Here's my review of d20 Modern. W00 ! :-)
D20 Modern (hereafter referred to as d20M), as many of you know, is the latest WotC d20 system ruleset release. It's, aptly enough, a guide to adventure and gaming in the modern era, and makes several improvements on the d20 game engine.
At first glance, this is one slick piece of work; from the outer cover to the interior art. Overall, the art is quite good, with a few pieces standing out both in the "very nice" and the "very ick" categories. Plus, it has a gnoll pimp. You can't go wrong with a gnoll pimp.
The book gets started with the Introduction. This is your standard "what is roleplaying" and "here's some useful terms an concepts" chapter. The basics of the game are laid out here, along with a character creation summary. A good start, especially for those unfamiliar with RPGs.
Chapter One is all about the characters. How to roll ability scores, figuring ability modifiers, what the abilities do, the basic classes and so on.
In case you haven't heard yet, instead of "fighter, rogue, bard," d20M uses more "generic" classes; strong, fast, tough, smart, dedicated or charismatic heroes. Multiclassing is quite useful in d20M, and has even less restrictions than in 3e. Each class gets some useful abilities, including class-based bonuses to AC..er..uhm..I mean Defense, and a reputation bonus. Each class gets something each level, either a Talent (kinda like an uber-feat) or a bonus feat. I feel that the smart hero got shafted on Talents, but that could just be a personal thing.
One nice thing about characters in d20M is it actually answers the question, "what did my character do before becoming an adventurer?" It does this by giving you a starting occupation to select, which grants you some extra class skills, possibly a bonus feat, reputation bonus and/or wealth bonus increase.
d20M characters also get something called "action points," which are points that can be spent to add dice to some rolls, or in some cases to activate class Talents. As this is a pretty lower-powered game than 3e, sometimes those action points could well be needed.
Gone are alignments...sort of. You can have up to three "allegiances," however..people, places or causes to which you have a particular loyalty. You could even take an allegiance to good, evil, law or chaos if you really wanted to. :-)
The reputation mechanics are also covered in Chapter One. Reputation is something of a double-edged sharp pointy impliment. Depending on who recognizes you, it may be something good, or may be something bad.
Wealth is also detailed a little bit here. I love the Wealth mechanic. Instead of having to know how much bling bling you have in the bank, you have a bonus, called a Wealth bonus, which is added to a d20 roll and compared to the Purchase DC of objects to find out if you can afford them or not. Wealth will most likely go up and down a lot in-game.
Gaining experience and levels is also discussed here in Chapter One. It's pretty standard fare if you're familiar with the d20 system. If not, it's all described quite nicely for you.
Chapter Two is skills. This is a pretty self-explanatory chapter, listing all the skills, sample DCs for doing things, what each skill gets you and so on and so on. Love your characters' skills. They can be quite useful.
One interesting side note here is that the profession skill is rolled each level to see if your Wealth bonus goes up. I'm glad to see that profession wasn't relegated to 3e's pretty-much-useless status.
Chapter Three is all about the Feats. Feats are special abilities that your character gets, or they represent advanced training. Want to have a character that fires two guns? How about one that can skip a bullet off a wall and hit someone behind cover? Wanna be a very good surgeon? How about someone hard to hit in combat with gunfire? Then feats are what it's all about. There are quite a few feats in this section. Some are old-hat (toughness, iron will), but others are pretty nifty neato (defensive martial arts, f'rex).
Chapter Four: Equipment is all about..hrm..well...equipment. The Wealth bonus is fully explained here, and a list of all sorts of goodies are given; from swords to guns to field packs to UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Of course, you can never really have enough neat equipment, but with some of the guidlines in the gamemastering chapter, a simple flip through a catalogue and a little mechanics-intuition, and you can add tons and tons of equipment easily.
Chapter Five is about busting ass. Combat. I know, lots of people have issues with the d20 combat system ("hit points are stupid" "guns aren't realistic enough in d20M" etc), but I'm not going to get into that. Personally, I can dig with d20M's mechanics. Just about everything you need to know about combat, including firearm and vehicle combat, is in this chapter. Largely, it's fully explained, though I'm sure most people could still find places to poke holes and look for questions.
Chapter Six includes info on Advanced Classes. These are classes that more narrowly-define your character. You have to have certain requirements before you can get one of these advanced classes. This will conjure up images in 3e players' heads of Prestige Classes. Nope, Advanced Classes are actually more akin to the core classes from the PHB. They define your character's "job." The Advanced Classes detailed are: soldier, martial artist, gunslinger, infiltrator, daredevil, bodyguard, field scientist, techie, field medic, investigator, personality (celebrity) and negotiator. All, you can get at around 4th level, if you play your points-game right. :-)
Chapter Seven is the Gamemastering section. This is actually a pretty nice section, especially for budding GMs. Lots and lots of interesting info here! One of the best chapters, even worth a read if you're not a GM. ONe thing I like about d20M is the use of non-combat CRs. Now, your PCs can get some XP for disarming a bomb, or escaping a deathtrap, without you having make up guidelines for it. It's all there.
Chapter Eight: Friends and Foes is the bestiary section. It goes into a decent amount of detail as to how to create creatures (the Creature FActory as the section is called), lists a pretty good amount of premade creatures (gnoll pimp..heh), has info on researching creatures and creature weaknesses (useful for campaigns with little to no magic items, though some of th eitems on the chart are...odd) and info on supporting characters. Ordinaries are covered (people that are less than heroes) as are heroic GM characters. ARchetypes/stats are given for a lot of different classes and combinations.
Chapter Nine has the campaign models, or sample campaigns to get you started. INcluded is the Shadow Chasers (think Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Agents of PSI (X-files with psionics) and Urban Arcana (*kind of* D&D meets the modern world) campaign models. At the very least, Urban Arcana is getting its own sourcebook later in the year. I don't have a lot to say about these, except that I'm using bits and pieces of all of them for my own campaign.
Chapter Ten is FX Abilities, which is d20M's term for "spells & psionics." One thing that can be noted right off the bat is that, unlike 3e, spells only go up to 5th level. Even then, some of the "old standards" haven't been included. I actually applaud this, as it gives d20M it's own feel, making it seem less like a "cut n paste with some new info" of D&D. Spells get their section, psionics their section. Finally, there are FX Items. These are magic items, and not a lot to say about 'em from me. Fairly standard stuff, but with a modern and/or technological twist (duct tape of repair is the coolest, though).
Next up is a character sheet, and the book wraps up with an index, which is actually somewhat useful.
Overall, a very good book, and something worthwhile for those longing for something a bit different than D&D, but still wanting to use the d20 system.
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