[Mirrors/?GMC?] Expanding the Dark Hero

[amechra]

Alright, so I've always found the Dark Hero from the Fantasy Shard to be pretty darn cool; however, they could do with a little bit of expansion. I've already taken a look at this, mainly since it includes errata for a couple of the Masteries.

The purpose of this thread is to collect stuff based around the Dark Hero, so it can easily be found.

Heroic Witches
Some Heroes happened to have some knowledge of witchcraft before they gained their transcendent capabilities; such Heroes found they could apply their Arete to their magical skills with some ease, giving them terrible magical power.

Mechanics: A Heroic Witch is built the same way as a standard Dark Hero; however, they may select a Mystery (HtV: Witch Hunters) as a Mastery "Skill". For the purposes of that Mystery, they are considered to have a Gnosis rating equal to their Arete, and may select spells from that Mystery as Mastery Abilities; they must still learn Spells in order. They may replace any number of Mastery Skills with Mastery Mysteries on a 1-for-1 basis.

Heroic Witches may learn spells as normal in addition to learning them as Mastery Abilities; for example, a Witch could learn the first two spells of a Mystery as Mastery Abilities, purchase the next one normally, then pick up the 4th spell as another Mastery Ability.

Aside from spells, the following Mastery Abilities may be learned for Mysteries:

• Assess: This Mastery Ability lets the Hero know whether a person has Gnosis 1 or higher, Gnosis 3 or higher, or Gnosis 5 or higher. It also allows them to learn that person's unmodified Attribute + Skill + Gnosis pool when they are casting a spell as normal for the Assess ability.
• Blood, Sweat, and Tears: This Mastery Ability lets the Hero get bonus dice on a casting roll as normal; they may also take 1 Lethal damage in place of spending a point of Willpower on a spell. These two uses are mutually exclusive.
• Eschew Conditions: This Mastery Ability allows you to replace a specific ritual component for spells of that Mystery.
• The Guild: The effects of this Mastery Ability apply to anyone who has a Gnosis rating 3 or higher, and allows the Hero to use their Arete as a social skill against such characters.
• Rapidity: This Mastery Ability applies to any rolls made to cast a spell from that Mystery.
• Skill Sense: This Mastery Ability allows the Hero to sense a person casting a spell from their Mystery, as long as their Gnosis is lower than the Hero's Arete.

Heroes of the God-Machine (GMC Rules Update)
OK, I don't have one for this... can I have some help? I kinda don't grok GMC too well.

[StSword]

As for as making them GMC compatible, the only thing I can think of is maybe take out their ability to do multiple actions, since they took that out in the gmc for merits, but then again rapidity was always the odd man out because powers that grant extra actions are as rare as hen's teeth.

[amechra]

Maybe reducing Rapidity to only apply to extended actions?

[StSword]

Other ways to do a more magical dark hero might be to use second sight, after all second sight is even mentioned in the spell merit system, and dark heroes with access to thuamaturgy and maybe psychic powers as well is certainly going to seem more magical.

If using witchfinders, then the fact that mysteries can be cast ritually shouldn't be forgotten. With Eschew materials a dark hero wouldn't need help, with it twice they wouldn't need help or material components.

Another options are the "everyone can cast ritual magic" rule from the mage chroniclers guide, in which case dark heroes could be better ritual magicians than mages.

[amechra]

Eschew Conditions only removes specific requirements from the use of a skill. So purchasing it the first time might remove your need for help... but you'd have to buy off each component. Yeah, I double checked that one.

And I personally don't really much like Second Sight; don't know why, but it just feels kinda meh to me.

[amechra]

Apologies for the double post.

I'm thinking that it might be neat to give some equivalent of Scion's Knacks to Heroes; nothing beyond the Hero level, of course (ha ha im hilarious), but still giving some "I am mega strong or smart" as a thing.

Or, alternatively, I could introduce it as a Hero-only Merit.

Heroic (Attribute) (• - •••••)
Prerequisites: The chosen Attribute must have a rating equal to or greater than the level of this Merit.
This Merit applies to a single Attribute of your choice; benefits are cumulative with those of lower levels.
•: Dicepools involving the chosen Attribute cannot be reduced below either your Arete or your Attribute, whichever would be lower.
••: Whenever you make a roll with the chosen Attribute, you may forgo the benefits of 10-Again to instead gain 2 successes for each 10 rolled.
•••: Whenever you make a roll with the chosen Attribute, you may downgrade 9-Again to 10-Again to instead gain 2 successes for each 9 rolled.
••••: Whenever you make a roll with the chosen Attribute, you may downgrade 8-Again to 9-Again to instead gain 2 successes for each 8 rolled.
•••••: Whenever you make a roll with the chosen Attribute, rolls of 7 are considered a Success.

Even better than having it as a Merit, a set of rules for picking Attributes as Mastery "Skills" might be in order, so you could have a Hero whose schtick is that he's got massive amounts of raw strength or intellect.

