The Look
Vigilance is a perfect-bound book with 128 pages. The cover shows iconic characters of the setting doing battle. The cover is functional, but I didn't like the style, which seemed both crude and not to match most comic book styles. The interior font used is quite large, but the text covers almost the entire page. Interior art is black and white and seemed adequate. The page numbers are in a kewl font with a horizontal stripe missing in the middle that made them hard to read.
Contents
The book begins with Chapter 1: The Basics. This chapter contains a fairly creepy one page introductory fiction vignette that opens in the mind of a superhuman serial killer stalking a woman and shifts to an energy vampire that is stalking him. I surmise from this example that the book has a more gritty focus, and this is borne out elsewhere in the text. It also provides a short description of what is different in this product from standard D&D. Basically, the games uses Defense instead of AC, and armor provides Damage Reduction. A few new characteristics are introduced. Hero points, like those in Spycraft or D20 Modern are added. Reputation is inserted, as is Resources. Buying something requires a Resources check versus a Buy DC. Other changes will be discussed in more detail below.
There is also a detailed timeline of major events that led to the current world of Vigilance. One interesting aspect of this timeline is the appearance of jinxes (mutants) and the implacable hatred they engender in the Ku Klux Klan and like-minded groups. Adolf Hitler uses superheroes in this timeline, as do the Allies. After the war, an organization known as USHER is formed to police and use metahumans for the purposes of the US government. In this timeline, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King form a presidential ticket and win higher office, but it seems to make no difference to the timeline. The current day looks much like our world, though the timeline does tie current political forces into the setting by giving them positions on mutation and superheroes. For example, the Moral Majority is against mutation, unsurprisingly.
The next chapter is Origins, the equivalent of races in D&D. Vigilance classifies characters by the origin of their powers: Advanced Training, Alien, Artificial Life, Cybernetic Enhancement, Mutant, Mystic Encounter, Normal, or Scientific Experiment. All of these origins modify ability scores and set when the characters receive powers. They also have favored classes, though each origin has at least three favored classes.
The next chapter is Classes, and the choice of classes seems strange. One would think that one would choose classes based on the type of powers characters have. In fact, the classes in Vigilance seem to be a grab bag. Some of them focus on the societal role of the character, like Detective, Gangster, or Vigilante, while others are based on the powers of the character, like Brick, Energy Projector, Gadgeteer, or Psychic. It's a little unclear where the Acrobat fits in. I think this is bad game design. I can't see why there is such a mix of character class justifications in one product. One does see something like this in D&D (though not to as great an extent), but that is largely for historical reasons. I can't see any justification for the choice of classes here, especially since it is easy to think of superhero characters who require two or three of these classes.
In addition, some of the classes seem like clear rip-offs of D&D classes. For example, the acrobat seems to be very close to the rogue class of D&D, although it only gets 4 skill points per level and a few specialized evasion-like feats. I would have expected the author to put more work into the design of classes, since they are such an important factor in d20. It also seems like multi-classing penalties have not been removed, so it is that much harder to create a well-rounded character or one that fits one's overall vision. In fact, most of the sample characters in the back are multi-classed, which suggests to me that the class system is broken.
The next chapter is New Skills and starts by introducing a new concept: Combat Maneuvers. These maneuvers are essentially feat-based skills. You must have the feat before you can purchase these skills. These skills do things like add one-half their bonus to attack rolls. I liked this idea. Basically these are bonuses that are available through training, like feats, but they have variable bonuses depending on the points you spend on them. There are many kinds of these maneuvers, even ones relating to vehicles or only available to those using teamwork. It's a good concept and emphasizes the team factor of many superhero comics, when the whole team unites to defeat a powerful foe.
A few new skills are added, like Criminology and various Knowledge skills. Driving and Piloting also make their appearance.
After this is Feats. Most of the standard d20 feats are fine in this setting. There are many new feats, but there is no real organization of them, they are just listed alphabetically and shown alphabetically in a list at the end of the book. It is very difficult to determine prerequisites in this fashion and thus harder to use them. One just has to wade through and read them all to create a character. Most of the new feats focus on giving twists and small changes to powers and seem reasonable. Some new Item Creation feats are available for Gadgeteers.
The next chapter is Powers. Powers work like feats and are gained according to your Origin and class. Many powers have skills associated with them to model the training necessary to use that power effectively. Characters spend power points to raise the strength of a power's associated skill. The number of power points a character gains is modified by Constitution, which seems like a poor design decision. It easily makes Constitution the most important stat in the game, and there does not seem to be any justification for this.
The interaction of power bonuses and power skill bonuses could be explained more clearly. For example, consider the Claws power. So presumably, one takes this power and invests power points in it. There are three skills listed under Claws: Claws, Rend, and Cat Claws. For Claws, for every 10 points of bonus, the character's melee attacks do an additional 1d8 points of damage. Which bonus are they talking about here? Presumably this bonus is the number of power points spent on that skill. Also, in Rend, mention is made of the Rending skill. A unified terminology would help to make clear that the Rending skill rank is the same as the number of powers spent on it. Many of the descriptions are not very clear, and an example character would have made the process much more clear.
The game has a fair list of powers, but some were left off. For example, I could not find a sorcery or magic power, and I also could not find a dynamic power used to model open-ended or cosmic powers. The power list is not as extensive as other games.
The next chapter is disadvantages. Disadvantages have a rating, and each one works like a challenge rating, in that when it comes up in play, the character gets more experience. This seems like a good way to handle disadvantages. There are also power disadvantages, which should be called limitations or something similar, in that they give bonuses to the power's skill checks.
The book also has a short chapter on vehicles and equipment, giving statistics for vehicles, guns, armor, and grenades.
There is also a list of prestige classes, which seems to suffer from the same problems as the original classes. Some of them are based on their social function, like Arch Nemesis, Mentor, or Paragon. Others are based on their power choices, like Dragon Master, Shifter, or Speed Demon.
Chapter 10 is a two-page listing of ways to use hero (and villain) points. After that is the setting, Syndicate City. It is a gritty urban setting, minimally described and then followed by a cast of characters, many of them of very high power. These NPCs seem to be of minimal utility because of their great power. Low-level characters would not interact with them directly.
Editing
The editing is not great. There are many mistakes and missing words, and the writing style is not always clear. The book could have used another pass or two from an editor. I found this surprising because the book has had multiple revisions as a PDF and should by now have received more careful editing.
Organization
The organization of the book is somewhat idiosyncratic. The table of contents just lists the chapters. At the end there is an "Index of Important Stuff", but it is basically a more detailed table of contents and does not list everything. I would have preferred this table of contents be at the front of the book and a real index be at the back. It takes a little time to get used to this style and not everything is listed in the "index".
Conclusions
This is a playable game of d20 superheros, but I can't really recommend it. I think the mechanics are flawed in many ways, especially the classes, and it makes no real attempt to accurately model superheros when that would conflict with the way generic d20 handles things. There are some interesting mechanics in the rules, like combat maneuvers and disadvantages, but the powers are not explained well and I don't like the way power points are based on Constitution, which makes it too powerful a stat. It seems a little more flexible in its powers than Deeds Not Words (DNW), but that supplement is much more expansive in its power list and classes and almost everything else. For those who must have d20 supers with classes, levels, and the rest, I recommend that you get DNW version 1.1 instead of this product. For everyone else interested in supers, I recommend Mutants and Masterminds or Silver Age Sentinels over this product.
