Blood and Space (Print Version)
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trancejeremy
Adventurer
Blood and Space is a science fiction 'tool kit' for d20 by Charles Rice & Chris Davis. Not quite a game on it's own, it's aimed at supplementing one of the increasingly large number of d20 SF games (at least 6 by my count, with 3 more on the way).
It's a 128 page softcover book, priced at $19.95. It was originally a PDF (which I wrote a review for), but this is a slightly revised and improved version (as is this review). I liked the PDF, and the print version fixes most of the problems I had with it (as did the revised PDF, actually, but around the time that came out, my computer started having crashing problems with acrobat reader, so I never really got a hard look at the changes). Just as a disclaimer, I'm mentioned in the thanks section along with others who gave the authors feedback, some of which was incorporated into the revised and print editions (I got a free copy of the print version, but I did buy the PDF).
Physically, it's a nice looking product. The cover art is by Scott Clark, and fits the name of the book - it depicts a damaged ship and someone drifting away from it without a spacesuit, either dead or dying. The interior art is done by V Shane. I really liked most of the character illustrations, though the starship ones tend to look a little odd (not quite straight in some places, or odd geometry). The art in the PDF was a bit pixelated, but this problem is gone in print. The layout is well done, with a nice table of contents, and the fonts are very legible. The outside margin border is plain but informative, having the name of the chapter on it, making it easy to find a section of the book quickly.
The first chapter is introductory stuff. Besides an introductory story, it explains that this product has stuff for both space opera style science fiction and hard science fiction (ie, real science as we know it now). Certain things in this book are tagged with a label to let you know which is which.
The second chapter is on new classes and around 20 pages. These are set up as normal d20 classes (as opposed to d20 Modern, though not having d20 Modern, I'm a bit fuzzy on the rules of it), although the classes also have a defense bonus, which D&D doesn't use, but some SF d20 games do use. There are 10 new core classes and 5 new prestige classes.
The new core classes are generally well done and quite useful.
I like the Doctor, the Engineer, and the Scientist, though the Doctor and Engineer might be a bit weak for PC classes (they have bad hit dice, bad base attack bonus progression, only 6 skill points per level, which makes them a bit weaker than the Expert. They do get some special abilities, but not enough to offset the weak base attack bonus progresion. When I've used the Doctor, I've given them 8 skill points and bonus social feats from Fading Suns).
The Marine is a bit odd. In the original PDF of Blood & Space, the Marine class was simply a renamed Fighter, which I thought wasn't too original. The Marine in this is a bit different, but has several abilities which perhaps aren't very useful or make that much sense, or are heavily tied into the space combat system in this book. Most of the special abilities involve training others, which is something more suited for Marine Commanders, not actual Marines themselves. Or maybe it's meant to simulate Marine NCOs. In any event, it's still basically like a fighter, but more flavorful as many of the bonus feats have been replaced by special abilities
The Mercenary is somewhat like a Barbarian (he 'rages' like one, anyway) but is perhaps a bit overpowered - they get a +2 to attack and all skill checks when they're being paid or can make money.
There are two types of pilot classes: The Starship Pilot, and the Hotshot. They're fairly similar, and probably could have been squeezed into one class. (The "Starship Pilot" also has a typo on its chart, "Fighter Evasion" instead of "Starship Evasion". But easy to figure out)
There are two civilian starship crew/pilot types, the "Hauler", something of a space teamster ( a bit weak, probably suited for NPCs), and the Smuggler, a Han Solo type (fairly close to the Rogue class). There's also the Starship Officer for those who went to a space academy.
There are 5 prestige classes: The Colonial Marine, Contact Specialist, Marine Commander, Pirate Captain, and Starship Commander.
I personally think Colonial Marine should have been a core class (most of it's abilities make more sense than the revised Marine core class), but in any event, it's somewhat like the Marines from Aliens. The Contact Specialist is a 5 level class that is really good at making contact with aliens (and not much else). The Marine Commander, Pirate Captain, and Starship Commander all have abilities that are tied into the combat section of this book, so might not be apropriate if you're not using those rules.
As mentioned, I found most of the classes to be well done - the only real hangup for most people will be if you don't use the space combat rules in this book. But they're fun to tweak, and I tend to alter just about every core class in every product I own, so this is someplace where your mileage will definitely vary.
