[aaminoff]

I played Champions (the paper & pen version) quite a bit in college, in the late 1980s. In those days I think it was 4th edition. I believe what happened is that Champions started out as a superhero genre system, and was generalized into something akin to GURPS, and finally Champions is now a special case of the HERO system. So you probably do need both the base HERO book and the Champions book.

The prices you describe are, unfortunately, high, but not surprising. Paper and pen RPGs have become a bit of a niche market. The books still take just as much time and effort on the part of writers/designers/producers to make, but now that cost must be borne by a much smaller number of customers. Also, there is a cohort effect, where the bulk of people interested in PnP RPGs were probably born in the 1960s-1970s and got into gaming in the late 1970s-1980s, and nowadays that cohort has grown up & gotten jobs and is much less price-sensitive than they used to be. I very much doubt the prices are high because of the MMO tie-in, especially as I don't think that particular MMO has done all that well as far as market share.

What you might want to do is look on Amazon or Ebay for used copies of the rulebooks. You might even go for the slightly older ones, 4th edition or whatever. Unfortunately shipping to Germany may use up any money you save, but at least you get a physical book.