The RPG Industry is filled with books that are in a sense reinventing the wheel. That is they take a subject that has been done a dozen times and attempt to put a fresh angel or new idea to it. Many times it turns out to be just another book on an overdone topic. Rarely does one see an RPG book that covers something original. And as Gates of Troy shows it is easy to find something original by looking toward the myths and history of the many peoples of Earth.

Gates of Troy is not a book of historical fact. The author states this almost immediately, but Troy is a subject of myth and legend that is quite famous even in the modern age. Of course with the movie Troy having been released not to long ago that should help in getting the story back into the general knowledge pool of the people.

Gates of Troy is a PDF released by Steam Power Publishing and written by Andrew Kenrick. The pdf comes in a zip file a little less then two megs and the PDF itself is a bit over two megs. It only has forty five pages and It reads as if it could have been longer. The PDF is in color, although most of the colors are browns and tans. There is a pale yellow border with Greek writing on it. It covers one side of the page and with no border on the other side makes it appear there is a lot of white space in the book. The layout is easy to read but the border is a bit distracting. The art is plentiful and looks mostly like clipart of Greek gods and pictures. The PDF is well bookmarked.

The supplement centers on the city of Troy and using it for a fantasy campaign. It is set in the Bronze Age and has some advice on how to simulate that. It would have been beneficial to the reader there was more discussion on what advancements the Bronze Age had and what it did not. It is obvious that some research was done for this book, I would have liked to seen more of that research though make it into the book. A bibliography would have been appreciated as well.

While the topic of Troy does a good job of separating it from the other multitudes of d20 books, I just was left with the need for more. The book I feel does not give enough details to properly run a campaign using the City of Troy. The city is well described and most of the book is devoted to it. Most of the major players in Troy are explained and stated out.

Gates of Troy does a nice job to introduce people to the city of Troy and provide a nice basic framework to run a campaign using the city and its events. I feel that a more detailed approach would have been very beneficial.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

(As this is a review of an adventure it will contain spoilers)

They Came From The Mall! is a 13 page Tale of Terror for Dead of Night, A Pocket Roleplaying Game by Steampower Publishing. This particular adventure supplement is written by Andrew Kenrick. The PDF is fully-bookmarked and comes in both screen and print varieties.

This adventure designed as a follow-up to the Tar-Pit Zombies adventure found in the Dead of Night roleplaying game (note ? Dead of Night, itself, is not available in PDF but a print copy can be ordered directly from the people at Steampower Publishing.) This adventures brings the players (known henceforth as victims) to a crowded mall for some holiday shopping. The shopping centre is on the outskirts of the town the victims live in. A local madman and mall owner has decided to release zombies into the mall, raise an army of undead in the mall and then conquer the town and then... the world <cue evil laughter>. The entire module has a very b-movie feel to it and fits into the Schlock horror module as proposed in the Dead of Night rulebook.

The plot of this adventure is basically, go shopping, zombie hordes attack, kill mastermind and stop the zombie horde and escape. The zombies are controlled by magical means, but still are drawn to eat brains and infect others. All the while trying to minimize bystander casualties or using them for cover depending what types of players you have. The tension level for this adventure varies from 0 to 10 by the climax. The whole adventure is structured exactly like the adventures in the Dead of Night manual.

The text is clean of editing errors and the mechanics look consistent with the Dead of Night game. The only statistics in this adventure are those of the zombies and the mad wizard Bartholomew Hex. The layout is such that the opponent stats are broken over two or three pages when a slightly smaller font could have accommodated them more cleanly. Since the publishers of this product are British instead of North American, I was able to learn the word tannoy (which is a mall?s public address system). Reprinted statistics are presented for the Zombies and Bartholomew Hex?s stats are a minor variant of the Sorcerer from p.136 of the Dead of Night Rulebook. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: All Dead of Night Tales of Terror are inexpensive. Consistent mechanics and style that supports the original rules.

