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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Horacio" data-source="post: 2009290" data-attributes="member: 82">Four Color To FantasyFour Color To Fantasy is a new take on d20 superheros. Intead of creating a fully new d20 game, Four Color To Fantasy (let's call it FCTF in this review, o.k.?) is a toolkit that can add supers flavour to any d20 game, from classic D&D to Spycraft or Dragonstar. The book also comes with Dark Decade, an example setting by Osvaldo Oyola (a.k.a. Nemmerle), that is a tribute to two New York City and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.A First LookFCTF is a 99 pages PDF priced at $6.95 (I think this is a release promotion price, and final price will be $9).The cover of the book is composed of two different scenes. On top, a four colored title (no pun intended, each word has a color). On the right side, a group of heroes and villains, from the steampunk mad scientist to the pulp detective. They are the iconics of the book. On the left side, there is a drawing of some skyscrapers and a girl with a stake, it's the Dark Decade setting. The interior art black and white, all with a similar style. Overall the art is good, maybe a little anime for some people's taste, but I like anime...The layout is good, the texte isn't very dense, and easy to read. A good color schema with colored makes the reading  easy.  My only personal nitpick is just the color... In my b/w printer the cover doesn't look very well and the color schema is a dull b/w/grey... :-(A Deeper LookFCTF has an introduction, eight chapters and an appendix. The introductions explains the toolkit philosophy of FCTF, introduce the new terminology used and does an overview of the bookThe first chapter (Superpowered-rules and Mechanics) deals with some concepts common to most of comics: Backgrounds and Reputation. Backgrounds are meant to make the character's origins and backsttories relevant to the game. Using a rule mechanism similar to Spycraft backgrounds (you buy them with skill points, the GM can introduce them in the adventure, making your character life a bit harder but rewarding with XPs, or forget them, but rewarding the character with XPs for not using them), they cover things like Secret Identity, Nemesis or Debts. Reputation is divised in groups (Authorities, Criminals and General Public) and each group is tracked separately (yes, you can have a bad reputation with both criminals and authorities, think X-Men) and it modifies all Charisma checks. The second chapter (Creating a Character) presents two new character classes, four prestige clases and a handful of templates. The new character classes are the Hero and the Specialist. The Specialist is a kind of Expert, the class is used to represent those people who haven't an adventurers training, from the computer programmer to the nurse, a class for normal people on a normal world. It has many skill points, because normal people can do lots of different things fairly proficiently. The Hero class is the class that gives super powers. In fact, it gives Hero Points, used to buy the powers. So, why wouldn't you take all your levels in the Hero class? Because it gives no skill points, low BAB, low saves, no special feats and a d4 hit dice... It represents your raw power level, without beign tied to training. A PC with lots of Hero levels and no 'normal' class level would be a baby with superpowers, all raw power. The four prestige classes represent some of the most popular archetypes in comic books: the Detective, the Gadgeteer, the Menacing Vigilant and the Mentor. None of this classes gives Hero Points (i.e. more superpowers), but rather help developping the PCs abilities. In fact, they don't require superpowers to be taken. The templates are one of the most useful features of this book, it gives some generic super powered packages, from the superpowered alien (think Superman) or the arachnid warried (think Spiderman) to the generic blaster (think Cyclops) or brick (think the Thing), with its ECL. This templates can be dropped over any normal NPC or monster (a Spiderkobold! an orc Cyclops!), or can be used to create  PCs in some minutes. The chapter finishes with a section about creating characters above first level (in the spirit of classic superheroes), managing character advancement and creating NPCs.Chapter three (Hero Points & Super-powered Characters) explains how to use the Hero Points to buy superpowers, and how to include things like power origin or power enhancements or restrictions (an optical blast that is always on and requieres a special visor...). Then it has rules for Gadgets (all that powers that aren't natural but come from this power armor or that hypertechnology gun), and an interesting section for the GM on creating new super powers, balancing new powers or using Hero Points as a reward instead of magic items or gold.Chapter four (Super feats and heroic tactics) introduces 21 new feats to inprove the use of some powers (like the Instant Phase to Phase out fastly when a blow is coming). They are like the power stunts of old Marvel RPG game, new uses for a power. The Heroic Tactics section deals with thing like breaking things, using lamposts or cars as weapons or travelling at superspeed. The new rules are simple, well done and very useful.Chapter five (Creating a Supers Game) is a chapter for the GM, dealing with all the possibilities for a campaing: the genre (historical, fantastical, modern, sci-fi...), the tone (bleak, four color, silver age, post-apocalyptic...), the power level, character development, etc. Chapter six (Dark Decade) is an introduction to a setting for FCTF that will be released this winter. It's a campaing set in the 1980s New York where vampires and other demons secretly predate in the shadows of the Big Apple and the only thing between them and the innocent is a girl with mystical powers, 'The Huntress'. Very 80s. Very New York. Very Buffy. Very cool. Very short too.Chapter seven (Sample Characters) lists the stats for the iconics of the book, with special detail in the powers, so it can help you if you're a bit stuck on the character creation. It offers characters from different settings, a 1930 detective with shadowy powers, a near future cat burglar, a druidess and her nemesis, a Gnome steampunk mad engineer, and a fantasy super strong halfling girl. Chapter eight (Super Powers) lists 60+ powers, with a lot of customizable options. Some of them I would have done in another way, and I'd have added some others, but that's an armchair game designer's critic. The powers are well described, welll develoved, and very playable. The Appendix (called Appendix A, but I haven't found an Appendix B) show fast rules for weapons and skills in a modern world, but only as a patch, becaus eit recommends using the (great but poor edited) Forbidden Kingdoms rules for 1800-1950 campaigns and Dark Future's Cyberstyle (I love it!) for present day-near future ones.FlawsHas it flaws? Yes, some minor ones. One, it hasn't as many powers as I would have wanted, and some powers aren't as customizable and I would like, but I hope all this will be solved with the new PDF they are preparing, the Big Book of Powers... But in all, it's not a deep flaw, because with the 60+ powers of FCTF you can define almost every comic book hero you can think of.Another flaw, the editing. Some minor editing problems, like calling a power Heroic Strengh here and Heightened Strengh there, or pointing to chapter three's feats while feats are on chaper four... None too bad.ConclusionA very useful resource for a GM interested in adding superheroes to his campaign or in beginning a superheroes campaign using d20 rules and without changing too much from the core rules. Well done, modular, simple yet solid, FCTF is by the moment, and IMHO, the best appoach to supers in d20.-Horacio Gonzalez</blockquote>

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