In the newest version of D&D, each weapon is given two damage codes, one for when the weapon is used by a small character (Gnome or Halfling), and one for medium characters. The justification for this is that a halfling-sized longsword isn't the same as a human shortsword; it's weighted and sharpened differently.
Anyway, this is a bit annoying, but does make a certain amount of sense. It also means that you can get a halfling dagger, which you couldn't previously.
But...
A small longbow still has a range of 100 feet, the same as a normal longbow. Despite the fact that you simply could not construct a bow that size with that range (excepting the use of magic, which they presumably didn't use else the cost would be higher).
Looks like they need to rethink that again for the next edition.
Tuesday, 10 February 2004
The Cost of Gaming
I didn't think I'd ever get to the point of moaning about the cost of games. Intellectually, I can understand that making these things costs money, and that wages in the industry are already too low. I can also understand that it's a matter of market forces, and that companies can charge what they want, and if I don't like it, I don't need to buy.
However, I saw the new Conan d20 game today, took one look at the £28 price, and put the book back down. Simply put, there's no way I can possibly justify that sort of cost for a game that I know, in my heart of hearts, will get very little if any use.
To be fair, I'm not the target audience for a game of this sort. The only Conan I've read are some of Robert Jordan's woeful stories featuring the character. I've meant to get to Howard's original works, but never gotten around to it. It's also fair to say that I didn't look inside the book - it was certainly a very thick hardcover, and looked solidly put together. I would also assume, based on Mongoose's previous record with licensed games, that it was a well-done product, and full-colour inside. The book was wrapped, so there was no way I could possibly know any of this, though.
The problem with the cost, however, is actually one of utility. I'm extremely unlikely to ever play a Conan game, and could probably manage without a rulebook in any case. I'm extremely unlikely to ever run a Conan game. And it's extremely doubtful that I'd want to canibalise large parts of the Conan rules for a 'normal' d20 game. So, it just wouldn't be worth it.
Of course, looking at my collection of game books as a whole, I can apply exactly the same argument to all of them. I get a huge amount of use from my D&D core rulebooks, and have from Vampire in the past. Other core rulebooks get somewhat less use, but I have at times run various other games. However, the supplements for such games, and even for D&D and Vampire, get virtually no use. This is very worrying, because it then brings me to the thought: why buy games at all? Since I could probably fit all the books I've ever used on one shelf, rather than the huge stacks I have around the place, how can I justify spending more money on games, in the full and certain knowledge that I most likely won't ever use 10% of the stuff I buy?
This rant doesn't have a point. I was more annoyed that I was desperately looking for a new book worth buying, in an effort to stave off boredom, and simply failed. Even Exalted, which I'd weakened enough to buy, proved to be unavailable.
However, I saw the new Conan d20 game today, took one look at the £28 price, and put the book back down. Simply put, there's no way I can possibly justify that sort of cost for a game that I know, in my heart of hearts, will get very little if any use.
To be fair, I'm not the target audience for a game of this sort. The only Conan I've read are some of Robert Jordan's woeful stories featuring the character. I've meant to get to Howard's original works, but never gotten around to it. It's also fair to say that I didn't look inside the book - it was certainly a very thick hardcover, and looked solidly put together. I would also assume, based on Mongoose's previous record with licensed games, that it was a well-done product, and full-colour inside. The book was wrapped, so there was no way I could possibly know any of this, though.
The problem with the cost, however, is actually one of utility. I'm extremely unlikely to ever play a Conan game, and could probably manage without a rulebook in any case. I'm extremely unlikely to ever run a Conan game. And it's extremely doubtful that I'd want to canibalise large parts of the Conan rules for a 'normal' d20 game. So, it just wouldn't be worth it.
Of course, looking at my collection of game books as a whole, I can apply exactly the same argument to all of them. I get a huge amount of use from my D&D core rulebooks, and have from Vampire in the past. Other core rulebooks get somewhat less use, but I have at times run various other games. However, the supplements for such games, and even for D&D and Vampire, get virtually no use. This is very worrying, because it then brings me to the thought: why buy games at all? Since I could probably fit all the books I've ever used on one shelf, rather than the huge stacks I have around the place, how can I justify spending more money on games, in the full and certain knowledge that I most likely won't ever use 10% of the stuff I buy?
