Hero Kids Encounter Difficulty

In putting together the Hero Kids Brecken Vale Gazetteer, I (finally) correctly organised the adventures into tiers of play.  

In the Gazetteer, these are arranged geographically, beginning with the Adventures in Rivenshore, then Skritteland, then adventures Across the Vale.

The Adventures in Rivenshore tier are introductory adventures and will be adjusted to have Easy difficulty.

• Basement O’ Rats
• Fire in Rivenshore
• Tomb of the Lost King
• Darkness Neath Rivenshore

Adventures in Skritteland are slightly more challenging and will be adjusted to have Moderate difficulty:

• Twilight Watchtower
• Curse of the Shadow Walkers
• Mines of Martek
• Maze of the Minotaur

Beyond those adventures, the rest will be Hard difficulty.

• Wizard’s Tower
• The Lost Village
• Glade of the Unicorn
• Yuletide Journey
• Escape from the Ghost Pirates
• Reign of the Dragon

Which begs the question, what does it mean for an adventure to be Easy, Moderate, or Hard.

Until now, the difficulty of Hero Kids adventures has been a factor of their duration (the number of  encounters) and the challenge posed by the enemies in each encounter.

However, the difficulty of each combat encounter is difficult to calculate, due to the multitude of factors that goes into it:

• Number of heroes (and which heroes are used)
• Enemy array for each hero
• Arrangement of heroes and enemies on the encounter map
• Hero equipment or advancement.
  

Those of you who've played any Dungeons & Dragons, will know that there's no easy or reliable way of calculating the strength of a monster, or the strength of a party of adventurers.  And it would be foolish to think that Hero Kids is simple enough to afford a simple calculation.

But Hero Kids is simple enough to estimate encounter difficulty.

To estimate the difficulty of an encounter, we need to establish a baseline.  For this, I propose that the baseline is derived from a single hero, basically factoring in that heroes abilities, armor, and health boxes (but not their Special Action and Bonus Ability).  

Luckily, all heroes use the same rules to calculate their abilities (strength, dexterity, and intelligence), armor, and health.  Heroes have 4 dice to assign to their abilities and armor and they have 3 health.  The 4 dice arranged between abilities and armor reflect a hero's power, and the 3 heath reflects their longevity.  Together, their power and longevity reflect their overall power.  

This gives us a baseline of 12 power (4 times 3) for each hero.

For heroes that use ranged or magic, which cost extra dice to assign, I'm going to assume that their longer ranged attacks (and other abilities) are balanced out by their lower dice of ability dice.  So all heroes have the same 12 power.

Enemies, comparatively, do not follow preset rules for their creation, so their power varies a lot.  But we can use the same rules to estimate their relative power:

For these enemies, we have:

• Bat: 3 abilities x 1 health = 3 power
• Pirate Archer: 4 abilities x 2 health = 8 power
• Giant Rat: 1 abilities x 1 health = 2 power
• Skeleton Warrior: 4 abilities x 2 health = 8 power

Comparatively, a 'boss' creature is more comparable to a normal hero:

This King Rat is a boss creature, and is the same power as a single hero:

• King Rat: 4 abilities x 3 health = 12 power

Now that we have a baseline for a creature's power, we can estimate encounter difficulty.

For this, I'm using the following (rough) calculations for the difficulty of each encounter:

• Easy: 6 power per hero
• Moderate: 8 power per hero
• Hard: 10 power per hero

There are several caveats to this estimate.  

First, the bosses clearly outmatch single heroes.  For this, we will rely on the heroes' health potions to give them enough advantage to survive climactic battles.

Second, magic and ranged abilities cost 2 dice, but only give 1 dice for those attacks.  We'll assume that these heroes are roughly the same power as baseline 4 dice ability heroes.

Third, when there are 3 or 4 heroes, their abilities reinforce each other (Teamwork, split attacks, etc), significantly increasing their collective power.  In this case, some increase in the power of enemies can be accommodated.

Let's take a look at a Moderate encounter.  As you recall, this encounter should have 8 power for each hero.

