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What's the best hero suppliment!


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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

Technically I think that UMA is out of print but Hero Games still has a few copies left in stock. I'd agree that it is the most useful suppliment I have.

 

My second choice would be a toss up between Pulp Hero and Dark Champions. I really like the Pulp Hero book and since I run Dark Champions the latter is invaluable to me.

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

All of the 5th Edition Genre Books (Champions, Ninja Hero, Star Hero, Fantasy Hero, Dark Champions, and Pulp Hero) have been very well done, and it's tough for me to single one out as the best.

 

The Ultimate series has been a little more up-and-down. I'd probably pick The Ultimate Skill or The Ultimate Martial Artist as the best of those books.

 

Of the various supporting books, I'd single out DEMON, VIPER, Terran Empire, and Hudson City as being particularly noteworthy. (I also think Champions Battlegrounds and Vibora Bay are very good, but I'm probably not the most unbiased reviewer on those... ;) )

 

EDIT: And Villainy Amok! How on Earth did I forget Villainy Amok?!?

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

I find Star Hero keeps calling out to me from the shelf! It's just a great book. Lots of material to keep coming back to. I do have a weakness for Spacers Toolkit too... gotta love those spaceship write ups!

 

Pulp Hero and Dark Champions would do too if it wasn't for the fact that I only have them on PDF! :)

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

Depends what you're looking for.

Best rules supplement: either Ultimate Skill, UMA, or Combat Handbook depending on the day you ask me.

Best genre book: I'd say Pulp Hero, tho Dark Champs has been calling to me of late.

Best adventure book: Villainy Amok

Best enemies book: CKC

Best organization book: DEMON

Best setting book: Tough call. I might go with Champions Universe? And I'm oddly fond of Alien Wars, warts & all.

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

UMA, without a doubt. There are two books that reside next to my computer instead of on the shelf with the rest of the books, UMA and the Rule Book.

 

UMA is invaluable. I've used it in every genre we've ever played and have used it's martial arts background paragraphs for character backgrounds and concepts and leaping off points for storylines. WONDERFUL book.

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

Oof. Well, Ghost-Angel and I have discussed this at length before, so let me put in a quick vote for Hero System Combat Handbook, as it never ever fails to be useful at least once per session. Then it goes to what you want to do, but I recognize the question, 'best.' I could build a semantic argument here but won't bother.

 

Best Genre Book goes hands-down to Pulp Hero; more than any other text, the author's love for the material really shines through, and brings to the entire work a life that runs through it. It's really brilliantly done, and is the first truly 'atmospheric' setting book I've seen that just nails it from front page to back page. Lately I've been using a strange combination of Pulp Hero, Dark Champions & Star Hero for my non-dystopian sci-fi setting. It's weird, but it isn't dystopian, yet it's going for gritty realism, without being smarmy. I find all three books invaluable.

 

Among the Ultimate texts, the best are easily Ultimate Martial Artist, which I'd love to see redone & reprinted, and Ultimate Skill, although TUS reads a whole like a college text, and very little like a rules supplement, but that's because it's so fugging full of information. It's all info, cover to cover. Very detailed.

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

Lotta love for UMA. Personally ... not my favorite. I read it once. I've refered to it a couple time trying to answer rules questions on the board. I've never really used it for myself though. Not my fave.

 

To break it down, since Hero offers a good number of various types of books:

 

System Book: Combat Handbook

Genre Book: Pulp Hero

Setting Book: Terran Empire

Character Book: You Gotta Have Character (and I'm not even done reading it, it's just fun though)

Adventure Book: Villainy Amok (it's like a gabillion adventures in one book!) or Thrilling Places (I'm a sucker for Pulp stuff and this has it, all in aces)

Ultimate Book: Ultimate Skill (has nothing to do with my name in the Thanks section. I just love skills that much.)

Blunt Weapon: 5ER. (thought I'd love to get my hands on a Hardback Pulp Hero to see if that is as good)

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

Strike Force is the best supplement I've ever seen-- however I was limiting it to current DOJ HERO products. I also think Strike Force owes some of its deserved reputation because it was the first such supplement.

 

Some of the general gaming rules it brought in had never been previously articulated. If it came out now it would simply be very very good-- not as great as it was at the time.

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

To me the best 5th Edition books published are:

 

Demon

Villainy Amok

Hudson City

Pulp Hero

Ultimate Martial Artist [and even this only gets looked at by 1-3 players during character creation; but that's more people then what look at the other Ultimate books. :)]

 

I doubt I'd even attempt a fantasy game without the Bestiary and one of the Grimoires. I'm not that impressed with DoJ's science fiction line but I would certainly have Star Hero on hand if I was doing that genre.

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

Does is have to be a book? The truth is the single most used hero suppliment in my games is the Game Screen from the Hero System Resource Kit.

 

As far as books go, it's a toss-up between UMA and Dark Champions (guns, man, guns!), with an honorable mention to the equipment guide 'cause it has nukes written up in it. :)

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Re: What's the best hero suppliment!

 

The best Hero supplement?

 

These boards.

 

:)

 

Ooh, good one. Repp for swaying my vote. ;)

 

I was going to say "Normals Unbound", which I reluctantly have to admit I like better than "Everyman" (though Everyman is up there). One of my players is using Officer Trish Garret as a PC with her background being expanded to have her grow from a patrol officer to a SWAT sniper and now to a KnightSaber style powersuit wearing SuperSWAT team member.

 

Also Dark Champions, 4th and 5th ed. jystdave's old Dark Champions 4th ed game made my gaming group a Hero group, and that campaign has spawned three other campaigns in the same continuity that have been ongoing a decade later.

 

Plus, I always thought it was cool that the statue of Blind Justice on the cover of Normals Unbound was the same statue that the Blue Moon Killer was in front of in a gunfight in one of the Dark Champions supplements (I forget which one).

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