Character Advancement – A Hero Kids Compatible Supplement for Levelling Characters is a role playing game supplement written and published by Conrad Evanshire for use with Hero Kids.
This is an eight page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $1.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $1.39 during a sale. One page is the front cover, one page the front matter and one page the Invitation to Roleplaying.
Creating a Character Advancement System for Hero Kids explains that Hero Kids as a system lacks a means of advancing characters. They can acquire more equipment, items and pets but not improve in any other way. This does make the system simpler but for older children may reduce the appeal. This supplement aims to correct that, by providing a complete character advancement system from level 1 to 20.
Levels 1 to 10 is normal play. gradually increasing complexity and the understanding of new options. These levels are stated to be well-balanced for existing Hero Kids adventures.
Levels 11 to 20 are stated as being for advanced play. They are intended for the upper age range of Hero Kids (10) and possibly beyond that. It’s stated that these levels push the boundaries of existing adventures and GMs might need to adjust the level or number of adversaries to balance this. Monsters and NPCs can also use the advancement system to add levels and increase their power.
It further explains that as characters advance, so do their powers and abilities, and allows characters to be developed in a unique way.
Character Advancement has the fundamentals of the system. Experience is fairly simple; a normal adventure of 4-6 encounters gains 1 experience, a hard adventure 2 and perhaps additional experience for actions outside of adventure and combat. Either 1, 2 or 3 experience is needed to advance a level, depending on what progression rate the GM decides.
Characters are divided into three classes; fighter, marksman and wizard, depending on which fighting style is used – melee, ranged or magic. Gaining levels adds new talents, the ability to mult0class and increasing health and dice pools. There are also some ranks – similar to level titles seen in the original game. The character sheet is also introduced.
Talent Descriptions has a list of what talent is acquired at every level and descriptions of what each does. These include such as improved accuracy, critical hits, tumble, dodge, disarm. Multi-class allows a character to add a die to an untrained dice pool.
The final two pages are character sheets. The first, aimed for levels 1-10, has a place to put the Hero Card on it. The second is for up to level 20 and is more like a traditional character sheet.
Character Advancement – A Hero Kids Compatible Supplement for Levelling Characters in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, at this size, doesn’t need them. Navigation is okay. The supplement follows a single column layout and appeared to be free of errors. There are a few pieces of stock black and white filler art. Presentation is okay.
This was originally one of two unofficial advancement systems, the other being Campaign System – Hero Kids Compatible, but recently an official system has been released, Hero Kids – Fantasy Expansion – Hero Advancement Cards.
The biggest potential downside for Hero Kids has been its lack of an advancement system. This does make it a lot simpler to play, but players can get a buzz – and children are no different – from improving their characters and gaining new abilities. This is one of a couple of supplements intended to fix that, and it does so in a pretty easy to follow manner. It will entail more work for the GM though; at higher levels published adventures will need levelling to stop heroes from marching through without a problem. This may be a bit hit or miss to start with. Published adventures, when they do have levelling, base it around the number of heroes and monsters. More powerful heroes will require more powerful monsters and it might not be possible to get this right first time.
Despite this problem, and it’s a problem that is likely going to happen with any advancement system, this is a nice, inexpensive addition. It holds the promise of keeping children interested in the game for longer and, as they get to higher levels, means that they will be more familiar with how more complex RPG systems operate, making it easier to transition to the next system. Character Advancement – A Hero Kids Compatible Supplement for Levelling Characters is a nice way of levelling for Hero Kids and it can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply