Where to start? AS someone who has played various incarnations of Traveller, starting with Megatraveller when I was a kid, there are some interesting choices in this system that make me really want to like it. But I'm having a very hard time.

The Bad: The editing isn't very good. I expected problems when I started reading the table of contents and found errors in that. The page numbers haven't been updated since changes were made. For example, it says: Androids and Synthetics 124, but they are actually on page 92. The index might be better as it lists the correct page numbers, but there's no excuse for one of the first pages a new player sees to be wrong.

Another example is page 93, there is a section that has a line that looks like this (the entire line):

as The nest contains ach and as a sourc

That's clearly some sort of editing goof. Maybe multiple sentences blended together, but it is hard to tell what it should have been. For a PDF that costs this much, the editing needs to be top notch, and this certainly isn't.

The systems are overly complicated compared to previous versions. As an example of that there are 6 stats listed for humans, but sometimes they are Referenced as their abbreviation (Str for Strength), and sometimes as the order they appear in (C1 for Strength). Presumably this is because some of the stats can be replaced for different races. The inconsistency is annoying and needlessly complicates things. Some of the examples seem to have issues as well as after reading more I think they may have incorrectly applied their own modifiers, but I'd have to find the section again to verify this.

Maker systems. You want a gun? Build it using GunMaker. Want Armor? Build it through ArmorMaker. This sounds interesting, until you start going through them and realize this doesn't really help you as a Player to actually do anything useful. Just give a list of items with stats. A system like this should have just been an add-on optional thing rather than part of the core rules. Having a system to build start ships in a science fiction game make sense, but a nearly 20 page system just for building a gun? That's massive overkill.

The Good There is a thought toward legacies that I think is interesting. You roll 2d6 for each stat, and there are genetic stats, like Strength and Intelligence (but not Education or Social Standing). The first die rolled for genetic stats is your 'gene' and the second is how well you developed it. With this you can take any two characters and figure out an offspring's genetic predisposition. That's an interesting idea for a game to include.

Final Verdict: Skip this and keep with previous editions. They took the parts of previous editions that weren't great and expanded them to make them even more complicated and there is 0 payoff to this for both Players and Game Masters. I'm not sure how they thought that was a good idea.

There are some great playbooks in this collection, and they have some interesting synergies. The editing is okay (missing stats and incorrect page number references as noted below), for example, the Lich, which is able to create undead to serve it, lack a listing for the base damage die for those undead, but HP, stats, etc are listed for them.

The Lich can't be permanently killed if it has any phylacteries remaining in the world. This is balanced by making it fragile with 6 plus constitution hp, and a base damage of 1d4. This actually makes them much tougher than many undead since they usually don't get to make Last Breath rolls (they are automatically destroyed at 0 hp). But in my opinion, their real draw is their Create Undead move. They can take groups of humanoid corpses and animate them into undead abominations. The more bodies present, the better (and bigger) the resultant creation. They can only control a number of bodies equal to 2 + their level, so they can;t make the largest undead at first level, but as they level that gets better, and there are two options for increasing the number further. A 10th level Lich could animate as many as 16 bodies worth of undead, as well as possibly being aware of everything they see and hear, making them intelligent undead, and/or tougher and stronger than normal, depending upon the options selected at each level.

Now consider a party with a Lich and a Stitcher (think undead doc Frankenstein). The Stitcher can repair undead, and graft additional undead appendages, granting various bonuses. The Stitcher can add a coat of mummified flesh to the Lich's created undead, giving them extra armor, or a second layer of skin for 2 extra hp. With an Advanced move called Graft Optimization you can add two grafts to a single creature, so you could do both. Or get Darkest Designs which gives you better version of each of those (as well as other useful grafts) and really make those undead scary.

Next we have the Entombed Sorcerer (think ancient mummy). They start out a bit weak, with only a d4 for damage, but they have a different kind of magic called Heka. By invoking that they can do damage at different ranges, with hand range getting +1d6, near +1, and far -1. They can also use it to grant +1d4 damage to an weapon on its next damage roll, which could help an ally, and they can heal both living and undead, making them quite versatile. But as they level they can improve their damage, though it will take three of their advances to get to their max of 1D10, and after they they can get +2 twice, making them capable of doing a lot of damage at up to far range (1D10+4), and crazy damage at close range (total of 1D10+1d6+5, if I'm reading it correctly). But probably their most powerful effect is creating additional Mummies, though they are missing some of the needed stats as it refers to page 259 of the Base book (should be page 261 in my copy), which doesn't have any stats for their chance to hit (since as monsters it depends upon the PC's rolls normally), etc.

There are several other good playbooks included, and most probably don't have the same editing issues, though I missed the Entombed Sorcerer's lesser mummies issue until I was researching this review, so they might exist. I still really liked several of these playbooks and think they would make a really interesting, all undead party for a different kind of experience.

