Those who favor the d20 System and who also like Japanese animation (known as anime to fans) and its ubiquitous high-tech vehicles and giant robots (also known as mecha) may like this book. Like R. Talsorian’s 1994 release, Mekton Mecha Manual Volume One (MMM v.1), this book describes a number of basic campaign settings and includes appropriate mecha for each of them. It also includes definitions and explanations of various mecha terms, abilities, and limitations. However, while Mecha Compendium is fun, it could be better.

Each of the eleven campaign settings (compared to ten in MMM v.1) receives two to fourteen pages of background description in addition to the descriptions of its respective mecha. The most detailed background descriptions are reserved for d20 adaptations of the Dream Pod 9 (DP9) games Gear Krieg, Heavy Gear, and Jovian Chronicles. Other settings merit two to six pages each, usually two to four. In that respect, it’s an improvement over Talsorian’s MMM v. 1, which provided mecha stats but very little background info.

Mecha Compendium is impressive for its breadth, if not for its depth. You’ve got the giant-robot-as-superhero setting of Great Machine Decander (a la Giant Robo, Tranzor Z/Mazinger Z, Danguard Ace, etc.). You’ve got your Dancougar/Voltron–style robot-animals-that-combine-into-a-really-big-honkin’-super-robot with Beast Lords. Fans of shows like Panzer World Galient, Aura Battler Dunbine and Vision of Escaflowne will probably like the medieval Guardians of Divinity and/or Golemsuit Warriors. (Magical powered armor--cool!) Lovers of Bubble Gum Crisis, Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed can enjoy the cyberpunk-ish Phoenix Rising. Fans of Sakura Taisen (or anyone who ever wanted to play D & D in a steampunk setting) should get a kick out of Cities and Empire. I’m not sure which anime fans would most enjoy the d20 conversion of Gear Krieg, but if you like the idea of an alternate-history World War Two with giant robots, hey, this setting’s for you. The Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles d20 adaptations should work nicely for fans of Votoms and Mobile Suit Gundam, respectively. Space Ranger Ouroboros is a must for fans of Macross (also known in the USA as Robotech: The Macross Saga). The most original setting besides Gear Krieg is Outworld Changelings, sort of like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War story arc with mecha piloted by child warriors. (Gee, I thought the United Nations prohibited the use of child soldiers. . . .) There’s something here for everyone, if the DM is willing to do the work of fleshing out the campaign settings.

The overall presentation is decent. The text is usually clear and well-written. Ideas for modifying mecha from one setting for use in other settings are offered. The mecha descriptions are detailed. All of the various mecha characteristics and abilities are explained in detail at the beginning of the book. There are plenty of mecha and weapon perks and drawbacks to choose from. The basic idea is that you get a certain number of Mecha Points to spend on designing your machine, as decided by the DM/GM, and you can get bonus Mecha Points by taking defects or restrictions with your mecha. Unfortunately, the specific rules and Mecha Point costs for mecha construction are NOT given; you either have to stick with the pre-designed mecha, extrapolate your own construction system, or wait until d20 Mecha comes out from Guardians of Order (GoO). (See the end of this review for more info).

The art for the book is fine. The cover is colorful and eye-catching. Ghislain Barbe, Bobbi Burquel, and John Wu provide plenty of anime-style illustrations to go with the mecha stats. (The exception is the art for Gear Krieg, which is more on the realistic side.) None of it knocks my socks off, but none of it turns my stomach, either. Admittedly, a few of the illustrations have minor problems: for instance, the Charger Golemsuit’s shins look too spindly for a human wearer, and the battering-ram-like gauntlets of the Grappler Golemsuit look like they ought to do WAY more damage than 1d3+STR bonus. Also, a few of the art pieces are just reprints from other DP 9 books in the Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear lines. Still, if you like the art in other DP9 books, this book’s illustrations should suit you just fine.

Now for the bad stuff: the book reads like a rush job. First, there are some errors in the index and the table of contents. For example, the entries for the Ryu and Brimstone exo-armors from Jovian Chronicles are listed in both the table of contents and the index as being on pages 128 and 129, respectively, when they’re actually on pages 129 and 128. Another example is that the table and the index list the Space Ranger Ouroboros section as starting on page 134, when it actually begins on page 132. These errors aren’t earthshaking, but they are mildly annoying.

