So I am in the middle of compiling and creating custom resources for Descent, most being tied into house ruling to balance out the game in the areas that need it.

I was able to order the 3 promo figures (Tobin, Jonas, and Kel) however, I have come to the understanding that t hey might be slightly imbalanced, minus the fact taht Tobin is completely overpowered. So I am taking a shot at balancing them for my future games.

The thread that I kept an eye on was here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/551525/tobin-farslayer

Here is what I have done with his ability.

I still want him to have the advantage of being good at killing creatures the farther away they are, so I assume that the best way to do it is to cap it somehow, in a way that works well with rtl.

I'm not too familiar with Anti-stone's hero generator, so I'm not sure how balanced he is, health / conquest wise etc.

What do you guys think of his ability? would he need extra tweaking to his stats?

If I can get some help, I can post the file I have at a high resolution for printing.

Capping his ability to deal damage is certainly one way to balance him. I think it's safe to say this revision prevents him from being too powerful, although the fatigue cost may not be necessary. Simply capping his damage potential should be enough.

I think the problem with Tobin is that he breaks a fundamental balancing point of the game– that characters that are strong in ranged attack should not be excessively durable, nor have high conquest value.

Look at it from a basic design perspective–

Some characters must be above average in durability, some less. At the same time, some characters need to have distance attacks, some need melee attacks. All other things being equal, a disproportionate amount of damage is inflicted on the heroes at melee range. Therefore, the most advantageous combination would be to have melee attacks (which necessitate a hero operate in melee range) coincide with high durability. Now, if this were only true of some melee heroes (let's say, half) then the flimsier ones would be despised, clearly inferior, and people would feel frustrated playing with them– every time they died, the player would just curse their luck for drawing a paper one instead of a tank. Therefore, not only some, but most melee heroes need to be durable. And you'll find that this is the case– so far, there is no melee hero who even has 'average' defensive stats of 12 wounds, 1 armor.

Now, if a majority of durable heroes need to be melee attackers, then inevitably a majority of flimsier heroes (i.e., low-conquest) need to be distance attackers. This is also the present case. And when we have exceptions (e.g. Jaes, Kirga), it's not without reason that these get singled out as everyone's favorites– even though these are only slightly above average.

The final piece here is that parties which have a variety of character types are generally stronger than those which focus on a single type. This is somewhat because it allows them to tactically adapt more to problematic circumstances, but (in my perspective) more because it allows them to make the best use of treasure draws– good or bad draws being largely responsible for the most dramatic swings in power. Before Tobin came on the scene, a hero party always had to compromise between being universally durable and being highly diverse. And a single point of additional armor has more effect on the game than any other incremental hero stat increase (even skills). This makes Tobin arguably the most difficult hero in the game to kill, because he has the strongest defensive profile available, while still being highly dedicated in a attack that allows him to dispatch threats before they produce results. The net result is that Tobin is a hero who breaks a balancing rule, and allows the heroes to get a diverse party without compromising defensive power. Much like how Krutzbeck is an unacceptable combination of strength, durability, and low-cost, Tobin is an unbalancing combination of strength, durability, and range-concentration.

Therefore, I think it's Tobin's defensive stats that need to change, not his damage necessarily. His offensive ability is **** strong– most of the time he can take out monsters with a bow. But it's really pretty comparable to Laurel's (and worse, at later levels). It's the heroes with high armor that really tend to ruin the overlord's day, and in my experience, the damage balances tend to get thrown out of whack once you have more than 5-6 base armor across your party. I would wager that a party of Nanok, Corbin, Tobin and Jaes could take on just about any vanilla level without a problem.

My suggestion– for simplicity's sake, leave the ability the way it is. Either his base armor down to 1, or (better yet, if you're feeling extra tweaky) make it 0 and give him an extra point of fatigue. This would balance him fairly well against Laurel and Kirga, and still keep him the powerful sort of ranged character he is now.

-pw

Nice, this is the kind of stuff I want to hear. I like to hear from people experienced in playing deep into the campaign (My experience is limited there, due to people flaking out or only having time for single campaigns.)

Either way, here is my little tweak. His ability is intact, and had his health adjusted.

phelanward said:

I completely disagree.

