BESM d20: Opinions?

tetsujin28 · Aug 3, 2003

I'm a big fan of the tri-stat version, but getting my Friday night players to do anything other than d20 can be a chore. Is BESM d20 any good, or a failure like SAS was?

Witness · Aug 3, 2003

Well, I don't have SAS d20, and I haven't gotten a chance to play BESM D20 yet, It looks ver y good. The rules for integrating standard D&D races and classes are clearly explained, and can fairly easily be used to create new ones. Their are some things that I think would dramaticly alter and possibly unbalance the game, like skills and powers that add directly to attack or AC. Most of these things are easily house-ruled, and I think the purchase was well worth it.

Tywyll · Aug 3, 2003

BESM d20

BESM d20 does indeed look nice, but on the whole, I found it quite disappointing. The book does not do what it claims, which is be compatible with any d20 seting or book. They alter the base mechanics of the game in several places. Most notably they change combat completely, in a way that, I feel, is detremental to the anime genre (its far too easy to hit a target... if you don't buy armor you die). The special abilities are nice as are the weaknesses. Its not 3.5 compatible, but they are supposed to be updating the classes to the 3.5 versions.

If you want to run a campaign from the beginning, with different rules from the normal d20, it might work for you. If you want to use it as a tool kit, it won't work at all.

JoeGKushner · Aug 3, 2003

I agree with Tywyll.

As it's own system and material, it's great. I also agree that the getting hit part can be problematic. Combat does take longer than standard d20 games too.

Having said that, if you want to do anime where you're 'fighter' isn't just swinging his sword or something along those lines, then this game works great.

Elements can be lifted from it but using it 100% as is? Doesn't happen with Spycraft, Everquest, Arcana Unearthed and it ain't going to happen here.

teitan · Aug 4, 2003

Oh I don't know, I think that most of the elements are pretty modular and about the only way the combat system affects you is if you want it too. If you don't like Skill Based combat, well, don't use it, put all the feats back in. GOO says as much in the book. I am really surprised that no one has addressed the fact that skills don't have level caps on them and the way that GOO never really tells you about it, just says "the optional level cap rule is level +3" to paraphrase. Personally I think level caps are poo poo...

Overall it looks like a great way to make your D20 game more cinematic but then again, that is all that hard to do by just ignoring the crunch and off the cuffing some of the rules like making DCs for Jumps etc as opposed to worrying how many feet you went...

Personally, I will use it as a stand alone product...

Jason

Mucknuggle · Aug 4, 2003

I heard that the Limited Edition is full colour but that the normal version isn't, is this true?

Stormfalcon · Aug 4, 2003

Mucknuggle said:
I heard that the Limited Edition is full colour but that the normal version isn't, is this true?

Quite true. The LE also gets nicer paper and a dust jacket. I got the LE personally (I'm a big fan of two of the artists featured in the book), but I do have to wonder if maybe another route should've been taken, such as putting out a full-color paperback for a standard (or only) edition instead.

tetsujin28 · Aug 4, 2003

This has been an annoying trend of late for GoO's books. I wouldn't mind purchasing a book with mostly b/w illos, but all the originals are in colour, leading to murky b/w and hard to read text.

thundershot · Aug 5, 2003

Wait... why do we have two similar threads? Couldn't they be fused into one or something?

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58569

Many other opinions of BESMd20 are there, only a few notes down from this one.

Chris

Stormfalcon · Aug 5, 2003

Probably because the other thread (the one with all the opinions) was moved here from the RPG general board. Fusing the two threads together, if it were at all possible (and I've never seen it done), would've been more trouble than it's worth. Closest you'd get would be closing one thread and directing people to post in the other.