Soldier/Wheelman Class Guide

[Messageboard Golem]

Expand the possibilities at your gaming table with this comprehensive volume for soldiers, wheelmen, and any class who can pick up a gun or hop behind the wheel of a sports car. This sourcebook for the Spycraft RPG offers you a glimpse into the lives of these free wheeling action junkies, from constructing the perfect combatant with the Spycraft rules to using their skills to maximum advantage and more. Included are hundreds of new agent options, many for use with any class, as well as new core and prestige classes, career paths, and much, much more.

New Agent Options and Guidelines! Greater freedom when designing soldiers and wheelmen, and many more options than ever before!
New Rules! Advanced chase and combat rules, all in one volume.
New Classes! New agent options for both wheelmen and soldiers.
New Feats! New feat trees and feats to add onto existing trees.
New Gear! New vehicles, weapons, and gadgets just for soldiers and wheelmen!
Tactics! Tips and tricks from the pros!
Professions for Soldiers and Wheelmen! Dozens of career options for soldiers and wheelmen – from military to espionage options and beyond – including all the background material and rules needed to play them.
Game Control Support! Running games featuring soldiers and wheelmen, including details about their lives and duties, their function on a team, and their place in the world. Guidelines and rules advice for challenging them is also included.

 

[Psion]

Spycraft Soldier/Wheelman Class Guide

AEG's Spycraft espionage RPG was an instant hit amongst d20 based games, bringing high-action cinematic espionage to the d20 system. AEG is no stranger to the strongly supporting their products with supplements supporting different character types (AKA "splatbooks"). As with Wizards of the Coast's splatbooks supporting D&D, AEG has chosen to support their spycraft games with a series of books each handling multiple classes. The Soldier/Wheelman Class Guide is the first such book in this series.

The Soldier/Wheelman Class Guide is written by Chad Brunner, Shawn Carman, B.D. Flory, Scott Gearin, and Patrick Kapera.

A First Look

The Soldier/Wheelman Class Guide is a 104 page perfect bound book priced at $24.95. This is a little high for a book of this size. By way of comparison, AEG's Spycraft Modern Arms Guide is the same price but offers 144 pages.

The cover of the book is similar to most books in the series, depicting a black-and-white ink picture of an agent against a silvery-gray backdrop. The cover art (by Veronica V. Jones) depicts a short-haired woman on a motorcycle (highlighted in purple, in contrast to the rest of the monotone picture) and shooting a handgun.

The interior art (by Mike Sellers and Paul H. Way) is black-and-white. The style is similar to the Spycraft rulebook, with bold inked drawing with some exaggerated features.

The body text in the book is dense, header text clear and conservative but stylish, and paragraphs are closely spaced, giving a fairly high text density. The layout is pleasant and readable, with no major layout gaffes, but in some places, there are some extraneous hyphens interjected in words in the middle of a column.

A Deeper Look

The Soldier/Wheelman Class Guide is organized into four chapters.

The first chapter covers prestige classes. Many of the prestige classes are concepts that may more or less be realized with the existing Spycraft core classes, but are further bolstered and specialized with class abilities. The included classes are:
- Ace: The ace is basically a highly trained combat aircraft pilot. The ace's class abilities bolster the pilot skill and related skills that assist in airborne combat.
- Armorer: The armorer is a character with an expertise in creating and modifying weapons and other gadgets, and have a touch for using their weapons as well.
- Bodyguard: As should be apparent, the bodyguard is a character specialized in defending others.
- Grunt: The grunt is a combatant that is specialized in the use of automatic and heavy weapons.
- Hunter: The hunter is an expert track trained in stalking enemy operatives.
- Mariner: The mariner is an expert with waterborne vehicles.
- Medic: The medic, like the bodyguard, has a fairly obvious function.
- Slammer: The slammer is a character specialized in operating heavy armored vehicles such as tanks.
- Stingray: The stingray is essentially a special forces combat diver, such as SEAL operatives.
- Street Fighter: The street fighter represents masterful unarmed martial artists, brawlers, and other unarmed combatants.
- Street Knight: The street knight is a specialist in small, agile vehicles such as motorcycles.
- Tactician: The tactician is an expert in combat tactics and strategy, and has abilities that enhance his and his teammates effectiveness in combat.

