What it does: Intermediary Classes (IC) takes 7 advanced classes and provides 9 "set-up" classes for them. In spite of the name, these are not necessarily intermediary between a class and an advanced class. In fact, most intermediary classes described here will need to be taken at Level 1 with a full background reflecting that.

Specifics Three of IC classes related to the Soldier. These all make good sense and two are well thought through. There is the Boot, for regular grunts, the Junior Officer, for regular commissioned ranks, and the Irregular for the very many soldiers of the world that are not from regular backgrounds. This latter class is perhaps not as well thought through and probably says more about America's current mindset than about an objectively-built Irregular class. However, still useful stuff. The other six have one-to-one relationships with: Investigator; Field Medic; Negotiator; Bodyguard; Field Scientist; and Martial Artist. In my opinion, some of these make odd choices and there are other advanced classes that could well have done with an intermediary build. For example, there are so many very accessible real-world means to build martial arts skills, is there really such a need for a "Blue Collar Badass" as an intermediary class to get there? Or again, there are so many real-world means to become a negotiator, why pick Trader as the intermediary class? Why not the much more specialized law enforcement/legal/psychology background to build a class around? As a final example, creating a Bouncer intermediary class (for Bodyguard) is a very odd pick because Stan & co. have already given us a Bouncer build in one of their supplements.

Pros Much of what I've said is negative but don't get me wrong: I really like the idea and the classes that work are great ways to get to advanced classes. For GMs or players that know they need a Soldier, but don't know much about the background a soldier must have, any of the first three ICs are excellent. Again, if you know you want a Field Medic specialist, the ER Intern may be just the ticket. I think the author has generally achieved a good balance between strengths and weaknesses. In future, other advanced classes may benefit from the same set-ups.

An innovative approach to entering about half of the advanced classes in the SRD. Instead of taking 3 levels of the appropriate base class(es), you take 3 levels of an intermediary class keyed to the flavor and style of the advanced class, giving up 3 (or 5) levels of potential multiclass in return for a much more unified character concept. For instance, if you're looking to go into the soldier class, instead of taking 3 levels of strong hero, you can take 3 levels of boot (professional western-type soldier training), irregular (terrorist), or 5 levels of junior officer (western style commissioned officer school). The soldier is, thus far, the only advanced class to have multiple intermediary classes to go with it, but there's an intermediary class presented for the Investigator, Bodyguard, Field Medic, Field Scientist, Martial Artist, and Negotiator classes as well. That this leaves the Gunslinger, Infiltrator, Daredevil, Techie, and Personality classes open for a sequel is not lost on me, and I hope that sequel follows this in the near future. I'd also like to see one for the FX classes. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The preservation of the flavor of a concept down to the initial level of play is a pretty cool idea.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is obviously a product geared towards power gamers. I'm not saying that as if it were a good or a bad thing, but that is the obvious intent of the product. These classes are designed as an alternative to the base classes of d20 Modern, and they are designed to progress characters into an advanced class as quickly as possible (mostly in 3 levels). This leads to some strange design choices (for example the "Boot" class gets all of the prerequisites in three levels, while it takes five levels for the "Junior Officer"). While the Intermediary Classes that lead to the Solider Advanced Class are the most straight forward, most of the other classes simply require that the character's skill ranks in the required skill be maxed out at each level.

It seems that this could have been thought out a bit better than it was, overall. Many of these Intermediary Classes are so tightly focused on the goal of meeting the requirements for their Advanced Classes that they could easily be hobbled in many situations. Focused characters are good but not to the exclusion of all else.

Also there is a repeated "copy and paste" error in the descriptions of the Boot, Junior Officer and Irregular Classes that give the wrong bonus feat in the description of each class. This mistake would make the characters actually ineligable for the advanced class that they are designed to move into. Strangely though, this error isn't in any of the class progression tables.

While this is an interesting concept, it could use some reworking.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: I liked the idea of an alternative to the d20 Modern base classes. However, classes that aren't so focused would probably work much better than what is offered in this book.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The classes are too focused, and the design of the Intermediary Classes (in many cases) require that the character's skill ranks be maxed in certain skills to meet the Advanced Class requirements. This makes for character who can only really do one thing well, and doesn't reflect what they are trying to simulate.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>