?the future soldier?s BATTLEFIELD HANDBOOK? is 77 page pdf product from Steam Power Publishing. This supplement is for the d20 system and is based off the modern and future system reference documents. This book promises to be the ?must have? handbook for leading your futuristic d20 game into battle. Let?s just see.
Chapter 1 ? War without End
Spanning roughly 15 pages this first section of the book introduces 10 types of war campaigns. The product description describes this are 10 campaign options and in some ways they are and in some ways they are no, or at least not what I expected. What each of these options does is provide you with a one or two sentence summary of what the option is like, a campaign in brief section, a role of the heroes section, campaign traits, progress level, and 3 adventure setups. Very similar in setup to how the d20 Future book handles campaign options, however it only feels partially done because specialty mechanics (new advanced classes, feats, et cetera that are option specific are not present, at least not here). The options include war at the frontline, war stationed at a military base, war from the command centre, war from the spy perspective, war as a special ops, war as a mercenary, smuggling during war, guerrilla war, starship war, and reporting to you from the war. See when I look at this it really seems like one extremely well supported campaign option, the option being WAR. There is also an interesting description of what war is like at PL5, PL6, PL7, and PL8 on page 5 of this product, but do not, I repeat do not read this page. This page has many cool suggestions and ideas that are not developed in this book so if you read it you may well be disappointed in the book.
Chapter 2 ? War is Hell
This chapter provides supplemental rules and information to make the ?frontline? experience more authentic. It talks about the dangers of boredom when not at the front, it has rules for ?courage under fire?, battle fatigue, desertion, spacing, leave, injury and death, propaganda, deployment, and the use of psychics. The two are areas that are mechanical in nature ?courage under fire? and battle fatigue. Both seem quite solid, courage under fire requiring you to make a Will save under circumstances to avoid being shaken, frightened or panicked. One of the factors that can draw this check is the death of other soldier and situationally it states that, ?Each soldier killed +5? and this just makes me nervous as a potential player, as I would think every member of the MI in the Starship Troopers movie would have been panicked in the first battle especially after 10 or so members in a squad of 60 fell (+50 DC). I wonder if the casualty modifier should have been based on a percentage instead of a flat rate. The battle fatigue is interesting because when fatigued (there is a Will save to resist), you suffer negative levels, which is a really interesting use of that mechanic. These negative levels are lost with proper rest away from the frontline.
Chapter 3 ? The Future Soldier
This chapter has a number of Veterans feats and advanced classes. Veteran feats are a bit of a misnomer, they require that you have been in a war, each grants some bonus and weakness, they require GM approval to take, but they don?t take a feat slot and really aren?t powerful enough to be considered feats. So I wonder, why take this neat concept and force it into a ?feat? when it is not a feat. Why not simply an ?experience template? [in order to gain this template a character must ?] or some other new mechanic. There are 8 classes (7 advanced and 1 prestige classes ? though all are called advanced classes). They include a commando (PRC), battlefield technician, warmaster, marine, fighter ace, war correspondent, mechanized trooper, guerilla fighter. Essentially, except for a smuggler and a deep cover spy all the advanced classes implied by the campaign variations mentioned earlier have had some development here. Each is pretty much as you might predict with class abilities matching archtype very well. There is some is a conflict in this section in how ?Courage under Fire? is handled.because in a couple of classes abilities say, ?morale bonus to any Concentration checks or Will saves made to resist Courage under Fire.? except Concentration checks are never mentioned in the earlier section so this seems like something that got ? revised in editing.
The warmaster is an excellent advanced class for an enemy as the warmaster represents that opponent seeking to preserve his race by destroying others. The fighter ace is designed to be used in harmony with the Dogfighter and some abilities stack. One advanced class that I had looked forward to but was disappointed by was the ?Mechanized Trooper?, you see by reading that I though Mecha Pilot but a ?Mechanized Trooper? is ?well versed with fighting from the back of a speeding transport? and not a mecha pilot. The abilities are fine for a trooper who does combat from a moving vehicle, but I wanted and expected mecha.
Chapter 4 ? War Beneath the Stars
This chapter talks about starship combat, discusses the roles of crew upon as starship, introduces secondary damage rules, and provide additional maneuvers for space combat. The first 3 or so pages of this section detail the things that various crew complements should be doing during a starship battle. It introduces starship actions for hiding you corellian freighter next to a star destroyer to avoid sensors, boarding measures, fleet coordination (for a wing), intercept communications, launch other vessels, and use electronic countermeasures. Traditionally when a starship gets hit in d20 Future game you subtract weapon damage from the ship?s hit points, but not anymore with the secondary damage rules introduced in this section a ship may suffer from problems like equipment malfunctions, blocked passageways, computer malfunctions, fires, radiation leaks, loss of gravity and another 20 problems.
Chapter 5 ? Battle on the Planets
One of the shortest sections of the book it provides advice on urban warfare, riots, guerilla warfare, boarding actions and introduces a new use for the jump skill. The use, ?Rappelling? which I guess is fine but rappelling feels like a climb skill to me.
Chapter 6 ? Groundfall
Another tiny chapter this one provides advice on orbital attacks, planetary landings, ground assault and why orbital bombardment doesn?t work in the d20 fantasy system. Part of the discussion here relies on the low orbit altitude of 125 miles but that is not necessarily the low orbit of all planets, just earth.
Chapter 7 ? Machinery of War
Here the crunchiness of the book really takes off. For equipment there is one new PL 6 rifle, two new explosives, a combat feed and personal satellite. For starships we add boarding pods, assault shuttles, pirate boarding shuttles, as well as minesweepers, grapplers and docking clamps. Then there is orbital weaponry in the form of a specialized weapon, a satellite and space station. There are 11 new air and ground vehicles, 15 new vehicle weapons, and 9 new vehicle enhancements. There is also a single robot (hunter/seeker droid).
The pdf is fully bookmark and well balanced. The art work is supplied by a Sci-Fi clip art pack composed of mostly images from Star Ace. The editing is strong and the layout is mostly good, although there are some place when text overlaps graphics or graphics break up the text in a funny way.
I?m really torn on this book. It seems to do ?war? very well, but I read p.5 and p.5 tells me that war in the future will include a lot of things that aren?t developed in this book. So even though the book covers a good deal of material and offers sounds advice, I?m left feeling disappointed.
I hope that there will be a follow-up that addresses the other options mentioned on page 5.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Many adventure hooks and many styles of war games.
Orbital weapons introduced.
Iconic character types included that were missing from d20 future
More land and air vehicles.
Fully bookmarked
<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Minor layout issues
p.5 talks about a lot of ideas for future war that are not developed.
Psychic and mecha only have passing mention
Reads like a handbook instead of an rpg supplement
<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |