A LONG time ago, Viri made a hero for each class, and I thought the intention was to use it as a pool from which to draft the new IMMs. I was Rhrgraar, the berserker Hero. It was fun to just go around and RP, but this was before the advent of cabal armies. If they still have cabal affiliations, I find it to be a little unfair to raise armies while immune from almost all members of the rival cabal.
Level 51
I wouldn't see a problem with the Cabal armies really as much as I'd see it as an abuse of taking the standard. Cabal armies you can stay relatively far away from people and conquer lands without being PKed but taking a standard would suck if you can't PK the person because of their Hero status.
I always liked the Idea of heroes. I heard somewhere that each guild had its own special hero ability (and of they dont its a really good Idea.) Ultimatly I would like to see them back in action. The addition of Hero Only equipment is a good Idea, as is the ability to approve descriptions. Perhaps they can have a skill that makes a piece of equipment owner only (only for themself) and takes the rare/unique flags off of it. That would make them considerably less useless in terms of Hunting/eq gathering.
I also Think perhaps the ability to train/practice from a hero would be pretty cool. Maybe even when you use them to practice you can practice to 80% or train 12 hp instead of 10. They would have to "train " to enable a person to train with them. For RP it would be cool for lets say a thief heros to say "sure I will train you for 15000 gold" things like that.
As far as cabal things, maybe make it so they cant directly attack the enemy standard unless another hero is loged in of the enemy cabal. And they cant heal/spellup their own cabal members once they have initiated combat with another person or the enemy standard carrier.
Have them grant bonuses to characters in their area similar to Cabal owned areas, only do it based upon religion.
Perhaps this helps:
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Allow them to be lvl 51 as before
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No Uniques/Rares as before
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Allow them to pk in the 50 range
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Auto mastery of all their skills/spells
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Give them the ability to use a stronger form of sanctuary. (hero aura)
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Don't allow them to join cabals/clans.
That should make it fun, but still challenging, and its always nice to know that you made a unique status such as hero.
If our player base was larger, I might support the return of heros. However, I feel that awarding Heros to people would only take away from the active base of 50s we have now.