This rant doesn't have a point. I was more annoyed that I was desperately looking for a new book worth buying, in an effort to stave off boredom, and simply failed. Even Exalted, which I'd weakened enough to buy, proved to be unavailable.
Monday, 9 February 2004
Hitpoints
Archived thread started by Mort...
Oh boy, look what I found, a blog.. well I just thought about something to rant about so here I am.
Now, the new D20 D&D, the high and mighty of 'balance' as they claim all over the place.
"Yes, all our classes are balanced against each other, yada yada yada." - Now this is mostly true, apart from some classes being a bit crap compared to others, and some classes scaling upwards on the power scale at higher levels while others start to suck somewhat. But all in all you can pick any class you want and end up with a decent character.
Except for one silly thing: Hitpoints!
Why, oh why did they decide to keep that stupid die roll for hitpoints? It's the do or die for some characters. Your 10th level mage has got 15 hitpoints? Well that's not very good is it? You might as well just chuck it on the discard pile now, or be prepared to spend a lot of time unconcious. Sure you can put up Con, but do you really want to do that as a wizard? No not really, those stat points are much better spent on your Int stat, so you can cast spells with a decent chance of success.
Why didn't they just chuck that die roll out the window and give each class a number of hitpoints per level instead? In theory a barbarian at level 10 might have less hitpoints than a mage, if the barbarian is unlucky. Not very likely as a barbarian probably has quite a high Con, but definately possible. If they insisted on keeping the hit points roll they should have kept the old way of rolling stats as well, none of this fancy 4d6 crap, and stat buying? Oh please, where's the randomness in that?
I'm done ranting now, please return to your normal reading....
Oh boy, look what I found, a blog.. well I just thought about something to rant about so here I am.
Now, the new D20 D&D, the high and mighty of 'balance' as they claim all over the place.
"Yes, all our classes are balanced against each other, yada yada yada." - Now this is mostly true, apart from some classes being a bit crap compared to others, and some classes scaling upwards on the power scale at higher levels while others start to suck somewhat. But all in all you can pick any class you want and end up with a decent character.
Except for one silly thing: Hitpoints!
Why, oh why did they decide to keep that stupid die roll for hitpoints? It's the do or die for some characters. Your 10th level mage has got 15 hitpoints? Well that's not very good is it? You might as well just chuck it on the discard pile now, or be prepared to spend a lot of time unconcious. Sure you can put up Con, but do you really want to do that as a wizard? No not really, those stat points are much better spent on your Int stat, so you can cast spells with a decent chance of success.
Why didn't they just chuck that die roll out the window and give each class a number of hitpoints per level instead? In theory a barbarian at level 10 might have less hitpoints than a mage, if the barbarian is unlucky. Not very likely as a barbarian probably has quite a high Con, but definately possible. If they insisted on keeping the hit points roll they should have kept the old way of rolling stats as well, none of this fancy 4d6 crap, and stat buying? Oh please, where's the randomness in that?
I'm done ranting now, please return to your normal reading....
Review: Martial Arts Mayhem
Or, "I know kung fu!"
One of the most repeated complaints against d20 Modern is that you can't properly create a ninja character. Now, on one level, this is nonsense - you can create a perfectly servicable ninja, just not at 1st level. On another, the martial arts rules are very abstract in d20 as a whole, and consequently the ninja you might create will always look a little bland. (As compared to a ninja created under Storyteller, of course, where those five dots you have in the Martial Arts skill are naturally superior.)
Regardless, this book redresses the balance somewhat. Intended as an expansion for the martial arts rules in d20 Modern, it uses the rules for martial arts styles from Oriental Adventures, rather than Prestige Classes, and a wide selection of feats, to enable characters to do all sorts of crazy stuff.
This is a 62-page black and white softcover published by Green Ronin on behalf of the Game Mechanics, and written by Rich Redman, who was one of the original designers of d20. So, a high pedigree indeed. It cost ?10, which was rather expensive for a book of this length.
