Modern: Mercenary Manual

[Messageboard Golem]

In this 114-page PDF, written by Michael Tresca, are rules for including mercenaries in a modern d20 role-playing game. It covers the Modern and Futuristic eras. The Modern era covers the Roaring Twenties, World Wars I and II, Viet Nam, and conflicts in South Africa, ranging from 1600 AD to 1990 AD. The Futuristic era covers our current age, 1990 AD and beyond. Why call our modern times futuristic? Because this is the rise of the mercenary company as an international, efficient, and profitable organization.

Each era can be used in different settings. Modern campaigns can take place in a variety of settings, such as the pulp 40s, the Wild West, tactical combat in sweltering hot spots of the world, or even the final solution to out of control super villains. Futuristic campaigns can involve aliens, espionage, post-apocalyptic, or the new age of secret warfare against cyber-terrorism.

Modern: Mercenary Manual is a d20 Modern supplement that explores mercenaries throughout "real-world" history, how they've been used in fiction, tips for using them in your game, new feats, skills, and advanced classes. It also includes:

* A history of modern mercenaries with a timeline that extends to mercenaries in the future
* 14 new occupations
* 7 new prestige classes
* 60 new feats
* 13 new spells
* Rules for generating mercenary backgrounds, contracts, payments, punishments, and more!

 

[Crothian]

Mercenary Manual

In modern times the guys with the guns willing to do things for money has been an interesting side not. It seems that mercenaries are rarely discussed even though they seem to be a perfect fit for role playing games. They are usually independent, willing to do all sorts of jobs, and can be in different parts of the world and have reason to be there. That sounds like a good basis for many character I have seen and the earning money part never hurt that much either.

The Mercenary Manual is a PDF by Ronin Arts all about using and playing Mercenaries in d20 Modern. Ronin Arts is one of the leasers in the PDF community having literally hundreds of releases with no sign of slowing down. The author is Michael Tresca an up and comer in the d20 marker. The PDF is one hundred and fourteen pages long and nicely laid out. It uses many modern pictures of military personal through out the book. The book is fully book marked and it is black and white so printing is not a very big issue.

The book starts with a good introduction to mercenaries, a brief history of mercenaries in modern times, and some good reason why a player would want to do mercenaries in their game. Then the book goes right into the character. It starts with reasons for becoming a mercenary. This gives some direction as well asa minor mechanic bonus and penalty. Then it goes into some options for military background. These also have some small mechanic benefits like weapon group feats, some skills, and gear and contact. There are also occupations but these have been slightly redefined to be more military in aspect.

There is a nice section on ranks and promotions. The most useful past is the section of how this is useful in the game and it is nice to see this section in here. There are also a good amount of metals and these metals are not just prestigious but also have a mechanic value in the game. The book then goes into the life of a mercenary. It discusses the basic day to day stuff and covers a good amount of information into the mindset.

The book also has rules for creating a mercenary company. These basically use the leadership feat to get the numbers and levels of the characters in the company. It does go into it in more depth like chance of recruiting people in different sized areas. It also goes into a budget, headquarters and a lot of other factors to really make the company more defined. It does a nice job of bringing different elements together. I would love to see something like this done for the fantasy game.

There are seven advanced classes as it gets into some of the pure mechanics of the book. Some of the names are a little bland like Specialist, Soldier of Fortune, Traditionalist, and Professional. The skills though is where the book really takes off for me. They have some great military applications for the skills. Decipher script has some good cipher rules, diplomacy has some good modifiers dealing with known and unknown customs of people, and using search to ransack for basic and valuable items.

There are quite a few new feats presented, but first the book talks about and expands a bit on a few existing feats. Some of the new feats are for a near future setting dealing with cybernetics and genetic replacement of body parts. Many of the new feats are combat oriented like Sniper that increases the threat range of a weapon, two gun shooting, and speed loading., The feats cover some good basic areas as well as a few interesting ones that deal with the cybernetics and other near future items.

The book continues on with more good information on Mercenaries. It goes into good detail on the how they conduct business; get jobs, and how they get treated. There are some nice rules dealing with morale and discipline of the troops, and the law and how it gets applied to mercenaries. There is also some good information on contracts and using the rules to get and negotiate them.

The book really does a nice and thorough job of covering mercenaries. One great little feature that I do not see enough is a bibliography showing and providing valuable sources for additional research. The book shows that good research was done and it is well presented and organized. This will go along nicely with most modern based d20 games and with a little work it can even be beneficial in some of those less realistic more fantastic modern games as well.