Now normally I write very long, very detailed and hopefully in depth reviews, but this one's gonna be just a short warning to your wallet.
For BESM d20, you can already find many great reviews that will tell you why you should buy it, why it's one of the best buys out there for d20.
BESM d20 revised however, needs to come with one
major caution -
The very revision it claims to make was not in the book...
To say this is shocking is an understatement. I will say this: If you own BESM you should NOT buy this book. If you don't own BESM it's a toss, the unrevised book is $29.95 and 144 pages, this book is $34.95 and 192 pages. The difference is the inclusion of d20 Mecha, which is $19.95 standalone, and a chapter with a few new variant rules (covered below in this review).
I've never before seen a book needing an actual recall, not before I bought this that is. Somebody at Guardians of Order or their prepress studio or printer needs to be dealt with sternly. I want to hope this was a case of hitting save in some layout file at the wrong moment, it's that severe, and that's the only thing I can think of to explain it. I used to be a playtester for GoO, and in my time communicating with them they always struck me as 'stand up' people. I cannot believe this happened by intention.
Let's go through the list, from
the document that has the revisions for the d20 BESM SRD:
Races:
Several races are missing 3.5 elements that in the above document we were told would be there - no stability for dwarves, no diplomacy for 0.5 elves.
Classes:
The BESM d20 classes:, they all still have the old 3.0 skills. In GoO's own document it says which were to be dropped, and none were in the book that was supposed to drop them.
The core DnD classes are all 3.0 versions, just like in the unrevised book, and not the 3.5 versions. The 3.5 with BESM d20 terminology is in GoO's own documentation, revised for inclusion in this book, but what happened?
Skills:
Pick Pocket and Read Lips still exist, Sleight of Hand did not get the 'Pick Pocket' Specialization, Wilderness Lore -AND- survival (?)...
Feats:
The entire revised lists of replaced feats and inappropriate feats was not added in, instead we have the old lists still.
The BESM version of Greater Spell Focus was not added in like it was supposed to be, and like it was in the revision document linked above.
Combat:
In the Combat chapter, the note for the penalty to two weapon fighting was forgotten... This is almost fine because the revision in the revision document didn't match the feat in the book which was not revised in the revision document...
Moving on to the errata list from
this document:
Attributes:
The progression table for Hyperflight is -STILL- missing. It was in the errata linked above.
The Autofire example is -STILL- wrong. It was corrected in the errata linked above.
Transmutation is -STILL- wrong. It was corrected in the errata linked above.
The final errata for page 117 about Called Shots was never wrong in my old first printing copy, and it's still not wrong in my new copy. Both match what's listed in the online errata.
Other problems:
Many races changed costs. For example the cost for halflings and gnomes went up by 5 points without any changes. This came from a revision in how size small was done. It went from having a negative cost to a positive cost. This introduces two problems into the game.
First, there is now an eleven point difference in the cost of a halfling and a half orc.
In addition, in order to get 15 14 13 12 10 8 stats it takes 36 BESM-points (not to be confused with DMG Point Buy). That's pure baseline DnD stats and you can no longer afford it for a halfling because you spent 6 points on race, leaving you only 34.
What I'm wondering, is if this change was really justified?
Being 'Small' maths to costing 3 points when you break it down (see page 97), if you ignore that it also slows down your movement rate to 2/3 of normal (which they did ignore) in BESM d20, and forces you to use small sized weapons in 3.5 (also left out)...
Visual Impact:
I liked the older cover better, but that's a minor gripe.
The new sections pulled from d20 Mecha and the variant rules chapter have strange art when comparred to the rest of the book. The cover to d20 Mecha
was the reason I never bought that book - it didn't look anime - and it's now the chapter cover. They use a 'sketch style' that while not bad, does not match the style of the book as a whole - thus. it. jars. Kind. of. like --- this, -ought_ to, be: a- sentence. _thingy_
It's like half the book was drawn by the best of non-japanese manga artists, and the other half by the people who illustrated Creature Collection.
Think of what you'd have if you bought a book where half was Exalted (only better), and the other half Creature Collection... That's what we got here (actually, a few random pics in CC were of the Exalted style, but humor me in my analogy here please...).
On the personal gripe, one of my favorite BESM images used to be on page 97, and now it's replaced by a larger size table... The little cat girl in the stockings and 'Santa's Elf' costume was both cute and naughty, and I liked how the innuendo got past the censors in the old days... Oh well.
New Content
I'm really glad to see the combat class skills for the core classes. That's one oft requested update that did make it in.
If you have d20 Mecha, then the new mecha content isn't new. I won't review it, because it's already been reviewed by others.
There is a new chapter of rules variants though.
The Chase rules looked complex... complex enough that I didn't read them yet. If I need to keep abstracted maneuvers and positions in mind, it isn't in my gaming that I want to do it (gotta get that cat girl out of my head)... The chase rules are one of those movement systems where you need to know relative positions in detail but don't use a grid. I find these things lose players - it gets hard to visualize both the drama and track the details.
MnM's damage save is in there, but it's missing any note on how to take a person from disabled to dying. It also does the same damage no matter what weapon you use - meaning it's not as difficult to use as the method that showed up in Unearthed Arcana, but fails from lacking any variety. As long as your weapon does less than 2d8, it does the same damage as every other weapon that does less than 2d8... Only strength is factored in.
The Hit Location system favors all damage doing less than normal, as most hits will go to the limbs where the big risk is not damage, but dropping items or falling down. However, the cut to damage from a limb hit is minor, and while the DC to fall or drop is low - randomness will result in it happening much more often than the difference in damage will offset a risk of death, thus making damage more severe under this system.
Fate Points favor the system I think comes from d20 Modern - where they never refresh, but in a style that might be from Conan... I prefer MnM's Hero Points that refresh after every major something (adventure, session, or whatever). But it's not a major gripe. They'll work, and a GM has all the control over how out of hand they get since they're given out subjectively.
The ideas on School Campaigns looked like fun - that's a very popular anime theme.
There are two mass combat systems - each for a different purpose, and they look viable, but I never use those things. All I need to know for a war when I use it in my game's backdrop is that there's stuff going on off camera to make everyone's happy face go away. Chances are someone else will make a better judge of these two systems.
The Epic Level guidelines will functionally let you keep Epic Level going under the BESM d20 point based method.
The guidelines for using BESM classless are very welcome, although a level 1 classless character will be about 10 CP's behind a classed one (who gets all the level one abilities free).
Conclusion:
Simply put, don't buy this if you have the older version. It's a judgement call otherwise as to which BESM version to buy.
There are some good new options, and it will be nice when revised
finally does come out and includes both them and the revisions, but this book is not revised despite what the cover says. None of the revisions made it in, and only a little of the errata did.
I have no idea how an RPG company would go about doing a recall, but GoO needs to in this case. This was the review I never wanted to write - directly attacking one of my favorite games from a publisher I really admire...
The complete lack of the very material the book was intended for gives it a zero for substance, the new elements push that to 0.5 - cause they're only a short chapter if you realize that d20 mecha already came out in its own book.
The clash of art styles cuts what would be a five down to three.
Sigh...
This is the review I never wanted to see myself writing. BESM d20 is for me, one of the best d20 items on the market. Guardians of Order is one of my favorite companies. I hate that this had to be said, but it indeed had to be said. I was very happy to take home my copy of revised -
"like a bug in a rug"-, but utterly shocked when I opened it up and found it to not have made the revisions.