<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The plot is a little to similar to a Dawn of the Dead/BtVS episode to feel original. I would have liked to have seen even a single piece of art or possible map. I would have liked for any monster stats pages to be written on a single page for ease of use.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

The Future Soldier: Fast Movers is a 31 page d20 future supplement by Steampower Publishing. This is the fourth in the Future Soldier series of supplements that seek to provide additional support for a war-centric d20 future campaign. The product is fully bookmarked and designed for a landscape layout. The product has four chapters. The text of each chapter is written in a narrative style with different speakers for each major section, sidebars are often used to organize crunchy content from descriptive material. This product is focused on the role of the fighter pilot in a war-centric campaign.

The first chapter is called Preparing for Battle and spans a total of eight pages. This section provides with a description of starship design philosophy. Next there are several pages discussing starfighter tactics for dogfight manoeuvres. Descriptively it covers five manoeuvres (lead pursuit, lag-pursuit, high yo-yo, low yo-yo and scissors) however this is followed by mechanical information for only two of the manoeuvres. This chapter also provides a handful of new equipment including flight suit (with scaled PL level adjustments), a cybernetic implant, two starsfighters (one PL 6 and one PL 7), six new pieces of starcraft features and two starship templates.

The second chapter is called Strategic Concerns and spans a total of three pages. It covers the role of pilots within a military. It also highlights the challenges faced by starship pilots over atmospheric pilots with respect to range of operations and opposition.

The third chapter is called The High Life and spans a total of seven pages. This chapter discusses the customs and traditions of the aviator life including what training is like, callsigns, kill markers and the alphabet soup of acronyms. This section introduces the concept of (veteran) feats which contain prerequisites of a number of kills. I was surprised to see a (subgroup) organization because with the exception of metamagic feats d20 modern had been spared that convention. Lastly there are a number of campaign models suggested for a pilot campaign and expands on some presented in the first future soldier release by Andrew Kenrick.

The final chapter is called Support Services and spans a total of six pages. This section provides the gamesmaster with a number of advanced class that can be used to flesh out the characters that pilot player characters interact with or even take themselves. The classes include a capital ship/military outposts crew chief, a sensor intercept officer, or a vac jumper. Out of these I find the vac jumper to be the most interesting one for character play as they can be actively involved in dangerous situations whereas the others are definitely sideline characters. All three advanced classes are tightly focused on their roles and offer abilities that compliment their concept.

The additional space is occupied by cover pages, introduction, index and open game license. There are no editing issues that I notice when reading the product and it designates all feats, manoeuvres, advanced classes, equipment and starships as open game content. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Professional design with little or no errors. Crunchy material present is well designed and balanced. Clear OGC declaration.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I found this book a little thin on crunchy goodness. I thought a book on starfighters would have more information on combat with wingman. There are a lot of interesting species named in the descriptive parts that possessed no mechanics.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Ancient Lore: The Gates of Troy, Book I: the Heroic Bronze Age by Steam Power Publishing is the first in a series bringing the heroic age of Greece to the D20 system. It is a 48-page document (46 after taking away the cover and OGL) with limited art, mostly clip art, and a clean layout. It also has an index, which are rare in PDFs but very nice to see.

This covers the heroic bronze age, the age of the Hellenic heroes who fought before Troy and who traveled the seas with Odysseus. The product begins with the changes needed to the standard D&D rules to adapt it to this quasi-historical period.

The bulk of the product is about Troy, its history, government, tribes (along with new feats suitable to characters from these areas), geography and NPCs. There is a lovely map of Troy which is described in some detail, very nice work here. There are notes on how things in the city change when the siege begins. Importantly, there are ideas on how to use the city of Troy as a centerpiece of a campaign, including suggestions on how to adapt it to other places and times.

The major Trojan characters of the epic (Helen, Paris, Aeneas and so on) are provided with stats (and an appendix stats them out for OGL Ancients). A variant cleric class, the priest, is included for D&D, as is additional information for the OGL Ancients rules.

