SAVeira Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility If your only going to purchase one Ultimate book, get the Ultimate Skill. Best Ultimate book published to day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternal_sage Posted August 14, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility getting two this week, and Skill is definately on that list. just trying to think what else might be cool to get. i will probably eventually have them all, but i want to start with the most useful ones first. thanks for the input so far! just curious, but what's so cool in Brick? it was the lowest on my list originally, but it looks, at least from ghost-angel, that it ought to be my second place bet, after skill. oh, and i do have bestiary (and the two asian ones as well!) and they are fairly useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility Ah - I'm sorry. I ddnt mean to imply my list was in some kind of order. It's mostly left-to-right on my shelf. If you want an order for coolness factor, for the top few at least: Skill Bestiary Martial Artist Mentalist Metamorph --The rest are about equally useful, I've gotten mileage out of both Brick and Mystic, by having characters that fit the archetype. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility Hmm. Ultimate Skill is probably the best overall of the series. Ultimate Vehicle is the Ultimate book I open most often, and a good bet for any genre. Ultimate Metamorph, Ultimate Speedster and Ultimate Mentalist probably have the most interesting alternate rules, and helped me finally "solve" the Astral Projection problem to my satisfaction in 5th. Ultimate Brick is fun from a "How strong in Champions terms is my friend Ted" point of view, but I haven't used it for much. Ultimate Mystic was OK, and a good read, but I didn't get much new out of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGreenwade Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility Naturally I'd be partial to The Ultimate Vehicle... but really what to get depends a lot on what kind of game you're going to run or be in, and what kind of character you're going to play. As I've said elsewhere, the only Ultimate book (and, in fact, the only Hero book) that I consider to be not worth the cover price is The Ultimate Mystic; all others have at least enough utility to contribute to just about any game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattingly Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility Although it's not an Ultimate book, I also recommend the UNTIL Superpowers Database. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternal_sage Posted August 14, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility got both powers databases as well! so it looks like Mentalist is my other good bet. thank you guys. this is helpful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maur Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility Fantasy would probably be mystic over mentalist. Scifi/Space Opera would probably be the opposite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted August 14, 2007 Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility Obviously you want fan input more than "official" input, but here's my two cents just in case. I am skipping UMA and TUS, which you say you have or will be getting; I agree with other posters that they're probably the two most "generally useful in all genres" of the Ultimates. Ultimate Mentalist is probably third on that list, since so many genres can focus on mental powers, esp. Science Fiction and (in some settings) Fantasy. If you like a lot of vehicles and vehicle usage in your game, Ultimate Vehicle (plus the HSVS) might bump it out of third place. Ultimate Brick and Ultimate Speedster both seem superhero-centric simply because the subjects they cover -- Strength and movement, respectively -- are most "useful" and can be exploited in the most interesting ways when you have a lot of them to work with, as you do in a supers setting. I think there are plenty of tidbits in those books for other genres, though. Ultimate Metamorph may also seem a bit supers-centric for the same reason, but here I think appearances are a touch deceptive. Shapechanging is a major part of many genres, including Fantasy and (in some settings) Science Fiction, so for many gamers this book has nearly as much utility as Mentalist or Vehicle. The almost-in-stores Ultimate Energy Projector is like UMM -- at first it seems supers-centric (since flamboyant energy powers are a comic book staple, and superheroes can manipulate nearly any type of energy). But if you think about it, many types of energy are present in nearly any genre in some form, and if you want more "realistic" rules about how they function and interact with one another in game terms, UEP should come in handy. Even if you decide you don't like my particular approach to some aspect of energy, it gives you the tools to set things up to suit your own opinions and ideas. Ultimate Mystic is the most "informational" and least rules-oriented of the Ultimates. I think it's a treasure-trove of information about mystic matters, which makes it great for most Fantasy games as well as many other genres that involve magic at some level. For example, I wouldn't want to try to run an Urban Fantasy Hero game or an alternate world Fantasy setting with a lot of diverse but low-powered magical systems without it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternal_sage Posted August 14, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility excellent! yes, Energy Projector is actually on the must have list, because i like playing wizards that make things go boom, and who doesn't like lasers? i can see its uses already. i think i'll go with Skill and Mentalist, and in a couple of weeks pick up Metamorph and Energy Projector. probably... thanks again for all the input!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted August 15, 2007 Report Share Posted August 15, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility Eventually you really want all of them. Of all the books Hero has put out the Ultimate Series is the grouping I'd put at the top as "Must Buy" books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternal_sage Posted August 15, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility i still have little use for Brick and Speedster, altough i will get them eventually. they really do seem to be very useful. gotta love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeropoint Posted August 16, 2007 Report Share Posted August 16, 2007 Re: Ultimate books and general utility Ultimate Brick is, as mentioned above, most useful for supers, but that's not all it's good for, by any means. Reading it opened my eyes a bit to the possibility of "bricks" in other genres as well. In a Dark Champions game, you wouldn't have a brick who could throw tanks around. But you might have someone like B.A. Barracus from the A-Team: a character who's role is the big, strong, tough guy. That kind of character can exist in any setting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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