Chapter Three introduces several new skills. Most are pretty much what you expect (and what you find in most SF games), though I think some are stretching it a bit. For instance, the Boarding skill lets you latch onto another ship while in Zero-G. That seems way too narrow. A more general EVA (ie, spacewalk) skill might have been more useful. There are several new craft skills, with examples provided
There are also several new feats. Not so many general ones - lots of new feats for pilots, especially in a space opera style game. Also many for creating items and the usual proficiencies. The Leadership feat is also revised to work with the crew rules in this product.
Chapter Four is on new equipment. It's not a huge chapter (about 10 pages), as it says it aims to supplement the stuff found in most SF d20 games.
It uses credits, not unlike most games, but the prices seem quite low. A 9mm pistol only costs 50 cr. In Dragonstar, a light pistol is 400 cr. In Traveller d20, it's 200 cr.
There's only a few new weapons, mostly lasers (Infrared and X-ray) plus something curious called a "Tesla Rifle". (It shoots heavily sprayed hair at targets. Well, lightning actually.)
There are several new armor types. Light and Medium armor improve AC, while the Heavy stuff provides Damage Reduction. Unfortunately, no acane spell failure was included, so you need to do some work if you're using a fantasy/sci-fi game.
There's also a system for trading/selling cargo, although it's pretty sketchy and quite random. Basically, you roll a d20, and that gives you the supply/demand ratio - you divide the d20 by 10, and that gives you the current price of that cargo on the planet. It doesn't really take into account the size of the planet you're selling it on, and while it says that you should give each planet an import preference, it doesn't give much in the way of guidelines.
There are some sample cargos, about a page's worth. It's almost like the list gets cut off, because it starts with A (Alcohol) and goes to M (Microbes) and stops. There's only 10 or so, so it's not that comprehensive (especially since many of the listed cargos are obscure, like magnetic bottles. And many are vague, like "Metals", instead of specific metals).
Chapter 5 is on Starships, and is about 30 pages long.
Starships are handled somewhat abstractly. If you are familiar with the computer games Elite, Privateer, or the Master of Orion series, then that will give you an idea of how they work. Essentially, there are a variety of hulls, with a different capacity in tons. You 'spend' tons of capacity to buy things like weapons and shields and add-ons.
Generally, this works very well, though I think it's mostly suited for smaller ships. The computer games that use this system have a similar problem - either they only focus on smaller ships, like Elite or Privateer, or in the Master of Orion series, which ships keep getting bigger and bigger, the really large ships are cheaper than they probably should be. But for most people, this should work well enough.
Weapons, defenses, and star drives are divided into space opera and hard science fiction. The Hard Sci-Fi parts seem fairly realistic (though the names of the star drives are odd - named after stars, instead of being descriptive). There's a fairly wide selection in each category.
Also, there's a large amount of other add-ons, including all sorts of recreation equipment to labs to military equipment.
Chapter 6 is on starship crew. Essentially, it handles crew in a very abtract manner. It doesn't really use many (any?) d20 conventions, but is more similar to a wargame. They are rated as either Raw, Green, Inexperience, Average, Experience, Crack, Legendary, (with a XP chart) and there are several different crew types (helm, science, medical, etc). I think I would have prefered a system closer to the normal level system d20 uses, but this certainly works (and this has more of a wargame-ish feel).
There's a small editing error in this chapter - the original PDF had the Starship Officer as a prestige class, but it was changed in the revised edition to a core class. But it still refers to it as a prestige class a couple times here.
Chapter 7 is on Starship combat, and is about 20 pages. You pretty much need a map for their method, either a hex map or square map. (I have several big hex maps from games like Knight Hawks and Star Fleet Battles). It's somewhat like a simple board game. Each hex 5,000 miles. Every weapon has a range in hexes. Ships have acceleration ratings. Much of the gameplay is handled like normal d20 system combat. You roll initiative, then act. Move, fire, etc. I've played it a little, and it seems pretty solid, and fairly newtonian. It's a bit tricky to figure out at first, though.
The largest section in this part is on "terrain", mostly assorted space objects. Other than the really dense asteroid fields (real asteroid belts are not even remotely like you see in fiction), this section is well done. Even describes the difference between a nova and supernova accurately, which is pretty rare.
