Fantasy Hero 4e Companions

[azato]

Fantasy Hero 5th Edition is coming in the mail. I was wondering what benefits would be gained by buying the 4e suppliments...Or is there any?

[Susano]

Fantasy Hero 5th Edition is coming in the mail. I was wondering what benefits would be gained by buying the 4e suppliments...Or is there any?

Hmm....

First of all, don't bother with the second Companion. I used to own it, and recall it being very, very weak content wise. The spells, especially, were pretty bad, being very bland and insipid.

However, the first Fantasy Hero Companion is excellent. The first section is Mass Combat, which FH 5th will cover. Then comes a bibliography and filmography, which FH 5th expands on greatly. Then comes one of the best parts -- the locations, with floorplans and map notes. Excellent stuff! 40 pages of creatures follows, covering most classic fantasy RPG monsters. Then comes some magic items, ranging from trivial to artifact level (always good). Roughly 40 pages of spell colleges follows. While the spells have some questionable elements, the concepts are nice, and should be useful to any FH player.

The nice thing about the first Fantasy Hero Companion is you're basically getting portions of the 5th Edition Grimoire, Bestiary, and MMM all in one book. You'll have to translate to 5th, but if you can get the book for cheap (say $5.00) you've got a steal.

[Susano]

Fantasy Hero 5th Edition is coming in the mail. I was wondering what benefits would be gained by buying the 4e suppliments...Or is there any?

Hmm....

First of all, don't bother with the second Companion. I used to own it, and recall it being very, very weak content wise. The spells, especially, were pretty bad, being very bland and insipid.

However, the first Fantasy Hero Companion is excellent. The first section is Mass Combat, which FH 5th will cover. Then comes a bibliography and filmography, which FH 5th expands on greatly. Then comes one of the best parts -- the locations, with floorplans and map notes. Excellent stuff! 40 pages of creatures follows, covering most classic fantasy RPG monsters. Then comes some magic items, ranging from trivial to artifact level (always good). Roughly 40 pages of spell colleges follows. While the spells have some questionable elements, the concepts are nice, and should be useful to any FH player.

The nice thing about the first Fantasy Hero Companion is you're basically getting portions of the 5th Edition Grimoire, Bestiary, and MMM all in one book. You'll have to translate to 5th, but if you can get the book for cheap (say $5.00) you've got a steal.

EDIT: The first Fantasy Hero Companion also has the most dangerous lizardmen in the world! The have WF: Small Arms!!! :eek:

[austenandrews]

IIRC, the first FHC was basically overflow from the 4E FH book. (Not a problem we have with 5E. ;))

[Play4Keeps]

Don't forget, FHC1 has the best cover art of all Hero products.

WOOHOOOO!!

:eg::celebrate :eg::celebrate :eg::celebrate :eg::celebrate :eg::celebrate

[Lord Liaden]

The nice thing about the first Fantasy Hero Companion is you're basically getting portions of the 5th Edition Grimoire, Bestiary, and MMM all in one book. You'll have to translate to 5th, but if you can get the book for cheap (say $5.00) you've got a steal.

I would go along with this assessment, with an elaboration. The 5E Fantasy HERO genre book and its supplements add up to everything that the 4E line had, plus a lot more, and done better overall IMO. If it's a choice between investing in 4E or 5E stuff, for comparable price-per-page, I'd recommend saving your money for 5E.