The book opens with a brief introduction desciring what martial arts are, both in reality and in the game, adding the material here to the campaign, training issues, and also the design philosophy behind the book - to expand the role of martial arts, while remaining balanced with the rules for firearms.
Chapter 1 then provides the general rules for martial arts: a martial arts style is a set of three masteries, each of which can be gained by learning the right combination of skills and feats. Each mastery then gives a bonus to the martial arts master. Characters may master as many styles as they wish, but it should be borne in mind that they only have a small number of feats to play with, which limits them rather tightly. There are also a couple of additions to the grappling rules, a clarification of what happens to a character's feats if he loses the prerequisites (for instance, a character with Expertise who drops to Int 12 - he loses the feat), and guidelines on creating new styles.
Between the introduction and the general rules, 6 pages are taken up.
Chapter 2 describes many sample styles. There are eighteen in all, including the northern leg style (focussing on kicks), drunken fighting, School of the Dance, and so on. In general, these don't match existing martial arts directly - there is no karate style, for instance - but rather are broadly analogous to existing arts, allowing a wider variety of martial arts to be modelled easily than would otherwise have been the case.
This is a good thing, and in keeping with the rest of the d20 Modern design. As pistols exist in a multitude of forms, most of which function in much the same way, with small differences known only to experts, in the same way, there are a huge number of martial arts schools in existence, with small differences in emphasis, but little difference to anyone who isn't an expert. d20 Modern doesn't model all the small differences between types of pistol; neither does it model the differences between all martial arts styles, and nor should it.
In addition to fifteen styles intended to model a variety of real arts, there are three fictional styles, one dedicated to a campaign featuring magic, which harnesses elemental energies, one dedicated to psionic campaigns, and one similar to the gun kata used in the film Equilibrium. These I like - they're a lot of fun.
The style masteries are very nice, and would definately encourage characters to aim to master styles. They are balanced, however, by very strict mastery requirements, with the more powerful masteries requiring more from their students. Since characters have very few feats to play with, this is fair enough.
Chapter 3 provides 10 pages of new feats, intended to supplement the new styles. Some of these are familiar, such as Die Hard, which matches the feat of the same name in PHB 3.5, some are obvious - Improved Dodge and Advanced Dodge, for instance, and some are brand new. Reagrdless, they are all related to martial arts in some form, but would be useful to characters interested in combat but not actually following a style. All in all, these are nice feats. It should also be noted that the balance here is very well done. (One exception - Three-Conflicts Stance is designed to allow a character to make an opportunity against a character who makes a grapple attack, where said character has an ability that negates the normal attack of opportunity. That is, it is a direct counter to another ability, which I'm not fond of as a design philosophy.)
Chapter 4 then provides seven pages of secret techniques. Characters who gain levels of mastery of certain styles become eligible to learn special feats. These tend to be more powerful than other feats, but have huge lists of prerequisites, so are fine. The secret techniques themselves are nice, although I did find the name of the level 3 mastery technique for Western Boxing style amusing - Eye of the Tiger.
Chapter 5 gives a whole range of martial arts weapons. These are nice enough, although melee weapons aren't particularly worthwhile in d20 Modern (and are too weak to use in D&D - a deliberate design decision for the game). Amusingly, we get yet another set of stats for the chakram. As yet, I have yet to find one that justifies tagging it as an Exotic Weapon.
Chapter 6 then discusses campaign models focussing on martial arts. It discusses the question of whether to have "No fu", "Some fu", or "Crazy fu", relating to the level of martial arts silliness you want in your campaign. There are rules to back each of these, including a set of Stunt rules for use in Crazy Fu campaigns. There then proceed discussions of five campaign models, which can most easily be summarised as Mad Max meets martial arts, Alias meets martial arts, the Godfather meets martial arts, Mortal Kombat meets, well, itself, and the Karate Kid (or, less lame, equivalent) meets itself. Each campaign model discusses the place of the PCs, Department 7, rules of the model, and sample villains for each.
