This is my first post to the forum, so I hope I can beg your indulgence with a HQ newbie. I think I have at least two questions in what follows, the first broad, the second specific. Perhaps I'm getting old (well, no perhaps about it) but I find the HQ rules rather scattered in their structure, so it's taken me a while to get to grips with things so I'm looking for help.
I am preparing a campaign for a group of hardened gamers who love their roleplaying, but they also like testing the boundaries of games systems. They're not hard core mini-max addicts, but they do enjoy the intellectual persuit of finding combinatons of skills and game mechanics that work in their favour. Question one - I'm wondering what minimax practices to watch out for in character creation and progression and how to put solid boundaries in place early, rather than having to back track on anything after we've kicked off.
In this regard I've been reading the posts on 'what to do when your PCs are so tought they can armwrestle Harrek without breaking into a sweat' with some interest. Not that those posts are about powergaming, but they do demonstrate the benefits of forethought about the overall powerlevel in a game.
Question two relates to augment-only abilities (or rather, magic). If I'm sat looking where to spend my Hero Points as a player, I wouldn't want to spend on things that are 'augment only', because you appear to get more bang for your buck going for direct-impact skills (e.g. sword and shield fighting) or skills that have both a direct and indirect use (e.g. strong as an ox) rather than 'augment only' abilities. Do folk have experience of this mentality, where, e.g., no one wants common magic because it is relatively speaking uncosteffective? HQ Common magic feels in principle like old RQ battle or baseline spirit magic, which was common, fun, and usable, but I can't see my prospective HQ players making use of it.
Thanks and regards
Nam (aspiring Issaries Initiate)
Powered by hypermail