Based on these monsters, the combat has the following difficulty calculations:

• 1 hero: 6 power (6 power per hero)
• 2 heroes: 18 power (9 power per hero)
• 3 heroes: 24 power (8 power per hero)
• 4 heroes: 36 power (9 power per hero)

As you can see, the exact difficulty varies for each hero due to the granularity of the underlying monsters.  But even with that variation, this encounter generally adheres to the 8 power per hero difficulty expected of a Moderate difficulty adventure.

So there you have it.  Is this workable in practice?  What's your experience been with individual encounter difficulty?  Will this help?  Is it close to 'correct'?

This difficulty calculation revision will be incorporated into all of the Hero Kids adventures over the next few months in the lead up to:

HERO KIDS' 10TH ANNIVERSARY THIS OCTOBER!!!!!!!! 

Check out the Hero Kids Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle at DriveThruRPG

Hero Advancement Cards

Phew!  That was harder than it should have been.  The Hero Advancement Cards for Hero Kids are done, dusted, and released:

Hero Kids - Hero Advancement Cards

The Hero Advancement Cards expansion includes 120 cards, and allows players to improve all aspects of their heroes:
• Improve abilities (melee, ranged, magic, or armor)
• Gain new abilities (melee, ranged, magic, or armor)
• Add an additional health level to their hero
• Learn new skills
• Train new special actions
• Master new bonus abilities

Here's a look at the cards in the pack (warning; there's a lot!):

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Check out the Hero Kids Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle at DriveThruRPG

Hero Kids review round-up

No time like the present to scrape the latest Hero Kids reviews for insights.

First, we have an in-depth review of Hero Kids on YouTube:

That review includes an interesting Adventure Blueprint framework to structure adventures for beginner players all the way up to experienced players:

Second, I'm seeing a theme of people using Hero Kids in their 'normal' games, not just with kids:

"Simple, objective, upgradable, replayable, PERFECT! Awesome to play with kids but I cannot deny that I am playing with a group of adult friends and we are having a lot of fun. LOL"

Third, we have lots of feedback from people introing their kids to RPGs with Hero Kids:

"Great product! I was wanting to introduce my 9yo to tabletop RPGs and this was a perfect way. She grasped it quickly and wants to play every weekend now. I will be buying the rest of the modules now I guess! Thanks!"

"This is absolutely fantastic for younger kids getting into rpg's, i started by getting my kids (3, 4 and 8) to choose a hero out of the coloriong book, a separate free download, and got them to color in their heroes as we played (a helpful distraction at times for the younger 2).
I had my 8 year old help the 3 year old at times but he is definitely keen to play more, and all 3 kids already feel a connection to there heroes and each others, (one encounter I may have KO'd one of their heroes causing them to get a little upset....but they worked out they could use a potion on him to get him up again).
Things are easily modifed to suit your needs with age differences etc. and the book has a few tips on running a game with younger players. I'm so glad i found this!"

Fourth, there's several reviews that give specific feedback about using Fire In Rivenshore to teach when it's okay to keep secrets, and when these should be discussed with adults:

"This was a good adventure to work on listening skills - trying to keep a list of tasks and the order she wanted to do them in to help the most people.
It also highlighted that we needed to discuss with her about what is ok to keep secrets about vs things that should be discussed with an adult. Amazing what a 'simple game' can make parents realize :-)"

And this review:

"6.5 year old has very much enjoyed the game - we've played 2 of the adventures so far - one of which we did one evening while on a family vacation - just had printed the adventure beforehand - handful of 6 sided dice and a very compact game to play whereever the desire (or boredom) may strike.
Simple rules, simple math, the adults have had fun, she has had fun.

Works on listening skills, critical thinking, some good math practice for the age group, and at least one of the adventures highlighted a discussion we needed to have on what kinds of things are appropriate for "keeping secrets" vs what should be discussed with an adult."