The concepts embodied in these prestige classes seem a little basic, but the mechanics seem to flow well with the Spycraft rules and many would appeal to players to give a PC a schtick or specialty.

The second chapter is New Rules, introducing a number of new variants and options.

Those who where disgruntled by the confiningly espionage-oriented character departments in the Spycraft rules should appreciate the flurry of new departments presented here. The new departments are ones that you would expect soldier and wheelman characters to spring from, but they represent training from organizations other than espionage agencies. Characters can be trained as peace officers, special forces, racers, or be from a variety of military academies.

The skills section of the chapter introduces some new skill uses and new skill specialties such as the skiing and scuba-diving sport specialties. The most significant alteration here is that personal vehicles (which include things like hang-gliders, motorcycles, and snowboards) are now handled by the balance skill rather than other skills like drive or pilot. I am a little iffy on that decision. I could see how it would apply to snowboards, but am a little iffier on changing the governing vehicle skill for vehicles like motorcycles and hang-gliders.

The chapter includes a flurry of new feats, most of them related to combat, vehicles, or military operations (such at training in survival in specific hostile terrain types.) Similarly, the chapter introduces some new gadgets and personal (tripod-mounted) weapons.

The third chapter introduces new options and rules variants for chases. This includes rules for targeting specific parts of vehicles, jumping with vehicles, jumping from vehicles, skydiving and scuba-diving, and variants for collisions. These options help round out the chase system to handle a number of situations that arrive in the modern action/espionage genre.

The fourth chapter is the Spycraft Vehicle Guide. This chapter does for vehicles much what the Modern Arms Guide does for weapons. It introduces new vehicles, including new vehicular qualities and rules for new types of vehicles.

Conclusion

The Soldier/Wheelman class guide is not essential and does not do as much for the game as the Modern Arms Guide does, but many players will appreciate the expanded character options. Further, the new vehicle and chase options may be useful to many GMs who want more options with less work when adding new action sequences to their Spycraft adventures.

Overall Grade: B-

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Enforcer]

Would you please list the new departments that are offered? Thanks.

 

[zorlag]

New Departments:
----------------
Outside agency recruitment:

Infantry
Peace Officer
Racer
Special Forces
Stick Jockey

Officer Training (with sub-categories that modify base department)
- Australian Defence Force Academy
- Baghdad Military College (Irak)
- People's Liberation Army National Defense University (China)
- Sandhurst Military Academy (UK)
- South African Military Academy
- St. Cyr Military Academy (France)
- United States Military Academy at West Point

Military Academy Training (with sub-categories)
- Military University of Russia
- National Defense Academy of Japan
- Royal Military College of Canada
- United States Air Force Academy
- United States Naval Academy
- University of the German Federal Armed Forces

Whew... Long list and they are pretty good aid for players when coming up with background.

Z.

 

[zorlag]

New Departments:
----------------
Outside agency recruitment:

Infantry
Peace Officer
Racer
Special Forces
Stick Jockey

Officer Training (with sub-categories that modify base department)
- Australian Defence Force Academy
- Baghdad Military College (Irak)
- People's Liberation Army National Defense University (China)
- Sandhurst Military Academy (UK)
- South African Military Academy
- St. Cyr Military Academy (France)
- United States Military Academy at West Point

Military Academy Training (with sub-categories)
- Military University of Russia
- National Defense Academy of Japan
- Royal Military College of Canada
- United States Air Force Academy
- United States Naval Academy
- University of the German Federal Armed Forces

Whew... Long list and they are pretty good aid for players when coming up with background.

