John Cooper
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Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook
By Moses "Wolfy" Wildermuth
MT Enterprises LLC product number SF1001A
44 pages, $12.95
Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook is additional information for players of the Mutazoids 3E game. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it's a science fantasy RPG dealing with mutated humans and animals on a future alternate Earth where at least two gene-altering viruses have run rampant. In an earlier review of the first product in this line, the Mutazoids 3E Player's Guide and Handbook, I compared the game to earlier versions of TSR's old Gamma World game (as opposed to the current version of Gamma World, which to my brief glance looks like it has quite a different feel from the original).
Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook picks up where the first book left off, adding a few more tidbits to those interested in playing in this post-apocalyptic game world, specifically adding rules for plant PCs, an update to the Herbalism skill, a "prestige vocation" (read: prestige class) called the Herbal Healer (AKA: the Medicine Man), a new vocation (the Far Eastern Holy Man, AKA: Monk), rules for martial arts, and a new Sphere of Influence ("Cryptic Alliance" for those of you used to Gamma World terms) called the Eastern Philosophies. All in all, it's a kind of mish-mash of leftover stuff that didn't make it into the first Mutazoids book, and I have to say the quality on this book is not up to that of its predecessor.
Let's start with the cover. Kevin Hall is credited with the cover, but it's a patchwork of several different works cut-and-pasted together. (I suppose there's a better "Photoshop" term, but I'm unaware of the correct terminology.) Let's see, we have a sentient tree that looks remarkably like a poorly-drawn treant, an American Indian sitting in front of a glowing, orange tree (the tree was my first hint at the cut-and-paste job on this cover, for the exact same tree is on page 18 in glorious black and white, background and all), and what looks like a badger hengeyokai from Oriental Adventures. The foliage is not very realistic at all - in fact, I'd say the best trees are those in the background, which is a shame because they're shaded in dark colors to fade away from view. Each of the figures is surrounded by a weird "yellow glow" effect, I suppose to make them look they're radiating power or radiation or something (the tree is the "rare golden nut tree," about which I'll say more later), but I suspect the real reason is to mask the fact that these have been cut-and-pasted together. One nice touch I noticed was that the American Indian is wearing a stethoscope around his neck, which is appropriate as the doctor's bag at his side pinpoints him as a medico, no doubt having qualified as a Medicine Man.
The interior artwork is...surprising. There are 5 artists contributing 21, let's call them "images," because "illustrations" isn't the most appropriate word in some cases. First, on page 40 there's the image of Kali, the six-armed animated statue from one of the "Sinbad" movies ("The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" if I'm not mistaken; the one with Tom Baker as the evil wizard), which was obviously taken as a "screen capture" or something. The "Yin/Yang" symbol on page 41 looks like it was made using Paintbrush or something, as it's pretty pixilated. And then, we have the ninja. Yes, I know that there are no ninja in this book - there are Far Eastern Holymen, or "Monks" - but one of the artists apparently decided to depict them as ninja. The one on page 22 - a full-page drawing, at that - is actually pretty good, because it's fully drawn and shaded. Unlike, say, the ninja on pages 21, 24, 25, 30, 33 (two ninja in the same picture), and 42 (two separate drawings, one ninja each). These guys are actually nothing more than quick sketches, uninked, some still with the original guide-lines visible, barely darker in some places than the paper they're printed on. I'm surprised anybody thought these were appropriate for a published work.
Some of the other pieces are reprinted from the first book, specifically the grasshopper-man and rat-man on page 1 and the lizard on page 44 (the latter of which is taken from the first book's cover painting). Still, having griped about the poor quality of most of the artwork in the Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook, I'll say that the art depicting the plant PCs in the first part aren't bad. I rather like the "cactus man" on page 6 and the other sentient plants depicted on pages 4 and 8. But all together, taken as a whole, the artwork in this book is rather disappointing.
Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook is laid out as follows:
Let's start with the editing and proofreading, two points that are high up on my list of importance (and admittedly, not as high on most other people's lists, so take this for what it's worth). Neither job impressed me. There's no proofreader listed in the credits - perhaps a telling observation right there - but James "Ftumog" Hough is listed as the guy responsible for the layout and editing, so I'll pick on him. (Sorry, James.) Apparently the use of the apostrophe is a lost art over at MT Enterprises; examples pile up page after page. They still apparently haven't decided whether the correct term is "Holy Man," "Holyman," or "Holy-One," as all three are used interchangeably. Likewise, they're not sure whether to use the term "GM" or "DM," so they use both. Many sentences contain typos or are missing a word (in many instances, it's the same word, as there are sections copy-and-pasted from one point to another, carrying over the typos and mistakes as well), and several passages were taken straight from the SRD without being updated (ogres are mentioned in the description of the dire flail, for instance). I counted at least 7 instances where the phrase "a Exotic Melee Weapon" was used; that should be an Exotic Melee Weapon, guys! One of the "ninja sketches" has a wide white border that obscures many of the words in the first column on page 25. The Herbal Healer's vocational abilities are not listed in the same order at they are received (that is, by level). The entries on the Primitive Potions Table on page 19 aren't in any particular order, and the descriptions that follow aren't in the same order as shown on the table. The two Asian Weapons tables on page 40 are all messed up: the Asian Weapons - Melee table has its last three columns labeled "Range," "Increment," and "Weight," instead of "Range Increment," "Weight," and "Type," so naturally the last two columns of information don't match up with their headers. The Critical for both the wakizashi and the katana, according to the table, is "19-20/?2" - nobody noticed the question mark there instead of the "x" or multiplication sign? Finally, the asterisked note under the top table actually applies to the bottom table, Asian Weapons - Ranged. Sadly, none of this helps the Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook come across as a professional product.
It's also worth noting - while not necessarily a mistake, as nowhere in the Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook is the phrase "3.5 compatible" used - that 3.0 conventions are used throughout: Wilderness Lore, Intuit Direction, etc. Again, nothing wrong with using the 3.0 rules, just as long as everyone knows those are the rules being used.
Having read the book cover to cover, I still have some questions and concerns that were not addressed:
On the plus side, I liked most of the Plant PC stuff, especially the concept of a parasitic, mutant plant taking over the body of an animal to gain sustenance and mobility. The "good stuff" was pretty good, but there wasn't a whole lot of it.
To say I was disappointed with the Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook would be a fairly accurate statement. It's particularly disappointing because I enjoyed the first book so much; while it had a few little problems, I appreciated the love and energy that was put into it. This Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook, however, seems to me more like something that was slapped together without a whole lot of thought. I hope that future books in the Mutazoids 3E series are much more like the first book, and much less like this one. I must regrettably (but honestly) give it a "2 (Poor)."
By Moses "Wolfy" Wildermuth
MT Enterprises LLC product number SF1001A
44 pages, $12.95
Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook is additional information for players of the Mutazoids 3E game. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it's a science fantasy RPG dealing with mutated humans and animals on a future alternate Earth where at least two gene-altering viruses have run rampant. In an earlier review of the first product in this line, the Mutazoids 3E Player's Guide and Handbook, I compared the game to earlier versions of TSR's old Gamma World game (as opposed to the current version of Gamma World, which to my brief glance looks like it has quite a different feel from the original).
Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook picks up where the first book left off, adding a few more tidbits to those interested in playing in this post-apocalyptic game world, specifically adding rules for plant PCs, an update to the Herbalism skill, a "prestige vocation" (read: prestige class) called the Herbal Healer (AKA: the Medicine Man), a new vocation (the Far Eastern Holy Man, AKA: Monk), rules for martial arts, and a new Sphere of Influence ("Cryptic Alliance" for those of you used to Gamma World terms) called the Eastern Philosophies. All in all, it's a kind of mish-mash of leftover stuff that didn't make it into the first Mutazoids book, and I have to say the quality on this book is not up to that of its predecessor.
Let's start with the cover. Kevin Hall is credited with the cover, but it's a patchwork of several different works cut-and-pasted together. (I suppose there's a better "Photoshop" term, but I'm unaware of the correct terminology.) Let's see, we have a sentient tree that looks remarkably like a poorly-drawn treant, an American Indian sitting in front of a glowing, orange tree (the tree was my first hint at the cut-and-paste job on this cover, for the exact same tree is on page 18 in glorious black and white, background and all), and what looks like a badger hengeyokai from Oriental Adventures. The foliage is not very realistic at all - in fact, I'd say the best trees are those in the background, which is a shame because they're shaded in dark colors to fade away from view. Each of the figures is surrounded by a weird "yellow glow" effect, I suppose to make them look they're radiating power or radiation or something (the tree is the "rare golden nut tree," about which I'll say more later), but I suspect the real reason is to mask the fact that these have been cut-and-pasted together. One nice touch I noticed was that the American Indian is wearing a stethoscope around his neck, which is appropriate as the doctor's bag at his side pinpoints him as a medico, no doubt having qualified as a Medicine Man.
