RPGnet : The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Chapter by chapter, here's what you get, and don't get, for your money.

THE LOOKS

First of all, the hardback book is of the usual high quality construction with an intimidating 384 full-color, glossy pages. To be honest, it's a bland looking book. The artwork and cover, while of generally high quality, are pretty uninspired. Unlike the Player's Handbook (PHB), I didn't find myself wanting to play d20 Modern just flipping through the book and looking at the pictures. Perhaps it was the 16 seperate artists and their wildly differing styles that threw me, but the book just doesn't seem to have a single core look to it that inspires one to make a character and start kicking butt. On the other hand, the organization is examplary, with well defined sections, making the book easily navigable.

THE INTRODUCTION

Ten pages of fairly standard stuff to help those legions of newcomers who, having never played a roleplaying game, will start with this book and join the rest of us in our favorite hobby. [chortle.]

CHAPTER 1: CHARACTERS

Twenty eight pages covering basic classes, occupations, action points, reputation, allegiances, wealth, and multiclassing. Portions of the chapter (Abilities and their generation, etc) are cut and pasted from other core rulebooks and updated with examples appropriate to a modern setting. Oddly, the "25 points" method is presented as if it generates characters equivalent to those generated with the "standard 4d6" method, when in fact, the 4d6 method consistently generates characters in the 30-33 point range.

Six basic classes are presented, with a progression table covering levels 1 to 10, each class roughly corresponding to the ability the character uses the most in making their way in the world. New features include a bonus feat from a select list every even level and a talent chosen every odd level. Unlike feats, the talents are unique to each class, but are otherwise the same thing as feats. There are 5 to 12 talents per class broken up into two or three themed "Talent Trees" (For example, the Fast Talk Talent Tree for the Charismatic Hero.) Within a given talent tree a character must choose the weakest one first and progress from there. The bottom line is that every character gets some new, nifty abilities (feat or talent) every level. Each class has a defense bonus to take the place of wearing armor, hit dice range from d6 to d10, and while there are some strange things (the Charismatic Hero having the same Reflex Save progression as the Fast Hero and the same Fortitude Save progression as the Tough Hero) the classes seem pretty well designed to cover most modern Hollywood action movie archtypes.

There are 19 occupations and each character gets one at first level. Each occupation has a prerequisite age and provides a Wealth Bonus increase as well as a list of skills that the character may choose two or three from to have as class skills. Some of the occupations also give a bonus feat or reputation bonus increase.

Actions Points allow a character to use some talents or class features and may also be spent to add 1d6 to a d20 roll. Each basic class receives 5 1/2 their level in Action Points per level. Once spent, Action Points are gone forever and the only way to get new ones is by gaining levels.

Reputation Bonus is a measure of the character's notoriety and increases with the character's level. For some reason the rate of increase is based on the character's class. NPCs use their INT bonus and the character's Reputation bonus to modify a d20 roll against a DC25 to recognize the hero. Recognition gives the hero a /-4 to all Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate and Perform rolls for the duration of the encounter.

Allegiances is an optional feature that allows a character to get a 2 bonus to Charisma-based skill checks when dealing with others of the same allegiance. A character can have up to three allegiances and they can be to anything the player can think of. Six examples are given ranging from Organization to Moral Philosophy. Frankly, this section is a waste of ink.

All player characters have a Wealth Bonus and every toy they want to buy has a Wealth DC. A character can buy almost anything with a DC less than his Wealth Bonus without affecting his wealth status. High dollar items and those items that are more than the characters Wealth Bonus can be bought, but they decrease the character's Wealth Bonus by varying amounts. The wealth bonus neatly incorporates things like a character's credit rating into their buying power without having to track every dollar.

Multiclassing is encouraged and any class or advanced class may be combined with any other at no penalty.

CHAPTER 2: SKILLS

The skills chapter is 32 pages long and includes 8 new skills as well as Difficulty Class examples that were sorely lacking in the core D&D books. Some skills were expanded (Craft, Knowledge & Perform) with Craft (chemical) being the most fun since it allows characters to make explosives as well as poisons. Guidelines are provided for computer hacking and bribery. The Heal skill has been replaced by Treat Injury and characters can use it to operate on one another, restoring 1d6 hit points per level of the patient.