Z.

 

[zorlag]

New Departments:
----------------
Outside agency recruitment:

Infantry
Peace Officer
Racer
Special Forces
Stick Jockey

Officer Training (with sub-categories that modify base department)
- Australian Defence Force Academy
- Baghdad Military College (Irak)
- People's Liberation Army National Defense University (China)
- Sandhurst Military Academy (UK)
- South African Military Academy
- St. Cyr Military Academy (France)
- United States Military Academy at West Point

Military Academy Training (with sub-categories)
- Military University of Russia
- National Defense Academy of Japan
- Royal Military College of Canada
- United States Air Force Academy
- United States Naval Academy
- University of the German Federal Armed Forces

Whew... Long list and they are pretty good aid for players when coming up with background.

Z.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Steven Creech, Exec. Chairman d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing Up the Target
This review is for the Soldier/Wheelman Class Guide by Patrick Kapera, Chad Brunner, Shawn Carmen, B. D. Flory, and Scott Gearin with artwork by Veronica Jones, Mike Sellers and Paul Way. Published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG), this 104-page book is a supplement for the Spycraft campaign setting and retails for $24.95.

First Blood
What’s in this book? New rules that expand the existing Spycraft rules, new vehicle chase rules and new prestige classes just to hit the high points. There are twelve new prestige classes presented here. The Ace is your deadly fighter pilot, who can fly the wings off an aircraft and hit his target with incredible accuracy. An Armorer can build nearly anything and is armed to the teeth. The Bodyguard is professional muscle with vast knowledge of defensive combat and protection techniques. Grunts are exactly what you would expect. These are the guys on the front line who are masters of heavy weaponry. A Hunter is an expert tracker, capable of stalking fleeing targets with deadly precision. The Mariner is the water-based equivalent of an Ace.

Medics are the healers and always a welcome addition to any operative team. Slammers are experts in heavy vehicle operations, especially with tanks. A Stingray is the equivalent of the Navy SEAL. Street Fighters are fearsome, a combination of movie martial artist and street brawler. A Street Knight excels at using small vehicles such as a motorcycle. Finally, the Tactician empowers his allies by his ability to spot situations where the team may use to their advantage.

The chapter on new rules covers new backgrounds (dishonored and public life), new departments, new skill uses, new feats (a whole bunch), new equipment and new gadgets. The new departments definitely cover some ground that was missing in the Spycraft Espionage Handbook. The new feats cover several aspects of the feat tree, including style feats (hard drinking and old school).

Chapter three is devoted to new chase options. A broader range of rules is available for those characters who must go four-wheeling, jumping vehicles, engage in aerial pursuit, or even leap from the outside of one vehicle to another. There are also rules for racing and detailed one for vehicular combat.

The final chapter focuses on a wide selection of vehicles. Here you will find vehicles suitable for nearly any environment. New vehicle qualities have been made available for more customization of vehicles. Such qualities include air lock, heavy armor, life-support, stealth design, and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL). Of course, no vehicle selection would be complete without options for new ordinance and new vehicular gadgets.

Critical Hits
There are a plethora of new vehicle options that really help the book. Of the many prestige classes, my preference is the Street Knight. That one is just aching for a hot shot cowboy to go crazy with. The best thing about the book, however, is the new vehicle combat rules.

Critical Misses
If there is anything bad that you can say about the book, it’s only that the reader suffers from information overload. There is a lot of stuff packed in those 104 pages. One might make an argument about the inclusion of so many prestige classes but I am a firm believer in the diversity that they offer.

Coup de Grace
All in all, the Soldier/Wheelman Class Guide continues the fine tradition of excellence that the first Spycraft book started. There are several good prestige classes and more vehicle options and rules than you wil know what to do with. If you play Spycraft, then this book belongs on your bookshelf.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to Fast Tracks at www.d20zines.com.