The interior artwork is...surprising. There are 5 artists contributing 21, let's call them "images," because "illustrations" isn't the most appropriate word in some cases. First, on page 40 there's the image of Kali, the six-armed animated statue from one of the "Sinbad" movies ("The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" if I'm not mistaken; the one with Tom Baker as the evil wizard), which was obviously taken as a "screen capture" or something. The "Yin/Yang" symbol on page 41 looks like it was made using Paintbrush or something, as it's pretty pixilated. And then, we have the ninja. Yes, I know that there are no ninja in this book - there are Far Eastern Holymen, or "Monks" - but one of the artists apparently decided to depict them as ninja. The one on page 22 - a full-page drawing, at that - is actually pretty good, because it's fully drawn and shaded. Unlike, say, the ninja on pages 21, 24, 25, 30, 33 (two ninja in the same picture), and 42 (two separate drawings, one ninja each). These guys are actually nothing more than quick sketches, uninked, some still with the original guide-lines visible, barely darker in some places than the paper they're printed on. I'm surprised anybody thought these were appropriate for a published work.
Some of the other pieces are reprinted from the first book, specifically the grasshopper-man and rat-man on page 1 and the lizard on page 44 (the latter of which is taken from the first book's cover painting). Still, having griped about the poor quality of most of the artwork in the Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook, I'll say that the art depicting the plant PCs in the first part aren't bad. I rather like the "cactus man" on page 6 and the other sentient plants depicted on pages 4 and 8. But all together, taken as a whole, the artwork in this book is rather disappointing.
Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook is laid out as follows:
- Introduction: explaining how the Mutazoids 3E game is derived from the SRD, with explanations as to where the game deviates from it (no magic, no alignments, no character classes or races - since "vocations" and "classifications" are used instead - etc.)
- Plants as Player Characters: rules for Humazoid Plant (mutated plants with a humanoid build) and Parazoid Plant (parasitic plants grafted onto an animal host) PCs, including an Age Chart, Size Table, and how to determine which physical change mutations the plant might have
- Herbalism Skill: updates to the herbalism skill, including 18 new herbal remedies
- Optional Vocations: The Herbal Healer ("Medicine Man"), a 10-level "Prestige Profession" available to medicos and shamans; the Far Eastern Holy man ("Monk"), a 20-level vocation; the Martial Arts feat and 81 separate "techniques," or martial-arts moves, spread between 5 levels of difficulty; and martial arts weaponry
- The Eastern Philosophies: a Sphere of Influence based upon real-life Eastern religions
Let's start with the editing and proofreading, two points that are high up on my list of importance (and admittedly, not as high on most other people's lists, so take this for what it's worth). Neither job impressed me. There's no proofreader listed in the credits - perhaps a telling observation right there - but James "Ftumog" Hough is listed as the guy responsible for the layout and editing, so I'll pick on him. (Sorry, James.) Apparently the use of the apostrophe is a lost art over at MT Enterprises; examples pile up page after page. They still apparently haven't decided whether the correct term is "Holy Man," "Holyman," or "Holy-One," as all three are used interchangeably. Likewise, they're not sure whether to use the term "GM" or "DM," so they use both. Many sentences contain typos or are missing a word (in many instances, it's the same word, as there are sections copy-and-pasted from one point to another, carrying over the typos and mistakes as well), and several passages were taken straight from the SRD without being updated (ogres are mentioned in the description of the dire flail, for instance). I counted at least 7 instances where the phrase "a Exotic Melee Weapon" was used; that should be an Exotic Melee Weapon, guys! One of the "ninja sketches" has a wide white border that obscures many of the words in the first column on page 25. The Herbal Healer's vocational abilities are not listed in the same order at they are received (that is, by level). The entries on the Primitive Potions Table on page 19 aren't in any particular order, and the descriptions that follow aren't in the same order as shown on the table. The two Asian Weapons tables on page 40 are all messed up: the Asian Weapons - Melee table has its last three columns labeled "Range," "Increment," and "Weight," instead of "Range Increment," "Weight," and "Type," so naturally the last two columns of information don't match up with their headers. The Critical for both the wakizashi and the katana, according to the table, is "19-20/?2" - nobody noticed the question mark there instead of the "x" or multiplication sign? Finally, the asterisked note under the top table actually applies to the bottom table, Asian Weapons - Ranged. Sadly, none of this helps the Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook come across as a professional product.