After this come several pages of predesigned ships. Most the ships (all but one) are "Hard Science Fiction", which poses some problems with their stated purpose in the ships description. For instance, the Survey Ship says it's designed to discover worlds, but it has an "Aldeberan"
drive, which lets it travel one light year in 1500 years. Given that the closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away, it would take 6500 years to get there. So, it's sort of odd it has this star drive, as the rules point out it's not meant to travel between stars, but for intersystem travel. I would just assume it (and the others) have some sort of 'jump drive' that let it travel great distances, with the slower drive for in-system travel only. (Many science fiction games take this tack).
The last 10 pages or so are a preview of "Star Ace", which I believe was also available in PDF form (for free). Star Ace will apparently use many of the rules from Blood & Space. It seems something like a Star Wars clone (There's an evil Empire, a good Alliance, troops in white shiny armor, planets being destroyed, etc), only set in the future, not a long time ago in a galaxy far away. Seems pretty interesting, though.
All in all, despite it's flaws, this is a nice product to supplement your existing science fiction d20 game. I've used many of the core classes in this for my Traveller 20 game (I don't like how many classes in T20 have base attack bonus progressions that end in +5, which makes them woefully incompetent at combat) and I've used some of them in my Dragonstar and regular games to fill in the void where there weren't any suitable classes. I've used the ship design system quite a bit, and although I heavily modified it when it comes to larger ships to fit my taste, it works great for small ships as is.
B.
It's a 128 page softcover book, priced at $19.95. It was originally a PDF (which I wrote a review for), but this is a slightly revised and improved version (as is this review). I liked the PDF, and the print version fixes most of the problems I had with it (as did the revised PDF, actually, but around the time that came out, my computer started having crashing problems with acrobat reader, so I never really got a hard look at the changes). Just as a disclaimer, I'm mentioned in the thanks section along with others who gave the authors feedback, some of which was incorporated into the revised and print editions (I got a free copy of the print version, but I did buy the PDF).
Physically, it's a nice looking product. The cover art is by Scott Clark, and fits the name of the book - it depicts a damaged ship and someone drifting away from it without a spacesuit, either dead or dying. The interior art is done by V Shane. I really liked most of the character illustrations, though the starship ones tend to look a little odd (not quite straight in some places, or odd geometry). The art in the PDF was a bit pixelated, but this problem is gone in print. The layout is well done, with a nice table of contents, and the fonts are very legible. The outside margin border is plain but informative, having the name of the chapter on it, making it easy to find a section of the book quickly.
The first chapter is introductory stuff. Besides an introductory story, it explains that this product has stuff for both space opera style science fiction and hard science fiction (ie, real science as we know it now). Certain things in this book are tagged with a label to let you know which is which.
The second chapter is on new classes and around 20 pages. These are set up as normal d20 classes (as opposed to d20 Modern, though not having d20 Modern, I'm a bit fuzzy on the rules of it), although the classes also have a defense bonus, which D&D doesn't use, but some SF d20 games do use. There are 10 new core classes and 5 new prestige classes.
The new core classes are generally well done and quite useful.
I like the Doctor, the Engineer, and the Scientist, though the Doctor and Engineer might be a bit weak for PC classes (they have bad hit dice, bad base attack bonus progression, only 6 skill points per level, which makes them a bit weaker than the Expert. They do get some special abilities, but not enough to offset the weak base attack bonus progresion. When I've used the Doctor, I've given them 8 skill points and bonus social feats from Fading Suns).
The Marine is a bit odd. In the original PDF of Blood & Space, the Marine class was simply a renamed Fighter, which I thought wasn't too original. The Marine in this is a bit different, but has several abilities which perhaps aren't very useful or make that much sense, or are heavily tied into the space combat system in this book. Most of the special abilities involve training others, which is something more suited for Marine Commanders, not actual Marines themselves. Or maybe it's meant to simulate Marine NCOs. In any event, it's still basically like a fighter, but more flavorful as many of the bonus feats have been replaced by special abilities
The Mercenary is somewhat like a Barbarian (he 'rages' like one, anyway) but is perhaps a bit overpowered - they get a +2 to attack and all skill checks when they're being paid or can make money.
There are two types of pilot classes: The Starship Pilot, and the Hotshot. They're fairly similar, and probably could have been squeezed into one class. (The "Starship Pilot" also has a typo on its chart, "Fighter Evasion" instead of "Starship Evasion". But easy to figure out)
There are two civilian starship crew/pilot types, the "Hauler", something of a space teamster ( a bit weak, probably suited for NPCs), and the Smuggler, a Han Solo type (fairly close to the Rogue class). There's also the Starship Officer for those who went to a space academy.
