trancejeremy
Adventurer
I've been on the Dragonstar mailing list for a long time - well before the first book came out. However, due to a combination of my local game store not carrying this and being broke, it wasn't until relatively recently that I bought it via mail order.
Dragonstar is almost literally D&D in space. Almost literally because instead of the tack taken in Spelljammer (magical ships in space, often sea-faring ships used), Dragonstar features technology in addition to magic.
The Starfarer's Handbook is the first book set in the universe (although the d20 Annual last year had an article on it, including some spellware, which is like magical cyberware). It's basically equivalent to the Player's Handbook, though rather than standing on it's own, it's a supplement to it. It's hardcover, and retails for $27.95. Which is fairly reasonable, given that it's 172 pages + index, including 16 color pages. (I paid $21.90 for it, including shipping).
Physically, it's a solid book, though a bit lighter than you expect. I don't know why - the paper seems solid enough. The text size is about average, and thankfully, the margins are quite small. 1 inch on the outside, top and bottom, and about 1/2 inch for the inside. So, it's got a lot of text, even though they do use a lot of spacing for headers and such.
The artwork is nothing special. The cover is in fact downright plain - orange with red lines going to and fro, with a dragon emblem in the middle. The inside artwork is of varying quality. Some of the pieces are nice, but nothing that makes you say "Wow, cool picture.". The closest is the one of a drow women in a tight uniform. But even that seems odd - the proportions aren't quite right - her torso is too small in proportion to her head and arms - she looks like a literal dwarf. There is also a nice picture of a Dwarf miner in a spacesuit.
With a large number of artists out of work due to West End Games' bankruptcy, I think they could have found some better ones at doing science fiction style art. Or for FASA's Shadowrun line. So IMHO, the artwork does not do much to set the setting, except for the Dwarf miner in a spacesuit.
On to the important stuff, the contents of the text. As I said, it's pretty much like the PHB, especially in terms of layout.
Chapter One is an introduction to the Dragonstar (DS) universe. It's in color, but a lot of this is wasted by rather muddled colors in the artwork. Basically though, it gives an overview of the setting, as told by a person who used to live on a typical fantasy world before it got invaded by the Dragon Empire.
Dragonstar is, as I said, basically D&D in space. The cosmology is largely that of the real world - realistic solar systems, galaxies, etc. The galaxy it is set in is dominated by what is called the Dragon Empire. It's dominated by Dragons, because they are largely on the top of the food chain. Not just because of physical might, but as in the Shadowrun setting, they are powerful because they are extremely smart, devious, and are long lived.
In a somewhat Star Wars-ish feel to it, the Dragon Empire is now ruled by an evil dragon. It seems that as part of the empire's constitution, each type of dragon would rule for a 1000 years. And for some reason, it would be all the good dragons first, then all the evil ones. After 5000 years of being ruled by good dragons, it's now being ruled (for about 100 years) by evil dragons. The current emperor is the red dragon Mezzenbone.
Outside of the Dragon Empire is what is known as the outlands. These worlds are generally either uninhabited, or are typical fantasy worlds. As part of the evil emperor's nefarious rule, these worlds are being conquered.
Anyway, while this chapter could go into more detail, it's got a lot of flavor. Most of the setting will apparently be in the next book, the Dragon's Guide to the Galaxy, or somesuch.
Chapter Two is about races. It's about 17 pages. First off, it describes how the various races in the PHB work in the DS setting. It also introduces some new PC races - Drow, Orcs, Half-Dragons, and something entirely new, Soulmechs. Soul mechs are basically robots who have had souls transplanted into them by the use of magic. Pretty inventive idea.
Chapter Three is about classes. It's similar to the one about races. It describes the various changes to the normal D&D classes, including the Prestige classes and NPC classes from the DMG.
There are two new core classes, and 3 new prestige classes. The two core classes are the Pilot and the Machinist. The Pilot is not unlike the expert, only with a handful of powers and fewer skill points. The Machinist is someone who specializes in fixing things. It has some powers (nothing great, pretty much all involving item fixing or creation), a d6 for hit points, 8 skill points per level, and the worst attack bonus. From some quick test play of them, both are very weak in comparison to the regular classes, at least in combat. I will likely be using the Pilot from Weird Wars and the Techie from Fading Suns instead of these two.
The 3 prestige classes are Gundancer, Negotiator, and Technomancer. The Gundancer is sort of a gun fighting monk or rogue (and you need to have been one to take this class). The Negotiator is basically a Rogue with worse attack progression and bonus powers more suited to talking to people. The Technomancer is mostly a class for arcane spell users who specialize in building constructs (golems or robots).
I thought the new classes are pretty weak, in both terms of originality and game mechanics. The chapter is fairly large though (34 pages), and the changes to the existing classes are done well. Especially the altered Ranger.