There are some typos and just plain errors in various places and one can be found under the Tumble skill where tumbling *through* as well as tumbling *past* opponents both has the same DC.

CHAPTER 3: FEATS

The feats chapter is 22 pages long and contains an apparently meaty 95 feats. Looks can be deceiving however as 37 come from the core D&D rulebooks and 20 of the remaining 58 are of the "Get a feat and add 2 to two seperate skills" variety, which I mention because I've yet to have a player buy one of those feats. Some of the feats are quite cool (Double Tap, Burst Fire, Heroic Surge), but at least one (Dead Aim) is utterly pointless since it provides the kind of benefit a reasonable GM would give to a player even if they had no feats. Overall, the chapter is servicable, but there's plenty of room for new feats and class abilities to fill the pages of the inevitable class and setting books that will follow.

CHAPTER 4: EQUIPMENT

Weighing in at 36 pages, the equipment chapter has new rules for dealing in items, weapons and armor, general equipment, services, and vehicles.

More than a list of toys and their prices, Crunchy bits are included to handle PCs: requisitioning items from their organization, buying and selling restricted or stolen items, getting a gun license, buying cheap or used goods, and concealing weapons and objects from prying eyes. All good and useful stuff that's handled in a simple manner.

Thirty three guns lightly cover the gamut from derringer to Barrett Light Fifty sniper rifle. There are illustrations for 21 of the guns, but none are labelled. Heavy weapons (M60, M2HB, LAW, M79) as well as some "other" weapons (pepper spray, taser) are included. Unfortunately, there is little to differentiate the weapons, so GMs should not be surprised when every character in their group has either a Glock 17, a TEC-9, or both. Handgun damages provide a good example of the blandness that permeates the weapon section: there are nine seperate calibers ranging from .22 to .50AE, but there are only 3 damage levels: 2d4, 2d6, and 2d8. It's odd that the M79 (an obsolete grenade launcher from the Vietnam era) is included, but the M203 (the grenade launcher mounted under the barrel of the M-16) is not. Likewise, the incredibly short Range Increment on the Barrett (120' ?!) will have some sniper enthusiasts scratching their heads. Think about it: the most powerful sniper rifle in the world has a maximum range of 400yds and the shooter suffers a -20 penalty to his attack roll?

Grenades and explosives are covered, but don't expect to find stats for hollowpoint, AP, AET rounds, etc., because there aren't any. This is disappointing because I was interested to see how they would deal with this issue since armor just adds to a character's Defense rather than ablating damage. Otherwise, virtually every piece of gear a character could want can be found divided into seven sections: bags and boxes, clothing, computers and consumer electronics, surveillance gear, professional equipment, survival gear, and weapon accessories.

The lifestyle and services section covers everything from buying a house to making bail. Need to know how much surgery is going to cost? How about having the bullet holes on your Lamborghini Diablo patched up? It's all in here.

The vehicles section has 40 entries ranging from dirtbike to sportscar to helicopter to tank.

CHAPTER 5: COMBAT

Along with the thirty four pages mostly cut and pasted from the core rulebooks can be found non lethal damage, massive damage, and the vehicle combat rules. There are rules for autofire, but not for called shots.

Nonlethal damage replaces the subdual damage found in D&D and if you thought it was difficult to knock someone unconscious before, it just became even harder. Essentially, if an attacker doesn't do equal to or more than a defender's constitution score in a single attack, then nothing happens. Even if he does, the defender still gets a fortitude save to negate it. The end result is that even experienced brawlers are going to need a critical hit to take a computer dweeb out of a bar fight. This is neither realistic nor the way it happens in the movies, so what were they thinking?

Massive Damage Threshold, usually equal to the characters constitution, is the amount of damage a character can take in one shot before having to make a Fort save against a DC15 or drop to -1 hit points. It's easier than tracking wounds and vitality, but still makes low level thugs with guns a potential threat to high level characters.

The nine pages of vehicle combat rules appear to be about as much fun as the grappling rules, but they get the job done.

