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Message: <blockquote data-quote="reveal" data-source="post: 2439915" data-attributes="member: 1236">Ask anyone what the most essential piece of equipment you need in a standard d20 Modern (or Future) game is and they’ll most likely say a weapon of some sort. Is that true? No, it’s not. To me, the most essential piece of equipment is armor. Sure, you can have the biggest gun or the coolest toy that shoots out laser beams, but how are you going to survive when some punk decides to shoot you with a small caliber handgun? Without armor, you won’t.Battle Armor is a short (20 pages) PDF from Interactive Design Adventures, LLC, written by Owen K.C. Stephens. It has a total of 10 new armors that can be implemented in any d20 Modern campaign, regardless of its setting. I always like to see new types of armor out there because it allows a player to create a character with more style. This book does a good job of presenting new armor that is both usable and stylish, but it’s not perfect in doing so.LikesEach one of the 10 new armors is unique, allows for personalization, and is just plain cool. Some of the armors are made for nothing more than bullet stopping power, like the Tin Man armor, and some are made for undercover operatives who want to stay protected but don’t want to give away their ace in the hole, like the Thinsuit.The illustrations are very nicely done. M. Newell Curlee, the artist, definitely has an eye for how to make armor look good, not just function well. I also like that the book tells you specifically that the art is a sample of what the armor might look like, but it’s up to the individual to tailor it for their own character.DislikesThe layout of the book is not good. The information about each armor is spread out amongst two pages, making the reader have to flip back and forth for information. I would have preferred each armor to have its own page, allowing a DM to present the player with a one page reference for their new suit.The illustrations, while very nice, are what really hampers the layout. They are large. In some cases, almost half the page is taken up by the picture of the armor. Making them smaller would have helped alleviate the page-spanning problem.The copy I received had pictures of, I guess, holes on the either the left or right side, as well as a long, black bar next to the holes. It didn’t add anything to the PDF and, instead, adds more ink or toner that needs to be expended to print this out.Some of the suits of armor have life support available in them. For example, one suit allows you to breath internal air for 5 minutes, in case there is poison around you. The problem is, the book never states how to turn it on. That may seem petty, but if I were in a fight and someone suddenly threw tear gas at me, I would like to know a) how to turn on my life support and b) what kind of action (Attack, Move, Full-Round, or Free) it is since it’s the middle of combat and I want to plan out my actions.ConclusionI really like the armors in this book, even though my list of dislikes is longer than my lists of likes. My main gripes come from the layout of the book and not the armors specifically. If I were running a d20 Modern game, I would make a few minor adjustments, such as upping the Wealth DC on some of them, but I would still use them.-- Tony Law</blockquote>

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