This was a nice book, of which chapters 2, 3 and 4 are the most useful. Since these comprise the bulk of the book, this is a good thing. The utility of the book would depend on the style of d20 Modern game the GM was using - in the same way that Ultramodern Firearms won't always fit, neither will this book. However, this book does make martial arts campaigns a viable game style in d20 Modern, which they might well not have been in the past. As such, it can be recommended.
Still, you can't do The Matrix in d20 Modern. It seems Neo will remain the eternal munchkin :-)
One of the most repeated complaints against d20 Modern is that you can't properly create a ninja character. Now, on one level, this is nonsense - you can create a perfectly servicable ninja, just not at 1st level. On another, the martial arts rules are very abstract in d20 as a whole, and consequently the ninja you might create will always look a little bland. (As compared to a ninja created under Storyteller, of course, where those five dots you have in the Martial Arts skill are naturally superior.)
Regardless, this book redresses the balance somewhat. Intended as an expansion for the martial arts rules in d20 Modern, it uses the rules for martial arts styles from Oriental Adventures, rather than Prestige Classes, and a wide selection of feats, to enable characters to do all sorts of crazy stuff.
This is a 62-page black and white softcover published by Green Ronin on behalf of the Game Mechanics, and written by Rich Redman, who was one of the original designers of d20. So, a high pedigree indeed. It cost ?10, which was rather expensive for a book of this length.
The book opens with a brief introduction desciring what martial arts are, both in reality and in the game, adding the material here to the campaign, training issues, and also the design philosophy behind the book - to expand the role of martial arts, while remaining balanced with the rules for firearms.
Chapter 1 then provides the general rules for martial arts: a martial arts style is a set of three masteries, each of which can be gained by learning the right combination of skills and feats. Each mastery then gives a bonus to the martial arts master. Characters may master as many styles as they wish, but it should be borne in mind that they only have a small number of feats to play with, which limits them rather tightly. There are also a couple of additions to the grappling rules, a clarification of what happens to a character's feats if he loses the prerequisites (for instance, a character with Expertise who drops to Int 12 - he loses the feat), and guidelines on creating new styles.
Between the introduction and the general rules, 6 pages are taken up.
Chapter 2 describes many sample styles. There are eighteen in all, including the northern leg style (focussing on kicks), drunken fighting, School of the Dance, and so on. In general, these don't match existing martial arts directly - there is no karate style, for instance - but rather are broadly analogous to existing arts, allowing a wider variety of martial arts to be modelled easily than would otherwise have been the case.
This is a good thing, and in keeping with the rest of the d20 Modern design. As pistols exist in a multitude of forms, most of which function in much the same way, with small differences known only to experts, in the same way, there are a huge number of martial arts schools in existence, with small differences in emphasis, but little difference to anyone who isn't an expert. d20 Modern doesn't model all the small differences between types of pistol; neither does it model the differences between all martial arts styles, and nor should it.
In addition to fifteen styles intended to model a variety of real arts, there are three fictional styles, one dedicated to a campaign featuring magic, which harnesses elemental energies, one dedicated to psionic campaigns, and one similar to the gun kata used in the film Equilibrium. These I like - they're a lot of fun.
The style masteries are very nice, and would definately encourage characters to aim to master styles. They are balanced, however, by very strict mastery requirements, with the more powerful masteries requiring more from their students. Since characters have very few feats to play with, this is fair enough.
Chapter 3 provides 10 pages of new feats, intended to supplement the new styles. Some of these are familiar, such as Die Hard, which matches the feat of the same name in PHB 3.5, some are obvious - Improved Dodge and Advanced Dodge, for instance, and some are brand new. Reagrdless, they are all related to martial arts in some form, but would be useful to characters interested in combat but not actually following a style. All in all, these are nice feats. It should also be noted that the balance here is very well done. (One exception - Three-Conflicts Stance is designed to allow a character to make an opportunity against a character who makes a grapple attack, where said character has an ability that negates the normal attack of opportunity. That is, it is a direct counter to another ability, which I'm not fond of as a design philosophy.)
Chapter 4 then provides seven pages of secret techniques. Characters who gain levels of mastery of certain styles become eligible to learn special feats. These tend to be more powerful than other feats, but have huge lists of prerequisites, so are fine. The secret techniques themselves are nice, although I did find the name of the level 3 mastery technique for Western Boxing style amusing - Eye of the Tiger.
