The Crime Scene books were written with the Players Handbook in mind. To those uninterested in the intricacies of the d20 / OGL system, this means that Feds had to include additional rules to compensate for things that a d20 Modern product will already incorporate: technical skills, vehicles, and firearms. And although this book has stats for items in the third category (oddly enough, taken from d20 Modern sources), there are no advanced rules for firearms or vehicles in this book. This is definitely a disadvantage in the case of firearms - the differing uses of automatic weapons, which should come into play in the setting, are not addressed at all.
The look of the book is similar to others in the Crime Scene lineup (score!), with utilitarian, if cartoony artwork. There is neither an index nor a bibliography; the absence of the latter is a glaring omission, given the amount of factual information otherwise implied as the author’s original work.
The background information includes a historical rundown of the FBI, and some organizational facts that look like they’ve come from the official Bureau site. The Hoover Building, the Academy at Quantico, and field offices (including a list in an appendix) are examined in useful detail, along with descriptions of the training process and normal activities of a special agent. There is a nice section about just how the FBI would get interested in a case, addressing ideas like jurisdiction and interplay between the Bureau and local law enforcement agencies. This is expanded into quasi-legal discussions about what agents must do when seeking warrants, arresting suspects, or tailing persons of interest. This material takes up eight relatively short chapters with no rules information. Having been written from a European perspective, I think this book may have more in it for European readers who may not be as familiar with the American justice system – even though it may not all be germane to an FBI campaign.
There are seven classes for the game: Special Agent, Sniper, Negotiator, Pointman (for assaults), Ghost (surveillance experts), Forensic Investigator, and Specialist (for compartmentalized fields like Legal, Financial Crimes or the like). There are no prestige or advanced classes, although a character can obviously multiclass in any of the seven. The worst thing with this book is that initial training options, which I presume would be useful background material for characters, are missing from the book. Given that they are mentioned on the back cover, this is a serious problem.
The book adds 22 new skills, but again, as they are intended to supplement the D&D skill set rather than d20 Modern, some of the skills may be irrelevant to players of the latter. Some of these skills have appeared in other Crime Scene products, so they may not be new to owners of other books in the series. And some of them are hyperspecialized (for example, separate skills for Crime Scene Recording, Evidence Analysis, and Gather Evidence – it’s hard to picture a character wanting one of these skills and not the other two). Still, they are all germane to an FBI campaign, and there are examples of how every skill is be used (Explosives skill gets an especially useful writeup, even though it’s a skill for an adversary in this game). Feats take the same tack, with some repeats from earlier titles, but an overall good selection of attractive possibilities for characters. Several of the feats provide meaty +4 bonuses to skills used in particular applications of certain skills (like Handwriting Analysis helps to defeat Bluff and Sense Motive checks based on written material), although there appears to be little rhyme or reason as to when the higher modifier is justified.
Equipment includes firearms, armor, and text about non-lethal weapons (no stats). There are stats for six types of armor and fourteen guns, but no price information. With respect to the guns, the stats come straight from any number of d20 Modern books, but without rules and feats for their multishot use (or even the suggestion that they are needed), firefights will be underpowered compared to d20 Modern games. There is a useful section about the protocols for firing a gun and the consequences for losing one. There are no rules or stats for vehicles.
We then return to descriptive information about how a case is made from commission of the crime to identifying the suspect. The book discusses information about evidence collection, and analysis, surveillance and tails, wiretapping, and interviewing witnesses. It then briefly mentions hostage negotiators, counterterrorism, and serial killer profiling. Since the skill section addresses mechanics, there is very little crunch here: in ten pages I found a single sentence with a rule (plus one page with a level chart for combatant and noncombatant NPCs). If you are looking for descriptive information without regard to system, this will be more attractive. If you wanted more crunch expounding on the skill descriptions, you’ll feel slighted.
The final chapter is a short adventure, little more than a stakeout that may go bad. It doesn’t look terribly exciting, and contradicts the information presented earlier about what the FBI does (since the “suspect” hasn’t committed any crimes, I doubt they could get a warrant for some of the things the boss wants to do!).
Of course, if you’ve read my reviews than you can guess my conclusion that a combination of both books would best serve the reader. For a ready-to-play setting with an emphasis on roleplaying, FBI d20 seems the better choice, while Feds is longer on description, character usefulness and skill mechanics. Still, the failure to deliver something promised on the back cover makes it hard for me to wholeheartedly endorse Feds as a standalone product. And its reliance on the Player’s Handbook still leaves vital gaps, while using it with d20 Modern will result in overcoverage of skills. I had intended to reflect this with a "4" ranking in substance, but I don't think I can given the lack of material promised on the cover and the absence of detailed firearms rules. Ideally, Hogshead swtiches wholeheartedly over to the d20 SRD and prints a new edition with cleaner skills.
