In the genre of Superheroes especially in d20 and the OGL Mutants and Masterminds is king. It can make it hard to look at a new game using a similar system as one of the first thoughts can easily be it is not Mutants and Masterminds. Well, Godsend is no Mutants and Masterminds. It has its good point and bad but the thing it needs most it lacks. That is a clear history and background for the game. It has some of that but in the end it just does not have enough.
Godsend Agenda is a super heroes setting that has seen conversions into different systems. This is covering the d20 conversion and there is also a d6 system version that I know of. Godsend Agenda is by Khepera Publishing. The PDF is good sized being one hundred and forty four pages in length. It is book marked but only to sections and not to each little item. I prefer bookmarks to be more like an index that links to just everything. The art is hit and miss with a few more misses then hits. It is in color. The layout is also not that strong. There are considerable white spaces in the book and some pages are almost blank in appearance. The book is very well priced. I do not usually mention prices but three fifty for this PDF is cheap.
The book starts with a rare section telling people how they can use the book. This might seem a little self explanatory to people but it is always nice to see ideas from the writers and how they see the book being used. It expands the normal limits of using this book for just Godsend Agenda.
The one section that could have really made the book stand out is the history and the set up. It deals with aliens coming to earth and while they did a nice job of integrating Earth?s history with the Aliens being around the whole section is just too few pages. There are a lot of positives in here of creativity and well rounded thought out ideas. But in the end more detail and broader themes could have been used to make this a lot more easily used. It explains why everything is happening but it does not help that much in showing what a campaign or adventures would be like.
The game is based on d20 modern with a few differences. The first is Ka, this is a power pool that players use to fuel their abilitie3s. It is based on Charisma and a small easy to follow formula not unlike skill points. Instead of using Allegiances they have archetypes. These remind me of Nature and Demeanor from the White Wolf games. When a character does something fitting to their archetype they regain a couple Ka points. There are not a lot of Archetypes here but they seem to cover the typical super heroes.
The game goes on to give super attributes for each of the six attributes. Each has four ranks that one can achieve and each is well defined and gives additional abilities like the ability to lift islands and things like that. The game uses a merit and flaw system. I find it interesting that there are about three times as many flaws listed as merits. These fit into the point system that superpowers are gained from. I prefer a flaw system that rewards the character in game when the flaws come into use instead of having them equal points during character generation. So, other then my bias towards their system it seems to work well. I do like how each merit and flaw can be weak or strong depending on how many points it is. It is a very malleable system. The powers section continues like merits and Flaws and is again a very flexible system. There are about eighty powers listed here. It seems to cover about everything one would want.
They have a nice class called the Young God Prestige Class. This is the only class in the book and I note it because it has nothing to do with Godsend Agenda. The idea here is to offer a class that DM?s can use if they just want to take the super rules here and add those into their own campaign. It is rare for a book to offer a way to use it outside of its assumed setting.
In the end Godsend Agenda is a nice supers system for d20 Modern. It is made so that it easily adds on to the current game and while I prefer a bit more meat in the setting the point based system they have for powers seems to work. While it is only getting an average score the cost of the PDF presents little lost if one does not like it. There is little reason not to try the book.
<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Very easy to use with d20 modern<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I want more setting<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
Log In 