Ancient Lore: The Gates of Troy is a solid resource for someone wishing to use these legends as a backdrop to a campaign or as a campaign itself. It is very focused however and will be of much more limited use to those who wish to play in other eras.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

This is a very handy supplement to D20 Future. Lots of interesting ideas and some useful advanced classes and other bits for managing a variety of sci-fi combat settings. One of the more surprisingly pleasant buys I have made.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Useful content and interesting ideas, some nice campaign models and an entertaining read to boot.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Could have been longer, and could have used additional content to support the campaign models presented, but these are minor gripes.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

This is a fun RPG. It's all done tongue in cheek, and if you like that kind of humor then you'll love this game. This RPG wastes no time with any background information. The PCs are all robots who are trying to become sentient. The GM is left to decide the specifics of the setting, which can range from steampunk to space opera to Josie and the Pussycats in Outerspace. It's a fun game for an evening and maybe a bit beyond.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The tone of the writing is a parody of fanaticism.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: It was free, so I'm guessing that they are just looking for someone to complain as a pretext to their eventual rebellion. I, for one, would welcome our new machine mind overlords.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

The Lemurian Candidate is an adventure by Steampower Publishing, meant for Goodman Games?s Etherscope RPG. The zipped file is 8 megabytes in size, containing two PDF files: the first is the adventure, weighing in at almost 5.8 meg, and the second is the printer-friendly version of the adventure, which is just under 3 megabytes. The adventure is forty-nine pages long (forty-eight for the printer-friendly version, which lacks a cover). Both PDFs have a non-hyperlinked table of contents, but only the main file has bookmarks.

It bears repeating that this adventure is for the Etherscope RPG. If you don?t have that book, you won?t be able to run this adventure ? not without doing a large number of conversions, anyway.

The cover of the main file is the only full-color artwork in the adventure, with the relatively sparse interior artwork being black-and-white. Pages have borders along all sides. Oddly, the printer-friendly version does lack the cover and the pages are borderless, but the interior art remains. Given how that?s relatively rare though (and much of it is maps), it shouldn?t be too large a problem for most printers.

An adventure for characters level 4-6, The Lemurian Candidate is the first in a series of adventures for the Etherscope game. In this one, the PCs are contacted by local law enforcement regarding a string of robberies of artifacts from ancient Lemuria. The adventure is loosely divided into three parts: the initial investigation of the crimes, the formation of a suspect, and the denouement as the real mastermind is revealed?or are they? Appendices after the adventure itself cover various characters. One appendix apiece are given for major NPCs, contacts that the PCs can make, and pregenerated NPCs.

The Lemurian Candidate does an excellent job of drawing characters into the world of Etherscope. Having multiple twists throughout, it keeps the characters off-balance a great deal of the time, but never so much that they can?t recover and move ahead. The ending is likewise open enough to lead to further adventures. If you have the Etherscope game, then you?d be well served by sending your PCs after The Lemurian Candidate. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This product presented an excellent adventure that is perfectly tailored to the world of Etherscope, leading in to what could easily be an Etherscope campaign.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The printer-friendly version didn't remove the interior art, but that's an altogether minor complaint.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is no ever-glorious crusade against the baby-eating Arachnids. It's a messed-up operation invading some inoffensive Info-Age otter people in support of the grubby interests of a corporate state. Not that there's anything wrong with that! The moral, insofar as there is one, is that war is a dirty business and loyalty to your fellow soldiers may be the best you are going to get for justification. Without spoiling the plot, that will be brought home in moral choices for the PCs at certain points in the campaign.

This is an adventure outline, not a traditional adventure module. It provides a chapter of in-character flavour narration by a Space Marine officer after the mission, plot summaries of each suggested mission and some rules elements (a new race, new vehicles and a prestige class) from which a GM will need to develop statistics for the opposition and most of the details of gameplay. I can't help thinking that the authors have done the easy part and left the spadework to the GM, but if a GM has the time for that, this may well allow a closer fit to the level and capabilities of a group than a more defined set of stats. It would work well as a rules-neutral supplement for the GM's system of choice, too.