I'd easy bump this up to 5 stars if the editing issues were corrected as classes are really interesting to read and generally don't seem too unbalanced (probably a little on the high side in some cases, but not too crazy until the high end).

I like the setting a lot. Reminds me of the old AD&D setting Spelljammer. My first (minor) complaint is the use of FATE Accelerated Edition rather than FATE Core for the rules. I'd have loved a appendix talking about how one would use Core to represent the setting. Doing the conversion myself shouldn't be that difficult, but I'd like to not have to do that so I don't have to explain it to my players who aren't as familiar with FATE as I am.

The next complaint, which I think is more of a problem, is that the system for spending resources to get around the Aether Sea doesn't mesh with the suggested reward system. If you have to take 1 resources stress to travel the shortest listed distance, and most jobs for that distance pay just enough to recover that one stress, and lots of opportunities can show up that cost you additional resources, plus you can't bank payment between jobs, how does a ship not go out of business eventually? I think I'd prefer a different approach to ship resources and getting paid for jobs.

FATE is a flexible enough of a system that neither of these are game breaking issues and I still rate the game at 4 stars because it gets the creative juices flowing and shows some interesting approaches to a group shared resource like a spaceship.

Hard to complain about a free supplement with such high quality, but I did find one omission with the template included. There's no duration listed for the Eye Ray ability that causes a Constitution penalty.

I really liked the way the MachineSmith class worked. I wish it had a hero lab file, but I liked it enough that I seriously thought about playing it when we decided to play an evil campaign, where the characters started locked away in a sort of extradimensional super-max prison. But it didn't quite fit the character concept I decided to go with in the end: A flesh crafter.

After using a custom craft skill we sort of made this work, but it didn't quite have the crunchiness I wanted. I looked at a couple of supplements, almost went with one but it quite have what I really wanted.

Enter the Fleshwraith. The only thing I don't really like is the name. Based upon the Machinesmith in much the same way the antipaladin is based upon the paladin (antipaladin, even worse name for a class than Fleshwraith) and this class can do almost everything I envisioned my Flesh crafter is supposed to be able to do.

The pdf is 13 pages long, but since it builds upon another class there's more possibility here than you might expect. The class skills change, the abilities are in some cases similar, and in other completely different than the Machinesmith. Attacks, saves and hp are the same. Prototypes are a different list, but the overall choices are on par. One thing I consider a bonus is their healing by default works on living creatures, and at full strength, where a Machinesmith needs a feat to get it to work at half. They lose the ability to repair objects (and constructs) but that seems fair, and since most parties will have more living characters than constructs, probably makes the Fleshwraith a decent backup healer.

As they level, starting at second level, they start getting a few Evolution points to spend on themselves like a Summoner's Eidolon, to represent their own "intelligent evolution" experiments upon themselves. It isn't a lot of points, at 1/2 their level, but it isn't bad, especially since as they level they gain abilities to adjust it a bit per day (Don't need wings today but really need gills and a swim speed? No worries! Standard action and swap them out, and then swap them back tomorrow.)

Just like with the Machinesmith, you pick a Greatwork. But they add a few options. If you go with a construct, it is a biomechanical construct, which has a few effects on it (it can be healed, but is still mindless, etc). My favorite is the Genetics lab, because it allows you to store racial traits, which you can implant into other people (or your self) to give you that racial trait for 1/hour per level, with some limitations. Eventually you could even change the racial traits a character has permanently, though I'd like to see a way to add a template or something as well, that seems like a good candidate for a feat.

Finally, there's another class in this pdf that is related to the Fleshwraith, but trades the prototypes (spells) and repairing touch abilities for better Evolution Points and direct combat oriented abilities. It seems like a great companion or minion/master creation of a Fleshwraith.

I didn't even talk about the Hivemind and his.her/its love of Vermin!

If you liked the Malefactor base class that this expands upon, you'll like this as well. It adds a prestige class that combines the Malefactor and Witch into a hex-throwing, curse-loving, unholy debuffer that looks interesting, as well as adding some ability to theme a Malefactor's curse based upon certain "unlucky" terrains (swamps, icy areas, caves, etc).

My only complaint is that it doesn't include a Hero Lab file like the original class did. It makes it a bit less useful to my Malefactor character, and would be worth an additional star if it did.

The only thing keeping this from being a 5 star review is more specific examples of play. The one example of play provided elsewhere on this site is good, but genre specific. While it isn't hard to see how the rules would apply to different settings, I would have loved some more specific examples for my fellow players. We are considering using this for our Pathfinder characters who have made it into Epic level game play as the rules don't cover that situation very well (even using the 3.5 epic expansions doesn't quite cut it). We love our characters and the empire they've built, but while we've used the various systems for it, we've out grown the scale that each of them works at, and this system handles different scales effortlessly. We've had the goal for a while to turn this group into Gods in a new pantheon in our game world, but couldn't find a set of rules that would handle that. I think this will handle that just fine.