First, Tobin's bonus ability is definitely better than Laurel's. Let's say you're using the Bow of Bone; it's silver level (which means in a vanilla game you don't even need bonus damage most of the time), and out of all silver ranged weapons, the only ones with more range are expansion treasures with status effects but extremely low damage, so this is probably the best realistic case. Average range is 5.1. You can add to that with enhancements or surges, but that doesn't add to Laurel's damage, since it just converts damage into range back into damage (and, in this case, exactly the same amount).

Suppose Laurel is adjacent to her target; 1 range is required just to hit. She also spends a fatigue to activate her ability, which buys her, on average, 4.1 damage (less than 3.3 compared to spending that fatigue on a black die).

For Tobin to make an attack from 4 spaces away for (roughly) equal damage seems fairly reasonable. Granted, his average distance is likely a bit less than that, but Laurel is not always going to be adjacent when attacking, either. Maybe they're comparable, though I'd wager Laurel loses the comparison by a noticable margin in a typical game. In fact, at the minimum range that can't be made by a melee attack (3 spaces), she's up less than 1.3 damage (on average) compared to a hero who spends the fatigue on a power die, at which point she starts to compare unfavorably to Mad Carthos.

But then Tobin saves movement getting close (which also means he's less vulnerable), and he saves the fatigue that Laurel takes to activate her ability, which puts him several points ahead. Plus, occasionally you actually want to make a long-range shot (>4) spaces, in which case Laurel loses damage with every space, while Tobin gains damage with every space.

Of course, most complaints about Tobin center around Sea of Blood, where his bonus damage can get into the double-digits.

Secondly, Laurel isn't just squishy because she's ranged, she's squishy for a ranged hero and also squishy for her conquest value , backed up by average stats and split traits and skills. That's presumably supposed to be compensation for her ability, which is significantly stronger than average. Even if Tobin's ability were merely as powerful as Laurel's, that would still be too strong for any "typical" stat line, whether typical for a melee or ranged hero.

Arguably, that means that you could fix Tobin by nerfing either his stats (following Laurel's pattern) OR his ability (following most heroes' pattern) - but most people would argue that Laurel isn't very well-designed and shouldn't be emulated.

Thirdly, while FFG did make almost all melee heroes 4-conquest and almost all ranged heroes 3-conquest, there's no indication that was done for balance reasons. Kevin Wilson's custom hero rules, while not that great for creating custom heroes, are a valuable window into designer intent - and they don't require you to adjust stats or conquest value in any way based on your preferred attack type. You pay for armor with higher conquest and lower other stats, not by being forced to choose melee. Expansions also have a notable preponderance of squishier melee heroes (16/1 and conquest 4 is no better than 12/1 and conquest 3).

I'm not wild about the revision in the OP - seems rather complicated, high fatigue costs on a low-fatigue hero are tough to balance, and I'm not sure he's chosen the best combination of features to keep or drop. But I definitely like it better than the idea of keeping his ability the same and removing his armor.

Antistone said:

I am still kind of leaning towards modifying his ability, and since you are one of the more experienced players around (especially when it comes to hero balancing) I would defer to your judgement.

My main goals for him, is to make him fun, and balanced for all 3 versions of the game (Normal, AC, and SoB AC)

I WANT to add something there about it not working with cannons, but I had a hard time not making the ability wordy as it is. Might just leave it as a house rule.

Ideas in my head floating around:

Can't attack figures within 2 spaces.

Fatigue cost for the ability.

Cap via ranged trait (I imagine works best for advanced campaigns)

Cap via static numbers (Per campaign level)

Perhaps something along the lines of "+2 damage when attacking from at least 4 spaces away"? That's probably just enough to make him prefer starting with the Bow over the Crossbow. It's simple, maintains the general concept, roughly in line for a low- to mid-powered hero ability, still forces him to work on setting up long shots, and never threatens to break the game, whether it works with cannons or not.

Wouldn't that just make him a much more powerful version of Mad Carthos?

On that note... there are a lot of champions that could use a rework

Sheesh... do you always have to "completely disagree"? Isn't that a little bit of overkill? Why not just 'disagree' or 'take issue with' ??

It's possible I made a shaky comparison with Laurel, but it's a pretty trivial one, and nothing I say is really contingent on that analysis. Laurel is a special case, and by your own admission, is pretty hard to flatly compare to any other hero.

