A fantastic book allowing us to finally create characters with less headache. The pre-generated characters make it easy to introduce players to the game, easing the learning curve. This is a must have reference book!

1. The game is one of the greatest. It's time tested, has a solid fan base, and only gets better with each edition.
2. Each edition is just that. It's substantially the same game, which is good, and refreshing.

Why I cannot recommend any of your products.

Because you treat your customers like dirt, at least some of us, and you're ban happy.

Yeah, I went to your site to give you money for things that can't be obtained here, to be greeting by a ban wall, and ZERO explanation.

You ghosted me. "Thanks"

We can't continue to invest in your products with any confidence as long as this remains the case.

Now, let's watch as you make the customer the villain, again.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.

TL; DR - you can't trust Hero Games, DoJ, whatever.

I love that this PDF is here, so that I can once again access a rulebook I long ago lost during moves across country. All the pages are here, but I have given a moderate review rather than a top notch one because the scan quality is so-so on some of the pages and several pages have pencil marks and other blemishes on them. This is far from a "clean" copy of the book. I suspect there may be no such thing as a clean copy, since these books were rather flimsy and those of us who played and loved the game were not easy on them... but the PDF is objectively full of blemishes.

This is the BEST introduction to the Fantasy Hero and to the Hero System in general, in my opinion. It leads you step by step through character creation with lots of cool examples. It presents an evocative and cohesive default setting resembling a grim "dark ages" style of fantasy. The artwork in the book is consistent with this single unified vision. To be fair this was published in 1985 and most of the art isn't great quality, but it does have some nice full-page pieces of the iconic characters in various adventures.

The Hero System (including fantasy hero) is often presented as a encyclopedia of options, and tries to cater to every possible genre variation, with artwork and examples of different styles and concepts. As a result, most Hero books read like dry textbooks, and are so generically bland that they fail to inspire. In a game where you have to build everything from scratch, inspiration is the most important thing... and too many options are paralyzing until you start to get a handle on them.

I find this book to be inspiring (I still pull it out and read it) and it will lead you by the hand to learn all the core aspects of Hero. It has a short solo adventure to try on your own, and a long adventure to run for your friends and teach them. There is enough here to get a campaign off the ground, but not so much that there is nothing left for you to create.

That said, these rules are old and have been made obsolete by newer editions. The mechanics are solid and have hardly changed, but some terminology and point costs are occasionally different in new editions. As such, be aware that learning this game will not be a perfect introduction to the modern Hero System. But it will teach you all about how powers work, how combat works, how to build characters and monsters and spells. All the core rules and strategies are there pretty much unchanged. I still use the monsters and spells and NPCs from this book in games today. And, it is a great little game in its own right, very playable. even if you never "upgrade" to the latest edition.

This book stands alone with nothing else needed to play. The scan is clean, readable and printer-friendly. If you like it I also recommend the Bestiary (3rd edition) and Spell Book (3rd edition) as supplements also available on this site. There was a magic items book as well that had some really cool ideas, but that is not available in PDF so far as I know.

NOTE: This is actually the first and original edition of Fantasy Hero. It is "3rd edition" because Champions was in its third edition when FH was first published. Third edition games all featured rules that were customized for their genre; ti wasn't until 4th edition that a genre-neutral rulebook was published. I think that is a lot of what gives this game its charm -- it wasn't generic and wasn't trying to be.

This is a product that has really come in handy for new players to the Hero System. It boils down the concepts better than anything else out there or that I could explain myself. I highly recommend this for players looking to teach or learn this system.

This appears to be a scanned PDF (there are noticeable artifacts). I'm primarily using it for convenience and searchability, so that doesn't affect my usage.

This is the Cybergames printed 2nd edition of CNM. It includes the 4e Champions Stats of all characters at the end of the book. CNM is a book designed to simulate the comics of the day, which were the more gritty comics coming out of Image and the Independant Comic companies. The world building is top notch, the Heroes, Villains and every character in between are giving wonderful writeups that give you insights into their personality and help you to see how to roleplay them well. Reading these books always makes me want to run an adventure or two in this well crafted world

If you are playing this using Fuzion and want the whole list of champions Powers you will also need the Champions New Millennium Alliences, and Champions New Millennia Bay Cities books (Sold as PDFs, and should be listed in the above "Customers who bought this also Purchased" listing.

I would give this 5 stars, but the Fuzion system here doesn't include the whole powers list. Also, this particular edition of CNM removed the Lifepath and Mekton Vehicle plug ins from the Fuzion rules. Not huge losses, but annoying none the less.

First off this isn't Fourth Edition it is Fuzion, which is what I wanted except that they gutted the rules section which is what I wanted. It removed the lifepath options that I found enjoyable as well as the Mekton plug in for building vehicles. I have loved Champions since around third edition and have most of the fourth, fifth and sixth edition books however, and this just could be me, I for the most part have not liked the vehicle rules. So I was extremely disappointed when I was going to use this to work on an anime campaign with mecha and saw how they reworked the entire rules section and for me not in a positive way.

Hero System is the only system I play anymore. Learn one system and play in any genre, any setting, any character. Believe the hype.

The product isn't what the image shows and there isn't a preview to verify before the purchase. Go to my review of "Champions Universe Villainy Bundle", if you want a more detailed explanation.

The product isn't what the image shows and there isn't a preview to verify before the purchase. Go to my review of "Champions Universe Villainy Bundle", if you want a more detailed explanation.

Very, very bad.

My opinion isn't based on the quality of the bundle's items, but for the items itself (Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks, Villains, Vandals, and Vermin, and Arcane Adversaries). Let me explain: The bundle's image is the 6th edition Hero System so anyone would assume it would contain 6th edition books. So I was think when I purchased it. As you surely can guess by now, I was wrong.

I don't know if this is a premetitated maneuver, but it's a shame. And the same was for "Champions Universe Cities Bundle" and "Champions Universe Organizations Bundle". So I purchased three bundle and I was received nothing of what I suppose to receive. As I mentioneds before, that's a shame.

This isn't a review, is a warning to anyone who want to purchase this bundle or the other two and, of curse, I would be worried about any bundle of Hero System 6th Edition serie. And by the way, there's not preview of these bundles, so you can't verify what you purchasing. Maybe it was a mistake done by people who don't know the game, but I spend money for this error, so this isn't an excuse.

Cannot say enough good things.

This product is exactly what it says it is -- a series of templates for imposing order on the vast blank canvas which is the Champions rulebook. It is a lifesaver for new players, an invaluable NPC generation aid, and a fun read with easy reference.

Recommended, recommended, recommended.

I was quite disappointed with the lack of color in this pdf. It is very bland with it's black & white character illustrations. For a comic book feel, I prefer something with at least that four-color comics vibe from the olden days of comics to the more high quality art found in most popular comics today. No, nothing in the product description promised me color illustrations, but it does not even boast the colorful cover art shown on the thumbnail above. Honestly, I won't use this at all regardless of the character content because it's just so hard to look at. I feel ripped off and will avoid Hero Games products from now on. Thanks for nothing, Hero Games.

I do like the game a lot. The rating is due to the fact that this is only a scan and has no table of contents in the PDF.