There are various other typos and errors scattered throughout the book. For instance, the header text for the Elite Gear description on page 99 (Heavy Gear) is missing. There are a few awkward sentences here and there, some misuse (and non-use) of “-s” at the end of a word, and one or two misspellings. The book is legible, but it should have been proofread at least one more time. (I’ve worked as an editorial assistant for four years, so I tend to be nit-picky about this sort of thing.)

A few of the conventions adopted by the DP9 folks are not truly typos, but are confusing nonetheless. For instance, the Mecha Point costs for some weapons in the mecha stats are listed in parentheses, while others are not. (According to a DP9 staff member, this is because of a rule from GoO’s not-yet-released d20 Mecha, which reduces the cost for additional weapons on a mecha unless the mecha has additional gunners; this rule is not mentioned in Mecha Compendium.) Also, in Beast Lords, each Beast Lord’s armor hardness rating is followed by a “(+5),” which I found confusing; my source at DP9 told me it was supposed to represent an armor defense bonus. (If it’s a defense bonus, it ought to be listed only under “Defense,” and not be mentioned under “Armor Hardness” as well.) Then there’s the use of the term “Beast Lord” to refer both to individual Beast Lord mecha and also to their combined über-mecha, THE Beast Lord. (How about “Beast King” instead?)

Another odd convention is the excessive and inconsistent use of capitalized initials throughout the book. Why are the initials capitalized for words like “Gears,” “Neural Riders,” “Coalsuits,” and “Golemsuits,” when they’re mass-produced items like helicopters, tanks, or space suits? Why aren't the “exo-armors” from Jovian Chronicles or the “walkers” from Gear Krieg capitalized? Why are “Cities,” “Corporations,” and “Unions” capitalized in Cities and Empire, as opposed to everyday usage? (Did I mention that I’m a nitpicker?)

Next, the page layout is slightly confusing, because it alternates. On left-hand pages, page numbers are at the bottom and chapter titles are at the top; on right-hand pages, page numbers are at the top and chapter titles are at the bottom. (Perhaps the DP9 folks thought this layout would correspond to the typical reader’s eye movements while scanning the pages or something.) It doesn’t ruin the book, but it takes some getting used to.

In addition, some of the weapon rules seem strange, or at least poorly explained. For instance, the “stabilization gear” mecha ability “Allow [sic] a mecha to fire its weapons on the move without a special pilot Feat.” (So if you don’t have the appropriate Feat or a mecha with stabilization gear, your weapons won’t work while your mecha is moving?) Then there’s the “automatic” weapon advantage, which “. . . Can be used with the proper modern Feats.” (If you don’t have an appropriate Feat, does your automatic weapon invariably jam when you try to fire it on full auto?) There’s also the “semiautomatic” weapon advantage: “. . . some Feats allow characters with semiautomatic weapons to fire shots in rapid successions [sic], getting in more than one shot per attack.” (Shouldn’t this just be a function of a character’s base attack bonus and the weapon’s inherent rate of fire?) If this is a reflection of the d20 Modern rules, then I guess I can’t blame the folks at DP9, but some d20 licensee really ought to provide revised firearm rules that make more sense.

Another strange rule is the rule for Voltron-style mecha merging. As I understand it, if a merged mecha separates into its component mecha, any damage it took while merged--or, for that matter, any damage taken by any component mecha BEFORE merging--gets evenly divided among all the component mecha after separating. This means that if Lion from Beast Lords gets damaged, then he and the other Beast Lords merge into the Beast Lord, then separate later on, any damage Lion took prior to merging gets evenly divided among all the Beast Lords. One word: “Huh?” (Okay, so giant robots, let alone merging giant robots, are far fetched to begin with, but still. . . .)

This raises another point: there don’t seem to be provisions for making “called shots” against specific mecha parts or weapons. There are no hardness or hit point listings for individual mecha locations (arms, legs, heads) or weapons in the stats. Mecha are usually big targets; it ought to be possible to attack specific parts or weapons, as it is with R. Talsorian’s Mekton Zeta rules. This would also allow for more plausible allocation of damage among merged mecha (see the preceding paragraph). Presumably this means that Guardians of Order won’t be including called shot rules in d20 Mecha. Sigh. . . .

Another funny rule is the “noisy or very noisy” mecha disadvantage. It seems like a given that big honkin’ machines would be noisy, and that it would take a special advantage to have a QUIET mecha. Oh, well. . . .

