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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Teflon Billy" data-source="post: 2011284" data-attributes="member: 264">Sidewinder: Recoiled is an reinvention of the original Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures ruleset for use with D20 Modern, replacing the original’s dependence on the D&D 3E Player’s Handbook.I should say right off that I am a big fan of the genre, and a big fan of the original product, so I knew going in that I might not be the most harsh critic of this product.The first things that I looked for while reading were facets that had been improved since Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures. The first improvement was as obvious as the pages before me: The layout. In the previous edition, the layout could be confusing at times, but here there is a nice “western” feeling (for want of a better word) to the whole thing and it is very readable.A big improvement from the previous edition was the placement of the writings of Bat Masterson in shaded text. Previously,  I had found it difficult to discern which of the writings attributed to the legendary gunfighter were excerpts from his book Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, and which were the fictive contributions of the game’s author.The First Chapter (Called fittingly Introduction) draws heavily from material already printed in the previous edition. It’s been nicely tidied up and is more readable than before. The content itself is grand, using the works of Bat Masterson to detail such concepts as “The Code of the West” and clarify the varieties of denizen one can expect to find in the setting. It’s a good read, and I would likely read it irrespective of it’s inclusion in the gaming supplement.Chapter two, Characters, outlines the basic D20 Modern character classes (“Strong Hero”, “Fast Hero” etc.) but tunes them up for use in an Old West setting (replacing references to computer use and suchlike) and gives examples of such characters from history (again, through the auspices of Mr. Masterson). Also worth mentioning is the alternate “Cold Hard Cash” system offered in this chapter as an alternative to the D20 Modern wealth system. It is what we chose to use in our playtest game, and it worked well (but to be honest, we were never great fans of the wealth system, so we were not hard sells for another option).Chapters Three and Four deal with Skills and Feats respectively, and they are mostly just modifications of existing SRD material to match the Wild West genre.  The product includes a boatload of new feats specific to the genre, however, and they are (at least at first glance) well-balanced and interesting.Chapter Five, Equipment contains the changes to the original game that I consider to be a quantum leap forward. The authors have detailed and modelled myriad specific  weapons from the period; so no longer must PC’s make do with a generic “Rifle” or “Single Action Revolver”, but can equip their nearsighted, lying, hotshot kids with a “Schofield Revolver”, or their reluctant former-bad-man-turned-farmer with a  “Sharps Rifle” (Unforgiven references are flying fast and furious here folks). This kind of equipment minutiae is not to everyone’s taste, but this is my review and for what it’s worth I generally like this kind of thing a lot, and specifically for this genre, I like it a whole lot.Chapter 6 contains the Advanced Classes. 19 of them. This is quite an improvement over the five prestige classes provided in Wild West Adventures. Bounty Hunters, Desperados, Gunslingers, Mountain Men, Riflemen, Scouts, Tin Stars (Lawmen), and Wranglers are the ones that drew my players attention, but if you can’t find something here that meets your needs then you are a much, much pickier player than I would ever hope to cross paths with.Chapter 7 details the specifics of combat, and they are as deadly as ever (automatic critical threats when flatfooted are brutal, but the “Code of the West” as outlined in Chapter 1 hopefully puts enough non-mechanical penalties in place to offset the mechanical benefits bushwhacker PC’s would enjoy. The Fast Draw skill from Wild West Adventures has been done away with, and I think this is probably for the best (we always wondered why Fast Draw was not just normal Initiative…it seemed like an extra step).Chapter 8, The Trail is a decent breakdown of general mechanics for the genre. It includes the effects of Hanging (both broken neck and/or strangulation), Alcohol (including hangovers),  travel times (by foot, horse, stage, rail and water) and of environmental hazards the PC’s might encounter (Fire, Acid, Electricity (?)) and the ever-popular poisons and diseases. There is even a nice writeup concerning the concealment effects provided by Black Powder, which we haven’t tried out, but which look very easy to implement. I might actually try and come up with rules for suffocation to add to the concealment bonuses for these clouds of smoke as I’ve breathed in black powder smoke before and it is damnably unpleasant (as you could probably guess).Chapter 9 (The Corral) outlines the stats for 50 animals commonly encountered in the genre. I didn’t use any of them in the playtest so I will reserve comment (I don’t use many monsters in my D&D games either come to think of it)Chapter 10, The Bunkhouse, includes a pile of pre-made NPC’s for GM use as well as a huge selection of inspirational material (movies, books websites)So in the final analysis, this is one hell of  a good update on what I already considered one hell of a good product. Everything that I liked about Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures is still here, and what’s been expanded (particularly Advanced Classes and equipment) were expanded for all the right reasons.I was sent a .PDF of this product for review, but at the time of this writing it has been announced that Green Ronin Publishing (a perennial favorite) shares my enthusiasm for his product and is doing a print run. I can guarantee they will get at least one sale.</blockquote>

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