There are 5 prestige classes: The Colonial Marine, Contact Specialist, Marine Commander, Pirate Captain, and Starship Commander.
I personally think Colonial Marine should have been a core class (most of it's abilities make more sense than the revised Marine core class), but in any event, it's somewhat like the Marines from Aliens. The Contact Specialist is a 5 level class that is really good at making contact with aliens (and not much else). The Marine Commander, Pirate Captain, and Starship Commander all have abilities that are tied into the combat section of this book, so might not be apropriate if you're not using those rules.
As mentioned, I found most of the classes to be well done - the only real hangup for most people will be if you don't use the space combat rules in this book. But they're fun to tweak, and I tend to alter just about every core class in every product I own, so this is someplace where your mileage will definitely vary.
Chapter Three introduces several new skills. Most are pretty much what you expect (and what you find in most SF games), though I think some are stretching it a bit. For instance, the Boarding skill lets you latch onto another ship while in Zero-G. That seems way too narrow. A more general EVA (ie, spacewalk) skill might have been more useful. There are several new craft skills, with examples provided
There are also several new feats. Not so many general ones - lots of new feats for pilots, especially in a space opera style game. Also many for creating items and the usual proficiencies. The Leadership feat is also revised to work with the crew rules in this product.
Chapter Four is on new equipment. It's not a huge chapter (about 10 pages), as it says it aims to supplement the stuff found in most SF d20 games.
It uses credits, not unlike most games, but the prices seem quite low. A 9mm pistol only costs 50 cr. In Dragonstar, a light pistol is 400 cr. In Traveller d20, it's 200 cr.
There's only a few new weapons, mostly lasers (Infrared and X-ray) plus something curious called a "Tesla Rifle". (It shoots heavily sprayed hair at targets. Well, lightning actually.)
There are several new armor types. Light and Medium armor improve AC, while the Heavy stuff provides Damage Reduction. Unfortunately, no acane spell failure was included, so you need to do some work if you're using a fantasy/sci-fi game.
There's also a system for trading/selling cargo, although it's pretty sketchy and quite random. Basically, you roll a d20, and that gives you the supply/demand ratio - you divide the d20 by 10, and that gives you the current price of that cargo on the planet. It doesn't really take into account the size of the planet you're selling it on, and while it says that you should give each planet an import preference, it doesn't give much in the way of guidelines.
There are some sample cargos, about a page's worth. It's almost like the list gets cut off, because it starts with A (Alcohol) and goes to M (Microbes) and stops. There's only 10 or so, so it's not that comprehensive (especially since many of the listed cargos are obscure, like magnetic bottles. And many are vague, like "Metals", instead of specific metals).
Chapter 5 is on Starships, and is about 30 pages long.
Starships are handled somewhat abstractly. If you are familiar with the computer games Elite, Privateer, or the Master of Orion series, then that will give you an idea of how they work. Essentially, there are a variety of hulls, with a different capacity in tons. You 'spend' tons of capacity to buy things like weapons and shields and add-ons.
Generally, this works very well, though I think it's mostly suited for smaller ships. The computer games that use this system have a similar problem - either they only focus on smaller ships, like Elite or Privateer, or in the Master of Orion series, which ships keep getting bigger and bigger, the really large ships are cheaper than they probably should be. But for most people, this should work well enough.
Weapons, defenses, and star drives are divided into space opera and hard science fiction. The Hard Sci-Fi parts seem fairly realistic (though the names of the star drives are odd - named after stars, instead of being descriptive). There's a fairly wide selection in each category.
Also, there's a large amount of other add-ons, including all sorts of recreation equipment to labs to military equipment.
Chapter 6 is on starship crew. Essentially, it handles crew in a very abtract manner. It doesn't really use many (any?) d20 conventions, but is more similar to a wargame. They are rated as either Raw, Green, Inexperience, Average, Experience, Crack, Legendary, (with a XP chart) and there are several different crew types (helm, science, medical, etc). I think I would have prefered a system closer to the normal level system d20 uses, but this certainly works (and this has more of a wargame-ish feel).
There's a small editing error in this chapter - the original PDF had the Starship Officer as a prestige class, but it was changed in the revised edition to a core class. But it still refers to it as a prestige class a couple times here.