Furthermore, the rules for Divine Guardian domain spells in Guardians of Divinity could use a little revision. A pilot of a Divine Guardian “. . . may cast spells [from the Guardian’s domain] up to a level equal to one half his character level (rounded down) plus one. . . . as bonus spells based on his Wisdom ability score . . .” Therefore, in order to cast level 9 domain spells, a Divine Guardian pilot would have to have a combined total of 16 or more class levels and have a Wisdom score of 28 or higher. How many d20 System PCs will ever have an ability score that high? You might as well cap the spell level at level 4 or 5.

In addition, a few of the mecha in this book seem slightly under-powered, or at least under-armored. For instance, according to Wizards of the Coast’s (WotC’s) Player’s Handbook Third Edition, a (non-magical) large steel shield has a hardness of 10 and 20 hit points. In WotC’s Call of Cthulhu d20, a steel-bodied automobile has a hardness of 10 and 20 hit points for its body alone, 60 hit points before it’s totally pulverized. By comparison, most of the Golemsuits in Golemsuit Warriors have hardness ratings of 7 to 9, and 25 to 30 hit points. The individual Beast Lords have hardness ratings of 8 to 13 (a tad light for bleeding-edge combat machines), while the combined Beast Lord--the supposedly godlike super-robot of the settin--has an armor hardness of 14 and 146 hit points. (A D & D iron golem, any dragon of mature age or later, or a powerful giant could give this ’bot a hard fight, if not turn it into dog food.) Some of the Cites and Empire Coalsuits have hardness ratings of only 9, while the Gear Krieg walkers’ hardness ratings of 10 to 14 are reduced by one-third against attacks not hitting them from the front. In Phoenix Rising, the high-tech light body armor suits have hardness ratings of 10 and fewer than 20 hit points each. Why is magical or high-tech protection less effective than a medieval steel shield?

Some of the settings could use a little extra detail. For instance, it would be nice to know the default tech level for the human societies in Beast Lords. (Stone Age? Bronze? Iron? Medieval?) It would also be good to have game statistics for the “Centaur” mecha mentioned in Cities and Empire. Ditto with stats for the Tesla guns and lasers mentioned in the Gear Krieg section. It would have been better to provide more detail about the campaign settings and their appropriate gadgets and weapons instead of squandering four pages of book space on advertisements for DP9 miniatures. (One page of ads, maybe; but four?)

Then there’s what I call the “Extra Books Syndrome.” If you really want to get the most out of this book, you’ll also need WotC’s Player’s Handbook and/or d20 Modern rules (depending on the campaign setting), and d20 Mecha by Guardians of Order. (Unfortunately, d20 Mecha isn’t scheduled to be released until August 2003, which limits the Compendium's usefulness.) If you want to play one of the fantasy campaigns, you may want a d20 monster book, such as WotC’s Monster Manual. If you’re playing in a high-tech setting, you’ll probably need a d20 System-compatible book with info on futuristic firearms, vehicles and other equipment. If you’re playing a d20 version of a DP9 game, you’ll want some of the books for that game. If you don’t already have an extensive gaming library, you may want to give this book a miss.

At any rate, a campaign based on any of this book’s non-DP9-specific settings will require significant work by the DM/GM. Admittedly, veteran D & D DMs shouldn’t have too much trouble with Guardians of Divinity, Golemsuit Warriors, Beast Lords, and/or Cities and Empire; these are effectively D & D variant campaigns with mecha, so they can fit into most D & D worlds with a little modification. For other campaigns, though, you’ll definitely need to provide more details about the world(s), factions, governments, and additional equipment and technology.

Finally, some gamers might not like the fact that 46 pages of this book are devoted to d20 conversions of pre-existing DP9 games, i.e. Gear Krieg, Heavy Gear, and Jovian Chronicles. Of these pages, 26 contain previously-published background information and art rather than d20 conversions. Basically, there’s just enough info to provide a general overview, but you’ll still need to buy other DP9 books if you really want meaty information on the settings. This means you’ll have to pay twice for some of the same material.

Overall, the book isn’t bad, but it could use some improvements here and there, including another thorough proofreading. It can be useful and entertaining, but $24.95 for 160 pages seems a bit pricey to me, especially given the book’s flaws and limitations. Unless you’re a die-hard fan of mecha, d20 System books and/or DP9 products, you might want to buy this at a discount, wait for a second edition, or at least hold off until d20 Mecha is available.

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