Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

[Greatwyrm]

I've been very impressed by the Ultimate series so far. Ulitmate Martial Artist and Ultimate Vehicle are two pretty darn useful books. However, could someone give me an idea of how useful Ultimate Brick would be in settings besides a supers game? I'm having trouble seeing how I'd use it in something like a fantasy or cyberpunk game.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

 

Well, think about who the strongest characters are in fantasy or cyberpunk.

 

In fantasy, you usually have the Giants, Ogres, and similar types. A player might come up with a Human or Dwarf with astounding strength, too. These individuals could well make good use of the various "strength tricks" (both chracter sheet and combat driven) in TUB.

 

Similarly, in cyberpunk it wouldn't be asking too much to see a character whose arms and legs give him superhuman strength, and various "strength tricks" could be helpful for such a character.

 

Over at Hero Central, I'm currently playing a Heavy in a Terran Empire game, and he has the high STR of a heavyworlder along with three or four "Strength Tricks" from the playtest manuscript. None of these have come up in play (except maybe for the high STR itself), but it certainly does give the character some extra interest.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

 

Oh man! Thats easy!

 

 

Fantasy:

 

Any of the stronger races (Ogres, Trolls, Giants etc) may make use of TUB.

 

Characters with strength enhancing magic items like Girdles of Giants Strength or Ogre Gauntlets (To use old DnD standbys)

 

Special characters with superstrength (maybe a half-god character, someone like Heracles or maybe a blessed or enchanted character like Gawain/Gwalchmei of Arthurian legend)

 

Scifi/Cyberpunk

 

Cyborgs! Duh.

Cyberpunk cyborgs can get exceptionally strong in fiction sources (esp Anime sources) and Space Opera cyborgs can get even stronger/tougher.

 

Space Opera has tons of aliens, and there are always your superstrong/supertough alien races available. TUB would probably work well for dealing with such characters. Think about a race of silicone based lifeforms from a high gravity world...super strength and lots of damage resistance. In other words, a brick. (literaly, if he's silicone based)

[Bloodstone]

Re: Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

 

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but so far quite of the bit of the material would be usefull in designing somone who is mertely strong or tough, as opposed to being super strong and super tough.

 

There are nine NPC's in the book. Four were Champions level bricks. Two were familiar to me (updates of Grond and Ogre) and the other two I had never seen before (Der Westgote and White Rhino). The remaining five NPC were all Heroic level (and I have never seen any of them before).

[Greatwyrm]

Re: Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

 

... so far quite of the bit of the material would be usefull in designing somone who is mertely strong or tough' date=' as opposed to being super strong and super tough...[/quote']

 

See, it's that "super" part that had me concerned. Oh, well, one more book I have to get.

[ioticus]

Re: Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

 

Could someone review this book? I'm thinking about picking it up. I'd especially like to know how much of it is new rules and how much of it just uses existing rules for special effects.

[Mark Taylor]

Re: Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

 

The Ultimate Brick should be every bit as useful outside of a supers game as The Ultimate Martial Artist could be outside of a martial arts game - i.e. it depends on how many options and how much rules detail you want to make available to certain types of character.

 

Personally I intend to use both UMA and UB in my next fantasy campaign, if for no other reason than because magic users always seem to outdo other fantasy character types in terms of the options and rules detail available to them. Anything that helps even the score for other character types has to be a bonus!

 

I just got The Ultimate Brick for use in a Ninja HERO campaign in fact, and it looks really useful.

 

And to go totally off-topic, I now have every non-Champions HERO System 5th Edition book that has been released so far.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

 

There are nine NPC's in the book. Four were Champions level bricks. Two were familiar to me (updates of Grond and Ogre) and the other two I had never seen before (Der Westgote and White Rhino). The remaining five NPC were all Heroic level (and I have never seen any of them before).

 

White Rhino? Are we talking the same White Rhino who's listed in CCC as a quick desc by the entry for Fenris ('were-rhino from Central Africa with immense superhuman strength')? I was thinking of doing up the animal characters listed by Fenris as a sort of 'Beasty Boys' group of villains.

 

Darn it, everything I read about this book makes me want it more! It doesn't show up this week, I'm going to walk down to my game shop Monday with a fire ax in my hands and sit on the owner until he gets it in!

[Steve Long]

Re: Ultimate Brick usefulness outside a supers game

 

Are we talking the same White Rhino who's listed in CCC as a quick desc by the entry for Fenris

 

Yeah, that's the one. I was torn between doing a mystic brick or an artificial (robot) brick, and I finally settled on this guy because I think his backstory makes for some interesting plot hooks and character behavior. I'll just save the artificial brick for VVV or somethin'.