The Ultimate Newbie Question: What to buy next?

[Tae Kwon Dan]

So it's come down to finally posting the ultimate system newbie question. What should I pick-up next? Physical books or electronic recommendations are welcome. Just to be clear, I'm looking to start running a game some time after the first of the year.

 

What I currently have:

 

1. FREd

2. Champions

3. Champions Universe

4. Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks

5. Millenium City

6. UNTIL Superpowers DB (my most recent acquisition )

 

On my RADAR:

 

1. The Ultimate Martial Artist

2. Champions Battlegrounds

3. HERO System Resource Kit

4. Hero Designer (though I'll probably wait until 2.0 is released)

[Tom McCarthy]

Have you got an idea for your first adventure ? If not, Battlegrounds or Shades of Black. Or maybe VIPER.

 

If you've got a plot already, Ultimate Martial Artist is probably a good choice. It's got broad applicability (players always want their characters to fight, and fight well).

[Tae Kwon Dan]

I have ideas for an adventure, but I'm thinking some pre-made adventures would still be good to see how a standard super hero adventure is setup. Most of my gaming experience is wrapped up in D&D and Call of Cthulhu so I can whip up adventures for those, but having never played Champs I don't have as good of a concept for how adventures flow.

 

Hmm, that does seem to move Battlegrounds to the top spot ahead of UMA.

 

Thanks.

[Tom McCarthy]

Battlegrounds and Shades of Black are a bit more involved than the average adventure. Both are good fun, though.

 

Battlegrounds works well if its chapters are interspersed with other, unrelated adventures. Of course, that's what PCs' hunteds and DNPCs are for.

[Tae Kwon Dan]

I'll keep that in mind. I tend to sometimes just use adventures for ideas and then kind of mix and match info anyway.

 

Thanks again.

[JmOz]

Ultimate Martial Artist, then beastiary

[Bartman]

I haven't picked up either Battlegrounds or Shades of Black myself. I am not currently GMing myself, and my GM is planning on using material from these. So I will refrain from making any comments about their usefulness. But here is my 60 second review of rest of the product line.

 

Ultimate Martial Artist - An updated version of one of the best suppliments ever made for Hero. If any character in you campaign wants to be a 'combat master' or any type of martial artist, this book is practically a requirement. I can't recommend this one enough.

 

Viper - Another classic which has been completely rewritten for 5th edition. Viper is a huge player in the Champions Universe and this book provides a huge amount of detail on them. And much of the material can be easily reworked for use in any group of bad guys. Definitely a must have for any Supers GM.

 

Beastiary - A great collection of animals, both real and fictional. It also has some good rules on adapting the writeups for various uses. Perfect for creating a cyborg gorillia army, or even for just stocking your home base with mutated sea bass. Probably not my top recomendation for a Supers campaign, but there is still plenty of applicability and it is well written.

 

Resource KIt - I personally have looked at my GM's copy and decided to pass on this one. It has a good 5 panel GM's screen, an excellent rules booklet, 4 unexceptional pre-printed maps, and a selection of poor quality black and white carboard characters. I personally don't use a screen when I run and the booklet only interested me moderately. The maps and cardboard characters were what I was most interested in and I found them to have the least usefulness.

 

The Ultimate Vehicle - I was personally a bit underwhelmed by this one. No doubt it is a solid buy if you are running a vehicle heavy campaign like Power Rangers. Otherwise I'd skip it.

 

Hero Designer - I love Designer. It is a great program which really does take a lot of the work out of character creation. That said, in my opinion, there are several significant flaws in the program. So I would wait to see the reviews of version 2, before you take the plunge.

 

Star Hero, Terran Empire, and Spacers Toolkit - These are the Champions, Champions Universe, and UNTIL Database for Sci-Fi. These should probably be much lower priority for you. But all of them contain some interesting stuff that you would find helpful if you plan to run any kind of alien invasion or have galactic hopping heros ala The Justice League.

 

Fantasy Hero - This probably has no real applicability to a Supers campaign. Even if you run a dimensional hopping campaign and need to create a quick fantasy world, you probably won't need anything as complete as this. Don't get me wrong, it is a great book. I just don't see it having even the minor applicability that Star Hero has.

 

The Fantasy Hero Grimoire - The fantasy equivalent of the UNTIL Database. Worthwhile as a spellbook for a mystic character or as a powers idea book. Outside of that I'd give it a pass.

 

Ninja Hero - A great source book for any kind of martial arts campaign, a fair amount of the material bleeds into supers as well. It's a great buy if you have ninja heroes or Lo Pan style villians. Otherwise give it a pass.

 

I think that's more or less everything. Hope it helps.

[Ghost who Walks]

I finally broke down, and ordered the Ultimate Supermage PDF. Its still 4th edition, but is very impressive. As a former Cthulhu player, you may find it interesting. I wish I had bought it years ago.

 

Martial artist and Beastiary are both useful. To use the Beastiary, just have a villainous psionic who can only control animals. Then have a breakout at the zoo.

 

Since its in Adobe Acrobat format, a printer is useful to make a copy. (its over 250 pages)

 

So far as the older, 4th edition books. (I have them all!) in order of usefulness.:

1) Zodiac Conspiracy: probably the best villain book ever done. Has an entire team, backstory, and some sample plots.

3) Normals Unbound. No real changes at all are needed to use these characters in 5th edition. Only a couple have powers, perfect for populating a campaign world.

2) Champions of the North: useful, cause it presents a bunch of NPC hereoes, of varying usefulness. Easy to move them out of Canada. For reasons I never understood, none of them were French-Canadian.

 

Much of the rest of the 4th edition stuff is a big mixture, and is very dependent upon what your campaign world is like. Most of the 4th edition stuff can be found by searching used bookstores.

 

Note: Waiting on Hero Designer 2.0 myself.

[Lord Liaden]

Good advice above. Based on your previous purchases you seem to be most interested in supers games and have a lot of Champions Universe stuff; so I'd suggest you click on the "Free Stuff" link at the top of this page. Under "HERO System Documents" you'll find a PDF of plot seeds for many of the CU characters generated by discussion here on the boards, and a link to the original board thread with even more. You should find ideas for a lot of game sessions there.

[Tae Kwon Dan]

Thanks again guys. I pretty much bought HERO to get involved in a Supers game so for now most everything is going to be pretty much solely related to Champs. That being said I think UMA and even Ninja HERO would be helpful so I'll probably pick those up at some point. (especially since I'm already re-thinking my stance on Supers only to also run a Ninja HERO campaign .)

 

Ghost Who Walks, I was specifically wondering about some of those 4E PDF's they had. Thanks for the info there.

 

Liaden, I've already started a folder for digital stuff at work since I have a CD burner there.

 

Just a side note, I'll throw out a big thumbs up for the amount of electronic information, both free and retail, provided by you guys here at HERO. I think it's really great the effort you put into supporting the community.