Chapter 7 is on Starship combat, and is about 20 pages. You pretty much need a map for their method, either a hex map or square map. (I have several big hex maps from games like Knight Hawks and Star Fleet Battles). It's somewhat like a simple board game. Each hex 5,000 miles. Every weapon has a range in hexes. Ships have acceleration ratings. Much of the gameplay is handled like normal d20 system combat. You roll initiative, then act. Move, fire, etc. I've played it a little, and it seems pretty solid, and fairly newtonian. It's a bit tricky to figure out at first, though.
The largest section in this part is on "terrain", mostly assorted space objects. Other than the really dense asteroid fields (real asteroid belts are not even remotely like you see in fiction), this section is well done. Even describes the difference between a nova and supernova accurately, which is pretty rare.
After this come several pages of predesigned ships. Most the ships (all but one) are "Hard Science Fiction", which poses some problems with their stated purpose in the ships description. For instance, the Survey Ship says it's designed to discover worlds, but it has an "Aldeberan"
drive, which lets it travel one light year in 1500 years. Given that the closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away, it would take 6500 years to get there. So, it's sort of odd it has this star drive, as the rules point out it's not meant to travel between stars, but for intersystem travel. I would just assume it (and the others) have some sort of 'jump drive' that let it travel great distances, with the slower drive for in-system travel only. (Many science fiction games take this tack).
The last 10 pages or so are a preview of "Star Ace", which I believe was also available in PDF form (for free). Star Ace will apparently use many of the rules from Blood & Space. It seems something like a Star Wars clone (There's an evil Empire, a good Alliance, troops in white shiny armor, planets being destroyed, etc), only set in the future, not a long time ago in a galaxy far away. Seems pretty interesting, though.
All in all, despite it's flaws, this is a nice product to supplement your existing science fiction d20 game. I've used many of the core classes in this for my Traveller 20 game (I don't like how many classes in T20 have base attack bonus progressions that end in +5, which makes them woefully incompetent at combat) and I've used some of them in my Dragonstar and regular games to fill in the void where there weren't any suitable classes. I've used the ship design system quite a bit, and although I heavily modified it when it comes to larger ships to fit my taste, it works great for small ships as is.
B.
Messageboard Golem
First Post
Thanks for the review Jeremy 
GameWyrd
Explorer
Blood and Space seems to confuse people and I don’t know why. It’s not a campaign setting; it’s a "Starship Adventure Toolkit". Oh. Okay. I suppose that slightly buzz-wordy and perhaps the inclusion of "Adventure" confuses people. I really don’t have that much sympathy; "Starship Adventure Toolkit" looks nothing like "Sci-Fi Roleplaying Game" and Blood and Space has "Starship Adventure Toolkit" printed in bold text right on the front cover. If you’re looking for a complete Sci-Fi game, you know, like Star Wars, then look elsewhere. If you have a Sci-Fi game of your own imagination and you want a rulebook to help you through the nuances of starship combat, starship construction, crew quality, navigation computers and want feats and skills to back them up then that’s when Blood and Space becomes a temptation.
The book begins by setting out how it’ll offer up rule options for both the hard science and space opera sub-genres of Sci-Fi. The harder edged Sci-Fi is one where the science tries to be as accurate as possible, ships are slower, aliens (if any) will be rare and inhabited planets further apart. Space Opera is a bit like high fantasy in space, there will be plenty of aliens, powerful lasers can shoot chunks out of moons and starships employ all sorts of weird technologies to move faster than light. A campaign world will do one or the other; Blood and Space caters to both.
On the subject of catering to both, it’s well worth pointing out that Blood and Space is usable with either D&D d20 or D20 Modern.
The rules get underway with a whole load of classes, core classes and a few prestige classes too. There are alignment restrictions (although all the core classes have "any" alignment) and no action points. That seems to best suit D&D d20 rather than D20 Modern then, the latter doesn’t really rely on exacting classes though. Included in the core classes are the Starship Pilot and the Hotshot, there’s even the Starship Officer. There’s a distinct overlap there, I can quite honestly see some GMs wanting to move the Hotshot up to a prestige class or removing one of the three. The overlap, however, is less pronounced than D&D’s Fighter and Barbarian – two classes who fight, just in different ways, and the Hotshot is a less worthy candidate for a prestige class than the Paladin class is. Of course, if you think class overlap is an inexcusable crime then the fact that D&D does it as well will not let Blood and Space off the hook. I think it’s an example of what I’d want from a toolkit, as many tools as possible and from which I can pick and choose the ones I want to use.