Chapter 5 gives a whole range of martial arts weapons. These are nice enough, although melee weapons aren't particularly worthwhile in d20 Modern (and are too weak to use in D&D - a deliberate design decision for the game). Amusingly, we get yet another set of stats for the chakram. As yet, I have yet to find one that justifies tagging it as an Exotic Weapon.
Chapter 6 then discusses campaign models focussing on martial arts. It discusses the question of whether to have "No fu", "Some fu", or "Crazy fu", relating to the level of martial arts silliness you want in your campaign. There are rules to back each of these, including a set of Stunt rules for use in Crazy Fu campaigns. There then proceed discussions of five campaign models, which can most easily be summarised as Mad Max meets martial arts, Alias meets martial arts, the Godfather meets martial arts, Mortal Kombat meets, well, itself, and the Karate Kid (or, less lame, equivalent) meets itself. Each campaign model discusses the place of the PCs, Department 7, rules of the model, and sample villains for each.
This was a nice book, of which chapters 2, 3 and 4 are the most useful. Since these comprise the bulk of the book, this is a good thing. The utility of the book would depend on the style of d20 Modern game the GM was using - in the same way that Ultramodern Firearms won't always fit, neither will this book. However, this book does make martial arts campaigns a viable game style in d20 Modern, which they might well not have been in the past. As such, it can be recommended.
Still, you can't do The Matrix in d20 Modern. It seems Neo will remain the eternal munchkin :-)
Thursday, 5 February 2004
Review: The Complete Book of Eldritch Might
This work is a compilation of three previous (3rd Edition) books for D&D, the Books of Eldritch Might, the first two of which I owned but had never gotten around to reading. The compilation gathers all the material from all three, updates it to v3.5, and puts some fancy hardcovers on the whole.
This is a 224-page balck and white hardcover. It cost £22, so was very expensive, but the text size is unusually small - this book is packed. There are nine chapters and an appendix.
Chapter One presents alternative Bard and Sorcerer classes. The Bard class is not much different from the original, except that their spell-casting and Bardic Music features are replaced with spellsong abilities, which are similar to magic, but subtly different. The Sorcerer gains higher hit dice (d6), more skill points (4/level), and seems to lose nothing. This is all balanced by them having to use a new spell-list, which has fewer spells on it, and has a number of the most useful spells (haste and fly, for example) increased in level. So, they become a bit more powerful in one area, but become noticably less useful in the main one associated with their class.
The new classes are fine, although I prefer the new Bard to the new Sorcerer. I doubt I would use either in a game I was running, however; I don't see anything wrong with the existing classes. This chapter is 13 pages long, much of which is taken up with the Sorcerer spell-list.
Chapter 2 consists of eight pages of Feats. These are fine, and several are quite interesting. But, they're just feats.
Chapter 3 , in seventeen pages, presents eight new Prestige Classes. These are all good, being both balanced and flavourful. I like them. Again, though, they're just prestige classes, so not exactly stunning.
Chapter 4 presents Soul Magic, a variant of magic that consists of spells that exist solely to be cast. Sort of like the eight great spells in Diskworld. This is good stuff, and material that I would strongly consider dropping into a game I ran to add a bit of wonder to proceedings. This chapter is only four pages long, but that is easily sufficient to present what needs said about the subject.
Chapter 5 deals with Magic Locales. There are seven such locations, in 37 pages, including such delights as the Nexus (a door to other worlds), the City in the Storm (a flying city surrounded by a permanent tempest), and so forth. Each is presented with a description, two suggested uses, adventure hooks, associated characters, and cross-references to materials elsewhere in the book. This is interesting, but probably not something that I'm ever going to use.
Chapter 6 presents the Spellsongs, companion material to the variant Bard. This chapter runs to fourteen pages, which are invaluable if the new Bard is used, and useless if not.
