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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010780" data-attributes="member: 172">Babylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Fact Book: Signs and PortentsBabylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Fact Book: Signs and Portents is the flagship product in Mongoose Publishing's new RPG line supporting the well regarded science fiction television series, Babylon 5 using the d20 System. The book is written by Matthew Sprange, one of Mongoose's founders, also known for authoring various books in Mongoose's Quintessential and Slayer's Guides lines.A First LookBabylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Fact Book: Signs and Portents is a 304 page hardcover book priced at $44.95 US. The book is glossy color pages throughout, explaining the cost. However, similar books released in the same timeframe are a slightly better bargain (AEG's Stargate SG-1 RPG is five dollars more, but has over half again as many pages and like the d20 B5 RPG is full color throughout.)The cover of the book is black. The front cover is adorned with a simple still depicting the Babylon 5 station.Interior illustrations are attributed to Chris Quilliams, Colin Stobbe, Danillo Moretti, Wil Hammock, and Scott Clark. Actual illustrations are few and far between and mostly comprise equipment illustrations. Most of the book is decorated by stills from the show. The stills are context appropriate and well chosen, though some are dark, blurry, or otherwise unclear.The interior text is fairly dense, and paragraphs are generally closely spaced, yielding a good text density. The only disappointing aspect of the layout is that the tables as rather plain and lack any shading.A Deeper LookThe Babylon 5 RPG is based on the d20 System core rules (not the d20 modern core rules). Unlike AEG's d20 based games, Babylon 5 does not replicate or replace major sections of the PHB with its own combat, skills, feats, and other rules. As such, it is harder to get by playing the game without a copy of the PHB at the table.The game includes most of the major races of the series: Human (whose stats are close to those in the PHB), Centauri, Minbari, Narn, Drazi, and Brakiri. Minbari have slightly different statistics and favored classes depending on their caste. The book does a good job of assigning ability score modifiers and racial abilities that reflect their abilities in the show.Shadows and Vorlons are not touched upon, other than to say that Kosh is nigh invulnerable and they will be further detailed in a later book.Character classes are designed to reflect the character archetypes that appear early in the series. The core classes are: -Agent: Agents are assassins, investigators, covert operatives, and spies. -Diplomat: A frequently found profession on the B5 station, Diplomats represents ambassadors, politicians, and other public figures. -Lurker: Lurkers represent the underclass of B5, often including criminal figures. -Officer: Officers represent military leadership, primarily in EarthForce or other interstellar fleets, such as Commander Sinclair and Captain Sheridan. -Scientist: Scientists include doctors like Franklin as well as other scholarly professions like archeologists and professors. -Soldier: Soldiers represent military infantrymen as well as security officers. -Telepath: Telepaths are the quintessential psionic characters in the B5 universe. -Worker: Workers represent more mundane professions, and includes (and has rules differences for) white and blue collar workers. The class is simple and flexible, and provides a lot of options for players who want to play less military and political characters in the setting.Mechanically, the classes are well enough put together. Role-wise, the only one that troubles me is the soldier. I wonder if it is a bit of a mistake to classify some security officers as soldiers, especially those with demonstrated investigative skills in the show like Garibaldi. Perhaps some security officers would be better classified as agents or multiclassed character. (Another thing that concerns me is the defense rating of the soldier; see below.)I will say that the class balance is a little uneasy, or best I say, casual. The telepath at one end of the scale and the worker is at the other end. Though I think any of these classes has a role to play in the right B5 campaign, I think telepath will be a very attractive option and worker will be a very bleak one if you approach them with the typical RPG standpoint of maximizing combat, survival, and investigation skills. That said, if you keep the focus on diplomacy and happenstance high as it was in the series, I am not sure that this is a serious problem.One major difference between the way that B5 characters and standard d20 characters are handled is hit points. Characters start out with a number of HP equal to a d6 plus a number ranging from 3 to 6 depending on the character's class. Then, as the character progresses, they no longer roll dice for new HP. Instead, they get 1 to 3 hp per level, again depending on class. Characters do not use their constitution modifier for HP, but in B5 it applies to stabilization rolls and treatment rolls on the character.As stated earlier, the book borrows heavily from the selection of skills and feats available in the PHB. The book spells out which skills and feats are used from the PHB, and introduces new era-appropriate skills and feats. Many of the new feats are race specific, such as the human first contact protocol (allows primitive communication) and Minbari wind sword (which grants combat bonuses against hated humans.) In addition, a number of feats are available to telepaths, enhancing their powers.Three major aspects of B5 address differences between combat in the B5 setting and in the d20 core rules: the enviroment and technology, starships, and telepaths.The combat section provides rules for handling a number of new conditions, such as firefights, vacuum, and lack of gravity. The vacuum rules start out on the realistic side, addressing such things as damage from trying to hold your breath. However, it quickly waxes unrealistic by providing rapid cold damage, when in fact freezing in space is fairly slow due to the lack of conducting medium.One major difference between B5 RPG and the d20 core rules is that is treats armor as damage reduction. To compensate for this, it changes AC to a "defense value" (DV). DV is 10 plus size modifiers plus the character's reflex save modifier. Some games use a specific and separate value for DV modifiers by class level. The limitation of using reflex saves is that sometimes the classes