CHAPTER 6: ADVANCED CLASSES

Available at fourth level, the twelve advanced classes include: soldier, martial artist, gunslinger, infiltrator, daredevil, bodyguard, field scientist, techie, field medic, investigator, personality, and negotiator. Each has ten levels of progression and each gains a bonus feat or class feature each time the character gains a level. The problem with this set up is that while characters are getting a nifty ability every level, they just don't get really cool until they achieve double digit levels. Combined with the fairly mundane feats we had to choose from to get to these advanced classes, the end result feels rather less than the "cinematic action-adventure" heroes the book promises. Time will tell, but if it's truly *cinematic* action-adventure you're looking for, Atlas Games' Feng Shui rpg does it better -- hands down.

CHAPTER 7: GAMEMASTERING

An expanded section of the same name cut and pasted from the Dungeon Master's Guide, these 28 pages of advice on running a d20 Modern game are surprisingly well done. Unfortunately, experience points/treasure are still calculated using the CRs/ELs of the opposition. While guidelines are given for scenes in which the challenge is making a skill roll, no mention is made of how to reward roleplaying. Since modern settings will likely contain fewer combats per session than the typical dungeon crawl and will emphasize varying amounts of investigation, it's a shame a better xp award system wasn't included.

CHAPTER 8: FRIENDS AND FOES

The next 67 pages are divided up into the creature factory, example creatures, and supporting characters.

The creature factory gives us 14 pages on how to make our own critters, but lacks even a hint as to how to calculate the all important CR. Much of this material will be familiar to anyone with a Monster Manual or Monster Manual II, except for the Massive Damage Threshold (Mas) which first appeared in the Combat Chapter.

The example creatures section features 54 seperate mundane and extraordinary creatures, many with more than one entry (e.g. the displacer beast also has an advanced displacer beast CR7 statted out.) There are templates placed in with the rest rather than being seperated and placed in the back: replacement, skeleton, vampire, werewolf, and zombie. There are some that are unique to the modern world (e.g. moreaus, terrestrial effluvium) and some that are just silly (tooth fairy.) Guidelines are provided for researching critters, as any self-respecting horror rpg player knows is a wise use of one's time. Better yet, the GM is provided with a list of 74 sources of weakness and 6 different ways a creature might react to them. This feature puts everything a player thinks they know about those old standbys from D&D into question, which helps bump up the tension a notch. Finding out too late that the werewolves have DR15/iron pyrite instead of DR15/silver can be a painful lesson in doing one's homework. Unfortunately, no ECLs are given, so those wishing to make a Troll PC for their d20 Modern powered Shadowrun campaign are out of luck.

The supporting characters section is 13 pages f "ordinaries", the regular people of the world. Ordinaries differ from PCs in that they have the standard starting ability score package (based off of 25 points), random starting hit points, no action points, no class features, and no levels in an advanced class. Along with a list of one hundred random character traits are low, mid, and high level versions of 15 different basic class combos (e.g. strong/smart, fast/tough, dedicated/charismatic, etc) to help flesh out the "extras" of the campaign world. Note that every single one of them is multiclassed, once again giving the impression that it may take several levels before characters are much good at anything.

CHAPTER 9: CAMPAIGN MODELS

Three campaigns are sketched out over 44 pages, each with a piece of introductory fiction bad enough to make the reader sigh in resignation, two advanced classes, and 2-4 adventure seeds.

In Shadow Chasers "heroes kick ass on supernatural horrors that invade the modern world." How the setting differs from Urban Arcana is a matter of subtle emphasis. Both involve fantasy creatures that most people can't see, in both the fantasy creatures are creatures "of Shadow", and in both the creatures fade away to nothing when they're killed. It's a case of Shadow Chaser's modern-fantasy-horror vs Urban Arcana's modern-fantasy-conspiracy. The first of the two advanced classes, the Shadow Slayer, is something of a modern ranger/paladin who: can imbue his melee weapon with temporary magic power, detect creatures of shadow (analogous to detecting magic), gains damage reduction against shadow critters, gets two shadow critters as favored enemies, and is just an all around baddass. The Occultist researches spells and arcane power gaining the ability to: cast spells of up to 4th level(but only from scrolls); contact, bind, and banish shadow creatures; "uncover" magic items; and resist spells. Both advanced classes have evocative abilities that would make them fun to play, though I'm not sure if "uncover" means to find, or discover the location of, a magic item. The advanced classes for Urban Arcana are more generic: the Mage is essentially a Wizard, complete with familiar, and the Acolyte is a Cleric. Yes there are differences, but that's how the players will think of them.