Furthermore, while I admit your mathematical assessment has some merit, I think you are looking at it from too sterile a perspective, or, as Corbon would say "You are completely wrong". Just calculating around Laurel and Bow of Bone isn't quite fair if you're really trying to compare the abilities.

Any one of the following cards interacts better with Laurel's ability: Eagle Eye, Keen Sight, Lucky, Marksman, Crack Shot, an ally's Blessing, Shooting For Distance (!), Archer's Charm, Scorpio Helmet, Aldar's Mirror, any Gold Ranged weapon, not to mention Alertness, Inner Fire (in RtL) and technically, any Sorcery-granting card (5 items). It's also totally unfair to rule out expansion treasures, since Laurel is from an expansion, so by your own math, Ripper, Bow of the Hawk, Black-Widow's Web, and Skullcracker also get added to that list. That's at 18-25 cards which would allow Laurel to even out or exceed Tobin's damage.

So, under any number of these very likely conditions, Laurel's ability is more powerful. Of course, it depends on the value of fatigue under the circumstances, likely ranges of engagement, etc, but to say that Tobin's bonus is "definitely better than Laurel's" is just silly, and not remotely demonstrable. (Why would you ever make such an obviously nonsensical statement?)

Secondly– yes, nowhere is it said (where would it be?) that ranged heroes are designed to be squishy and melee heroes were made burly, but that is what we are given, and.... uh... I did give an extremely overly-verbose and detailed argument for why it pretty much had be that way. You're also just not on very good rational ground here. We are given 95% squishy ranged heroes, and the inclusion of one ranged tank is so problematic that people are writing threads about it. Is your position that the distribution of conquest value and trait dice is purely accidental, and we should infer nothing from it? It's one of the most obviously deliberate design choices in the game...

And are you really trying to back your point by citing Wilson's hero generator? Really , Jeremy? A valuable window into designer intent?? Really? ? You usually have such good arguments. Clearly the BP system in that file is extremely imprecise, and the kind of balancing you suggest would have taken quite a mite of testing and calibration. Considering the shoddy playtesting that went into so many Descent products, I'm sure we both know that that generator was probably made in an afternoon, to appease forumites. Jesus, they don't test their marketed products; what makes you think that a give-away would have any integrity at all? (Maybe that's why they took it down?)

Speaking of which–while I'm generally impressed by your hero-generator, I think it fails to take into account a crucial fact about Descent– that the balance of a given hero is not purely dependent solely on its comparison to other heroes, but its integration into a larger party. With such a generator, I could design 4 high-armor heroes, each of which might be individually 'balanced', but as a group are much too powerful . The game clearly doesn't want us to play with all high-armor heroes, as evidenced by (a) its included components don't allow it, and (b) when we break those rules, balance collapses. I don't mean this as a condemnation, only as constructive criticism; if you ever want to take it to the 'next step' of balancing, some basic conditions on overall party composition might be a good inclusion.

-pw

Zombiemold said:

How do you figure? Mad Carthos' ability adds the same damage, but without the requirement of being 4+ spaces away.

And you do realize that the original version of Tobin's ability adds a minimum of 2 damage on all his attacks?

phelanward said:

• I fail to see how Crack Shot provides any preferential advantage to Laurel. If anything, I'd think it's better for Tobin, because he attacks from greater distance and therefore has more potential positions where it might allow him to make an otherwise impossible attack.
• Sorcery is only better for her in the special case that she happens to be attacking a target with Ironskin (otherwise, Laurel's ability is no better than just spending it on damage in the first place). On average, that's maybe, what, one monster per fifteen quests? Assuming one of her allies doesn't kill it first. And all monsters with Ironskin happen to be big, slow, and melee, which makes them especially vulnerable to Tobin.
• Ripper, Bow of the Hawk, and Scarab of Death don't seem to favor Laurel's ability any more than the example I chose.
• The other gold weapons arguably favor Laurel more, but I don't care, because Tobin is going to one-shot virtually anything he hits with any of them. AND they only show up late-game. They're a lot less important than weapons you use for a larger fraction of the game against targets that you might actually fail to kill.
• Black-Widow's Web and Skullcracker may be marginally better for Laurel than for Tobin, but if you're actually trying to kill the target, either Laurel or Tobin would prefer any other silver ranged weapon (and probably several of the copper ones). I wasn't trying to exclude them due to being in an expansion, that was just the least of multiple reasons that using them would be uncommon.
• Eagle Eye, Keen Sight, Blessing, and Archer's Charm each only add +1 range, which at best translates into a +1 damage advantage. My money's still definitely on Tobin being better if Laurel only has one such bonus.
• Aldar's Mirror appears to be a sorcery item (see above)
• Many weapons favor Tobin over Laurel even more than the example I chose. If you're going to try to perform some sort of complete average analysis, you need to subtract the cases where she's worse as well as adding the ones where she's better.

