Martial Avengers

[Messageboard Golem]

This book, the first in the Modern Heroes line, will provide you with everything you need to flesh out your Fast and Strong heroes; New Feats, Talents, Advanced classes and even more!

Martial Avengers, the first installment in our Modern Heroes line, started life as a class book for Strong and Fast Heroes but has since spiralled out of control and become something much more than we originally dreamed.

Not only is this a toolkit for playing Strong and Fast Heroes in yoru D20 Modern game, but has captured the essence of the modern action cinema genre beyond all our expectations.

 

[GameWyrd]

It looks like a movie poster.

"Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers. MALLADIN'S GATE PRESS presents a D20 MODERN supplement, a NIGEL MCCLELLAND production."

The front cover is bound to get your attention with the giant letters, flames and action posed silhouettes.

This from the same Malladin's Press who tease us with the gritty DarkLore fantasy setting and the balanced mechanics of Forgotten Heroes; aah, okay, a Heroes shtick. Let's see what else this supplement offers. Just for a teaser - Christopher Shy artwork. Ooh. Interesting! I'll always associate his style with the surreal Whispering Vault and alt-real Ronin fantasy products.

Let's get to the point. This is a D20 Modern supplement for Strong and Fast Heroes. So it is like the Forgotten Heroes line after all; just the Modern equivalent of the fantasy forerunner. This isn't a bad thing. This means that Modern Heroes has a lot to live up to.

Martial Avengers gets going with a note on the theme. Ace. I wish more supplements did this! Malladin's Gate are up front with how D20 Modern impressed them and that they're putting Fast and Strong heroes together in this supplement because they are thematically similar. Hmm. Well. They can be thematically similar. Fast and Strong heroes are thematically similar if you're eying up an action-cum-martial-art game. So I suppose we're still full steam ahead for Martial Avengers then. These two hero classes are, I think, less thematically similar if we're doing a Fighter Pilot based game, super heroes or, say, a game set around London's nightclubs and criminal gangs. Again Malladin's Gate are up front about this. We're looking at a supplement for a high action game.

Chapter One gets going with new talent trees. This area is so ripe for supplements that I'm amazed we don't have a wash of them on the market yet. I could always do with talent tree suggestions. Whereas I doubt you know many D20 gamers gagging for more fantasy prestige classes! In the talent trees we have Athletics (which moves on to cover throwing), Bellow (shouting, I kid you not), Combat Techniques (guess what that's interested in) and the Winning Effort trees for Strong Heroes. We've Accuracy and Combat Techniques for the Fast Hero, along with Lightening Reactions and Stealthy Attack. Okay; some of these trees are fairly obvious - but Malladin's Gate got there first. Kudos. There are even Prestige Talent Trees for those characters who make the class combinations. According to the guy's at Malladin's Gate Strong and Charismatic Heroes are sexy and therefore can enjoy the Allure tree. There's a bunch of new starting occupations too. Once again - good stuff and frightfully under catered to by the industry.

Chapter Two is all about Skills. Skills are more important in D20 Modern; well, in many D20 Modern games anyway. I'm rarely won over by "New Uses For Old Skills" style sections and this one is a meh offering to. I don't consider it a waste of space. I just didn't need it. It will help some gamers, though; I suppose, maybe, meh. Then there are the Combat Technique Skills and these are much better (though I'm no combat-wombat). Malladin's Gate are really good at this, good at blending current game mechanics together to create easy but effective changes. Here's a quote from the opening paragraph in Combat Technique Skills.

"Please note that these skills are available to all characters, but only as cross-class skills. When you select the Combat technique talent you choose one style, this skill can then be developed as a class skill for any levels of the class with which the talent was chosen."

Makes it pretty clear, doesn't it? An interesting use of the talent too. The Combat Technique Skills are rather like more thoroughly detailed feats. They've a primary attribute (since they're actually skills), entry feats, weapon restrictions, primary weapons and skill synergies. The moves within techniques have their own DCs and Benefits.