Skills and Feats make sure that there are enough of the hi-tech and space environment mechanics to support your game. You might have thought of a hyperspace navigation skill but I’ll admit that I hadn’t thought of the need for a boarding skill until I read Blood and Space. I probably would have only realised just how important boarding could be as a skill until halfway through the adventure where I needed to make a boarding check. The feats are a mixed bundle. Some feats are in the vein of advanced skills – the advanced training packages, others are starship stunts – like hot shoes and bounce, while as others are those better-than-normal knacks – leadership and linguist for example. It would have been dreadful if having the stunt feats were the only way to perform the stunt, thankfully BaS avoids that trap and works the feats so they eliminate the otherwise foreboding penalties on the attempt. The downside is that they become slightly boring and highly specialised feats. The advanced training feats manifest as bonuses to particular skills and situations and this is very much in the style of a D20 Modern feat. The Hard Sci-Fi and Space Opera tags mark some of the feats and skills.
Armour and weapons are included in the equipment chapter. Blood and Space doesn’t slide in campaign flavour by mentioning specific brands of equipment or even weapons unique to particular races; everything’s generic. For example, rather than listed different types of laser rifle the book presents the IR (infra red, I assume) laser rifle, the X-Ray laser rile and the Tesla Rifle. Okay. The Tesla Rifle isn’t remotely a laser; I suppose. The point is that it’s the technology that defines the weapon. Having said that, though, there’s a hiccup with the Tesla Rifle. The text suggests the weapon is entirely illegal and only used by special forces. A better way to present the weapon with an inflated black market price might have been to say in the text that the assumption is that the weapon would normally be illegal.
There are rules for trade. The competing factors of supply and demand will either increase or decrease the cost of items and the DC values for negotiating a good sale or finding the goods in the first place. They’re nice and simple rules but certainly enough to allow GMs to incorporate the space economy into their game. If you grew up trading goods and fending off pirates in the wire-frame computer world of Elite then you’ll appreciate any Sci-Fi RPG with an economy.
About half way through the book we encounter the rules for starships, they’re a significant chunk of the book and take up about a quarter of all the rule space. Blood and Space doesn’t leap into starship construction straight away, chapter five opens with a worthwhile look at how it might be possible to finance or otherwise get your hands on a craft. Indentured servitude is one way, working for a hauling company is another or you might look at leasing or risking a fixer-upper from the junk market. The toolkit breaks starship construction up into five areas; 1) the hull, 2) the star drive, 3) weapons and defences, 4) systems and computers and 5) facilities. Everything’s important. Decisions you make in one area will impact the options you have available in others. You can build a flying laser because you need a strong enough hull to support the biggest weapons. If you have poor facilities then your med lab will suck and so your poorly trained combat troops will die quickly once the aliens make their first attempt to board your ship. Size matters, but it is not just size, there’s style too. Take starship hulls as an example again; there are fighter hulls, civilian models, corporate (shipping/hauling) hulls and military – or you might even be looking at a space station or some fixed planetary structure.
The hard sci-fi and space opera divisions are given a thorough workout for starcraft drives, weapons and armour. Rather than flagging those engines or weapons which are most suited to one or the other of the two styles, Blood and Space produces entirely different sections for each. At times and with formulae for faster than light speeds and acceleration the chapter can seem a little math bookie but I quite enjoy the challenge of building an affordable ship which can support an engine large enough to power all the weapons, shields and star drives that I want.
Starship crews are important in the Blood and Space mechanics. There are different types of crews; engineers for fixing things and marines for fighting off the alien invasion, etc and there are different qualities of crew too. You’d much rather have teams of crack marines on board than teams of inexperienced marines if the aliens do turn out to be hostile and rather good at catching and boarding your craft. There are rules for crew vs crew combat, a host of orders you can issue to your staff "emergency power to the shields!" and, best of all, the effects of taking control of a unit yourself. Crew gain experience – if they’re shot at – and go up in quality as a result. I’d like to have seen other situations where the crew gains experience too, if the whole crew had to work together while the ship was trying to shake itself apart while trying to pull away from a black hole then surely that’s good for an experience point?
Crew vs Crew combat is all well and good but I think Starship vs Starship combat will be a higher priority for most people. Blood and Space doesn’t war game space combat but provides thorough roleplaying rules for spaceships flying around the space, ejecting chaff, firing missiles, performing stunts and ducking into hyperdrive. This system will work for you if you can appreciate the scope and the abstraction of the d20 system. The risk is that some war gamers won’t like the abstraction, favouring tighter rules, and that some roleplayers won’t want to bother with all the different possibilities (mines, ship seeking missiles or using mines to intercept the ship seeking missiles, say).