There certainly exist situations in which Laurel's ability is better, but they're special cases. I believe it's reasonable to conclude that Tobin's ability provides a significantly larger bonus in the average case.

phelanward said:

Oh really? Saying that his ability is better than Laurel's is "obviously nonsensical", but saying that it's "pretty comparable to Laurel's (and worse, at later levels)" is not? Looks to me like those statements are almost straight negations of each other. Double standard much?

phelanward said:

That argument is hand-waving BS: none of the hypothetical problems you describe are justified by anything other than your predictions that they would come to pass in some hypothetical scenario. You've also failed to account for:

• Lots of "non-melee" heroes actually operate at almost the same range as melee heroes a lot of the time (case in point: Laurel). The most popular equipment guide on BGG even recommends that magic heroes with 1 trait die should start with an Axe, because the range advantage from a magic weapon is so minor.
• Even if they didn't, the monsters that you move up next to in order to kill tend to...die...and therefore the fact that you moved next to them doesn't necessarily put you in more danger.
• In fact, on-map monsters tend to get slaughtered in about 1 round, making spawns the more important threat. Being a melee attacker doesn't have any obvious correlation with being vulnerable to spawns.
• By your own argument, parties that utilize a variety of armor types should have an advantage over parties where everyone needs the limited heavy armors, due to greater utilization of treasure draws.
• Lord Hawthorne and Laughlin Buldar manage to be among the most popular melee heroes, despite being tied for the easiest to kill.
• Battlemage Jaes and Kirga are both popular, but Jaes is definitely not the most popular magic hero, and Kirga happens to have an incredibly awesome ability in addition to her toughness.

phelanward said:

Begging the question. I've read many complaints about Tobin, and yours is the first one I've seen where anyone has complained about his armor; everyone else complains about his ability.

There are several custom heroes posted in the homebrew forum with ranged attacks and similar defenses to Tobin, and I don't recall seeing any complaints about the combination there, either.

phelanward said:

Yes, really. And the fact that it's thrown together quickly and sloppily actually makes it even more valuable in that respect. Really .

Because the designers would have developed some rules-of-thumb when creating all the previous game releases. And if you're going to quickly throw together a customization system, what's it going to be based on? The heuristics that you already happen to have laying around. If they had actually put a lot of work into it, they might have changed all their rules to try and make them more balanced and obscured their original designs, but in a fast, sloppy release we're almost certain to see something close to what they actually used in the past.

And what do we get? Well, we get these "race" templates based on no official information we've seen before that are confusing and unbalanced, yet strangely seem to make a pretty good taxonomy for existing designs. And the formula for conquest values, in greater detail than any previous reverse-engineering that I know of. And we don't get any rules that give melee heroes bonus armor or ranged heroes bonus speed. I take that to mean that melee = tanks is a thematic rule, not a balance one.

And I don't know why you think they took it down; it's still on the support page at the time of this writing, which is the only place I've ever seen it.

Of course, just because the designers didn't consider something essential to balance does not necessarily mean that it's not. But I don't think evidence supports your assertion that the designers thought it would be broken to have low-armor melee heroes or high-armor non-melee heroes.

phelanward said:

What do you mean the included components don't allow it, or that balance collapses? It's possible to play with a full party of high-armor heroes without using my editor at all. I remember one time when someone on the forum was going on and on about how that was the perfect, unbeatable party, and about a dozen posters were telling him that his overlord just sucked and they had no particular problem countering all-heavy parties in their own test games.

And I think you're expecting a bit much of a hero editor; in order to even theoretically take party synergies into account, it would need to force you to design your entire party together. And frankly, it doesn't do that great a job of taking synergies into account even within a single character - that's an endemic weakness of point-buy systems.

