Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2009743" data-attributes="member: 172">ArsenalArsenal is a "compendium of magical firearms, explosives, and armor" for d20 system games, and the first offering by Perpetrated Press in the d20 arena. Arsenal introduces statistics for military equipment made using magic as well as rules for using them in a typical d20 system fantasy (or other) campaign and feats and prestige classes specialized in their use.A First LookArsenal is a 128-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $19.95. This is a fairly good price for the size, but the price advantages are somewhat allayed by the use of a rather large font and leader space and bloated tables.The cover art is by Eric Kohler (obviously a man of fine lineage) and depicts a man in heavy futuristic armor with a futuristic looking pistol in one hand and a glowing sword in the other, with a glowing, spellcasting elf in the background.The interior is black-and-white, and features artists Ruben de Vela, Juha Harju, Drew Johnson, and Austin Stewart. The weapon and armor illustrations are overall very good, but the book also features many illustrations by Juha Harju that appear like sketchy first draft roughs of a very cartoonishly illustrated comic; this may be meant as stylish, but it is really unappealing to me.A Deeper LookThe concept behind Arsenal is that magic could evolve in a manner similar to technology and produce weapons and defenses similar in flavor to modern firearms and body armor. The result is a sourcebook of weapons that look like something out of a science fiction game, but operate by the magic rules (at least in part.)As you might imagine, integrating this sort of material into a campaign may not be easy. Before the book dives into rules, it provides suggestions for how to work such weapons into a variety of games and ideas for how to modify the existing core d20 system classes to work with firearms.This section provides guidelines for handling the price and the CR/EL of creatures with such weapons. In a manner similar to Dragonstar, creatures with access to magical firearms receive a modifier to their CR according to whether or not the PCs likewise have technomagic items.The book does have standard pricing using the d20 system magic item creation formulae, but it assumes that in the time period in which these weapons are available, that there is a method to "mass produce" them much cheaper than under the item creation rules, and provides alternate costs for GMs using this assumption. This is a nice feature, allowing a GM to stick by the standard guidelines, or to go by a price model more reminiscent of modern firearms.Arsenal provides a variety of new character options for characters utilizing or creating such weapons. The repair skill allows the servicing of technomagic equipment. New craft feats such as craft psionic firearm, craft technomagic firearm and craft technomagic explosive allow character to produce these weapons on their own. Other feats afford the character greater proficiency with firearms, such as improved burst fire (which provides a better chance to hit with more than one shot in a burst.), and an array of new spells allow charcters to repair technomagic devices or disrupt their use.There are two new prestige classes provided that specialize in technomagic firearms, the sniper and the gunman. The sniper is the specialist in long range stealthy fire. The sniper is probably too powerful in that it has a class ability similar to the assassin's death attack, but with less stringent limitations and that can eventually be used up to 10 range increments away, with range increments extended by the sniper's abilities. The gunman is a little more reasonable, with abilities that let them use firearms in a close combat situation, avoiding problems like attacks of opportunity and better utilizing cover.A number of variant rules are provided for handling firearms. In a similar fashion to such games as Star Wars, Arsenal provides a system that models armor as damage reduction. The system herein provides one point of damage reduction per point of AC modifier the armor would provide, which is a bit generous. However, when using this option, armor provides no bonus to AC, but the classes have an AC modifier from class and level. One part of this adaptation that I found rather dubious was that damage reduction from armor applies as full strength against energy weapons, and does not stack with energy resistance. This makes armor-enhancing spells very potent compared to spells like resist and endure elements spells.Other featured rules include rules on burst-fire weapons, the use of cover, handling damage to weapons, and weapon clips. The burst fire rules provides and additional hit for every five points that the character exceeds the AC of the target, or for every three points with the appropriate feat. This is very similar to those in Dragonstar and Deadlands, so much so I was surprised not to see one of those books mentioned in the copyright section.The heart of the books is the guns and explosives themselves. Each weapon is divided into attack type and weapon size/function. For example, a weapon that attack with fire is called a "blazer", and you can get blazers in hold-out pistol, pistol, heavy pistol, rifle, heavy rifle, assault rifle, SMGs, HMGs, and auto cannons. Other weapon attack types include the other standard D&D energy types, ability damage, forced damage, and damage corresponding to the four cardinal D&D alignments.All technomagic weapons use a magical energy clip. The clip is interchangeable between most weapon types, but clips are specific to weapon sizes. Through a seeming oversight, however, the book never tells what size weapon uses what clip. You can make some assumptions by the names of the clip sizes (like "pistol" and "rifle"), but it's not always clear and you may need to make assumptions. What size clips do SMGs use? Where do "max" size clips start?Larger weapons have a larger die type for damage, but also use up more energy per shot. It is possible to expend a multiple of the basic amount of charges to inflict multiple dice of damage. The maximum amount of charges that can be expended in a shot is determined by the size and type of the weapon.Technomagic firearms can also have enchantments like normal weapons, and the book introduces a number of additional weapon qualities for technomagic firearms, such as DR penetration and spell penetration (which is something unnecessary for normal weapons, but useful for technomagic weapons since their effects are magical in nature.)There are psionic weapons as well. The psionic weapons are distinct from technomagic weapons in a few ways. The most obvious might be that there are weapons that emulate psionic powers that do not have magic parallels. For example, disruptors are weapons based on psychoportive powers that teleport bits of the target away, and inflictors inflict damage through mental anguish.Psionic firearms are also alive. Instead of relying on spells included herein to repair them, for example, psionic firearms must be healed like living creatures.Technomagic explosives exist in the forms like mines, bombs, rockets, and grenades. Much like the technomagic firearms, technomagic explosives have a variety of effects based off of spell effects. Herein, you can find explosives with effects that vary from the poison of a cloudkill, or the tentacles of an Evard's black tentacles spell.The armor section introduces new technomagic armor that is significantly better than standard d20 fantasy armor, providing much better protection for a less bulky armor. There is even a category of armor called "protective clothing" that doesn't incur any penalties. Such armor is obviously best reserved for campaigns that have technomagic firearms as a counterbalance.As with the technomagic firearms, there are special qualities for technomagic armor. Perhaps most interesting, several specific armors are included, each featuring a number of enchantments to optimize it to a given task, such as exploring or guard duty.The last part of the books is a section of tables with the costs of the weapons as calculated by the cost system in the DMG. It is good that they included this section, but it falls short is one aspect. The explanatory notes explain that weapons with identical damage but different elements have different costs due to the fact that spells that some weapons were based on are a different level than that which others were based on (e.g., flame arrow vs. ray of frost.) This is a bit of a misunderstanding of the rules for magic item costs; they are explicitly only starting points, an such slavish fealty to the formulae is not the expected method and you are expected to use common sense. Weapons of different elements that do the same damage should be priced the same. ConclusionsIf you are not the sort of person who finds value in "arms catalog" type supplements, there is little here that will change your mind.Otherwise, this book has a lot of potential in the right sort of campaign. The most immediate use for this book is obviously a Dragonstar campaign or a D20 Modern game run in a "modern fantasy" type setting (like Urban Arcana.) However, enterprising GMs will use it in other ways. For example, imagine psionic firearms used by troops of mind flayers, and a "Final Fantasy" inspired fantasy campaign with technomagic trappings. -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

Verification