It's well-written material with useful art and a sufficiently rounded account of a planetary drop, for the price.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

A well-designed investigative adventure that brings out the sense of the setting and balances neatly between real-world and Scope action. This may just be the definitive Etherscope adventure model. It also makes notable contributions to the setting and its rules procedures for research and investigation.

As in most investigations, there's potential for the players to flounder about two-thirds of the way through, but there are suggestions to draw them back to the truth.

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: It's based upon an obsession and a plot that have a very authentic Victorian feel. The characters are well suited in the same way.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some editing gaffes. The title is witty and the cover art is interesting, but neither has much to do with the plot. Anyone who buys it for the Lemurian Artifacts will be disappointed.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>

Future Soldier: Scattered Drop by SteamPower Publishing is a 21 page PDF in their Future Soldier line. This is the 3rd release in this series of PDFs that build on the material present in the d20 Future and d20 Modern Roleplaying Game. This book stands pretty independent of the other two although some pieces of equipment listed in this book were introduced in The Future Soldier's Battlefield Handbook so if you do not have that book then not everything in this product is a 100% usable. The adcopy doesn't tell you this but maybe SteamPower Publishing will make the 1 or 2 pieces of equipment available through web enhancement. The PDF is landscape and fully-bookmarked.

The product is divided into three chapters ? an introduction of 2 pages, a narrative section that discusses how the mission was almost a complete and utter failure for 3 pages, and a campaign of 10 pages. Rounding out the product we have a page for cover, credits, copyrights, biographies/TOC, index, and open game license. The product is written in a conversational style ? often in character ? that may be unsettling to some readers as the author breaks the 4th wall regularly to crack a joke or make a sarcastic comment.

The introduction of this product is short, which given the length of the product is appropriate, that provides use with a listing of what the product contains, what is needed to use the product, how the product is divided up and what the setting is for the product. Since there is no default setting in the Future SRD, third party publishers are left to individual provide a global context for their material. In this case it assumes:

1) Humanity rules/oppresses a number of worlds as a ?Congress of Economic Principles?. 2) There are 3 branches of military in the congress (army, navy and marines) and each feels they are the best of best and the others are incompetent 3) The PCs are marines 4) The CEP is a Progress Level 6 society and other worlds in its control are 6 or lower.

The second chapter is a narrative written by a veteran of the Ophiuchi Campaign (the mission in chapter 3) who outlines what happened in the mission. He goes into detail on how Navy Admiral Keller made 6 major mistakes that not only violated orders and wasted resources but also cost the marine core dearly and almost lost the campaign. The narrative is extremely well-done and holds to character well providing for a very fun read.

The campaign fills out the remainder of the book and is written in an outlined fashion. You will find descriptions of what each of the missions should entail but will not find statistics for the Fassdosi (Ottermen) forces, maps of locations, or specific numbers of opponents. Instead the campaign is more of an organized outline that discusses the relative difficult of opponents at each section and the general things that need to be accomplished. Depending on your play style you may find this to be ?open-ended? or ?unfinished? personally it felt ?open-ended? to me allowing me to use this product at any character level and on any world. As presented the missions provide a wide range of combat options including close combat, assault, mecha combat, siege warfare, and infiltration.

Hard statistics are provided for the Fassdosi Racial Traits (Ottermen antagonists), CEP Armor (a weaker variant of PL 7 Combat Space Armor), Zero-G/Recoilless Chamber (gadget for firing firarms in space), Active Missile Defence System (vehicle anti-missile gear), the EU2A9 Turtle APC (to move around the war ravaged streets), the Myolla Light Mecha (similar to the Myrmidon in the FSRD), Drop Pod (think of a CAP from Starship Trooper but big enough for 12 troops), Fyuu VAarr GTO missile (ground to orbit missiles) and a Navy Special Operations Support Soldier (military cybernetic hacker).

The OR7 Orion Tanks from the Future Soldier?s Handbook are referenced but not included.

Mechanically some of the crunchy bits have issues. The Fassdosi have non-standard ability score modifiers and movement, the Turtle APC has a driver autocomp but no bonus listed, Myolla Light Mecha has claws on its feat when they need to be placed in its arms, and I have no idea how the drop pod?s defence has been calculated.