Fifthly, here's a recent - and lovely - review:

"This is a great system—not only for introducing young kids to RPGs, but also for enabling families with young kids to play RPGs together. The system is simple enough for very young children to be able to play, but has enough detail that older kids can enhance their characters' capabilities as they understand more.

All of the player characters (many fun pregenerated options are included) have a special ability. My kids have latched on to these; each is excited about their character's special strengths and functionality. The enemies also have well-concieved special abilities, so there's some exciting variety in combat even though the combat mechanic is very simple and easy for all to navigate.

The published adventures are a lot of fun, and always include enough detail to help inexperienced DM parents narrate a compelling story for the kids. Of particular note are the maps. They're done simply but very well. They're nice to print out and keep around for reuse in other adventures in other systems.

That's all enough to make this a great system; but to sweeten the deal, the prices are very reasonable."

Finally, let's talk about some criticism:

"The first adventure focuses only on combat, and is incredibly repetitive. Fight a group of rats, then another group of rats, then a third group of rats, then the rats and their king. I'm not adverse to violence (I love intriguing fights), but the system is so simple that the fights become boring very quickly on the one hand, and on the other hand: is this REALLY what RPGs are about? Kill monsters? I think we all know there are about much more than that. They are about the wonder of discovery, the relationship between characters, moral questions and problems, etc. Kids are NOT too young to deal with these issues! By focusing the adventure (and indeed, the core system) only on combat, it diminishes their potential enjoyment of the game."

This is a legitimate criticism of the first adventure; Basement O Rats.  It was the first I ever wrote for Hero Kids, and it is heavily combat-focused.  As this reviewer points out, the adventure includes four combat encounters, and only a couple of exploration elements.  While the side room does include an opportunity for role-playing, it's incumbent of the GM to create and introduce a character here; 'Old man Jenkins'...

The heavy focus on combat for this adventure was intentional, to the extent that anything I wrote that long ago was intentional.  As the intro adventure, I wanted the adventure to focus heavily on the mechanically-codified section of the game, combat, rather that on the more free-form aspects of the game, exploration and role-playing.

With an extra six-year's experience under my belt, Darkness Neath Rivenshore is somewhat of a replacement for Basement O Rats.  

Compared to Basement O Rats, Darkness Neath Rivenshore has:

• Less combat encounters
• More variety to the combat encounters
• Integrated role-playing through the conversations with Emon in the drains
• Puzzle and exploration elements integrated into the encounters (blocking gates, the spring statue, the cause of the mutations, etc)
• The option to use the adventure to explore death (from the review "Kids are NOT too young to deal with these issues!")

So, I guess if people don't like Basement O Rats, they should play Darkness Neath Rivenshore as a better representation of the role-playing experience.

And maybe I'll revise Basement O Rats in the future...

By the way, despite that reviewer's criticism, their review is still positive:

"Overall, this is a recommended purchase for any parent who wants to involve his or her kids in RPGs for the first time, but be aware you'll need to do a lot of tweaking to the adventures."

Character development in Hero Kids

Let's talk about character development in Hero Kids.

The number one thing that people ask me for in Hero Kids is:

MORE ADVENTURES

But the number two thing that they ask for is:

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Thus, I recently directed the Eye of Sauron to the task, and worked up some ideas for how character development could work in Hero Kids.

Before we discuss these actual ideas, these are the principles that guided the development work:

• Maintain compatibility with existing heroes and expansions (i.e. equipment)
• Minimise straight-up escalation of die pools
• Allow players to choose what aspects of their characters to develop
• Enable advancement in each of the aspects of characters (dice pools, armor, health, actions, abilities, and skills)
• Continue the look and feel of Hero Kids

So.

