Blood and Space is a science fiction 'tool kit' for d20 written harles Rice & Chris Davis. Not quite a game on it's own, t's aimed at supplementing one of the increasingly large number of d20 SF games (at least 6 by my count, with 3 more on the way).

It's a 128 page softcover book, priced at $19.95. It was originally a PDF (which I also wrote a review for), but this is a slightly revised and improved version (as is this review). I liked the PDF, and the print version fixes most of the problems I had with it (as did the revised PDF, actually, but around the time that came out, my computer started having crashing problems with acrobat reader, so I never really got a hard look at the changes). Just as a disclaimer, I'm mentioned in the thanks section along with others who gave the authors feedback, some of which was incorporated into the revised and print editions (I got a free copy of the print version, but I did buy the PDF).

Physically, it's a nice looking product. The cover art is by Scott Clark, and fits the name of the book - it depicts a damaged ship and someone drifting away from it without a spacesuit, either dead or dying. The interior art is done by V Shane. I really liked most of the character illustrations, though the starship ones tend to look a little odd (not quite straight in some places, or odd geometry). The art in the PDF was a bit pixelated, but this problem is gone in print. The layout is well done, with a nice table of contents, and the fonts are very legible. The outside margin border is plain but informative, having the name of the chapter on it, making it easy to find a section of the book quickly.

The first chapter is introductory stuff. Besides an introductory story, it explains that this product has stuff for both space opera style science fiction and hard science fiction (ie, real science as we know it now). Certain things in this book are tagged with a label to let you know which is which.

The second chapter is on new classes and around 20 pages. These are set up as normal d20 classes (as opposed to d20 Modern, though not having d20 Modern, I'm a bit fuzzy on the rules of it), although the classes also have a defense bonus, which D&D doesn't use, but some SF d20 games do use. There are 10 new core classes and 5 new prestige classes.

The new core classes are generally well done and quite useful.

I like the Doctor, the Engineer, and the Scientist, though the Doctor and Engineer might be a bit weak for PC classes (they have bad hit dice, bad base attack bonus progression, only 6 skill points per level, which makes them a bit weaker than the Expert. They do get some special abilities, but not enough to offset the weak base attack bonus progresion. When I've used the Doctor, I've given them 8 skill points and bonus social feats from Fading Suns).

The Marine is a bit odd. In the original PDF of Blood & Space, the Marine class was simply a renamed Fighter, which I thought wasn't too original. The Marine in this is a bit different, but has several abilities which perhaps aren't very useful or make that much sense, or are heavily tied into the space combat system in this book. Most of the special abilities involve training others, which is something more suited for Marine Commanders, not actual Marines themselves. Or maybe it's meant to simulate Marine NCOs. In any event, it's still basically like a fighter, but more flavorful as many of the bonus feats have been replaced by special abilities

The Mercenary is somewhat like a Barbarian (he 'rages' like one, anyway) but is perhaps a bit overpowered - they get a +2 to attack and all skill checks when they're being paid or can make money.

There are two types of pilot classes: The Starship Pilot, and the Hotshot. They're fairly similar, and probably could have been squeezed into one class. (The "Starship Pilot" also has a typo on its chart, "Fighter Evasion" instead of "Starship Evasion". But easy to figure out)

There are two civilian starship crew/pilot types, the "Hauler", something of a space teamster ( a bit weak, probably suited for NPCs), and the Smuggler, a Han Solo type (fairly close to the Rogue class). There's also the Starship Officer for those who went to a space academy.

There are 5 prestige classes: The Colonial Marine, Contact Specialist, Marine Commander, Pirate Captain, and Starship Commander.

I personally think Colonial Marine should have been a core class (most of it's abilities make more sense than the revised Marine core class), but in any event, it's somewhat like the Marines from Aliens. The Contact Specialist is a 5 level class that is really good at making contact with aliens (and not much else). The Marine Commander, Pirate Captain, and Starship Commander all have abilities that are tied into the combat section of this book, so might not be apropriate if you're not using those rules.

As mentioned, I found most of the classes to be well done - the only real hangup for most people will be if you don't use the space combat rules in this book. But they're fun to tweak, and I tend to alter just about every core class in every product I own, so this is someplace where your mileage will definitely vary.

Chapter Three introduces several new skills. Most are pretty much what you expect (and what you find in most SF games), though I think some are stretching it a bit. For instance, the Boarding skill lets you latch onto another ship while in Zero-G. That seems way too narrow. A more general EVA (ie, spacewalk) skill might have been more useful. There are several new craft skills, with examples provided

There are also several new feats. Not so many general ones - lots of new feats for pilots, especially in a space opera style game. Also many for creating items and the usual proficiencies. The Leadership feat is also revised to work with the crew rules in this product.

Chapter Four is on new equipment. It's not a huge chapter (about 10 pages), as it says it aims to supplement the stuff found in most SF d20 games.