Players that are fairly new to more traditional role playing games like Pathfinder might actually be worse off than brand new players, since they'd have to unlearn some aspects. I've seen systems put everything in terms of the PCs before (in the old SAGA rules monsters didn't attack, rather the PC got hit if they failed to defend against an attack) which I thought was an interesting concept, but this takes it to another level, and gives multiple ways to show off how good (or bad) a a character is at any given aspect of the game. Is your character a badass witha gun? Is he the brain type who knows everything about everything? Is he something unique that wouldn't even be playable in most games? All of these are little to no problem.

One thing that would be an issue is the concept of plot threads. I love the idea, but trying to come up with a thread to connect to to each other character might not be as easy as it should be. I'd like to see a few examples in the book for that.

I'd like to see an expansion with alternative character creation. Maybe a life path like system for randomly generating your character's roles, especially if you don't have a specific character in mind for a session. Maybe tables for randomly generating adventure hooks and challenges? Discussions on different common and unique roles. A book covering those topics that would be worth as much to me as the base rules.

The Malefactor base class is a two edged sword. It lacks enough power to be really effective on its own and its debuffs benefit other classes quite a bit (wizards, sorcerers and witches especially) but in a group they will always be apart because they are too dangerous to the group when they are close by (benefiting enemy spellcasters).

The idea of a character that has been cursed in some way, and who uses that curse to their advantage (most of the time) is certainly different from most and I think this class has a lot to offer a group that other classes typically either can't do or can't do very easily. In the right party I think they could make a big difference by making it easier for the party's spellcasters to affect the enemies, but care must be taken to not affect the Malefactor as well, so I think this class would work better in an experienced group who works to maximize the advantage vs a group that doesn't understand the ramifications of battlefield placement. They don't get evasion or improved evasion, so they will need some protection of some sort if the sorcerer wants to drop a fireball on top of them if they get surrounded for example. And the Cleric will not want to spend much time next to them when they need healing since their save penalty (the core ability of the class) affects everyone in 10 feet.

The writing is good, and the concept is pretty solid, so I'm trying this class out in the next game my group is playing, where we are starting out as zero level dwarves, and in the first session my character was cursed and blinded (this was just before this class came out and I was trying to decide what class he could still be effective as with that drawback, so this seemed like a pretty obvious fit).

I bought this primarily for the Splicers information. The additional classes covered are interesting, but might be a bit difficult to use in actual game play. The Gardener OCC is designed for fortifying a location against the Machine by plucking and planting plant-based Biotech defenses in the ground, but while mention is made of what they need to do to raise the plants to full maturity (skill roll once per day) I didn't see anything indicating how long this actually takes per day. If it takes hours, then they could only tend a couple of plants if they want to to reach full maturity, but if it takes minutes they could tend many, or they could be much further apart. Also, rolling once per day when most of the plants take several weeks to reach full maturity means you will likely fail at least a few times, and each time you fail, you have to roll another (different) skill check, and if you make that one then you get to roll the best two out of three on the first check to recover. Again, no explanation for how long this takes. And if you fail the plant will never reach maturity. I'm not sure how any of the plants every would reach maturity this way. Even if you had a 90% skill (not likely!) if a plants takes 10 rolls you only have a 34% chance to make every one of them, and that's a remarkably low number of rolls to need to make. You could need far more than 30 in some cases. If you have around 50% (possible at first level) you have not realistic chance to raise anything to maturity. And the actual plants themselves have some really annoying rules, like this plants gets 3d6 branches and each branch has 3d4 of this fruit on them, etc. I really like the concept, but the crunchy bits needed to be thought out a little more. I still liked it simply for the ideas it presents, even if I don't think the actual OCC would be much fun to play.

Then there are a couple of additional classes, from a sort of bizzaro Saint that is interesting and flavorful (hurts rather than heals) to the Geneticists that do the actual grunt work around the genepools, from taking care of the young host armors and mounts until they are ready to be used in the field, to modifying biotech to come up with alternate designs and mods. They get pets in the form of failed (as in not quite right, but not truly useless) host armors that they can modify to do their bidding and act as test beds for experiments. They don't get host armors, so I'm not sure I'd want to play one as my primary character, but they could be very interesting in the right setting, or as an alternate for for a Dreadguard.

I just started looking through the PDF and the text is very unusually difficult to make out against the background used. I'm not the kind of person who normally cares about fonts, but the one chosen is too thin for the background image used. It needs to be on a different background, maybe with the area the text is at screened at 50% opacity or something. I was hoping it was just the first few pages, but the whole book is like this. I'm glad I only paid $5.99, because any more and I'd demand a refund (first time ever on Drivethrurpg, too). I'm not sure I'll ever be able to read the rules enough to really decide if they are good or not, which is unfortunate, because the setting sounds good. Maybe if there was a printer friendly version without the background.