I'm happy to take a look at a session report if you want to run a test game with an all-heavy party (or really any custom party). The most problematic party I've tested with actually consistented entirely of 1-conquest heroes (and convinced me that they're overpowered in the current version of my editor).

Antistone–

Aldar's Mirror was a typo. My mistake. (I meant Ring of the Arcan, but it was 5am here in Moscow, and that would have also been a typo)

One crucial thing you're missing is that Laurel's ability works in synergy with general movement practices– Laurel ability can convert MP into damage by moving closer to the monster (and she has more MP to do so), and, since most maps follow a fairly linear path, that will probably take her in the direction the party is already heading.

Also note that Tobin's ability in in tension with normal combat practices. If he is at an adverse range, he must lower his projected damage to rectify that, and if he wants more damage, he must move backward, increasing the likelihood that he will miss, and backtracking. Simply put, his ability is optimized when you are at the greatest chance of missing outright, whereas Laurel's rewards you for playing it safe. This is key, and nowhere does your analysis address this.

Overall, though, you can't really compare Laurel to Tobin by leveling other conditions, because they do not operate the same way– Laurel operates best at melee range, while Tobin is incapable at operating at that range. Whenever a new area is revealed, Laurel will immediately want to move closer to the monsters, while Tobin will not. It's not like a comparison of Carthos vs. Landrek– they will rarely find themselves in comparable situations, because Laurel is strongest when advancing, and Tobin is strongest when aiming/battling. And since advancing has the (generally positive) side-effect of repositioning you, it's not appropriate to make a flat comparison.

And which weapons favor Tobin over Laurel, exactly...?

Regardless, you've just completely missed the point– I've never claimed that "Laurel's ability is better than Tobin's". I just think it's insane to say "Tobin's ability is definitely better than Laurel's". It's like claiming "Bikes are definitely better than cars". It's the kind of thing a 9-year-old would say. No double standard, just bad reading on your part.

Your counter-arguments are my "hand-waving BS" are pretty BS-esque themselves. (And how is it handwaving, exactly..? It's pretty precise...)

• Lots of "non-melee" heroes actually operate at almost the same range as melee heroes a lot of the time (case in point: Laurel). The most popular equipment guide on BGG even recommends that magic heroes with 1 trait die should start with an Axe, because the range advantage from a magic weapon is so minor.

This is not even remotely relevant to what I am saying. It's like you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperately trying to find something to disagree with. I never said "All heroes who operate well at melee range are tough". I said that parties that want to have a diversity of traits will find it necessary to include heroes who are not tough.

• Even if they didn't, the monsters that you move up next to in order to kill tend to...die...and therefore the fact that you moved next to them doesn't necessarily put you in more danger.
• In fact, on-map monsters tend to get slaughtered in about 1 round, making spawns the more important threat. Being a melee attacker doesn't have any obvious correlation with being vulnerable to spawns.

This is shoddy thinking. All other things being equal, heroes who move to the front of the fighting will find themselves needing to compromise their anti-spawning duties with making successful attacks. Heroes who are in the rear are more likely already in anti-spawning positions. But let's overlook this obvious point–

I don't know about your dice, but my dice have X's on them, as well as several sides that don't have 3 hearts. Now, I know that an experienced player like yourself would never dream of rolling a miss, or inadequate damage, but we common folk still occasionally fall victim to that particular temptation. Also note that virtually all monsters are more dangerous if they start their turn at short-range (particularly a few rare monsters which you may not have– the "beestmon" and "sorserrur"). As a result, if I miss, or fail to kill a monster, sometimes he eats me.

• Lord Hawthorne and Laughlin Buldar manage to be among the most popular melee heroes, despite being tied for the easiest to kill.

Laughlin is certainly popular with some people, (Corbon being the loudest). I would wager it's because he is the highest-damage melee hero, and melee is the most powerful attack type, meaning that he's a good boss-killer. Since we're dealing with our vague impressions of what's 'popular', clearly this point won't add much weight on either side. But personally, I would never consider Hawthorne to be a particularly strong or popular hero. Out of the 18 melee-oriented heroes, I would only put him above Trenloe, Sir Valadir, and maybe Steelhorns and Mordog, depending on party comp.

• By your own argument, parties that utilize a variety of armor types should have an advantage over parties where everyone needs the limited heavy armors, due to greater utilization of treasure draws.

