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Fantasy Hero Complete or FH6?


Boll Weevil

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Hi, Fantasy Hero board. You're looking well. I have been playing Champions since 1984 and frequent the Champions forum. I usually play pretty high powered games (more Avengers, less Silver Age Spidey). I bought the 4th ed Fantasy Hero books back in the day but have never run a FH game. I would very much like to do that. I have the 6th ed core books as well as a recent purchase of Turakian Age. I'm debating buying either Fantasy Hero for 6th or Fantasy Hero Complete. Again, I have a pretty good grasp of the core rules but mostly in the lens of high-powered supers games. 

 

Any advice as to which book I should start with? I really feel like I am starting over but am reluctant to duplicate what I already have. I played D&D when I was in 9th grade (the big red box!) and I would like to capture some of the feel of that. Is the Valdorian Age closer to that experience than Turakian Age? 

 

Thanks in advance for your help. These boards have always steered me right :)

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If you already own 6e1 & 6e2 you would be better off getting the full Fantasy Hero 6e

 

Fantasy Hero Complete is similar to Champions Complete (it has a less example filled version of the full 6e rules plus a much smaller Fantasy Genre section - think back to the way the Big Blue Book/4e Champions was setup).

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Welcome to Fantasy, BW. :)

 

I agree with Hyper-Man. Given you have the full 6E rule set already, you're better off with FH 6E. FH Complete duplicates rules you already have. Plus, as a veteran Hero gamer, but not of fantasy, I think you'll benefit most from the top-to-bottom, thorough analysis of and advice for the genre that FH 6E provides.

 

As to a world book to use, TA was designed to accommodate the common Tolkien-esque tropes of D&D. VA was intended to evoke Robert E. Howard's Conan, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and Michael Moorcock's Elric. For what you say you want, TA would be much more suitable. Moreover, the support books available, like the Hero System Bestiary, the Fantasy Hero Grimoire, and especially Nobles, Knights, And Necromancers full of NPCs, were written with TA in mind and often refer to it as the default.

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As they said above.  If you have the 6th Edition Core rules you have what in my opinion is the most complete set of actual Hero System rules.    Note I said complete, not best.  The opinion of best can vary so widely that I will not use it here.

 

Fantasy Hero Complete takes the core rules and rules system mechanics advice down to about 194 pages with the rest of the 262 pages being world building, GM advice, examples and appendixes.  As is normal for Hero products, the Complete does not mean “ready to play a game today” it means “all of the information needed to build a game world and populate it with your stories”.

 

So if you have 6th Ed Core (the 2 blue hardback books) you have ALL of the needed rules already, so the Fantasy Hero book would be the best buy.   But remember that while in my opinion it is one of the best general “how to build a fantasy world for an RPG game” books out there, it is still not a fully playable game world. 

 

My list of must have Hero books to have on hand for a fantasy sword swinging games are.

 

Essential:

HERO System 6th Edition or Fantasy Hero Complete

HERO System Fantasy Hero 6th

 

Super Duper Helpful:

HERO System Bestiary 6th

HERO System Equipment Guide 6th

HERO System Grimoire 6th

HERO System Martial Arts 6th

You may not absolutely need the last four, but they are an immense depository of advice and most importantly, pre-built everything that can be quickly tweeked or just used as is. 

 

And the last thing on my must have list would be Hero Designer if you don’t already have it.   Pretty much every book mentioned above has a HD Pack available where everything has been pre-built in HD. 

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Turakian Age is closest to what you would find in a world like Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, a sprawling land of high fantasy adventure, complete with its own version of Sauron in the north.

 

Valdorian Age is Conan-esque petty kingdoms and swords & sorcery heroes and villains.

 

I would add to the above two Narosia, a new setting that includes Hero's powers and skills, but reworked for use within the world.

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If it helps, I found the hardcopy FH 6E book for $45.00 US from a very reputable retailer, The Sentry Box in Calgary, Canada. You can find it listed on this webpage, by clicking on "H" in the "Roll Playing" category, scrolling down to "Hero Games," and then "Hero System Sixth Edition."