Chapter Four, skills, is again like previous chapters, it starts off telling you how the existing skills have changed, then adds some new ones. It's 14 pages. They introduce several new skills, and do a good job of providing examples of DCs for them.
Chapter Five, feats, is yet again like previous chapters. It tells you how existing feats have been altered, or explains how they work in the DS setting, and then introduces several new feats. It's fairly short at 6 pages. Many of the new feats are vehicle orientated.
Chapter Six, Equipment, is pretty much all new material. It's 34 pages, and has lots of guns - blasters, lasers, slug throwers in different sizes, armor, adventuring gear. It also has a fairly detailed section on robots and robot design, with several examples.
This is pretty good, although it suffers from some terrible artwork. And it's not all that clear just what a blaster is. I'm also not sure how a laser can be autofiring - wouldn't it be better if the beam it fired lasted longer, as opposed to several pulses in a row?
Chapter Seven is on combat. It has lots of new rules for guns, many from Deadlands d20. Many examples are provided, which is nice. It's 12 pages, pretty short. There is some argument about the automatic fire rules, but I feel they do a very good job (and are fairly realistic).
Chapter Eight is on magic. This is like the early chapters, in that is describes the changes in regular magic, and how regular spells work in space. There are also 30 new spells for the DS setting. It's 15 pages or so (many new spells are simply variants of each other)
Chapter Nine is on vehicles. It consists of rules for movement, combat, stats for them, as well as several sample vehicles. The rules are also the same (basically) for starships, there are several generic starships given, including deckplans for the most likely player ship, the Exporer (which, if you are familiar with Star Fleet Battles, looks like one of the new Romulan ships). The rules are pretty good (though I do hate spaceships having a top speed, at least other than c), and are 22 pages.
Lastly, there is a 2 page index. While it doesn't seem to have any hidden jokes, it does seem to be accurate, making it very very handy if you want to look something up quickly.
All in all, a pretty strong book. I didn't really like the new classes, but they aren't that bad, just a bit weak. But other than that, I think the book is great. Yes, it's a bit devoid of setting specific information (spellware, for instance), but adding that would have raised the price (or delayed it) and changed the focus from a rule book to a setting book.
This book is immensely useful if you want to run a science fiction d20 game. Much of it is pure science fiction. It would also be very useful for Gamma World style games, or fantasy/sci-fi crossovers.
N.B. I would also recommend using many of the classes from Fading Suns d20. Not that the ones in DS are bad, it's just IMHO the ones in Fading Suns are better. And it has several new character classes/concepts that fit space fantasy well. Also, the social feats from it work great in DS, too.
Dragonstar is almost literally D&D in space. Almost literally because instead of the tack taken in Spelljammer (magical ships in space, often sea-faring ships used), Dragonstar features technology in addition to magic.
The Starfarer's Handbook is the first book set in the universe (although the d20 Annual last year had an article on it, including some spellware, which is like magical cyberware). It's basically equivalent to the Player's Handbook, though rather than standing on it's own, it's a supplement to it. It's hardcover, and retails for $27.95. Which is fairly reasonable, given that it's 172 pages + index, including 16 color pages. (I paid $21.90 for it, including shipping).
Physically, it's a solid book, though a bit lighter than you expect. I don't know why - the paper seems solid enough. The text size is about average, and thankfully, the margins are quite small. 1 inch on the outside, top and bottom, and about 1/2 inch for the inside. So, it's got a lot of text, even though they do use a lot of spacing for headers and such.
The artwork is nothing special. The cover is in fact downright plain - orange with red lines going to and fro, with a dragon emblem in the middle. The inside artwork is of varying quality. Some of the pieces are nice, but nothing that makes you say "Wow, cool picture.". The closest is the one of a drow women in a tight uniform. But even that seems odd - the proportions aren't quite right - her torso is too small in proportion to her head and arms - she looks like a literal dwarf. There is also a nice picture of a Dwarf miner in a spacesuit.
With a large number of artists out of work due to West End Games' bankruptcy, I think they could have found some better ones at doing science fiction style art. Or for FASA's Shadowrun line. So IMHO, the artwork does not do much to set the setting, except for the Dwarf miner in a spacesuit.
On to the important stuff, the contents of the text. As I said, it's pretty much like the PHB, especially in terms of layout.
Chapter One is an introduction to the Dragonstar (DS) universe. It's in color, but a lot of this is wasted by rather muddled colors in the artwork. Basically though, it gives an overview of the setting, as told by a person who used to live on a typical fantasy world before it got invaded by the Dragon Empire.
Dragonstar is, as I said, basically D&D in space. The cosmology is largely that of the real world - realistic solar systems, galaxies, etc. The galaxy it is set in is dominated by what is called the Dragon Empire. It's dominated by Dragons, because they are largely on the top of the food chain. Not just because of physical might, but as in the Shadowrun setting, they are powerful because they are extremely smart, devious, and are long lived.
