Hero System Bestiary

by Steven S. Long

Book Overview

No matter what genre, time period, or setting your campaign takes place in, The HERO System Bestiary has creatures and monsters for you to use Designed for use with any HERO System 6th Edition game, the Bestiary describes and sort of creature, animal, or monster you need for your game or character. Each one has notes about how to adapt it for different types of games, adventures, and characters.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158366128X
• ISBN13: 9781583661284
• Release Date: June 2010
• Publisher: Hero Games
• Length: 498 Pages
• Weight: 2.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Beasts of all kinds

The Upside: The Hero System Bestiary is a large collection of creatures, beasts and animals. However it really could be renamed The Ultimate Creature as it is much more than just write-ups. It provides extensive notes on creating creatures using the Hero System. Chapter One - Creatures In The Game. Chapter one focuses on using the Hero System to create animals and using them in your game. Opening with a discussion on the nature of creatures and beasts, the main focus of the book is on non-sentient beings. And also goes over the role of creatures in your game from background flavor to the main focus, and everything in between. The meat of the chapter is on Creature Creation, starting with using characteristics for creatures. Since creatures tend to interact in a fundamentally different way than NPCs in a game the characteristics section goes over how each one affects or is used by creatures. Particularly useful is a note on Negative Characteristics, since Negative STR is common amongst small animals. The Skills portion covers the idea of Everycreature Skills, with an example list. The Skills section goes over how a creature would use a skill or how a Character interacting with a creature would use the skill - whichever is more pertinent. Of note are extended discussions on Animal Handler, Riding, and Languages. Also, Martial Arts is covered and provides an Animal Art called Red In Tooth And Claw for particularly ferocious or well trained predators. Perks, Talents, Powers, Advantages, and Limitations covers how some of these elements are used by creatures. Disadvantages gets the most space as there are a number specific to creatures. Physical Limitation goes over Disadvantages particular to animals: Cold-Blooded, Limited Intellect, Poor Senses, Reduced Leap (for very strong creatures that can't jump), Reduced Manipulation, and Size/Weight. The Psychological Disadvantages most appropriate to creatures are also gone over, specifically Timid and Domesticated. Creature Templates provides a good number of Templates, not unlike Package Deals, that can be applied to any creature to create a hybrid creature. Templates provided and discusses are Cybernetic, Magic, Mutations (these first three being more open ended ideas than templates), Aquatic, Battle-Trained, Camouflage, Diseased (with write-ups of rabies and the plague), Divine, Elemental (air, earth, fire, water), Extra Heads (an alternative to the standard Duplication method), Familiar (appropriate for fantasy games), Ferocious, Infernal, Size (from insectile up to colossal), Smart (or Cunning), Space, Spikes, Undead, Venom (with seven levels of toxins venom write-ups for various levels of lethality), Winged, and Winter (or Arctic). Creatures In Combat has two important parts. First is a discussion on how and when creatures will use various Combat Maneuvers, and which combat maneuvers are inappropriate for creatures with the Limited Intellect Disadvantage (and which levels of that Disadvantage c