Here's the idea, the Hero Chronicle:

And here's how it works:

• Each hero has a corresponding 'Hero Chronicle'.
• The Hero Chronicle as a number of character development options
• Each character development option on the Hero Chronicle has one, two, or three check boxes
• Each time the hero completes an adventure (or a reasonable adventuring time period, such as 90 minutes), the player can check off a box on one of the development options
• When all of the check boxes next to a development option are checked, the hero has 'earned' that development
• The development options are:
• 3x Increase a dice pool by 1 die (Melee, Ranged, Magic, Armor)
• Add a new dice pool (Melee, Ranged, Magic), such as a Magic pool to a Melee character, and gain that pool's standard attack action
• Add a new health level (Grazed)
• 4x Add a new special action or skill
• Add a new bonus ability
• Each development option has matching set of Development Cards, representing all of the development options (such as different skills, special actions, or bonus abilities)

In play, a hero would venture forth, and as they completed adventures or adventure sessions, the player would check off boxes on the Hero Chronicle, and progressively accumulate additional development options, each of which would be represented through a Development Card:

The Development Cards would look like these:

So, that's the working idea.

Leave a comment below with feedback and discussion.  I'm keen to hear whether this seems feasible, or whether the great eye needs to look further afield.

Hero Kids designer podcast interview

I'm interviewed by the amazing Boomer Radio Network, so listen in to hear all about the development of Heroes Against Darkness, the ongoing world of Hero Kids, and my latest Forge Engine Universal Role-Playing System.

https://www.brnau.com/the-obligatory-rpg-show/2017/9/15/qzzbm0shxx3cvxebaei2lb6w7kbu3y-nh26n

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Check out the Hero Kids Complete Fantasy PDF Bundle at DriveThruRPG

Introducing Hero Kids Monster Compendium

It's DONE!  (The PDF anyway...)

Now, I know you're dying to know what's in this bad boy!  The PDF of the Monster Compendium has 136 monsters in the 60 page book.  I've designed multiple monsters for most of the 'types', so you can mix and match them to create interesting (and challenging encounters).

Bats, Beguilers, Boars, Brigands, Bugbears, Commoners, Constructs, Coot and Crone, Cultists, Dragons, Elementals, Firestarter, Flaming Skull, Foxes, Froglings, Gargoyle, Ghost, Giants, Gladiators, Goblins, Gorillas, Guards, Helm Knight, Hydra, Knights, Kobolds, Lizardkin, Minotaur, Mummies, Pirates, Ratlings, Rats, Scorpion, Sea Serpent, Skeletons, Slimes, Snakes, Spiders, Tengu, Water Beast, Weasels, Werewolf, Wolves, Wraith, Wyvern, Zombies...

Each monster section contains ecology and adventure hooks for the monsters.  As Brian Benoit says:

"From the perspective of a GM, I absolutely love all the hooks you've included in the book.  You could literally flip to any page and run an off-the-cuff adventure off of any one of the hooks provided, so I love the book from that perspective.  I also like the lists of names included, makes it easy to name an NPC on the fly.  It's a nice touch."

The PDF also comes with another 51 page PDF for all of the monster stand-ups.  They look like this:

It's slightly hard to see here, but the top half is monsters numbered 1 to 4, and the bottom half of the page is the monsters numbered 5-8.  So depending on how you play, and how many monsters you throw at your heroes, you can just cut the top half of each of these pages.

Now that the PDFs are finished (pending any updates), I'm gonna put together a print version of this Monster Compendium.

Get the Hero Kids Monster Compendium here:
Hero Kids - Fantasy Expansion - Monster Compendium

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Advanced Combat in Hero Kids...

Following the recent update to the Hero Kids core rules, my nemesis Robert McGovern pointed out that many of the game terms covered in the Glossary weren't well covered in the main text.  Instead of trying to cram those explanations into the main text, I've added a whole new Advanced Combat section to the game.  Below you can find the text of that section, for comment and discussion before I update the rules again.

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Once you and your players have conquered a few encounters, you’ll likely be ready to explore the characters’ special actions and the further scope of Hero Kids’ combat system.  The depth of the system is encompassed in the unique actions and abilities of the heroes and monsters that allow them to interact with each other and the world around them, shaping combat and creating advantageous situations.