Chapter 7 presents the new Spells. This, for me, is the meat of the book, and the main reason I bought it. The spells here range from the dull (Disdain the Divine gives a bonus to save against divine spells) to the fascinating (Gestalt merges two creatures into a bizarre amalgamation). They are, for the most part, well balanced (although Plunge Deep to the Core, which at 2nd level allows characters to ignore one source of damage reduction, seems rather too powerful). These spells will, with a handful of exceptions, be being immediately added to my current campaign. There are 65 pages of new spells.
Chapter 8 presents new Magic Items, some of which will also be added to my game forthwith. For the most part, these items are more interesting, although often of lesser utility, than their counterparts in the DMG. These are also well-balanced, although I noted a couple of changes that should have been made from 3e to 3.5e, but that weren't (references to nine-tenths cover, for instance), but there were only a few. Chapter 8 lasts 26 pages.
Chapter 9 presents 18 pages of new monsters. These are fine, but, as with feats and prestige classes, hardly exciting.
The Appendix includes a very useful random rune generator. It also includes coversion guidelines for using this book with Arcana Unearthed, which is also very useful, but only to those using that game.
This book has the singular distinction of being the first (non-Monstrous Compendium) third-party sourcebook I will be adding to one of my D&D campaigns. The material here is useful, well-balanced, and interesting. This book, therefore, is highly recommended to those looking for more arcane materials to add to their campaigns.
This is a 224-page balck and white hardcover. It cost £22, so was very expensive, but the text size is unusually small - this book is packed. There are nine chapters and an appendix.
Chapter One presents alternative Bard and Sorcerer classes. The Bard class is not much different from the original, except that their spell-casting and Bardic Music features are replaced with spellsong abilities, which are similar to magic, but subtly different. The Sorcerer gains higher hit dice (d6), more skill points (4/level), and seems to lose nothing. This is all balanced by them having to use a new spell-list, which has fewer spells on it, and has a number of the most useful spells (haste and fly, for example) increased in level. So, they become a bit more powerful in one area, but become noticably less useful in the main one associated with their class.
The new classes are fine, although I prefer the new Bard to the new Sorcerer. I doubt I would use either in a game I was running, however; I don't see anything wrong with the existing classes. This chapter is 13 pages long, much of which is taken up with the Sorcerer spell-list.
Chapter 2 consists of eight pages of Feats. These are fine, and several are quite interesting. But, they're just feats.
Chapter 3 , in seventeen pages, presents eight new Prestige Classes. These are all good, being both balanced and flavourful. I like them. Again, though, they're just prestige classes, so not exactly stunning.
Chapter 4 presents Soul Magic, a variant of magic that consists of spells that exist solely to be cast. Sort of like the eight great spells in Diskworld. This is good stuff, and material that I would strongly consider dropping into a game I ran to add a bit of wonder to proceedings. This chapter is only four pages long, but that is easily sufficient to present what needs said about the subject.
Chapter 5 deals with Magic Locales. There are seven such locations, in 37 pages, including such delights as the Nexus (a door to other worlds), the City in the Storm (a flying city surrounded by a permanent tempest), and so forth. Each is presented with a description, two suggested uses, adventure hooks, associated characters, and cross-references to materials elsewhere in the book. This is interesting, but probably not something that I'm ever going to use.
Chapter 6 presents the Spellsongs, companion material to the variant Bard. This chapter runs to fourteen pages, which are invaluable if the new Bard is used, and useless if not.
Chapter 7 presents the new Spells. This, for me, is the meat of the book, and the main reason I bought it. The spells here range from the dull (Disdain the Divine gives a bonus to save against divine spells) to the fascinating (Gestalt merges two creatures into a bizarre amalgamation). They are, for the most part, well balanced (although Plunge Deep to the Core, which at 2nd level allows characters to ignore one source of damage reduction, seems rather too powerful). These spells will, with a handful of exceptions, be being immediately added to my current campaign. There are 65 pages of new spells.
Chapter 8 presents new Magic Items, some of which will also be added to my game forthwith. For the most part, these items are more interesting, although often of lesser utility, than their counterparts in the DMG. These are also well-balanced, although I noted a couple of changes that should have been made from 3e to 3.5e, but that weren't (references to nine-tenths cover, for instance), but there were only a few. Chapter 8 lasts 26 pages.