It uses credits, not unlike most games, but the prices seem quite low. A 9mm pistol only costs 50 cr. In Dragonstar, a light pistol is 400 cr. In Traveller d20, it's 200 cr.

There's only a few new weapons, mostly lasers (Infrared and X-ray) plus something curious called a "Tesla Rifle". (It shoots heavily sprayed hair at targets. Well, lightning actually.)

There are several new armor types. Light and Medium armor improve AC, while the Heavy stuff provides Damage Reduction. Unfortunately, no acane spell failure was included, so you need to do some work if you're using a fantasy/sci-fi game.

There's also a system for trading/selling cargo, although it's pretty sketchy and quite random. Basically, you roll a d20, and that gives you the supply/demand ratio - you divide the d20 by 10, and that gives you the current price of that cargo on the planet. It doesn't really take into account the size of the planet you're selling it on, and while it says that you should give each planet an import preference, it doesn't give much in the way of guidelines.

There are some sample cargos, about a page's worth. It's almost like the list gets cut off, because it starts with A (Alcohol) and goes to M (Microbes) and stops. There's only 10 or so, so it's not that comprehensive (especially since many of the listed cargos are obscure, like magnetic bottles. And many are vague, like "Metals", instead of specific metals).

Chapter 5 is on Starships, and is about 30 pages long.

Starships are handled somewhat abstractly. If you are familiar with the computer games Elite, Privateer, or the Master of Orion series, then that will give you an idea of how they work. Essentially, there are a variety of hulls, with a different capacity in tons. You 'spend' tons of capacity to buy things like weapons and shields and add-ons.

Generally, this works very well, though I think it's mostly suited for smaller ships. The computer games that use this system have a similar problem - either they only focus on smaller ships, like Elite or Privateer, or in the Master of Orion series, which ships keep getting bigger and bigger, the really large ships are cheaper than they probably should be. But for most people, this should work well enough.

Weapons, defenses, and star drives are divided into space opera and hard science fiction. The Hard Sci-Fi parts seem fairly realistic (though the names of the star drives are odd - named after stars, instead of being descriptive). There's a fairly wide selection in each category.

Also, there's a large amount of other add-ons, including all sorts of recreation equipment to labs to military equipment.

Chapter 6 is on starship crew. Essentially, it handles crew in a very abtract manner. It doesn't really use many (any?) d20 conventions, but is more similar to a wargame. They are rated as either Raw, Green, Inexperience, Average, Experience, Crack, Legendary, (with a XP chart) and there are several different crew types (helm, science, medical, etc). I think I would have prefered a system closer to the normal level system d20 uses, but this certainly works (and this has more of a wargame-ish feel).

There's a small editing error in this chapter - the original PDF had the Starship Officer as a prestige class, but it was changed in the revised edition to a core class. But it still refers to it as a prestige class a couple times here.

Chapter 7 is on Starship combat, and is about 20 pages. You pretty much need a map for their method, either a hex map or square map. (I have several big hex maps from games like Knight Hawks and Star Fleet Battles). It's somewhat like a simple board game. Each hex 5,000 miles. Every weapon has a range in hexes. Ships have acceleration ratings. Much of the gameplay is handled like normal d20 system combat. You roll initiative, then act. Move, fire, etc. Seems pretty solid, and fairly newtonian, at least in the rules. It's a bit confusing at first, but easy enough after a while.

The largest section in this part is on "terrain", mostly assorted space objects. Other than the really dense asteroid fields (real asteroid belts are not even remotely like you see in fiction), this section is well done. Even describes the difference between a nova and supernova accurately, which is pretty rare.

After this come several pages of predesigned ships. Most the ships (all but one) are "Hard Science Fiction", which poses some problems with their stated purpose in the ships description. For instance, the Survey Ship says it's designed to discover worlds, but it has an "Aldeberan"
drive, which lets it travel one light year in 1500 years. Given that the closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away, it would take 6500 years to get there. So, it's sort of odd it has this star drive, as the rules point out it's not meant to travel between stars, but for intersystem travel. I would just assume it (and the others) have some sort of 'jump drive' that let it travel great distances, with the slower drive for in-system travel only. (Many science fiction games take this tack).

The last 10 pages or so are a preview of "Star Ace", which I believe was also available in PDF form (for free). Star Ace will apparently use many of the rules from Blood & Space. It seems something like a Star Wars clone (There's an evil Empire, a good Alliance, troops in white shiny armor, planets being destroyed, etc), only set in the future, not a long time ago in a galaxy far away. Seems pretty interesting, though.

All in all, despite it's flaws, this is a nice product to supplement your existing science fiction d20 game. I've used many of the core classes in this for my Traveller 20 game (I don't like how many classes in T20 have base attack bonus progressions that end in +5, which makes them woefully incompetent at combat) and I've used some of them in my Dragonstar and regular games to fill in the void where there weren't any suitable classes. I've used the ship design system quite a bit, and although I heavily modified it when it comes to larger ships to fit my taste, it works great for small ships as is.

B.

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