Sandwiched between Shadow Chasers and Urban Arcana is Agents of Psi, a setting of modern psionic conspiracy where ".... super spies engage in action-packed missions to protect the free world ...." Imagine "The X-Files" with Mulder and Scully having psionic powers and you get the idea. Advanced classes are the Telepath and the Battlemind. Not having the Psionic Handbook and not being a big fan of psionics to begin with, I wouldn't know what to liken these to, but they're what they sound like -- if that makes any sense. Reticence about psionics notwithstanding, I found the Agents of Psi setting more engaging than Urban Arcana. I wouldn't want to run it, but I'd jump at the chance to play in it.

CHAPTER 10: FX ABILITIES

This chapter begins with seven pages on the basics of spells, taken largely from chapter 10 of the PHB, followed by 21 pages of spells for the Shadow Chasers and Urban Arcana setting. Those with a PHB have seen virtually all these spells before, though some have had the names changed, and few deal specifically with the modern world. Those looking for spells dealing specifically with technology will find more to work with in the Star Farer’s Handbook for Dragonstar (Fantasy Flight Games.) Following that is about 12 pages of psionic powers and how to use them. The chapter finishes with 6 pages of magic items ("FX Items") for use primarily with Urban Arcana.

The book finishes with a well done character sheet and a skimpy index. The index is just a hair over 2 pages. A little over 2 pages of index for a 384 page book? By comparison, the PHB has only 274 pages and has a full 3 page index as well as an 8 page glossary.