 

Here's the Sentry Box's ordering information.

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If it helps, I found the hardcopy FH 6E book for $45.00 US from a very reputable retailer, The Sentry Box in Calgary, Canada. You can find it listed on this webpage, by clicking on "H" in the "Roll Playing" category, scrolling down to "Hero Games," and then "Hero System Sixth Edition."

 

Here's the Sentry Box's ordering information.

Thanks, LL!! 

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Fantasy Hero is excellent and much better especially for someone who owns 6E. No contest there.

 

For someone starting from scratch, I would almost recommend Narosia over Fantasy Hero Complete. FHC leaves me relatively cold. I know it tries to be a generic fantasy game but it feels more like a generic game with a fantasy label slapped on it. Even if I do not necessarily agree with all the decision, at least Narosia uses the HERO System to create a fantasy game.

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I agree with the thread. FH6 if you are already set with 6E. 

 

I really like Valdorian Age as a setting. It's light on content (in a good way) and easy to get a handle on. 

 

Turakian Age and Narosia require a bit of a investment of time to get into the world — Narosia hopefully a little bit less so ;)

 

If you are rolling your own, I like FH6 with the Azgandian Magic system for a good blend of Hero to D&D style. I think Magic will be your biggest challenge as there isn't a real unified approach to magic in Hero. The Grimoire is pretty well structured, but isn't really grounded in a specific world or framework and so sometimes doesn't feel as balanced as you might like. It is a great resource and with some solid campaign guidelines your players will be able to mine it and rebuild spells to fit your game. 

 

As DreadDomain mentioned, Narosia makes all of the decisions for building a campaign and establishing magic systems. The plus side of that is you can communicate the campaign constraints clearly. The down side of that is it is less flexible (in a classic Hero sense), but really only for the players (you gotta keep those grubby little dice throwers in line, I tell you what). Adversaries in Narosia basically just have to follow standard Hero rules and only have to conform to the magic subsystems if they are actually using those systems (i.e., demons can just have powers and don't need to be rebuilt using the Essence Shaping rules). 

 

I have used FH6 to run a Wilderlands of High Fantasy (City State of the Invincible Overloard) using a D&D-esque magic system, ran a Pathfinder Society Campaign (shortlived), and am now putting the finishing touches on converting Xcrawl. All of the tough campaign decisions around magic and fantasy elements were mined from FH6 (and FH5 as well). It is a fantastic resource. 

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Is the Valdorian Age closer to that experience than Turakian Age?

 

Valdorian Age

I GMed a Valdorian Age campaign for 3 years.  The one thing I did was toss out the magic system - too complicated to start with.  I think used the spells in the Grimoire and made it so every spell required a roll, gestures, incantations, focus, END and side effect.  The VA setting is very focused on a single city - mega city for a fantasy game.  My players did not wander far from that city for over a year of actual gaming (3 or 4 times a month).  It is a great setting for people who like political intrigue.  The most dangerous things the players ran into were other people.  They did fight worgs (1x), orcs (1x), trolls (1x), skeletons (a few times), giant spiders (1x), metal golem (1x), carrion crawler (1x), and storm elementals (1x).  So in 3 years they encountered less than a dozen monsters.

 

There was only one magic user type and he started out pretty weak.  He got more powerful along the way, but he relied on his sword and bow most of the time.

 

Turakian Age

 

My son ran TA for us for a few years.  It is a classic fantasy setting with all the normal trappings - classic races, magic, monsters, etc.  We were adventurers who wandered far and wide across the Continent.  We fought and killed many monsters and demons along the way.  About 1/2 the party has magical/divine abilities. 

 

Narosia

 

With Narosia you are getting the entire game system (modified to meet the campaign world), magic, character templates, races, deities, history and mythology.  There is a lot to digest in Narosia.  I am glad I did the Kickstarter and got the book because I plan on gleaning information from it.

 

 

Conclusion

If your players like political intrigue and are ok foregoing running into monsters all the time - monster encounters are legendary - then go with VA.  If they want more of a classic D&D style world then go with Turakian Age.

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