The product lists ?all game content? as open game content.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Flexible design of missions mean this product is useful at any game level. Great narrative pieces. The non-mechanical text seems to be written with a lot of love for the subject. Solid cybernetic hacker PRC. No obvious or distracting editing issues.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: OGC declaration could be considered unclear. A number of mechanical issues were easily recognized. It would have been nice to provide GMs with suggestions on how to handle large scale combat or even battles with potentially large numbers of friendly NPCs.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Excellent Adventure, Andrew. Keep up the great work on these fine Dead of Night products. I can't wait to see whats next!<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

The Future Soldier: War in the Information Age is a Modern d20 product from Steampower Publishing. The product comes in a zipped file of just over 1 megabyte, containing a single PDF file of the same size. The product has indented bookmarks and a non-hyperlinked table of contents. While the cover is in portrait format, the rest of the product is in landscape. The entire book is thirty-three pages long, with a cover, credits page, legal information page, table of contents/writers and artists bio, index, and OGL, leaving twenty-seven pages of product dedicated to gaming.

No printer-friendly version of the file is included. The cover is full-color, while all interior artwork is black-and-white. It?s worth noting that several pieces of the interior art are actually photos.

War in the Information Age opens with a brief introduction from Operative Wolfe, discussing the state of warfare in the Information Age (Progress Level 5, which is the current day and near future). While this is the only part of the book that is truly first-person, the entire product maintains a rough, gritty feel to its writing style. It?s easy to imagine almost any of the sections of this book being verbalized by a grizzled war veteran. Interestingly, Operative Wolfe?s introduction ends with a note regarding the ?Temporal Act of 3254,? a presumptive tie-in to Steampower Publishing?s related book, The Future Soldier?s Battlefield Handbook (which isn?t required to use this product). The introduction closes with a single page of fiction regarding a soldier using some of the new material found here.

The first chapter, The Face of War, is largely fluff (non-game mechanics). It describes the atmosphere of how a soldier in the very near future will function on the battlefield, as well as covering the evolving natures of ground, air, and sea-based troops, along with special forces. The chapter closes out with the new Advanced Soldier advanced class, which mixes tactical advantages in with combative ones.

War and Society, the second chapter, is much like the first. Completely fluff, it describes how war is marketed to the private sector to recruit soldiers, and how it is portrayed in the media. A new organization, the Knight News Network, is presented. This is a hard-hitting network that shines a spotlight on secretive military operations, run by an ex-soldier himself. The chapter closes with a brief discussion on anti-war protestors.

Chapter three, Machinery of War, is where the new crunch (game mechanics) starts to be showcased. First to be given is a new material, transparent aluminum (TRALON) which is the new substance that most weapons and armor are based on in the near future. Following this, several new equipment, armor, and weapon gadgets are given, such as Enhanced Visual HUD Software, Variable Camouflage, and Laser Guided. After this comes several specific new armor and weapons, such as the Battlefield Helmet Interactive System, or the Optical Battlefield Weapons System. All of these specific items are given total costs and statistics, along with what gadgets they come with. The second part of this chapter covers new military vehicles. Seven new vehicular gadgets, such as EM Shielding and Assisted Targeting System, are given. Three specific vehicles (a tank, a helicopter, and a plane that can work underwater or in space) are then described.

Chapter four, Covert Operations is similar to the preceding chapter, save that it?s devoted to items of stealth and espionage rather than overt combat. The chapter opens with a few paragraphs on the military stance on covert operations, and then covers several objectives that would be undertaken covertly. Four new pieces of covert equipment, such as the Covert Body Suit or the S212 Shrike Remote Operated Spyplane, are given. The chapter closes out with two new covert-themed advanced classes: the Remote Technician and the Covert Operative.

The final chapter, Mission Simulations, gives eight possible military adventure ideas, ranging from a military exercise to test out new technology, to hunting down an assassin bankrolled by a foreign government. Following this is a one-page index.