It's also worth noting - while not necessarily a mistake, as nowhere in the Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook is the phrase "3.5 compatible" used - that 3.0 conventions are used throughout: Wilderness Lore, Intuit Direction, etc. Again, nothing wrong with using the 3.0 rules, just as long as everyone knows those are the rules being used.
Having read the book cover to cover, I still have some questions and concerns that were not addressed:
- Since a Medico (a vocation from the original book) already has the vocational abilities of Revive a Dying Character and Minor Surgery, shouldn't he gain something in return when those two show up as vocational abilities in the Herbal Healer prestige profession? Otherwise, a Medico taking levels of Herbal Healer is getting ripped off. (As an aside, if it's "vocation" instead of "class," why isn't it "prestige vocation" instead of "prestige profession?")
- Why is Counter-Throw a Level 1 martial arts technique (the lowest level), when it has the Level 2 technique Throw as a prerequisite? Likewise with the Level 1 technique Enhanced Throw, which also requires you to know the Level 2 Throw.
- The Iron Fist technique gives you base unarmed damage of 1d6 instead of the usual 1d4. So, what happens when you hit 16th level, when your normal unarmed damaged would be 1d12? How much damage do you do then? This problem is compounded with Improved Iron Fist, which starts your base unarmed damage at 1d8, and Transcendent Fist, which starts you out at 1d10. That means we need to know the next three progressions of unarmed damage beyond 1d12, neither of which is provided.
- Nerve Strike: Disable Limb can disable a limb (we'll ignore for now the SRD definition that logically would follow, that the limb now has 0 hit points), and if the limb holds an item, that item is dropped. Is that it? What effect does a disabled limb have on a character's speed? Any modifiers to Balance or Climb skill checks? Or maybe Ride?
- Can a non-Monk character take the Martial Arts feat? It would seem so, since it's annotated "[General]." In that case, having done so, how does he progress in the martial arts - that is, how does he gain martial arts techniques? I'd guess that he just progresses as a Monk of his same martial arts level would, but nowhere is that stated. It's also possible that without being a Monk, you have to take martial arts techniques as general feats, which would give non-Monk martial artists a real disadvantage against Monks, seeing as how quickly they gain techniques.
- Technically, as written, there's nothing preventing a PC from using Blood Choke - which cuts of the blood flow to the victim's head, causing him to pass out - against a creature without blood (like, say, one of those new plant PCs that show up at the beginning of this book!), or a creature with more than one head (remember, this is a science fantasy game with weird mutations). Is this an oversight? (This is just one example that makes it look as if the martial arts rules were grafted on from some different game, without taking the Mutazoids 3E game world into consideration.)
- Why does Nerve Strike: Improved Paralysis still only paralyze an opponent for 1d6 rounds, the same as Nerve Strike: Paralysis? Sure, the DC is a little higher, but if I'm going to invest a higher technique slot (level 4 vs. level 3), I'm going to want to see some more of a benefit than "there's a slightly better chance that it will work."
- Can I use Catch Projectile to catch a bullet and throw it back at the guy who shot it at me? I can't? Well, it doesn't say that anywhere; as written, I can catch a nuclear missile and throw it back, as long as the nuclear missile is being used as a ranged weapon. (I suppose I'm screwed if somebody picks up a nuclear missile and uses it, Hulk-like, to swat at me as if it were a baseball bat.)
- Why are the Eastern Philosophy bonus languages restricted to Chinese and Japanese? There are quite a lot of other Asian languages that should apply: Thai, Korean, Laotian, etc.
On the plus side, I liked most of the Plant PC stuff, especially the concept of a parasitic, mutant plant taking over the body of an animal to gain sustenance and mobility. The "good stuff" was pretty good, but there wasn't a whole lot of it.
To say I was disappointed with the Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook would be a fairly accurate statement. It's particularly disappointing because I enjoyed the first book so much; while it had a few little problems, I appreciated the love and energy that was put into it. This Mutazoids 3E Player's Supplemental Handbook, however, seems to me more like something that was slapped together without a whole lot of thought. I hope that future books in the Mutazoids 3E series are much more like the first book, and much less like this one. I must regrettably (but honestly) give it a "2 (Poor)."