Additional Attack Effects

Some attacks have additional effects that trigger regardless of the success of the attack, indicated with ‘also’ in the attack description.  In this example, the swashbuckler’s attack moves the target back and the character moves into their square:
Melee attack at an adjacent target using 1 fewer dice; the target is also pushed back and you move into its square.

Alternate Attack Effects

While additional attack effects happen in addition to damage (remember, all attacks deal 1 damage), some attacks effects instead of dealing damage.  For example, the mancer can attack with 1 extra die, but the target is moved without taking damage:
Magic attack at a target up to 4 squares away with 1 extra die; if the attack his it deals no damage but you can push or pull the target up to 4 squares.

Attacking Engaged Targets

To encourage players to coordinate their characters’ actions, many characters gain benefits their targets are engaged. Engaged targets have an enemy adjacent to them, or have been the target of any attack since the attackers last turn.  Some characters have special attacks only usable against engaged targets while others, such as warriors, automatically gain benefits through their Teamwork bonus ability:
When a target is engaged, your attacks against that target gain 1 extra die.

Combining Effects

Combining multiple attack effects is a great way to maximize the effectiveness of characters, especially in the face of difficult enemies.  This involves finding synergies in actions and bonuses.
For example, a warrior with two adjacent enemies could split their melee dice to attack both:
Split your melee dice to make melee attacks at multiple adjacent targets.
However, if both of those targets are engaged, then each of those attacks gains 1 extra die:
When a target is engaged, your attacks against that target gain 1 extra die.
As you can see, combining these actions and abilities effectively doubles the attack strength of the warrior.

Improvising Actions

Players often come up with unexpected ways of dealing with enemies and obstacles, whether it’s swinging through the rigging of a ghostly pirate ship, distracting an enemy with a well thrown chicken drumstick, or fashioning a tripwire with a length of rope.  This creative improvisation by players should be encouraged and rewarded.

Knocked Down, Prone, Get Up

When characters are knocked out (KO’d) or get knocked down, they become prone, which means they are lying down on the ground.  When characters are prone, they cannot perform their normal actions, and melee attacks against them gain 1 extra die.  To stand up, prone characters need to get up, which costs 2 squares of their movement.

Line of Sight and Cover

Ranged attacks require line of sight to the target, which means that there cannot be any solid walls between the attacker and the target.  However, targets can gain cover from objects or obstacles that partially block line of sight.  For example, low crates or walls can provide cover without totally blocking line of sight.  When a target has cover from their attacker, that target gains 1 extra armor die.

Moving Around

Moving around during combat is relatively straightforward, but there are a few areas for clarification.  Characters:
•  can normally move 4 squares
•  can move diagonally
•  may be able to move farther or less far
•  can move through their allies
•  cannot move through enemies
•  must end their movement in an empty square
•  cannot move diagonally around corners
•  require extra movement squares to pass obstacles

Ongoing Effects and Conditions

In addition to simply damaging or moving their targets, many characters (especially those capable of magic) can alter the battlefield, or hamper their enemies.  The warlock’s Freezing Strike bonus ability locks enemies in place:
When you roll a 6 on an attack die, your target cannot move during their next turn.
While the stonemaster’s Wall of Stone action allows him to raise stone walls that block enemies or provide cover to the stonemaster and his allies:
Create an obstacle or impassable wall for each die in your magic pool on empty squares up to 4 squares away.

Pushing and Pulling

Some attacks have alternate or additional effects that allow the attacker to move the target by pushing them further away or pulling them closer.  When pushing or pulling, the target must move in a straight line, cannot move through characters, can move through obstacles if they can pay the extra movement costs, and must end up in an unoccupied space:
Ranged attack at a target up to 6 squares away (but not adjacent); if the attack hits the target takes no damage but is pulled to an empty square closer to you.

Splitting Attacks

Some characters can split their attack dice, which lets them attack multiple targets with one action, such as warriors with their Whirlwind Attack:
Split your melee dice to make melee attacks at multiple adjacent targets.
Warriors normally have 2 dice for their melee attacks, allowing them to attack one target with 2 dice, or to use their Whirlwind Attack to strike two targets with 1 die each.  However, if a warrior gained 1 extra melee die, such as through a piece of equipment or an item, then they could attack up to three adjacent enemies (or even direct 2 dice against one target and 1 die against another).