you would expect to be good at handling themselves in a firefight - namely, soldiers - have a low reflex save and their DV does not seem as high as you would expect it would be. Using an intermediate reflex save advancement might have been a good way to address this issue, but none of the core class use anything but the standard bad or good save advancements (however, some of the prestige classes later in the book do.)B5 handles starships and other large vehicles by altering the grid scale when used in concept. I suspected that, like Sprange's/Mongoose's Seas of Blood, they might use the standard creature size scale (tiny, small, medium, etc.) and shift it to fit the scale. However, instead they choose to borrow from the Dragonstar starship rules, which keeps the same size conventions and just extends the high end of the scale by creating new categories of "colossal", i.e., colossal II, colossal III, etc. Like many other d20 vehicle systems, B5 uses the d20 combat system and extends it for larger targets. As the scale implies, the game applies a large negative DV modifier for size, and then compensates by assigning an "agility" modifier.The book provides specific rules for things like crews, squadrons, and ramming. The ramming rules in particular struck me as very baffling. It involves modifying damage and DR according to the relative sizes of the ships, but the example seems to contradict both the text and itself.The equipment section details various starships common early in the series (sorry, no whitestars) as well as personal equipment that characters in the era would have access too. The only thing that stuck out here as a little odd is that I didn't see how the book represents the supposed nigh invulnerability of Minbari ships compared to human ships that existed early in the show. True, they are better defended by these rules, but nowhere near invulnerable.As fans of the show knows, telepaths have what is called a "p-rating" that determines the limits of their capabilities. This limit is used as a central fixture to the telepath rules. The default p-rating for a telepath is a paltry 1d2. You can voluntarily choose to go for a higher p-rating, but the higher a category you select, the lower your starting hp and skill point allotment per level. This isn't a real harsh penalty, as there are really only two essential skills for telepaths (concentration and telepathy.) It would be fairly safe to select a p-rating of 1d3+5, which gives the character a base 4 skill points per level. I have a hard time ever seeing a telepath needing 8 points per level.As the telepath character advances, they gain new feats and new telepathic abilities. Telepathic abilities are much like feats in that they have prerequisites, in terms of other abilities and p-rating. Accidental scan is the weakest of abilities, needing only a P1 rating. On the other end of the spectrum, False Memory Implantation requires a P12 and has Deep Scan as a prerequisite. In addition to providing access to abilities, P-rating also determines the DC of saves against telepathic abilities.I have only covered a little over a third of the book so far. The remainder of the book is where it earns the second half of its title, the fact book. There are three major sections remaining.Alone in the Night describes the Babylon 5 station in detail, including technical details, organizational details, and major characters from the first season. Unlike typical non-RPG related B5 products, this section is interspersed with game mechanics to help handle situations aboard the station as well as statistics for characters. Again to harp on the Soldier/Security Officer thing, Garibaldi is an Officer 2 / Soldier 6, when he really deserves to have more investigative skills.Sky Full of Stars is basically a gazetteer of the B5 universe. It includes a map with major jump routes and notes on phenomena (like hyperspace), nations, and organizations. Some non-aligned world races that weren't in the PC section are included here.Signs and Portents is an episode guide, similar to what you see appear in the Farscape and Stargate SG-1 games. This episode guide only covers one season, unlike those other SF show games. However, what it lacks in completeness it makes up in detail and utility. Each episode has statistics for major characters and vehicles that appeared in the episode, as well as a flurry of interesting plot hooks to involve PCs in the action.A smaller Campaign chapter follows the factbook section. This chapter provides a variety of GM advice in running the game, including navigating issues like dealing with canonical issues, deciding role of the party, and so forth. In addition, several prestige classes are provided for use in the game: Psi Cop, Raider, Terrorist, Thenta Makur Assassin, True Seeker, and Xenoarcheologist.A glossary and index are provided, as well as the Mongoose standard designer's notes. The index was a little odd in that characters listed alphabetically by their first name (e.g., Alfred Bester is under A) or sometimes by rank.ConclusionOverall, Babylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Fact Book: Signs and Portents is a straightforward adaptation of the series, with fewer of the rules complications that many other d20 System variants have. It's hit point variant should provide the grittier feel that some feel the series deserves, but is simpler than some gritty HP variants that games like d20 Modern, d20 Call of Cthulhu, and d20 Star Wars use. Further, the fact that the book only serves to add to the core rules, not repeat or replace them, the book is stuffed with Babylon 5 goodness.The book is a good general resource for the series, and the thorough and adventure-ready episode guide is a useful approach to such a reference.That said, as mentioned, I did find a few minor problems. The class balance is inexact, which will impact some sorts of campaign. The soldier seems to be the most troubling, both in its role as a security officer and in that they seem to easy to hit under B5's DV system. The p-rating "tradeoff" with the telepath seems like the choice is fairly obvious, and there are a few confusing points in ship combat. None of these seem debilitating.One thing that will disappoint many seekers is that fact that some of the more popular elements of the setting don't see any treatment in the first book. Things like rangers, shadows, and vorlons, are relegated to supplemental books. But given the level of detail that was given to the first season in this book, perhaps this is an understandable fault.Overall Grade: B-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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