d20 Modern
d20 Modern Capsule Review by screenmonkey on 22/11/02 Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty) A hefty review for a hefty tome. Product: d20 Modern Author: Bill Slavicseck, Jeff Grub, Rich Redman, Charles Ryan Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Line: d20 Modern Cost: US$39.95 CAN$55.95 Page count: 384 Year published: 2002 ISBN: 0-7869-2836-0 SKU: Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by screenmonkey on 22/11/02 Genre tags: Modern day	Chapter by chapter, here's what you get, and don't get, for your money. THE LOOKS First of all, the hardback book is of the usual high quality construction with an intimidating 384 full-color, glossy pages. To be honest, it's a bland looking book. The artwork and cover, while of generally high quality, are pretty uninspired. Unlike the Player's Handbook (PHB), I didn't find myself wanting to play d20 Modern just flipping through the book and looking at the pictures. Perhaps it was the 16 seperate artists and their wildly differing styles that threw me, but the book just doesn't seem to have a single core look to it that inspires one to make a character and start kicking butt. On the other hand, the organization is examplary, with well defined sections, making the book easily navigable. THE INTRODUCTION Ten pages of fairly standard stuff to help those legions of newcomers who, having never played a roleplaying game, will start with this book and join the rest of us in our favorite hobby. [chortle.] CHAPTER 1: CHARACTERS Twenty eight pages covering basic classes, occupations, action points, reputation, allegiances, wealth, and multiclassing. Portions of the chapter (Abilities and their generation, etc) are cut and pasted from other core rulebooks and updated with examples appropriate to a modern setting. Oddly, the "25 points" method is presented as if it generates characters equivalent to those generated with the "standard 4d6" method, when in fact, the 4d6 method consistently generates characters in the 30-33 point range. Six basic classes are presented, with a progression table covering levels 1 to 10, each class roughly corresponding to the ability the character uses the most in making their way in the world. New features include a bonus feat from a select list every even level and a talent chosen every odd level. Unlike feats, the talents are unique to each class, but are otherwise the same thing as feats. There are 5 to 12 talents per class broken up into two or three themed "Talent Trees" (For example, the Fast Talk Talent Tree for the Charismatic Hero.) Within a given talent tree a character must choose the weakest one first and progress from there. The bottom line is that every character gets some new, nifty abilities (feat or talent) every level. Each class has a defense bonus to take the place of wearing armor, hit dice range from d6 to d10, and while there are some strange things (the Charismatic Hero having the same Reflex Save progression as the Fast Hero and the same Fortitude Save progression as the Tough Hero) the classes seem pretty well designed to cover most modern Hollywood action movie archtypes. There are 19 occupations and each character gets one at first level. Each occupation has a prerequisite age and provides a Wealth Bonus increase as well as a list of skills that the character may choose two or three from to have as class skills. Some of the occupations also give a bonus feat or reputation bonus increase. Actions Points allow a character to use some talents or class features and may also be spent to add 1d6 to a d20 roll. Each basic class receives 5 1/2 their level in Action Points per level. Once spent, Action Points are gone forever and the only way to get new ones is by gaining levels. Reputation Bonus is a measure of the character's notoriety and increases with the character's level. For some reason the rate of increase is based on the character's class. NPCs use their INT bonus and the character's Reputation bonus to modify a d20 roll against a DC25 to recognize the hero. Recognition gives the hero a /-4 to all Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate and Perform rolls for the duration of the encounter. Allegiances is an optional feature that allows a character to get a 2 bonus to Charisma-based skill checks when dealing with others of the same allegiance. A character can have up to three allegiances and they can be to anything the player can think of. Six examples are given ranging from Organization to Moral Philosophy. Frankly, this section is a waste of ink. All player characters have a Wealth Bonus and every toy they want to buy has a Wealth DC. A character can buy almost anything with a DC less than his Wealth Bonus without affecting his wealth status. High dollar items and those items that are more than the characters Wealth Bonus can be bought, but they decrease the character's Wealth Bonus by varying amounts. The wealth bonus neatly incorporates things like a character's credit rating into their buying power without having to track every dollar. Multiclassing is encouraged and any class or advanced class may be combined with any other at no penalty. CHAPTER 2: SKILLS The skills chapter is 32 pages long and includes 8 new skills as well as Difficulty Class examples that were sorely lacking in the core D&D books. Some skills were expanded (Craft, Knowledge & Perform) with Craft (chemical) being the most fun since it allows characters to make explosives as well as poisons. Guidelines are provided for computer hacking and bribery. The Heal skill has been replaced by Treat Injury and characters can use it to operate on one another, restoring 1d6 hit points per level of the patient. There are some typos and just plain errors in various places and one can be found under the