[Leetsepeak]

I think Rapidity halving the duration of actions is fine. Dice pools are somewhat of an abstraction, and they don't need to represent it by letting you roll two instant actions at once. I'd maybe use guidelines for autofire with guns as a guideline, and assign a +1 for each level of Rapidity to a combat action, if it's applied to one. So while having Rapidity 2 would lower an Extended action to a quarter of the original time, for an instant action, it would grant a +2 bonus representing the alacrity with which they're working.

[Dataweaver]

Personally, I tend to treat Dark Heroes as an extension of Hunter: the Vigil. I don’t generally go with “Heroic Witches”; instead, I allow the “Spell” Mastery to grant access to an Endowment without the need to join a Conspiracy. As well, being “super hunters”, I give Dark Heroes access to the same Risking Willpower and Practical Experience rules that hunters benefit from. They basically operate at Tier Three, like Conspiracies do, but as individuals.

[amechra]

Ooh, I kinda like that.

In that case, I'd revise Spell Mastery to either let you pick up Endowments or let you pick up Dread Powers (for those people who don't want to eat people and gain their powers. Weirdos.) And I'd let you build something with R&D and buy that. Why not?

And ooh, Dark Hero Slashers would be terrifying.

Speaking of which, I feel like they should get a Mastery (under Self-Perfection, probably) that would reduce the drawbacks for trying to perform Tactics solo; maybe one each under Physical, Mental, and Social.

Van Helsing didn't need help to break fangs.

[Dataweaver]

Ooh, I kinda like that.

Thank you. It’s always been my opinion that Dark Heroes as written are more of a hlaf-finished template, and need some additional focus. Treating them as “super hunters” provides that needed focus without compromising what they already are.

In that case, I'd revise Spell Mastery to either let you pick up Endowments or let you pick up Dread Powers (for those people who don't want to eat people and gain their powers. Weirdos.) And I'd let you build something with R&D and buy that. Why not?

I wouldn’t allow the Dread Powers to be bought directly, as it undermines certain Endowments: yes, eating a monster to gain its powers is gross; but that’s much of the point of that Endowment. Want to develop Dread Powers in a less disgusting fashion? Pick an Endowment that does so. If none exist, make one up; just don’t give the Dark Hero a means of gaining powers that you wouldn’t want a Conspiracy of regular mortals to have.

And yes, R&D would come with the territory — in fact, that would be the crucial benefit when it comes to Endowments that are purchased as sets of Merits, such as Advanced Armoury, Relics, or Thaumatechnology: sure, the Spell Mastery grants a “starter item”; but it also lets you conduct R&D and create more of your own. For single-Merit Endowments such as Benediction, Castigation, or Elixirs, I’d let the associated Skill stand in for the Merit: that is, if you take Castigations as a Spell Mastery of Occult when you have Occult ••, you effectively have two dots of Castigations; when you raise Occult to •••, you now effectively have three dots in Castigations.

Also, be sure to associate each Endowment with an appropriate Skill: Advanced Armoury works well with Crafts; Thaumatechnology fits Medicine quite well; given that Relics are found and not made, I’d tie it to Investigation. And so on. Actually, I’d give each one an optional specialty that, if you have it, applies to any uses of the Endowment. Some examples:

• Advanced Armoury: Crafts (Weaponry)
• Benedictions: Academics (Religion)
• Castigations: Occult (Demonology)
• Elixirs: Science (Chemistry)
• Relics: Investigation (Artifacts)
• Thaumatechnology: Medicine (Surgery)
• Rites du Cheval: Expression (Spirits)

I don’t have my books handy, so I don’t even remember the names of the Endowments featured in Witch Finders, Night Stalkers, Slashers, or Mortal Remains, let alone enough about them to guess which Skills would provide suitable baselines for the gateway Spell Masteries.

And ooh, Dark Hero Slashers would be terrifying.

Yep. These Dark Villains would be to Dark Heroes as the Mad are to Mages, and similar “no Morality” types are to the other lines.

Speaking of which, I feel like they should get a Mastery (under Self-Perfection, probably) that would reduce the drawbacks for trying to perform Tactics solo; maybe one each under Physical, Mental, and Social.

Nice one — though if it were me, I’d make it a new kind of Skill Mastery that negates all penalties for attempting to solo any Tactic that is based on the associated Skill.

[amechra]

The ones you don't have are:

Teleinformatics: Empathy (Psychological Profiling)
Ink: I dunno. Maybe Brawl or Drive.
Anthropophagy: My gut goes with Socialize (Cannibalism), but my gut is probably wrong.
Goetic Gospels: Who knows? Maybe Occult (Inner Demons)?

Maybe they should also get a Mastery that allows them to replace the normal effects of spending Willpower on that Mastery Skill with one of the benefits from Risking Willpower?

[Dataweaver]

Also Rites of Denial: Occult (Blood Magic)? I like your Teleinformatics suggestion. I’ll have to review the other three.

[ArcaneArts]

And ooh, Dark Hero Slashers would be terrifying.

Trufacs: The grand villain of my Hunter Chronicle was a Dark Hero Slasher.

He scared me.