I'm not sure this is related to my argument, and even if it was, I don't see how this is relevant whatsoever. Maybe you could elaborate.

• Battlemage Jaes and Kirga are both popular, but Jaes is definitely not the most popular magic hero, and Kirga happens to have an incredibly awesome ability in addition to her toughness.

You can interpret things however you want, but it won't change the fact that the two most durable ranged heroes are universally considered the most frustrating to play against. Clearly bonus-damage and range is not the problem, or else Laurel would be as railed against, (and she's not). It's the combination of range and durability that is the consistent problem. At this point, I can only conclude that you're just being stubborn. As an experienced player, and a builder of heroes, you must be familiar with the dangers of excessive armor. You can't honestly be arguing that high armor is totally coincidental to the efficacy of Nanok, Tobin, and Jaes.

• There are several custom heroes posted in the homebrew forum with ranged attacks and similar defenses to Tobin, and I don't recall seeing any complaints about the combination there, either.

• What do you mean the included components don't allow it...?

When I was building my personal version of Herogen, I tried to figure out a cost for Tobin's ability, because I like completion and I wanted to somehow rate ALL original characters (I also calculated a cost for Kel's, Hugo's, Krutzbeck's, Jonas', Tatianna's, Lindel's, One Fist's, Nanok's, Challara's, Gherinn's, Haggletooth's, and a few more from the original "Make your own hero" pdf). I decided to rate his ability as a hefty 80BPs for ranged heroes and 75BPs for magic heroes (magic attacks lack a bit on range compared to ranged). I know some might disagree but the reason I decided for such cost is that having long LOS isn't always as easy as it seems in most games and dungeons (expecially AC ones, which are smaller). A good positioning by the OL will force the player using tobin to move to find the correct positioning for good shoots and more often than not, Tobin will have to move backward, which may result in a waste of time (precious to the overlord), especially considering his slow movement rate. Also...did anyone notice that Tobin has NO WAY of attacking monsters with Shadowcloak? This may look pretty unconsequential in vanilla, but in RtL where outside encounters include trees, it may be very frustrating. Also, having him fall into pits really creates problems, since he can only see adjacent spaces, where he cannot attack, since he's got 3 Speed and 3 Fatigue, having him end his turn inside one of those shouldn't be too difficult. Crushing Blocks can also be mean for such a slow character, removing precious LoS...always play them on his last movement. If you play well, there are plenty of countermeasures to the big bad guy named Tobin, unless...you are playing SoB. I admit that during outside encounters in SoB you can only cry while he devastates everything you have on the board with his cannons...yeah, tremendous power. That said, Laurel still has the be best damage potential around (especially if she draws or buys Lucky as a skill).

After all is said and done, Tobin's final BP in my version of herogen is 416, telling that he's one of the most powerful guys around in Terrinoth (the only 7 with a higher BP value in my herogen are Krutzbeck, Tatianna, Kirga, Tahlia, Zyla, Astarra and Nanok). Doubtless he's one of the most powerful heroes ever designed still, I don't believe he's unbeatable at all...Aside from that, I believe his "tank build" is something that makes him unique, if compared to other Ranged heroes, and I wouldn't change that fact, making him just another average ranged hero. As far as the editor goes, having him start with 1 less subterfuge ability would already get him down to 367 points, which is pretty normal, since 1 less skill may mean a lot less damage potential in this game or less probabilities of finding something to get past his low movement capabilities. If you give him just 1 fighting and 1 subterfuge skill, his BP cost goes down even more to 357. With such split skills he'll have a hard time even in AC, since he's likely to be begin the campaign with some bad skill. Personally I'll leave him be as he is. My character pool for ACs now ranges to 200 heroes and drawing him is...unlikely. Besides, with my personal method of drawing characters it may happen that a player is forced anyway to swap him for someone else, even if he's drawn... With the way we draw characters now, a player may often end up even with bad characters such as Red Scorpion, One Fist, or Eliam, so it's only just that they can also end up having the super-hero-like character (by the way, most characters are rated within the 350-370 BPs range).

I believe if a players' group has issues with playing Tobin it should just do as Corbon does: not use it. If I were to change Tobin, I'd also have to change a few other characters (anyone who gets past 380 with Herogen, at least)...

Everything absolutely and definitely IMHO.

PS - Wouldn't this tread be more appropriated for the Home Brews section?