Tumble skill where tumbling through as well as tumbling past opponents both has the same DC. CHAPTER 3: FEATS The feats chapter is 22 pages long and contains an apparently meaty 95 feats. Looks can be deceiving however as 37 come from the core D&D rulebooks and 20 of the remaining 58 are of the "Get a feat and add 2 to two seperate skills" variety, which I mention because I've yet to have a player buy one of those feats. Some of the feats are quite cool (Double Tap, Burst Fire, Heroic Surge), but at least one (Dead Aim) is utterly pointless since it provides the kind of benefit a reasonable GM would give to a player even if they had no feats. Overall, the chapter is servicable, but there's plenty of room for new feats and class abilities to fill the pages of the inevitable class and setting books that will follow. CHAPTER 4: EQUIPMENT Weighing in at 36 pages, the equipment chapter has new rules for dealing in items, weapons and armor, general equipment, services, and vehicles. More than a list of toys and their prices, Crunchy bits are included to handle PCs: requisitioning items from their organization, buying and selling restricted or stolen items, getting a gun license, buying cheap or used goods, and concealing weapons and objects from prying eyes. All good and useful stuff that's handled in a simple manner. Thirty three guns lightly cover the gamut from derringer to Barrett Light Fifty sniper rifle. There are illustrations for 21 of the guns, but none are labelled. Heavy weapons (M60, M2HB, LAW, M79) as well as some "other" weapons (pepper spray, taser) are included. Unfortunately, there is little to differentiate the weapons, so GMs should not be surprised when every character in their group has either a Glock 17, a TEC-9, or both. Handgun damages provide a good example of the blandness that permeates the weapon section: there are nine seperate calibers ranging from .22 to .50AE, but there are only 3 damage levels: 2d4, 2d6, and 2d8. It's odd that the M79 (an obsolete grenade launcher from the Vietnam era) is included, but the M203 (the grenade launcher mounted under the barrel of the M-16) is not. Likewise, the incredibly short Range Increment on the Barrett (120' ?!) will have some sniper enthusiasts scratching their heads. Think about it: the most powerful sniper rifle in the world has a maximum range of 400yds and the shooter suffers a -20 penalty to his attack roll? Grenades and explosives are covered, but don't expect to find stats for hollowpoint, AP, AET rounds, etc., because there aren't any. This is disappointing because I was interested to see how they would deal with this issue since armor just adds to a character's Defense rather than ablating damage. Otherwise, virtually every piece of gear a character could want can be found divided into seven sections: bags and boxes, clothing, computers and consumer electronics, surveillance gear, professional equipment, survival gear, and weapon accessories. The lifestyle and services section covers everything from buying a house to making bail. Need to know how much surgery is going to cost? How about having the bullet holes on your Lamborghini Diablo patched up? It's all in here. The vehicles section has 40 entries ranging from dirtbike to sportscar to helicopter to tank. CHAPTER 5: COMBAT Along with the thirty four pages mostly cut and pasted from the core rulebooks can be found non lethal damage, massive damage, and the vehicle combat rules. There are rules for autofire, but not for called shots. Nonlethal damage replaces the subdual damage found in D&D and if you thought it was difficult to knock someone unconscious before, it just became even harder. Essentially, if an attacker doesn't do equal to or more than a defender's constitution score in a single attack, then nothing happens. Even if he does, the defender still gets a fortitude save to negate it. The end result is that even experienced brawlers are going to need a critical hit to take a computer dweeb out of a bar fight. This is neither realistic nor the way it happens in the movies, so what were they thinking? Massive Damage Threshold, usually equal to the characters constitution, is the amount of damage a character can take in one shot before having to make a Fort save against a DC15 or drop to -1 hit points. It's easier than tracking wounds and vitality, but still makes low level thugs with guns a potential threat to high level characters. The nine pages of vehicle combat rules appear to be about as much fun as the grappling rules, but they get the job done. CHAPTER 6: ADVANCED CLASSES Available at fourth level, the twelve advanced classes include: soldier, martial artist, gunslinger, infiltrator, daredevil, bodyguard, field scientist, techie, field medic, investigator, personality, and negotiator. Each has ten levels of progression and each gains a bonus feat or class feature each time the character gains a level. The problem with this set up is that while characters are getting a nifty ability every level, they just don't get really cool until they achieve double digit levels. Combined with the fairly mundane feats we had to choose from to get to these advanced classes, the end result feels rather less than the "cinematic action-adventure" heroes the book promises. Time will tell, but if it's truly cinematic action-adventure you're looking for, Atlas Games' Feng Shui rpg does it better -- hands down. CHAPTER 7: GAMEMASTERING An expanded section of the same name cut and pasted from the Dungeon Master's Guide, these 28 pages of advice on running a d20 Modern game are surprisingly well done. Unfortunately, experience points/treasure are still calculated using the CRs/ELs of the opposition. While guidelines are given for scenes in which the challenge is making a skill roll, no mention is made