The Combat Technique Skills make up a significant chunk of Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers. The section isn't overbearing and is one of the main selling points the book will have for many people.

Then there are the feats. Hah! We've a whole bunch of feats - I suspect Knife Fighter will be popular. There are enough new feats to be thankful for the concise, one page, summary. As with the Combat Technique Skills, but to a lesser extent, the feats take up a fair few pages, aren't overbearing and will be a reason many people buy this action orientated product.

Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers is all about the fast paced, cinematic, action. It's about Fast and Strong Heroes after all. There is a Combat Chapter. It talks about combat type things. Dice rolls to make in different situations. What saving throws to make and when. It's not the sort of chapter I linger on at all! However, I did feel the supplement had properly built up to this point; we've had Combat Technique Skills, talent trees and the new feats. Now was the time to see how they might come together. I found the "Avoiding Death" section quite useful!

There are Advanced Character Classes in D20 Modern and "thanks" to supplements from Wizards of the Coast there are Prestige Classes too. Yeah. I know. Makes things... um, interesting. It must be a constant challenge to third party publishers to decide when a class is "just" advanced or when it's prestigious. This supplement is concentrating on action type characters, especially the aforementioned hero classes. D20 Modern is all about multi-classing heroes to get them to the point where interesting specialisations can take place (in Advanced Classes and then Prestige Classes later) and so Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers doesn't shy away from putting in those "action themed classes" which would require a couple of levels in the Dedicated, Smart, Charismatic or Tough classes into the mix. In the fantasy d20 world I always prefer my Prestige Classes to be 10 levels long - I think you need that to make a meal out of them, which is a requirement if you want to make them a significant part of character development, which is how I feel they should be. In this supplement all the Advanced Classes are 10 levels long and the Prestige Classes are 5 levels long. That works for me.

People will ask so here's a quick run down of the advanced and prestige classes. Orientated towards the Strong Hero; Pro-Wrestler, Street Brawler and One Man Army (prestige), Athlete (with Fast Hero multi-classing), Shotgun Joe (with Tough Hero multi-classing), Exemplary Hero (with Smart Hero multi-classing), Street Cop (with Dedicated Hero multi-classing), All American (with Charismatic Hero multi-classing; and a tough pill for Malladin's Gate British authors to swallow) and the Cruiserweight (Prestige Class and with Fast Hero multi-classing). Then, for the Fast Hero, there are the Assassing, Racing Driver, Shadowblade (prestige), Lightning Fist (with Strong Hero multi-classing), Stuntdriver (with Tough Hero multi-classing), Vigilante (with Smart Hero multi-classing), Transporter (with Dedicated Hero multi-classing), Ace Pilot (with Charismatic Hero multi-classing) and Two Gun Killer (prestige and with Strong Hero multi-classing). If you've been following the bracketed comments then you'll see that that balances out fairly.

It's taken quite a whack of space just to list all the Advanced and Prestige Classes - it takes much more space to detail the classes. Just to recap on the space watch; we've spent most pages on talent trees, Combat Technique Skills, feats and Advanced Classes. I've complained in the past when supplements are dominated by this sort of thing but there's no complaint from me here. Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers is on topic. This is a supplement about the character classes and what you can do with them to enhance the action aspect of the game.

Chapter Six looks at the "Extreme" Campaign Setting. Here we consider such fine points in action based adventures as faceless henchmen, gangs and the more serious villains in the world. This campaign model simply sets up a world where adventures quickly become very much in the vein of an action movie.

That rather brings us back in a full circle. Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers has cinematic supplement crawled all over. If there was an advert for it then it would have to have the dulcet tones of "Voiceover Man" big up the drama before getting on to the explosions and car chases. Well. Um. Except there isn't really anything for car chases and explosions in this supplement. Martial Avengers is very much the martial side of the conflict; melee combat primarily, although many of the new classes are gun-bunny by nature. It would be better to have our Voiceover Man introduce a Van Damme movie; there you go; Strong and Fast.

