Joe Walsh Posted September 19, 2018 Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 Now that Hero Games is selling a pretty good selection of 4th Edition books in PDF format (and it's blessedly inexpensive to get most of them in physical format on the secondary market), I thought it might be worthwhile to anyone new to the edition for us to have a discussion about which supplements are most worth having. To me, the very most useful ones are: 403 - Classic Enemies - A nice collection of enemies that work well with the simpler builds you see in the Champions hardcover. 416 - Classic Organizations - Lots of orgs to chose from for inclusion in your campaign. 421 - Champions Universe - A nice overview of the official Champions setting. 423 - Dark Champions - Very useful genre book for street-level heroes and for gritty campaigns in general. 425 - Viper - A good-sized supplement on one of the most important organizations in the Champions universe. 430 - Justice Not Law - Hudson City, a fully-realized setting for your gritty, Dark Champions campaigns. 501 - Ninja HERO - Not just for martial arts campaigns, it's a useful supplement for anyone who is looking for more combat options and ideas. 507 - HERO System Bestiary - There are enough creatures of all sorts in here to populate several campaigns in just about any genre. Secondarily, and only based on the needs of a given campaign, the following can prove useful: 404 - Challenges for Champions - 10 scenarios for Champions 405 - Mystic Masters - Nice subgenre book for running magic-heavy Supers campaigns. 413 - Alien Enemies - Lots of alien-based enemies. 420 - Normals Unbound - Populate your city with a sprinkling of these folks to help bring it to life. 427 - Allies - A decent selection of potential allies. 428 - The Mutant File - Mutants were all the rage back in the day, and this book will help out anyone planning a classic Mutants vs. the World style campaign. 429 - Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies - A nice set of horrific enemies. 502 - Fantasy HERO - A good genre book for the most popular role-playing genre. Worth it for the Western Shores campaign alone. 503 - Fantasy HERO Companion - All the stuff they couldn't fit in Fantasy HERO, including mass combat and more locations, spells, items, and beasts. 508 - HERO System Almanac I - Lots of new optional rules, with commentary from the perspective of people who emphasize storytelling, mechanics, or role-playing. What's on your lists? Cassandra 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassandra Posted September 19, 2018 Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 HERO System Almanac II had updated UNTIL and U.S. Military Forces, World Security Service (what happened to Special American Tactics after it was shut down), and the effect of Nuclear Weapons in Champions terms. Joe Walsh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Walsh Posted September 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 34 minutes ago, Cassandra said: HERO System Almanac II had updated UNTIL and U.S. Military Forces, World Security Service (what happened to Special American Tactics after it was shut down), and the effect of Nuclear Weapons in Champions terms. Good catch! There's a load of potentially useful stuff in there. 432, An Eye for an Eye, is also potentially useful depending on the campaign (and moves more toward 5e in many ways). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassandra Posted September 19, 2018 Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 Justice Inc was a role playing game for adventures in the 1920s and 30s. I think it might have been third edition but it was very useful. Danger International was an expansion of the Espionage game and was for modern day (1980s) adventurers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Walsh Posted September 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 Those were very good games! Excellent, excellent work in both cases. I appreciate the benefits of the 4e+ generic system method, but the all-in-one completeness of the 3e way also has its appeal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Cowan Posted September 19, 2018 Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 lets see, the is the Ultimate Mentalist -512 is 4th? All of the Ultimate series are useful. Joe Walsh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Walsh Posted September 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 I never really used any of the Ultimates books. I got turned off by the seemingly infinite procession of class-specific books for AD&D 2e, back when, and never really bothered with the 5e+ Ultimate books (tho I bought them all, silly me). What do you find useful about the two Ultimate books released for 4e: The Ultimate Martial Artist, and The Ultimate Mentalist (and wasn't Ultimate Supermage a PDF-only release, back when that was a new thing)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Cowan Posted September 19, 2018 Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 Yes, they can be a bit niche. The Ultimate Martial Artist is good for any hand to hand skill type (wish I still had that book) Both show how to tune powers for different settings from pulp to scifi and low power to high end Joe Walsh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted September 19, 2018 Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 I considered (and still do) Ultimate Martial Artist to be compulsory for 4th Edition. My 4th Edition kit that I took to every session away from home was the slim George Perez cover Hero System #500 rulebook, UMA, and the Bestiary. Joe Walsh and eepjr24 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted September 19, 2018 Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 Given the givens, if I were to play 4e again, I'd backref 5th editions Ultimate Skill. It's almost entirely relevant to 4e and was a very welcome extension for the system, particularly heroic level play. Joe Walsh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Walsh Posted September 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2018 1 hour ago, Killer Shrike said: Given the givens, if I were to play 4e again, I'd backref 5th editions Ultimate Skill. It's almost entirely relevant to 4e and was a very welcome extension for the system, particularly heroic level play. Agreed. And that's the one exception to my not using Ultimate books. Killer Shrike 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted September 20, 2018 Report Share Posted September 20, 2018 The 4e UMA wasn't some class splatbook. It expanded the hero system combat engine itself. Most of this stuff later became defacto hero system fundamentals in 5e / 6e. It's a really good book. There's some overlap w/ Ninja Hero which is also very good, but UMA was very broadly applicable. Seriously, take my word for it, it's good. Joe Walsh and Ninja-Bear 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Walsh Posted September 20, 2018 Author Report Share Posted September 20, 2018 I've heard HERO folks swear by UMA just like I hear GURPS folks swear by GURPS Martial Arts, and I do understand that additional combat maneuvers can be critical to some campaigns. But every time I read through those books my eyes just glaze over. I feel like I'm probably missing out on something, but it's just not apparent to me what it is. Someday I'll have to make a point to be a player in some campaigns that use the material in those books to good effect. That may help me see more clearly what bits may be useful in my campaigns. Killer Shrike 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archer Posted September 20, 2018 Report Share Posted September 20, 2018 I never got Ultimate Martial Artist but I've used the hell out of Ninja Hero. I didn't have any idea how to create new maneuvers or new martial arts before I got that book and I didn't own anything else for a long while that had a list of all the martial arts maneuvers which HERO had already published. I also really enjoyed Kingdom of Champions, a book which gives an overview of running a campaign based in Great Britain (or at least running your playgroup through the isles). But I've also used it to get in the right mindset for writing fiction based there so I got more use out of the book than just gaming. I really enjoyed Mystic Masters and I think it helped me get more into the mindset of creating mystical characters and making them seem more unique (making an honest to goodness magician rather than an energy blasting character whose special effect happens to be magic). But I've never gotten around to running a magic-themed campaign. Joe Walsh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. MID-Nite Posted September 26, 2018 Report Share Posted September 26, 2018 For me...the best 4th ed supplement is Champions in 3D...hands down. A wealth of gaming goodness lies within its pages. Joe Walsh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Walsh Posted September 26, 2018 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2018 6 hours ago, Dr. MID-Nite said: For me...the best 4th ed supplement is Champions in 3D...hands down. A wealth of gaming goodness lies within its pages. It is a nice piece of work. The random dimension generator is my favorite bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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