Converting Palladium's Villains Unlimited To HERO

bryanb · June 6, 2003

Hi There,

I was just wondering if anyone has converted (or has any ideas or guidelines on converting) Palladium Books "Villains Unlimited" Villains/Heroes to the Hero System?

There are some great concepts in this supplement but I would like to get the translations "right".

Thanks in advance

Enforcer84 · June 7, 2003

Well, the mechanics are actually somewhat similar. THey each have similar characteristics, I have just translated the Palladium characteristics 1-1 to hero, 16 Int is a 16 int. #Attacks/melee is SPD. The Palladium SPD attribute can be converted to HERO Running.

WIth the second edition of Heroes Unlimited ( I really wish they'd update Villains Unlimited; that is possibly my favorite supplement Palladium has put out) I gave +5 to Str score for an Extrodinary Strength, +10 for Superhuman, and +15 for Supernatural.

The powers are trickier the skills are fairly easy, but deciding what level they are at is a judgment call.

hope that helps somewhat. It is a little light in the actual conversion script so to speak.

Ndreare · June 7, 2003

Palladium level based powers donâ€™t convert very easily however the way I did it when converting the NPCâ€™s for my game was that most powers were given 40 Active points +5 per level of the Palladium Character. So a twelfth level character like Voltaic would have 100 active points in his electricity and magnetism powers. (NON-COM multipliers are a must for Sonic and Regular Movement Powers) and almost all the other powers can be easily built with the HERO 5 book. Mimic is a little harder but do to Pallaiums rule that a character with mimic looses his own powers while mimicking others I simply made it as follows.

Cost Power

194 MIMIC: Variable Power Pool, 125 base + 69 control cost, Powers Can Be Changed As A Half-Phase Action (+1/2), No Skill Roll Required (+1) (281 Active Points); Character Has No Choice Regarding How Powers Change: Powers of Target or (Insert normal power here) (-1/2), Limited Power: Requires Contact to Change Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (-1/2), Limited Class Of Powers Available: No skill based powers, tech, or magic Slightly Limited (-1/4)

Powers Cost: 194

(Remember most Mimics don't have a whole lot else going so you can jack the pool as high as possible.)

This Conversion worked well for a long time and only a few exceptions were needed.

heartlessangel7 · September 28, 2008

Re: Converting Palladium's Villains Unlimited To HERO

Hi There,

I was just wondering if anyone has converted (or has any ideas or guidelines on converting) Palladium Books "Villains Unlimited" Villains/Heroes to the Hero System?

There are some great concepts in this supplement but I would like to get the translations "right".

Thanks in advance

There is no conversion, HERO is meant to serve as a superhero game in the 1st place.

Lord Liaden · September 28, 2008

Re: Converting Palladium's Villains Unlimited To HERO

There is a little conversion material available on the Internet that I'm aware of:

Character conversion guidelines:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041222103305/http://www.herogames.com/oldForum/Rules/000322.html

HERO writeup for Strongarm:

http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptationsrpg/HUstrongarm.html

For Rifts or Robotech there's a lot more.

Lord Liaden · September 28, 2008

Re: Converting Palladium's Villains Unlimited To HERO

There is no conversion' date=' HERO is meant to serve as a superhero game in the 1st place.[/quote']

Gee, that's kind of cold. I hope you're not trying to live up to your username.

Diamond Spear · September 29, 2008

Re: Converting Palladium's Villains Unlimited To HERO

Hi There,

I was just wondering if anyone has converted (or has any ideas or guidelines on converting) Palladium Books "Villains Unlimited" Villains/Heroes to the Hero System?

There are some great concepts in this supplement but I would like to get the translations "right".

Thanks in advance

I’ve always found that the best way of coverting from Palladium is to first establish a baseline say by picking the weakest character and writing them up in HERO as you think they should be. Don’t worry about getting it “right”, since everyone will have their own version of “right” whatever you come up with is what’s “right”. From here it’s a relatively simple matter of using that baseline to convert the rest of the characters over. Again the most important thing is to stay true to the spirtit of the characters and keep the powers levels roughly similar as you convert over. Also if you don’t have it already buy Hero Designer. It’s the best money you’ll spend on any HERO product. Ever.