Hacking Hero Kids...

A few industrious and creative parents have taken the time to hack Hero Kids into different genres.   Andrew Judge has created a beautiful Mouse Guard hack (borrowing some of the images from the real game), and Ted Arlauskas went the extra mile and created sweet new hero cards for his Star Wars hack!

With all this inspiration, I'm working on some new heroes...   :-)

Andrew Judge's Hero Kids/Mouse Guard hack

Ted Arlauskas's Hero Kids/Star Wars hack

The people have spoken: Equipment and Items!

Based on your feedback, the next Hero Kids expansion will be Equipment and Items.   This expansion will feature over forty pieces of equipment, including: Armor, Potions, Melee Weapons, Magic Implements, Charms, and Ranged Weapons.

As you can see from this example, I've decided to remove the price from the equipment, so you can hand them out or price them at your absolute discretion:

Items are one-use consumables like potions that can be carried in conjunction with equipment.

They'll be up on DriveThruRPG in the middle of next week.

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Working on equipment...

So the plan for the next Hero Kids expansion is for 10 new heroes, 5 all-new pets, and a bunch of new equipment for your games.   One thing I'm considering for the equipment is including a price on them so that you can include treasure and shops in your games:

Feedback always welcomed...

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

New heroes, progress continues apace...

Here's the Storm-Mage Hero Card.   Hopefully his bonus ability isn't too powerful!

 

The Acrobat, Swashbucklers, Alchemist, and Wolf-Child need some thought...

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG

Hero Kids review at Roving Band of Misfits

Several moons ago, while listening to a Dice of Doom podcast, I came across this comment by Benoit from Roving Band of Misfits:

"I love Paul's idea of assigning dice to 3 key abilities for a 'rules light, kid friendly' RPG.   Super quick, easy, and understandable. I may try this with my kids."

I figured I'd save Benoit the trouble and just send him a copy of Hero Kids instead!   Luckily, Benoit has taken the challenge, played Hero Kids with his family, and posted a comprehensive review of the game on his site:

Hero Kids the new RPG for kids

Quotes?   These are quotes:

"The game is smooth, simple, fun, and definitely geared towards kids.   But that doesn’t mean 'dumbed down.'   It just means 'not overly complicated.'"

"I had a chance to sit down with my kids and wife last week to play a couple of sessions, and we had a blast.   We used the adventure that comes with the base RPG (Basement O’ Rats)"

"Each character also has some special attacks or benefits that are situational, but if you’re playing with younger kids, they’re completely optional. My two youngest (3 and 5) played just with their dice pools, and had a blast.   My wife and oldest daughter (12), on the other hand were able to use the special options on their character sheets, which made the game more interesting for them.   The game did not break from either ignoring or using the special abilities on the character sheets."

"Most of the monsters that come with the modules are 'minions' (one hit and they’re dead), with the bigger bosses having 3 hit points.   This makes the combats go quickly.   This is an advantage not to be underestimated when playing with kids."

"Finally, the production values of this game are top notch.   Each character is fully illustrated in a kid-friendly cartoony style, and many of the statistics on the character sheets (stats, skills, and inventory) are symbols so that even the younger non-reading kids can understand their character sheet."

"Every adventure module comes with print out maps and monster standees included.   And bonus: the maps are all interchangeable!   The entrances and exits to cave maps are all in the same place, so pieces of the 'Basement O’ Rats' maps can be used with map pieces from 'The Lost Village' adventure, which are interchangeable with the 'Minotaur Maze' map pieces."

"All in all, I highly recommend this game.   It is a great introduction to RPGs for kids, and the simple smooth mechanics guarantee that it will also be a staple on your gaming table for a long time to come."

Nice!

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Check out Hero Kids and its adventures at DriveThruRPG:

Hero Forge Games at DriveThruRPG