The book concludes with a set of pre-generated starships and a blank starship sheet. There’s no blank character sheet, there’s a blank starship design sheet. If anything sums up Blood and Space’s role as a toolkit rather than a complete game then it might be that.
Or... it might be the five space preview for Star Ace which is a Philip J Reed and Christopher Shy built campaign world which uses some of the Blood and Space toolkit mechanics.
As a space adventure toolkit Blood and Space does well. It has everything you need, whether you want realistic or fantastic sci-fi and whether you want to use D&D d20 or D20 Modern and that’s no small feat. I think some of the edges on the space combat rules are a little rough, some of the ship building rules are a little number-county and I’d rather have had less in the way of classes and more in the vein of trading rules – but these are personal preferences rather than serious errors in the book. The trick to getting value for money from Blood and Space is to know what you’re buying.
* This Blood and Space review was first published at GameWyrd.
The book begins by setting out how it’ll offer up rule options for both the hard science and space opera sub-genres of Sci-Fi. The harder edged Sci-Fi is one where the science tries to be as accurate as possible, ships are slower, aliens (if any) will be rare and inhabited planets further apart. Space Opera is a bit like high fantasy in space, there will be plenty of aliens, powerful lasers can shoot chunks out of moons and starships employ all sorts of weird technologies to move faster than light. A campaign world will do one or the other; Blood and Space caters to both.
On the subject of catering to both, it’s well worth pointing out that Blood and Space is usable with either D&D d20 or D20 Modern.
The rules get underway with a whole load of classes, core classes and a few prestige classes too. There are alignment restrictions (although all the core classes have "any" alignment) and no action points. That seems to best suit D&D d20 rather than D20 Modern then, the latter doesn’t really rely on exacting classes though. Included in the core classes are the Starship Pilot and the Hotshot, there’s even the Starship Officer. There’s a distinct overlap there, I can quite honestly see some GMs wanting to move the Hotshot up to a prestige class or removing one of the three. The overlap, however, is less pronounced than D&D’s Fighter and Barbarian – two classes who fight, just in different ways, and the Hotshot is a less worthy candidate for a prestige class than the Paladin class is. Of course, if you think class overlap is an inexcusable crime then the fact that D&D does it as well will not let Blood and Space off the hook. I think it’s an example of what I’d want from a toolkit, as many tools as possible and from which I can pick and choose the ones I want to use.
Skills and Feats make sure that there are enough of the hi-tech and space environment mechanics to support your game. You might have thought of a hyperspace navigation skill but I’ll admit that I hadn’t thought of the need for a boarding skill until I read Blood and Space. I probably would have only realised just how important boarding could be as a skill until halfway through the adventure where I needed to make a boarding check. The feats are a mixed bundle. Some feats are in the vein of advanced skills – the advanced training packages, others are starship stunts – like hot shoes and bounce, while as others are those better-than-normal knacks – leadership and linguist for example. It would have been dreadful if having the stunt feats were the only way to perform the stunt, thankfully BaS avoids that trap and works the feats so they eliminate the otherwise foreboding penalties on the attempt. The downside is that they become slightly boring and highly specialised feats. The advanced training feats manifest as bonuses to particular skills and situations and this is very much in the style of a D20 Modern feat. The Hard Sci-Fi and Space Opera tags mark some of the feats and skills.
Armour and weapons are included in the equipment chapter. Blood and Space doesn’t slide in campaign flavour by mentioning specific brands of equipment or even weapons unique to particular races; everything’s generic. For example, rather than listed different types of laser rifle the book presents the IR (infra red, I assume) laser rifle, the X-Ray laser rile and the Tesla Rifle. Okay. The Tesla Rifle isn’t remotely a laser; I suppose. The point is that it’s the technology that defines the weapon. Having said that, though, there’s a hiccup with the Tesla Rifle. The text suggests the weapon is entirely illegal and only used by special forces. A better way to present the weapon with an inflated black market price might have been to say in the text that the assumption is that the weapon would normally be illegal.
There are rules for trade. The competing factors of supply and demand will either increase or decrease the cost of items and the DC values for negotiating a good sale or finding the goods in the first place. They’re nice and simple rules but certainly enough to allow GMs to incorporate the space economy into their game. If you grew up trading goods and fending off pirates in the wire-frame computer world of Elite then you’ll appreciate any Sci-Fi RPG with an economy.
