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?Blood and Time? is RPGObject?s 81 page genre sourcebook for the d20 modern game system. This genre supplement written by Charles Rice comes with a fully bookmarked screen version and a non-bookmarked printer friendly version. The product which is devoted to the concept of time travel within the d20 modern game, is separated into three chapters.
The first chapter of this supplement is for developing time travel characters and clocks in at about 21 pages. Within this section you will find three new advanced classes for time travelling characters including the anomaly (a being that exists outside the normal flow of time and who gains limited control of the timestream), temporal historian (the Reed Richards of any time travelling group, who helps the team fit in to the environment and not cause unnecessary temporal damage) and the temporal enforcer (the soldier who travels through time to conquer or set things right). Also included is a chrononaut occupation which grants one of the revised technology feats presented in this book. Next is a discussion of the Progress Levels as designated by the d20 Future SRD and the book reprints what is available there with the addition of PL 9:Time Age. It is at PL 9 that society has advanced to such a state that time travel becomes possible. In the d20 modern book, weapon proficiencies are divided into archaic, simple, personal firearm, exotic melee and exotic firearms levels, and although this works in a d20 modern game its not particularly realistic for a game that spans centuries. In a time travelling game one man?s simple weapon is another?s archaic. To adjust for this reality, Charles Rice has introduced a system that groups weapons instead by progress level Ancient (PL 1-3), Modern (PL 4-6) and Furturistic (PL 7-9) that can supplant the existing weapon proficiencies. Each of these has a basic and expert level which keeps the number of weapon proficiencies necessary to learn relatively constant for time travellers. The remainder of this chapter is focused on equipment for progress levels (1-4), PL 5 is in your d20 modern book, and PL 6-8 are covered in a number of WOTC and third party supplements. Now I must urge some caution here, these weapons are not D&D type weapons that vary a little bit by damage and cost but instead written up with care and detail taken to present an accurate historical representation of the weapon.
As such:
- Until the introduction of Damascus Steel in PL 2, weapons will break in battle from mistrikes and not from just sunders.
- Flails ignore shields
- Rapiers suck against medium and heavy armor
- Heavy crossbows (with the right ammunition) can ignore light and medium armor all together.
The second chapter weighs in at about 16 pages focuses on the topic of temporal mechanics and provides the DM with a campaign model with which to launch their fledgeling Blood and Time campaign. The mechanics section talks about the method used by the characters to travel, the power source, accuracy of travel, preparation time, physical and psychological effects of travel, and size and weight of equipment for transport. It also looks at how history can be potentially changed either through hotspots (personal interference, economic interference, cultural interference, environmental interference or technological interference) and how elastic or changeable the timestream is in your campaign. Paradoxes and alternate timelines are discussed as well. Its interesting to not that the area on temporal mechanic actually doesn?t contain any game mechanics but is left as a fluid fluffy discussion. I think this will potentially drive the focus of the campaign to the historical and future events moreso then the intricacies of time travel itself. Sort of like Doctor Who, we don?t often see his pilot or prepare the T.A.R.D.I.S for travel, the adventure just starts when he arrives where he need to be. The campaign model is called Time Enforcers and involves Time Enforcement Agents, ancient time gates, Fyr?Toll (alien invaders), and members of the Thule that could be best described as amalagam of Time Cop/Stargate/The Last Crusade, if such a thing can be imagined. Though I am not particularly found of this campaign model some aspects should resonate with players as familiar and make jumping into a time travel campaign easy.
The final chapter spans 40 or so pages and provides a historical timeline of historical facts and leading theories spanning the time from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago to 1900-1910 and the major wave of Italian immigration to the United States. At 1911 and for the remainder of the 20th century will be developed through the Timeline series of releases. Throughout this section there are 17 sidebars called ?Adventures in Time? that explain how certain events could be a good source of adventure. Hopefully, the Timeline series will also look at areas before the 20th century like Timeline: The Fall of Rome or Timeline: The Rise of Charlemagne
The product is well edited and cleanly laid out. There are couple of typos in the npc stablocks but nothing significant. The art seem sparse especially as we got close to the end of the pdf. All of the character?s chapter is open game content and all of the NPC blocks in temporal mechanics are open game content.
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<b>LIKED</b>: Well edited, laid out and researched product.
Campaign model that is easy to relate to.
Extensive historical timeline presented.
More realistic weapons
A technology feat system that would well in time travelling or d20 Future games
<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The character class options are very focused on the one campaign model. It would have been nice to see more than 3 advanced classes.
No sample Thule opponents.
Both Thule and Fyr?Toll see underdeveloped and could use more support here or in a Modern Dispatch.
<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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