I originally bought this because it was only a tiny bit more than Diaspora alone, so if I liked it then I'd have another game with the same basic rule set, and if I hated it I only paid about $2 more (at the time I bought it) than I would have paid just for Diaspora.

So far I haven't even looked at Spirit, and I'm impressed. I've read some other FATE based systems, so I had an idea of what to expect, but the detail for different areas from Ship combat to Social combat is exceptionally well done. The example from the play test for using social combat to influence a planet on page 169 shows something the vast majority of other Role Playing Games don't even try to touch, or if they do, it so simplistic as to be boring (a simple skill check or something). The only other game I've seen really try to tackle social combat is Exalted, and while not terrible, it isn't as fun in play as I would have liked.

Once you know the basic system, understanding the small changes for the other mini-games is pretty easy, and the character creation helps build characters with a sense of history and connection to the other player characters, which I find really helpful. Though adding a new character (for a new player for example) to a later session requires a little thought as it isn't specifically mentioned.

My only gripe is I'd love a mobi formatted version for my kindle as the areas with side bars don't convert correctly and become very hard to read through very conversion process I've tried so far (and native pdf viewing isn't all that great on the Kindle in my experience).

I was surprised when I read this class. I bought the bundle, and this was the class I was least interested in, but I'm glad I bought it. The class abilities gained have great potential, both as an individual and in a team. He isn't as tough as the Monster Slayer, but his combat abilities could easily be a life saver. Depending on the options you take (such as the class you use as the entry point) and the opponent you face, you could easily be a better combatant than the Monster Slayer. In fact, you could be a quite nice Monster Slayer Slayer.

The three Feats posted in the back are really nice for anyone who uses a fencing weapon, and the stance for the first one would be very frustrating for many opponents (especially combined with "No More Games" class ability). The would then be unable to spend action dice to increase their attack or damage against you, as well as be unable to apply any tricks to actions targeting you (with 'No More Games'), which should make you quite a bit tougher than normal.

The Infernalist is a very interesting class. They have great potential for roleplaying, both as a villain and as a PC. The layout is very nice and follows the same formula as the other class books, and the additional feats are quite nice. I could easily see additional classes like this, but based upon other otherworldly powers but changing the automatic feat gained at forth level as well as perhaps the penalty gained (levels of the Tainted flaw) as their level increases.

Personally, I think it would depend on my character's motivation as to whether I'd work on countering the flaw or improving my strengths if I were to play as an Infernalist. If I made the pact out of greed, I'd not worry about the drawback, but if I made the pact out of desperation, I'd probably be horrified at what it was doing to me and fight against that as much as possible. Of course the drawback only really hits full force if you are playing with the Corrupting Magic Campaign Quality, or you have some additional way to gain Tainted levels. But the potential power in the class is hard to ignore in either case.

I'll start out by saying the expert class Monster Slayer is a very useful class when you need to take out a monster (as opposed to a humanoid enemy). Some of his abilities are truly exceptional, especially in Dramatic scenes. You can generally sum this class up as somewhat like a Ranger focused on monsters like dragons, though that isn't a prefect comparison.

My only complaint is that the three feats at the end are NPC only, unlike the other two classes that were put out at the same time, though it is a small gripe as the upper level class abilities are really nice already.

I played Spycraft back when it was in version 1.0 and D&D was at 3.0, so when I heard about 3.5 coming out, I thought I knew what it was going to be like. I expected the sort of adjustments to the rules that I saw in Spycraft, but I was wrong. They decided to make minor adjustments and call it 3.5. Well, Fantasy Craft is exactly what they should have done. The rules, while detailed, are easy to understand. The options for character creation and in development are expansive. My only issue with it so far, is I can't decide what to make first!

If Fantasy Craft were a video game, I'd say there is tons of replay available. You have so many different ways to build a character, and different places you can branch out after creation, and none (or almost none) of them are wrong (or gimped). They all give you different options during play that are useful in different ways. The best way I can describe it to someone who has never played Spycraft would be if you took the ideas of Feats and applied it to everything. You have things that are sort of like feats in character creation, called Talents (human only) and Specialties (all species, including humans), that come from your background (Are you a Strong Human Barbarian, or a Wise Human Cleric?) and these are important aspects, even before you get to your class (So the Wise Human Cleric might be a Priest, or a Keeper, for example, since Cleric isn't a class, it's a Specialty in Fantasy Craft).

If you are on the fence about buying it and you like systems with crunchy bits, then it is a must have. If you liked D&D 3 (or 3.5) then it is a must have. If you liked Spycraft and like fantasy games, then it is a must have. If you prefer really rules lite games, then this probably isn't the game for you. But even then I'd suggest giving it a try, because it really is that awesome.