About half way through the book we encounter the rules for starships, they’re a significant chunk of the book and take up about a quarter of all the rule space. Blood and Space doesn’t leap into starship construction straight away, chapter five opens with a worthwhile look at how it might be possible to finance or otherwise get your hands on a craft. Indentured servitude is one way, working for a hauling company is another or you might look at leasing or risking a fixer-upper from the junk market. The toolkit breaks starship construction up into five areas; 1) the hull, 2) the star drive, 3) weapons and defences, 4) systems and computers and 5) facilities. Everything’s important. Decisions you make in one area will impact the options you have available in others. You can build a flying laser because you need a strong enough hull to support the biggest weapons. If you have poor facilities then your med lab will suck and so your poorly trained combat troops will die quickly once the aliens make their first attempt to board your ship. Size matters, but it is not just size, there’s style too. Take starship hulls as an example again; there are fighter hulls, civilian models, corporate (shipping/hauling) hulls and military – or you might even be looking at a space station or some fixed planetary structure.
The hard sci-fi and space opera divisions are given a thorough workout for starcraft drives, weapons and armour. Rather than flagging those engines or weapons which are most suited to one or the other of the two styles, Blood and Space produces entirely different sections for each. At times and with formulae for faster than light speeds and acceleration the chapter can seem a little math bookie but I quite enjoy the challenge of building an affordable ship which can support an engine large enough to power all the weapons, shields and star drives that I want.
Starship crews are important in the Blood and Space mechanics. There are different types of crews; engineers for fixing things and marines for fighting off the alien invasion, etc and there are different qualities of crew too. You’d much rather have teams of crack marines on board than teams of inexperienced marines if the aliens do turn out to be hostile and rather good at catching and boarding your craft. There are rules for crew vs crew combat, a host of orders you can issue to your staff "emergency power to the shields!" and, best of all, the effects of taking control of a unit yourself. Crew gain experience – if they’re shot at – and go up in quality as a result. I’d like to have seen other situations where the crew gains experience too, if the whole crew had to work together while the ship was trying to shake itself apart while trying to pull away from a black hole then surely that’s good for an experience point?
Crew vs Crew combat is all well and good but I think Starship vs Starship combat will be a higher priority for most people. Blood and Space doesn’t war game space combat but provides thorough roleplaying rules for spaceships flying around the space, ejecting chaff, firing missiles, performing stunts and ducking into hyperdrive. This system will work for you if you can appreciate the scope and the abstraction of the d20 system. The risk is that some war gamers won’t like the abstraction, favouring tighter rules, and that some roleplayers won’t want to bother with all the different possibilities (mines, ship seeking missiles or using mines to intercept the ship seeking missiles, say).
The book concludes with a set of pre-generated starships and a blank starship sheet. There’s no blank character sheet, there’s a blank starship design sheet. If anything sums up Blood and Space’s role as a toolkit rather than a complete game then it might be that.
Or... it might be the five space preview for Star Ace which is a Philip J Reed and Christopher Shy built campaign world which uses some of the Blood and Space toolkit mechanics.
As a space adventure toolkit Blood and Space does well. It has everything you need, whether you want realistic or fantastic sci-fi and whether you want to use D&D d20 or D20 Modern and that’s no small feat. I think some of the edges on the space combat rules are a little rough, some of the ship building rules are a little number-county and I’d rather have had less in the way of classes and more in the vein of trading rules – but these are personal preferences rather than serious errors in the book. The trick to getting value for money from Blood and Space is to know what you’re buying.
* This Blood and Space review was first published at GameWyrd.
Psion
Adventurer
"whether you want to use D&D d20 or D20 Modern and that's no small feat."
Unfortunately, it's a feat that it fails at. It claims that the classes are compatible with d20 modern, but they really aren't. d20 modern classes are made around the "advanced class" paradigm, and the classes don't match the 1 ability/level tempo of d20 modern.
Unfortunately, it's a feat that it fails at. It claims that the classes are compatible with d20 modern, but they really aren't. d20 modern classes are made around the "advanced class" paradigm, and the classes don't match the 1 ability/level tempo of d20 modern.
Messageboard Golem
First Post
I concur. A most excellent review. ^_^
Messageboard Golem
First Post
I bought the print version and not the electronic version. Is there a way I can get the rest of the sample cargo list N-Z?
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