Chapter 9 presents 18 pages of new monsters. These are fine, but, as with feats and prestige classes, hardly exciting.
The Appendix includes a very useful random rune generator. It also includes coversion guidelines for using this book with Arcana Unearthed, which is also very useful, but only to those using that game.
This book has the singular distinction of being the first (non-Monstrous Compendium) third-party sourcebook I will be adding to one of my D&D campaigns. The material here is useful, well-balanced, and interesting. This book, therefore, is highly recommended to those looking for more arcane materials to add to their campaigns.
Tuesday, 3 February 2004
Review: The Point of No Return
This is the year 3 sourcebook for the Babylon 5 d20 game. It describes the state of the galaxy in 2260, and related campaign materials. Like the previous year 2 supplement (The Coming of Shadows), and like the core rulebook of the game, it is dominated by an episode guide, describing the 22 episodes of series 3 of the show, offering ways to tie a B5 campaign to the events of the TV series - a valid approach to presenting the B5 universe, but not necessarily one I like.
This is a 144-page full-colour softcover book. There are four chapters. I should note that the editing in this book is really good, with only a few mistakes slipping in (a diagram showing arcs of fire for B4 is missing - this is probably the worst mistake). This improvement is noteworthy primarily because I've complained about the quality of editing in Mongoose products before.
Chapter one provides updated statistics for the major characters, and adds stats for a few new ones. For instance, we now learn that Marcus is 9th level at the start of 2260. Perhaps most suprising is the very slow rate of progress shown by the key characters - apparently Sheridan gained one level in 2259, Ivonova 2 and Garibaldi 1. Still, I get the feeling that level isn't really an important statistic in the B5 game, so this probably doesn't matter.
What is of more concern is that some of the characters have Feats taken from the Minbari Federation Factbook, and not reprinted here. This means that that other book (which I don't have and won't be getting) is necessary for full use of this one, which is a policy I really don't like. Sorry, but I'd prefer sourcebooks of this sort to be self-contained.
Chapter 1 runs to 11 pages.
Chapter 2 is the episode guide. As with previous books in the series, it has 21 subsections, one for each of the episodes in the season (there was a 2-part episode, which has a single section dedicated to it). Each episode is given a detailed synopsis, followed by some exposition. For instance, the Death of Personality is expanded on. Each episode is also presented with three or so plot hooks, showing how PCs can be brought into the action.
The policy that Mongoose have adopted to B5 campaigns, which is to tie them to the periphery of the series, is implemented well here. I happen to believe it would be better to run a game after the series ends, or in the distant past, or otherwise away from the main action, but that's just me. Just because I would have done things differently should not be taken as a criticism of the way things actually have been done. Chapter 2 spans the bulk of the book, at 107 pages.
Chapter 3 gives some rules additions, such as a detailed description of the method by which Death of Personality is implemented, Prestige Classes for the Anla'shok Ranger and the Prophetess, and the use of telepathy for tracking in hyperspace. This is sloid material, and well-designed and presented. Chapter 3 runs to 15 pages.
The last 6 pages, chapter 4, are spent providing some new equipment and ships. There are servicable stats for several types of Shadow vessel (by which I mean that the stats here can be used, but they probably don't give the whole picture, which I imagine is being saved for the "Shadows and Vorlons" sourcebook), and Centauri Blockade Mines, among others.
There is one huge omission in this book, which I expect is detailed in the Minbari Book: the White Star is not detailed here. This single omission is unforgivable, and essentially removes any utility I had for this book (admittedly, only because Mongoose made the Ranger class available in their web enhancements for the game).
This book is very much like the previous year 2 sourcebook, and is about as useful. It's well done as far as it goes, but suffers greatly from the fact that I wouldn't implement the galaxy guide as it is done here. The absence of the White Star is a crippling blow to the utility of the book, and there is, once again, no updated political map of the galaxy, which would have been very useful.
Given the expense of the B5 line, and the limited usefulness of this book, I don't think I can recommend it, except perhaps to dedicated B5 GMs who are also lukewarm fans of the show (if such a beast exists).