It's a good supplement. It does what it says on the tin. Need to inject some action into to your game? Use Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers. Looking to widen the range for Fast and Strong Heroes? Use Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers ... and just hope that Malladin's Gate comes up with supplements to support the other classes quickly!

* This Modern Heroes: Martial Avengers review was first published GameWyrd.

 

[Crothian]

Modern Heroes Martial Avengers

D20 Modern is a new take on the d20 system and it has been out for a while. However we have not been seeing a lot of support for the system. Leave it to the people who used d20 modern for a great fantasy setting to also offer support for d20 Modern itself.

Martial Avengers is a pdf put out by Malladin’s Gate Press. They have put out some very good pdfs most notable their Darklore Campaign Primer. That is their fantasy setting that uses d20 Modern I mentioned earlier. Martial Avengers is a pdf that comes in a four and half meg zip file and unzips to a 5 meg pdf file. The pdf is well book marked and is mostly black and white. There is only the one version and it has no borders but a few color images. So, printing is not a big problem with this product.

Modern Avengers is basically a class book for d20 Modern it takes the Strong and Fast classes and greatly expends on the options presented for them. There are new talent trees, new occupations, new uses for skills, new feats, and new advanced classes designed for these classes. The book also takes advantage of the ease of which characters can multi class in the system. There are talent trees designed for the strong and fast classes that multi classes with the other core classes. The same thing with is done with the advanced classes. It is a good touch that shows creativity and thoroughness.

The book starts explaining the theme and doing a chapter by chapter summary. Then it goes into the first chapter on talents. It has new talent trees like Athletes Talent Tree, Bellow Talent Tree (with a talent called Rebel Yell, gotta love that!), Accuracy Talent Tree, and Lightening Reactions Talent Tree. There are fourteen new talent trees presented in here and they cover a lot of new and very interesting areas. There are also new six new occupations presented here all designed more for the fast and strong heroes, but can work with the other core classes as well. I really like the idea of a Bully occupation and the Professional Sports Star. I think these are two that are not as obvious as workable occupations. They do sounds like a fun basis for a character though.

Next, we go into the skills. First there are new uses for old skills. They offer new things like using the Hide skill to Blend In and not call attention to oneself and using Move Silently to Move Through Water without disturbing it. These are good and pretty basic. It is the new stuff that gets a bit complicated. There are combat techniques that are skills. They are cross class for everyone except those that take the particular skill as a Talent. Personally, I think using skills for combat this way is a little too complicated for my gaming style. But those people that would prefer more detail in their characters maneuvers and options in combat may find them to his liking.

Feats, we never get to have enough of these little suckers. Thankfully, there are few feats presented here and they all fit nicely. Of the twenty five feats presented here there are some more common ones like Freestyle Climber that improves climbing and jumping checks, and ones like submission hold which allows the non lethal damage of a hold to build over time. The feats are pretty good and offer a few new options for the combat oriented characters.

A whole chapter of combat follows. It starts with some new grabbling options and using an active defense system. The grabbling options are many. There are options for the lock, for disarming the opponent, for dropping him, and tripping. The rules look good and should allow grabbling to become very useful fir one that wants a character that uses these maneuvers.

Next is the meat of the product. I am not sure if it was intended this way, but the advanced classes seem to be the culmination of ideas in this book. There are fourteen advanced classes and four prestige classes presented here. There are classes like the Athlete, the All American, the Assassin, and others that don’t start with A. One of my favorites is Shotgun Joe. It is your average Joe with a shotgun who faces off with supernatural forces armed with a trusty weapon.

Lastly, the book offers a new campaign setting. This is very action adventure oriented setting. It is called the Extreme setting. They do a nice job of looking at the setting and offering adventure hooks and plenty of different antagonists for the setting. It is very fitting for the character options presented in this book.

Overall, it is a high quality supplement for d20 Modern. There are some spelling errors and other minor problems that are noticeable but not distracting. The focus on the Fast and Strong classes is very good offers some great options for characters of these types.