of how to reward roleplaying. Since modern settings will likely contain fewer combats per session than the typical dungeon crawl and will emphasize varying amounts of investigation, it's a shame a better xp award system wasn't included. CHAPTER 8: FRIENDS AND FOES The next 67 pages are divided up into the creature factory, example creatures, and supporting characters. The creature factory gives us 14 pages on how to make our own critters, but lacks even a hint as to how to calculate the all important CR. Much of this material will be familiar to anyone with a Monster Manual or Monster Manual II, except for the Massive Damage Threshold (Mas) which first appeared in the Combat Chapter. The example creatures section features 54 seperate mundane and extraordinary creatures, many with more than one entry (e.g. the displacer beast also has an advanced displacer beast CR7 statted out.) There are templates placed in with the rest rather than being seperated and placed in the back: replacement, skeleton, vampire, werewolf, and zombie. There are some that are unique to the modern world (e.g. moreaus, terrestrial effluvium) and some that are just silly (tooth fairy.) Guidelines are provided for researching critters, as any self-respecting horror rpg player knows is a wise use of one's time. Better yet, the GM is provided with a list of 74 sources of weakness and 6 different ways a creature might react to them. This feature puts everything a player thinks they know about those old standbys from D&D into question, which helps bump up the tension a notch. Finding out too late that the werewolves have DR15/iron pyrite instead of DR15/silver can be a painful lesson in doing one's homework. Unfortunately, no ECLs are given, so those wishing to make a Troll PC for their d20 Modern powered Shadowrun campaign are out of luck. The supporting characters section is 13 pages f "ordinaries", the regular people of the world. Ordinaries differ from PCs in that they have the standard starting ability score package (based off of 25 points), random starting hit points, no action points, no class features, and no levels in an advanced class. Along with a list of one hundred random character traits are low, mid, and high level versions of 15 different basic class combos (e.g. strong/smart, fast/tough, dedicated/charismatic, etc) to help flesh out the "extras" of the campaign world. Note that every single one of them is multiclassed, once again giving the impression that it may take several levels before characters are much good at anything. CHAPTER 9: CAMPAIGN MODELS Three campaigns are sketched out over 44 pages, each with a piece of introductory fiction bad enough to make the reader sigh in resignation, two advanced classes, and 2-4 adventure seeds. In Shadow Chasers "heroes kick ass on supernatural horrors that invade the modern world." How the setting differs from Urban Arcana is a matter of subtle emphasis. Both involve fantasy creatures that most people can't see, in both the fantasy creatures are creatures "of Shadow", and in both the creatures fade away to nothing when they're killed. It's a case of Shadow Chaser's modern-fantasy-horror vs Urban Arcana's modern-fantasy-conspiracy. The first of the two advanced classes, the Shadow Slayer, is something of a modern ranger/paladin who: can imbue his melee weapon with temporary magic power, detect creatures of shadow (analogous to detecting magic), gains damage reduction against shadow critters, gets two shadow critters as favored enemies, and is just an all around baddass. The Occultist researches spells and arcane power gaining the ability to: cast spells of up to 4th level(but only from scrolls); contact, bind, and banish shadow creatures; "uncover" magic items; and resist spells. Both advanced classes have evocative abilities that would make them fun to play, though I'm not sure if "uncover" means to find, or discover the location of, a magic item. The advanced classes for Urban Arcana are more generic: the Mage is essentially a Wizard, complete with familiar, and the Acolyte is a Cleric. Yes there are differences, but that's how the players will think of them. Sandwiched between Shadow Chasers and Urban Arcana is Agents of Psi, a setting of modern psionic conspiracy where ".... super spies engage in action-packed missions to protect the free world ...." Imagine "The X-Files" with Mulder and Scully having psionic powers and you get the idea. Advanced classes are the Telepath and the Battlemind. Not having the Psionic Handbook and not being a big fan of psionics to begin with, I wouldn't know what to liken these to, but they're what they sound like -- if that makes any sense. Reticence about psionics notwithstanding, I found the Agents of Psi setting more engaging than Urban Arcana. I wouldn't want to run it, but I'd jump at the chance to play in it. CHAPTER 10: FX ABILITIES This chapter begins with seven pages on the basics of spells, taken largely from chapter 10 of the PHB, followed by 21 pages of spells for the Shadow Chasers and Urban Arcana setting. Those with a PHB have seen virtually all these spells before, though some have had the names changed, and few deal specifically with the modern world. Those looking for spells dealing specifically with technology will find more to work with in the Star Farer’s Handbook for Dragonstar (Fantasy Flight Games.) Following that is about 12 pages of psionic powers and how to use them. The chapter finishes with 6 pages of magic items ("FX Items") for use primarily with Urban Arcana. The book finishes with a well done character sheet and a skimpy index. The index is just a hair over 2 pages. A little over 2 pages of index for a 384 page book? By comparison, the PHB has only 274 pages and has a full 3 page index as well as an 8 page glossary.