I like the general idea of a d20M pulp hero setting, but didn't think the advanced classes presented in Poly were very well-conceived for a pulp era campaign. For one thing, I don't know why the author thought existing advanced classes like martial artist needed better saves, and the justification that the setting requires more saving throws than a "typical" D20M setting doesn't make a lot of sense. D20M's characters' saves progress at a pace comparable with D&D characters, after all, and at any rate I doubt pulp heroes make more saves than, say, the heroes in an Urban Arcana setting.
Moreover, most of the advanced class abilities didn't seem to have enough thought put into them. For instance, I don't think bonus languages are an appropriate class ability for a larger-than-life pulp-fiction-style explorer, as it doesn't equip the explorer for constant travels to new, exotic, larger-than-life locales (just the ones where the bonus language applies). I'd rather see the character receive a broader, general-purpose polyglot ability.
Then there's the gangster's sneak attack ability. It's a bad idea for D20M. I could be wrong, but I think the authors of D20M realized early on that sneak attack is an ability that should not be carried over from D&D, knowing that characters in D20M are not intended to absorb gross amounts of damage as their fantasy counterparts do. After all, D&D heroes can expect to get hit often, take the damage and keep on fighting, and then get it healed back in relatively short order by the party cleric. In contrast, D20M characters rely on their Defense to avoid taking damage whenever possible, and when they do get hit they know that damage is quite likely going to stay with them a while. Between the lowered massive-damage threshold and the dearth of healing resources means that high-damage attacks have to be handled with quite a bit of care. While feats like Double Tap or Burst impose penalties in exchange for extra damage, Sneak Attack is specifically designed to be used in a circumstance where a character's Defense is lowered and the attack is thus much more likely to hit.
In short, while I like the basic concept and the city provided for the setting, I don't think the author took a nod drom D20M's creators and sat down to think out "what would make this character fun to play?" or "how would this character be useful in a group of pulp era adventurers"? Frankly, I think the advanced classes in D20M do an outstanding job of covering most of the bases on their own.
Btw, any other fans of Planetary out there? Couldn't help but think of good ol' Doc Brass and his ill-fated compatriots when I read this issue.
