump up anyway, though this may end up being the same as always post declaring)
so if Player A succeeds and player B fumbles, B can always spend a HP to get a failure, and reduce his loss, but player A can only choose to Critical if he had said before he wanted to spend a HP.
If both succeed, neither can bump to a critical unless pre-declared
If A succeeds on a 17, and B fails on a 15, B can bump to a success, (and win a marginal victory on the low dice rule).
-- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Tim Ellis EMail tim_at_... | | What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations? | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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