Future: 13 Ammunition Types

[Crothian]

“I dove to the left, scrambling for cover as the feral opened fire with some sort of slugthrower I’d never before encountered. Unfortunately, as I came within a few steps of cover, a single round slammed into my right side, knocking me off balance. As I fell, I felt myself losing consciousness.”

“I came to I don’t know how long later, lying on my face, my sidearm a few feet in front of me, my entire body aching. Struggling to rise it was then that I noticed my hands were covered in puss-leaking sores. Mutator rounds!”

Future: 13 Ammunition Types is Ronin Arts’ latest support product for use with the official future rules for the D20 Modern roleplaying game. Inside the pages of this 7-page PDF, written by Philip Reed, are two PL 6 ammunition types, five PL 7 ammunition types, five PL 8 ammunition types, and one PL 9 ammunition type.

The specific ammunition types in this PDF are:

* Duralloy Flechettes
* Photon Sheathed
* Anti-Robot
* Charged
* Cyber Disruptor
* Inertial Accelerator
* Laser Prick
* Brainlock
* Cryonic
* Crystal Carbon
* Nova
* Psionic
* Mutator

Additionally, this PDF includes a new robot accessory, a cybernetic gadget, and an armor gadget.

This release in Ronin Arts’ Future series is the first to feature a new graphic design. With a more compact font and better use of the page, we can fit more text on each page than with our earlier design format. For ease of use, the zipped file also includes a .txt file making it easy to cut, paste, and print exactly what you need.

Requires the use of the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

 

[Turanil]

Future - 13 Ammunitions Types

13 Ammunitions Types, by Philip Reed, is a small 7 pages PDF (4.5 pages of actual game content) for d20 Future. It features 13 special ammunitions of science fiction to spice-up your futuristic combats. It is 100% Open Gaming Content.

Art and layout: This PDF is pleasant to look at, without art but with a good layout. Of all the PDFs I have seen so far, it’s among the best. Note that in addition to the PDF, there is a plain text file that lets you easily copypaste the content to your own documents.

Well, basically this small supplement describes examples of the sci-fi counterpart of magical bolts and arrows in D&D. As such, instead of having bullets +1 in the 25th century, you find laser-prick rounds, crystal carbon rounds, cyber disruptor rounds, etc. Overall, this is much more exciting than a mere +1 bonus to hit and damage. Yet, when you read their descriptions, several of these sci-fi ammunitions have really gobbledegook explanations, even in a science fiction context. So, even while it is a game, they do not look credible. Take for example, the Photon Sheated ammunition. Its description states that:

“<…> is wrapped in an extremely thin foil of the same material used in the manufacture of starship photon sails. A nanomachine housed within the round collects energy from the sun through the external foil and converts that energy into thrust creating a final ammunition that acts almost like a gyro-jet round. This energy thrust increases the weapon’s speed – and damage – depending on the brightness of the area when the round is fired <…>.”

So, even while an ammunition which bonus to hit and damage increases with the brightness of the area it is fired in, is fun, the explanation looks like it was designed for the Star Munchkin RPG. How could I use this in a d20 Transhuman Space campaign? Then, at time these ammunitions can be disappointing. Take this weapon for instance:

“<…> nova rounds duplicate the effect of a nova – a destructive nuclear explosion that takes place naturally, often near a white dwarf star – on a miniscule level. <…> one of the galaxy’s most dangerous ammunition types of the Energy Age. When a nova round impacts with a target it releases a nova flash that bathes a 5-foot burst radius – centered on the target – in a nuclear fireball.<…>.”

Hey! Doesn’t this sound incredibly powerful and lethal?! A 5-foot burst radius nuclear fireball! Nothing less! However, in terms of game mechanics the nuclear fireball is, IMO, a little disappointing:

“<…> All creatures and objects within the burst radius take 2d4 points of fire damage.<…>.”

I would have guessed that such ammunitions at least operate like a disintegrate spell! I have nothing against an ammunition that deals an additional 2d4 of fire damage in a 5-foot radius… but I don’t call that a nuclear fireball. Fortunately, there are also ammunitions that make much more sense, such as the Anti-robot and Cyber-Disruptor ammunitions.

All in all, I am slightly disappointed by this supplement. In my opinion it should hold more ammunitions. Because out of the 13 included, once I remove what I consider the silly stuff, I only have 6 ammunitions left for use in my Hard sci-fi campaign. On the other hand, if you play a Dragonstar (D&D sci-fi) or Bulldogs! (pulp sci-fi) campaign, you could very well include them all. As such, for hard-scifi gamers I think this product is worth a 2 rating, but for fantasy space-opera games, I rate it a 4. So overall I give it a 3.

 

[philreed]

Thanks for the review. This product definitely wasn't written for hard sci-fi games -- I prefer a lighter, more space opera feel to my sci-fi.

 

[HellHound]

Turanil, would you mind not using yellow text for your quotes from the material? It makes it nearly impossible to read if you aren't using the default colour scheme here.

Instead, I would recommend placing quotes from the book in quotes tags...

This is a quote of some text from the book