Altogether, The Future Soldier: War in the Information Age does a fairly good job in accomplishing its objective. The new crunch that is presents is some of the most bad@$$ material you?ll find anywhere for Modern d20 games. However, the book does stumble slightly where it delivers its fluff. Giving us pages on how the military markets itself to high school and college age kids through video games and recruitment, or how the military always makes sure it has plausible deniability for covert activity, seems to be telling us the obvious. However, this is a relatively minor complaint, as most of the fluff in this regard is relatively brief, and the rest of it does present new material (such as the Knight News Network). Altogether, The Future Soldier: War in the Information Age is an excellent supplement for any Modern d20 soldier who wants to have the most cutting-edge tools. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This product presented new Modern d20 weapons, armor, and equipment, that were both cool and innovative. Any player who wants to have a character with the most modern, high-tech toys should definately get this book.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Sometimes the fluff text seemed to give us material that didn't need reiterating, such as mentioning how the military likes its civilian supporters, or hates news organizations that expose its operations. Also, this book had no printer-friendly version.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

?the future soldier?s BATTLEFIELD HANDBOOK? is 77 page pdf product from Steam Power Publishing. This supplement is for the d20 system and is based off the modern and future system reference documents. This book promises to be the ?must have? handbook for leading your futuristic d20 game into battle. Let?s just see.

Chapter 1 ? War without End

Spanning roughly 15 pages this first section of the book introduces 10 types of war campaigns. The product description describes this are 10 campaign options and in some ways they are and in some ways they are no, or at least not what I expected. What each of these options does is provide you with a one or two sentence summary of what the option is like, a campaign in brief section, a role of the heroes section, campaign traits, progress level, and 3 adventure setups. Very similar in setup to how the d20 Future book handles campaign options, however it only feels partially done because specialty mechanics (new advanced classes, feats, et cetera that are option specific are not present, at least not here). The options include war at the frontline, war stationed at a military base, war from the command centre, war from the spy perspective, war as a special ops, war as a mercenary, smuggling during war, guerrilla war, starship war, and reporting to you from the war. See when I look at this it really seems like one extremely well supported campaign option, the option being WAR. There is also an interesting description of what war is like at PL5, PL6, PL7, and PL8 on page 5 of this product, but do not, I repeat do not read this page. This page has many cool suggestions and ideas that are not developed in this book so if you read it you may well be disappointed in the book.

Chapter 2 ? War is Hell

This chapter provides supplemental rules and information to make the ?frontline? experience more authentic. It talks about the dangers of boredom when not at the front, it has rules for ?courage under fire?, battle fatigue, desertion, spacing, leave, injury and death, propaganda, deployment, and the use of psychics. The two are areas that are mechanical in nature ?courage under fire? and battle fatigue. Both seem quite solid, courage under fire requiring you to make a Will save under circumstances to avoid being shaken, frightened or panicked. One of the factors that can draw this check is the death of other soldier and situationally it states that, ?Each soldier killed +5? and this just makes me nervous as a potential player, as I would think every member of the MI in the Starship Troopers movie would have been panicked in the first battle especially after 10 or so members in a squad of 60 fell (+50 DC). I wonder if the casualty modifier should have been based on a percentage instead of a flat rate. The battle fatigue is interesting because when fatigued (there is a Will save to resist), you suffer negative levels, which is a really interesting use of that mechanic. These negative levels are lost with proper rest away from the frontline.

Chapter 3 ? The Future Soldier

This chapter has a number of Veterans feats and advanced classes. Veteran feats are a bit of a misnomer, they require that you have been in a war, each grants some bonus and weakness, they require GM approval to take, but they don?t take a feat slot and really aren?t powerful enough to be considered feats. So I wonder, why take this neat concept and force it into a ?feat? when it is not a feat. Why not simply an ?experience template? [in order to gain this template a character must ?] or some other new mechanic. There are 8 classes (7 advanced and 1 prestige classes ? though all are called advanced classes). They include a commando (PRC), battlefield technician, warmaster, marine, fighter ace, war correspondent, mechanized trooper, guerilla fighter. Essentially, except for a smuggler and a deep cover spy all the advanced classes implied by the campaign variations mentioned earlier have had some development here. Each is pretty much as you might predict with class abilities matching archtype very well. There is some is a conflict in this section in how ?Courage under Fire? is handled.because in a couple of classes abilities say, ?morale bonus to any Concentration checks or Will saves made to resist Courage under Fire.? except Concentration checks are never mentioned in the earlier section so this seems like something that got ? revised in editing.

