mallet Posted September 28, 2005 Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Hello all. I guess I should give a bit of a BG first off. I, and my friends, used to play Hero back in the day (pre-fifth ed.) Then we went off to other games. Now though my fond memories of the Hero System have brought me back and I am starting a Star Hero game up. I have the main rules, Star Hero and Terran Empire (although I will be creating my own universe for my game.) My big question is, what other books would you recomend I get and could you give me a quick reason as to why? I am thinking about books like The Spacers Toolkit, Ultimate Vehicle, The Combat book (what does this have that the main rules don't?), the martial arts book, superpower database (for conversion to Sci-fi gear, etc...). Basically I was wondering what are the books that have given you the most ideas, information, use for your games? I books I have so far have been going over very well with my group and there is already talk of also do a superhero game as well, so I figure it is only a matter of time before I start getting a lot of these books, but for now, starting out, what would you think are the best ones to have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MitchellS Posted September 28, 2005 Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Re: Starting a new game. What books should I... Spacer's Toolkit will have some interesting gadgets and weapons in it for you. It also has a large number of TE ships and vehicles. Becasue of that I don't think you'd find much use in the HS Vehicle Sourcebook. Between TE and STK you should have all you need as far as the science fiction stuff. I'd definitely recommend the Ultimate Martial Artist. It has all the MA packages you could ever want and plenty of information that tells you how to make more [in case you want some Vulcan arts or something]. The Bestiary has some scifi animals in it and also has rules tweeks for making normal animals more exotic. That will probably be useful to you as your game expands. The only other thing I can really think of is maybe picking up VIPER. Viper has a boat-load of equimpent and vehicle write ups which can easily be used in a SH campaign. Outside of STK you can probably get the most gadget bang for your buck [as well as useful package deals] from that book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Raven Posted September 28, 2005 Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Re: Starting a new game. What books should I... Definately the Ultimate Martial Artist. There's a reason why it was the first book in the Ultimate series that was printed. Even if the game is not martial arts intensive, the rules presented are applicable to every genre and with the normal combat maneuvers. For a SF campaign, the rules for creating martial art styles can be used for creating unique alien combat tecniques, customized to non-humanoid physiology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prestidigitator Posted September 28, 2005 Report Share Posted September 28, 2005 Re: Starting a new game. What books should I... Definately the Ultimate Martial Artist. There's a reason why it was the first book in the Ultimate series that was printed. Even if the game is not martial arts intensive' date=' the rules presented are applicable to every genre and with the normal combat maneuvers. For a SF campaign, the rules for creating martial art styles can be used for creating unique alien combat tecniques, customized to non-humanoid physiology.[/quote'] I've still never picked up a copy of UMA, and now I'm balking because I don't know whether to pick up it or the Combat Handbook. I wish I could pick a copy of both up in my hands and see roughly what would be redundant and what UMA has that the Combat Handbook does not.... Stupid local gaming stores that only stock a 5ER or two if I'm lucky...grumble, grumble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted September 29, 2005 Report Share Posted September 29, 2005 Re: Starting a new game. What books should I... I don't have the Combat Handbook yet ... someone who does can verify ... but I believe it does not have any "new" rules but condenses all the rules from various sources into one location for simple ease of use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garou Posted September 29, 2005 Report Share Posted September 29, 2005 Re: Starting a new game. What books should I... My big question is' date=' what other books would you recomend I get and could you give me a quick reason as to why?[/quote'] All of them, because it really benefits DOJ. I am thinking about books like The Spacers Toolkit, Ultimate Vehicle, The Combat book (what does this have that the main rules don't?), the martial arts book, superpower database (for conversion to Sci-fi gear, etc...). You might find the Gadgets and Gear book useful. The powered armor stuff is pretty useful, and a lot of the other gadgets should port fairly nicely over to a Star Hero game. (I don't have the Equipment Guide, so I don't know how useful it may or may not be.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba smith Posted June 29, 2008 Report Share Posted June 29, 2008 Re: Starting a new game. What books should I... try ninja hero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kdansky Posted June 30, 2008 Report Share Posted June 30, 2008 Re: Starting a new game. What books should I... I liked Ultimate Skill, and am rather critical against nearly all other books. UMA has the extremly nice "how to construct your own Maneuvers" pages, but the rest is horribly boring; Just lists of all known Martial Arts, and therefore quite useless for any non-earth-setting. Ultimate Mentalist, Brick and Speedster each have a couple good pages too (20-30 or so), but overall hard to justify if you have enough ideas yourself. Of all these, Mentalist is the most interesting. The Combat Handbook covers enough Martial Arts to justify not buying UMA, I think. Probably a good book to have around the table, but then I have a notebook, a PDF of 5ER and CTRL-F... Also, I *really* recommend 5ER as PDF, but everything else works well enough as a book too, since you won't be looking up stuff all the time, but rather reading them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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