This is a 144-page full-colour softcover book. There are four chapters. I should note that the editing in this book is really good, with only a few mistakes slipping in (a diagram showing arcs of fire for B4 is missing - this is probably the worst mistake). This improvement is noteworthy primarily because I've complained about the quality of editing in Mongoose products before.
Chapter one provides updated statistics for the major characters, and adds stats for a few new ones. For instance, we now learn that Marcus is 9th level at the start of 2260. Perhaps most suprising is the very slow rate of progress shown by the key characters - apparently Sheridan gained one level in 2259, Ivonova 2 and Garibaldi 1. Still, I get the feeling that level isn't really an important statistic in the B5 game, so this probably doesn't matter.
What is of more concern is that some of the characters have Feats taken from the Minbari Federation Factbook, and not reprinted here. This means that that other book (which I don't have and won't be getting) is necessary for full use of this one, which is a policy I really don't like. Sorry, but I'd prefer sourcebooks of this sort to be self-contained.
Chapter 1 runs to 11 pages.
Chapter 2 is the episode guide. As with previous books in the series, it has 21 subsections, one for each of the episodes in the season (there was a 2-part episode, which has a single section dedicated to it). Each episode is given a detailed synopsis, followed by some exposition. For instance, the Death of Personality is expanded on. Each episode is also presented with three or so plot hooks, showing how PCs can be brought into the action.
The policy that Mongoose have adopted to B5 campaigns, which is to tie them to the periphery of the series, is implemented well here. I happen to believe it would be better to run a game after the series ends, or in the distant past, or otherwise away from the main action, but that's just me. Just because I would have done things differently should not be taken as a criticism of the way things actually have been done. Chapter 2 spans the bulk of the book, at 107 pages.
Chapter 3 gives some rules additions, such as a detailed description of the method by which Death of Personality is implemented, Prestige Classes for the Anla'shok Ranger and the Prophetess, and the use of telepathy for tracking in hyperspace. This is sloid material, and well-designed and presented. Chapter 3 runs to 15 pages.
The last 6 pages, chapter 4, are spent providing some new equipment and ships. There are servicable stats for several types of Shadow vessel (by which I mean that the stats here can be used, but they probably don't give the whole picture, which I imagine is being saved for the "Shadows and Vorlons" sourcebook), and Centauri Blockade Mines, among others.
There is one huge omission in this book, which I expect is detailed in the Minbari Book: the White Star is not detailed here. This single omission is unforgivable, and essentially removes any utility I had for this book (admittedly, only because Mongoose made the Ranger class available in their web enhancements for the game).
This book is very much like the previous year 2 sourcebook, and is about as useful. It's well done as far as it goes, but suffers greatly from the fact that I wouldn't implement the galaxy guide as it is done here. The absence of the White Star is a crippling blow to the utility of the book, and there is, once again, no updated political map of the galaxy, which would have been very useful.
Given the expense of the B5 line, and the limited usefulness of this book, I don't think I can recommend it, except perhaps to dedicated B5 GMs who are also lukewarm fans of the show (if such a beast exists).
Monday, 2 February 2004
"You don't expect this to be a serious game?"
A comment made by one of my players at the weekend, in the first session of the new campaign I've started up.
In reply: "I worked hard for four weeks to write up this campaign setting. It's not perfect, but I think it is good. Yes, I damn well do expect this to be a serious game!"
Which is not to say I expect your character to be a faceless drone, going through the campaign I've written for you. By all means, play your character, and if that character is a maladjusted rebel then so be it. However, I expect you to take the game itself seriously.
It's the difference between being disruptive because your character is logically disruptive, and being disruptive because you are an ass.
Anyway, that's enough ranting for now.
In reply: "I worked hard for four weeks to write up this campaign setting. It's not perfect, but I think it is good. Yes, I damn well do expect this to be a serious game!"
Which is not to say I expect your character to be a faceless drone, going through the campaign I've written for you. By all means, play your character, and if that character is a maladjusted rebel then so be it. However, I expect you to take the game itself seriously.
It's the difference between being disruptive because your character is logically disruptive, and being disruptive because you are an ass.
Anyway, that's enough ranting for now.
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