The warmaster is an excellent advanced class for an enemy as the warmaster represents that opponent seeking to preserve his race by destroying others. The fighter ace is designed to be used in harmony with the Dogfighter and some abilities stack. One advanced class that I had looked forward to but was disappointed by was the ?Mechanized Trooper?, you see by reading that I though Mecha Pilot but a ?Mechanized Trooper? is ?well versed with fighting from the back of a speeding transport? and not a mecha pilot. The abilities are fine for a trooper who does combat from a moving vehicle, but I wanted and expected mecha.

Chapter 4 ? War Beneath the Stars

This chapter talks about starship combat, discusses the roles of crew upon as starship, introduces secondary damage rules, and provide additional maneuvers for space combat. The first 3 or so pages of this section detail the things that various crew complements should be doing during a starship battle. It introduces starship actions for hiding you corellian freighter next to a star destroyer to avoid sensors, boarding measures, fleet coordination (for a wing), intercept communications, launch other vessels, and use electronic countermeasures. Traditionally when a starship gets hit in d20 Future game you subtract weapon damage from the ship?s hit points, but not anymore with the secondary damage rules introduced in this section a ship may suffer from problems like equipment malfunctions, blocked passageways, computer malfunctions, fires, radiation leaks, loss of gravity and another 20 problems.

Chapter 5 ? Battle on the Planets

One of the shortest sections of the book it provides advice on urban warfare, riots, guerilla warfare, boarding actions and introduces a new use for the jump skill. The use, ?Rappelling? which I guess is fine but rappelling feels like a climb skill to me.

Chapter 6 ? Groundfall

Another tiny chapter this one provides advice on orbital attacks, planetary landings, ground assault and why orbital bombardment doesn?t work in the d20 fantasy system. Part of the discussion here relies on the low orbit altitude of 125 miles but that is not necessarily the low orbit of all planets, just earth.

Chapter 7 ? Machinery of War

Here the crunchiness of the book really takes off. For equipment there is one new PL 6 rifle, two new explosives, a combat feed and personal satellite. For starships we add boarding pods, assault shuttles, pirate boarding shuttles, as well as minesweepers, grapplers and docking clamps. Then there is orbital weaponry in the form of a specialized weapon, a satellite and space station. There are 11 new air and ground vehicles, 15 new vehicle weapons, and 9 new vehicle enhancements. There is also a single robot (hunter/seeker droid).

The pdf is fully bookmark and well balanced. The art work is supplied by a Sci-Fi clip art pack composed of mostly images from Star Ace. The editing is strong and the layout is mostly good, although there are some place when text overlaps graphics or graphics break up the text in a funny way.

I?m really torn on this book. It seems to do ?war? very well, but I read p.5 and p.5 tells me that war in the future will include a lot of things that aren?t developed in this book. So even though the book covers a good deal of material and offers sounds advice, I?m left feeling disappointed.

