JoeGKushner
First Post
Few of the new d20 books these days are suited for a quick read. Many are hardcovers that break the 160-200 page barrier and sell for well over the glory days of $25. Thankfully, not every product is like that. Mongoose and Goodman still have their Slayer and Complete Guides, and Fantasy Flight Games has come out with a niche support book for a niche setting in Smuggler's Run for Dragonstar.
Smuggler's Run helps the GM and players enjoy a game where smuggling has some focus. It provides several rules light tools for this. It provides a stat block for ports. Very similar to a town stat block. The quick rules for pricing goods makes sense, using standard prices and putting them out to the ton. Selling and buying goods are also covered with some quick once overs. For example, illegal goods are twice the price just starting of and other goods can range from imports at 150% of the base price to double or even triple, where the price can go up to 600% for an illegal triple good.
The section on characters is of great help to players who don't want to retire their old characters as it provides ideas not only for native Dragonstar characters like mechanist, but also all of your old favorites like the fighter, druid, wizard and rogue core classes. These are a few paragraphs of ideas on how such a character would contribute to a smuggling campaign and what role they'd play.
Others who haven't gotten too far up the level ladder, will enjoy the PrCs including Captain, Corsair, House Trader, and League Runner. Each is a full ten level PrC with an organization and ideas on how to include the guild and PrC into your campaign. This makes it much easier to flesh out the setting than just throwing a PrC at you and saying, “Incorporate it.” No, these ideas include not only the campaign notes, but also purpose, leader, and current activities, making the material easy to use.
The material on skills and feats is a little light. The book's only 64 pages so what are you going to do? Still, I know that I'd rather see more ideas on using skills than something like the feat, Fit In with it's +2 on Disguise and Gather Information Checks. I don't like Feats that are general in nature or have had similar material done before. For example, while Wise Flying is interesting, it's a swap feat. You take one stat and swap it for another for a skill check. Useful but a shoulder shrug for me. I prefer material like Deeply Intimidating, where if you use the skill to demoralize a foe, it remains shaken for a number of rounds equal to your charisma modifier. Nice stuff.
Those looking to customize their ship or use new vehicles have some options. These range from appraisal robots to road cruisers, from krellix haulers to red dragon class freighters. Information include background, physical description, ship stats, and known uses. This allows quick integration. Some ships, like the Hauler and Iron Dragon, have full page maps all decks fully mapped out.
So with all the new rules, toys, and game mechanics, where can you use these goods? How about in the Smuggler's Run, a five star system reach of space. The information isn't greatly detailed and this is definitely a fixer up, but you can be on Persilom, the “civilized pinnacle of the Run” and go to Cediva, a “tranquil, baroque world”. A few NPC's are included as well as some plot ideas to get the ball rolling.
The book uses standard two column layout with gray text boxing off important tables and information. One of the neat little features are the little notes scattered through the book showing different venues of work ranging from helping someone off planet to hunting down valuable cargo. Art is up to Fantasy Flight's usual high standards. Between them, Malhavok and Green Ronin, the art is usually top notch. Maps are well done and can be used for other settings in the Sci-Fi realm. Price, at 64 black and white pages, is fair.
Smuggler's Run is a product aimed at expanding the Dragonstar universe to include those dangerous Spice Run missions we've all heard about and does it's job well.
Smuggler's Run helps the GM and players enjoy a game where smuggling has some focus. It provides several rules light tools for this. It provides a stat block for ports. Very similar to a town stat block. The quick rules for pricing goods makes sense, using standard prices and putting them out to the ton. Selling and buying goods are also covered with some quick once overs. For example, illegal goods are twice the price just starting of and other goods can range from imports at 150% of the base price to double or even triple, where the price can go up to 600% for an illegal triple good.
The section on characters is of great help to players who don't want to retire their old characters as it provides ideas not only for native Dragonstar characters like mechanist, but also all of your old favorites like the fighter, druid, wizard and rogue core classes. These are a few paragraphs of ideas on how such a character would contribute to a smuggling campaign and what role they'd play.
Others who haven't gotten too far up the level ladder, will enjoy the PrCs including Captain, Corsair, House Trader, and League Runner. Each is a full ten level PrC with an organization and ideas on how to include the guild and PrC into your campaign. This makes it much easier to flesh out the setting than just throwing a PrC at you and saying, “Incorporate it.” No, these ideas include not only the campaign notes, but also purpose, leader, and current activities, making the material easy to use.
The material on skills and feats is a little light. The book's only 64 pages so what are you going to do? Still, I know that I'd rather see more ideas on using skills than something like the feat, Fit In with it's +2 on Disguise and Gather Information Checks. I don't like Feats that are general in nature or have had similar material done before. For example, while Wise Flying is interesting, it's a swap feat. You take one stat and swap it for another for a skill check. Useful but a shoulder shrug for me. I prefer material like Deeply Intimidating, where if you use the skill to demoralize a foe, it remains shaken for a number of rounds equal to your charisma modifier. Nice stuff.
Those looking to customize their ship or use new vehicles have some options. These range from appraisal robots to road cruisers, from krellix haulers to red dragon class freighters. Information include background, physical description, ship stats, and known uses. This allows quick integration. Some ships, like the Hauler and Iron Dragon, have full page maps all decks fully mapped out.
So with all the new rules, toys, and game mechanics, where can you use these goods? How about in the Smuggler's Run, a five star system reach of space. The information isn't greatly detailed and this is definitely a fixer up, but you can be on Persilom, the “civilized pinnacle of the Run” and go to Cediva, a “tranquil, baroque world”. A few NPC's are included as well as some plot ideas to get the ball rolling.
The book uses standard two column layout with gray text boxing off important tables and information. One of the neat little features are the little notes scattered through the book showing different venues of work ranging from helping someone off planet to hunting down valuable cargo. Art is up to Fantasy Flight's usual high standards. Between them, Malhavok and Green Ronin, the art is usually top notch. Maps are well done and can be used for other settings in the Sci-Fi realm. Price, at 64 black and white pages, is fair.
Smuggler's Run is a product aimed at expanding the Dragonstar universe to include those dangerous Spice Run missions we've all heard about and does it's job well.