In a somewhat Star Wars-ish feel to it, the Dragon Empire is now ruled by an evil dragon. It seems that as part of the empire's constitution, each type of dragon would rule for a 1000 years. And for some reason, it would be all the good dragons first, then all the evil ones. After 5000 years of being ruled by good dragons, it's now being ruled (for about 100 years) by evil dragons. The current emperor is the red dragon Mezzenbone.
Outside of the Dragon Empire is what is known as the outlands. These worlds are generally either uninhabited, or are typical fantasy worlds. As part of the evil emperor's nefarious rule, these worlds are being conquered.
Anyway, while this chapter could go into more detail, it's got a lot of flavor. Most of the setting will apparently be in the next book, the Dragon's Guide to the Galaxy, or somesuch.
Chapter Two is about races. It's about 17 pages. First off, it describes how the various races in the PHB work in the DS setting. It also introduces some new PC races - Drow, Orcs, Half-Dragons, and something entirely new, Soulmechs. Soul mechs are basically robots who have had souls transplanted into them by the use of magic. Pretty inventive idea.
Chapter Three is about classes. It's similar to the one about races. It describes the various changes to the normal D&D classes, including the Prestige classes and NPC classes from the DMG.
There are two new core classes, and 3 new prestige classes. The two core classes are the Pilot and the Machinist. The Pilot is not unlike the expert, only with a handful of powers and fewer skill points. The Machinist is someone who specializes in fixing things. It has some powers (nothing great, pretty much all involving item fixing or creation), a d6 for hit points, 8 skill points per level, and the worst attack bonus. From some quick test play of them, both are very weak in comparison to the regular classes, at least in combat. I will likely be using the Pilot from Weird Wars and the Techie from Fading Suns instead of these two.
The 3 prestige classes are Gundancer, Negotiator, and Technomancer. The Gundancer is sort of a gun fighting monk or rogue (and you need to have been one to take this class). The Negotiator is basically a Rogue with worse attack progression and bonus powers more suited to talking to people. The Technomancer is mostly a class for arcane spell users who specialize in building constructs (golems or robots).
I thought the new classes are pretty weak, in both terms of originality and game mechanics. The chapter is fairly large though (34 pages), and the changes to the existing classes are done well. Especially the altered Ranger.
Chapter Four, skills, is again like previous chapters, it starts off telling you how the existing skills have changed, then adds some new ones. It's 14 pages. They introduce several new skills, and do a good job of providing examples of DCs for them.
Chapter Five, feats, is yet again like previous chapters. It tells you how existing feats have been altered, or explains how they work in the DS setting, and then introduces several new feats. It's fairly short at 6 pages. Many of the new feats are vehicle orientated.
Chapter Six, Equipment, is pretty much all new material. It's 34 pages, and has lots of guns - blasters, lasers, slug throwers in different sizes, armor, adventuring gear. It also has a fairly detailed section on robots and robot design, with several examples.
This is pretty good, although it suffers from some terrible artwork. And it's not all that clear just what a blaster is. I'm also not sure how a laser can be autofiring - wouldn't it be better if the beam it fired lasted longer, as opposed to several pulses in a row?
Chapter Seven is on combat. It has lots of new rules for guns, many from Deadlands d20. Many examples are provided, which is nice. It's 12 pages, pretty short. There is some argument about the automatic fire rules, but I feel they do a very good job (and are fairly realistic).
Chapter Eight is on magic. This is like the early chapters, in that is describes the changes in regular magic, and how regular spells work in space. There are also 30 new spells for the DS setting. It's 15 pages or so (many new spells are simply variants of each other)
Chapter Nine is on vehicles. It consists of rules for movement, combat, stats for them, as well as several sample vehicles. The rules are also the same (basically) for starships, there are several generic starships given, including deckplans for the most likely player ship, the Exporer (which, if you are familiar with Star Fleet Battles, looks like one of the new Romulan ships). The rules are pretty good (though I do hate spaceships having a top speed, at least other than c), and are 22 pages.
Lastly, there is a 2 page index. While it doesn't seem to have any hidden jokes, it does seem to be accurate, making it very very handy if you want to look something up quickly.
All in all, a pretty strong book. I didn't really like the new classes, but they aren't that bad, just a bit weak. But other than that, I think the book is great. Yes, it's a bit devoid of setting specific information (spellware, for instance), but adding that would have raised the price (or delayed it) and changed the focus from a rule book to a setting book.
This book is immensely useful if you want to run a science fiction d20 game. Much of it is pure science fiction. It would also be very useful for Gamma World style games, or fantasy/sci-fi crossovers.
N.B. I would also recommend using many of the classes from Fading Suns d20. Not that the ones in DS are bad, it's just IMHO the ones in Fading Suns are better. And it has several new character classes/concepts that fit space fantasy well. Also, the social feats from it work great in DS, too.