I hope that there will be a follow-up that addresses the other options mentioned on page 5.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Many adventure hooks and many styles of war games. Orbital weapons introduced. Iconic character types included that were missing from d20 future More land and air vehicles. Fully bookmarked <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Minor layout issues p.5 talks about a lot of ideas for future war that are not developed. Psychic and mecha only have passing mention Reads like a handbook instead of an rpg supplement <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

A nice addition to the d20 Future lineup. The book provides much in the way of options and little in the way of balance issues; it's also a great boon to GMs looking to build memorable villains; the warmaster class has to be seen to be believed. The campaign models are interesting and provide some nice flavor text (my personal favorite being right before the amoral arms dealers one.) There is some good (though brief) discussion of what war looks like at different PLs, which is niceto have, and the various discussions on various theatres and combat styles will be very helpful to any player or GM in a futuristic war setting. Highly reccomended.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

?The Gates of Troy? is a sourcebook specific to detailing the history and presenting the setting of Troy on the eve and during the Trojan War. It includes information on the occupants of the city generally, and focuses on the key players as set out in Homer?s ?Iliad?. Dungeon masters interested in running this setting, or simply seeking a resource to provide the basis for their own similar setting, will find this product useful.

I have divided the review according to the major sections of this product in order to provide some idea as to the underlying structure.

Playing in the Heroic Bronze Age This section sets the scene for the time period. It discusses character races, classes, skills, feats, equipment, magic, and monsters / mythical creatures. The suggestions range from what classes are appropriate for the setting to what adjustments should be made to core skills to maintain the correct flavor of the setting.

A History of Troy This section begins with the founding of the city and proceeds to provide an overview which proceeds right up to the commencement of the Trojan War. Those familiar with the story will recognize, among others, the names of King Priam, Paris, and Helen. It also includes sample stat blocks for both a Trojan Guard and Trojan Warrior.

The Trojans This section attempts to familiarize the reader with the flavor which should set using this setting apart. It provides sample Trojan names and discusses government, the military, religion, and trade. Included in the discussion is a stat block for one of the noted council members.

The Geography of the Troad The area surrounding the city is presented in seven different sections in sufficient detail to allow a dungeon master to map out a countryside that will bear some resemblance to the accepted legendary setting. If your players want to cross the Plains of Troy or walk along the banks of the River Scamander, this section provides the material you will need to set the scene.

The City of Troy Setting the scene within the actual city is the subject of this section. Initially, it presents background information on the city, including demographic information such as the population, size of military units, and a table for urban encounters. There is also a very well done image showing the city from an aerial view. While the drawing provides an idea of the general layout of the city, including the relationship between the major units of the city, it is not a useful map for a role playing game that relies heavily on mapping locations. This image labels the major regions of the city and a couple of key areas. Otherwise, it is impossible to navigate the city using this image. I should also note that inset on this page are two regional maps in different scales of the area surrounding Troy.

Any dungeon master hoping to run this campaign will, of necessity, have to create any desired maps. This includes city wide maps as well as more focused maps, such as for the palace. If you are looking for a setting that provides all the maps that are required, this product is not for you. Given that this product focuses on one city, more maps would be appropriate.

The Fall of Troy This section plays out the legendary scene of the fall of Troy and the Trojan horse.

Using this Book This short section presents the dungeon master with a handful of options to use the information presented. The suggestions here are mostly obvious and not presented with sufficient depth and analysis to warrant inclusion in this product.

Trojan Heroes Ten people are described and presented in this section, including stat blocks. They are the king and queen, Paris, Helen, Hector, Aeneas, Theano, Cassandra, Helenus, and Sinon. The priest class is also set out in traditional format in this section. The priest is a more studious and less martial class than the core cleric.

OGL Ancients This section presents a number of stat blocks, including the ten heroes, in OGL Ancients (Mongoose Publishing) form and includes variant rules introduced in the text of the book in the OGL Ancients format.

This product accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do admirably. The biggest fault of ?The Gates of Troy? is that a sourcebook focused on one city should set out maps for that city. The maps provided should be sufficient for a dungeon master that does not map out every step taken by a character to rely only on the provided maps in running the campaign while inside the city. Maps of the major regions of the city, such as the palace would have been a good place to start.

However, for those of you willing to do some mapmaking, add a star to my rating and you can be happily campaigning in this legendary setting.

To rousing gaming and ample rewards, I. Perez<br><br><b>LIKED</b>:

1. Legendary setting.
2. Presents the setting without getting overcome with historical details.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>:
3. Lack of maps.
4. Minor error in Table of Contents.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>