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Oh boy, it's back for round 2. More spelling errors, weak sauce character descriptions, and (I didn't think it was possible) even worse mechanical language.
Characters have pronouns that literally change in the middle of their statblock. Character descriptions do not match the art. And worse still, none of these characters are at all interesting, left with all the aesthetics of a cool villain, with zero emotional impact.
Still not it, chief.
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This product is deeply flawed on several levels. For one, the writing is so basic, I'm inclined to assume they used an AI. Key phrases are repeated, and the same structure is used across several backgrounds, leading to a deep sense of "sameness" across the villains.
The "adventure hooks" boil down to "They could be an antagonist! Or maybe an ally!" It gives me nothing to play off of, and no real impetus to do anything with these.
And then there's the mechanical issues. For example, "Common" is not a real language, and probably should not be included alongside "Japanese" and "English." Uncanny Dodge should appear in the Reactions section, because it's a reaction to use it. "CombatKnife" is not one word.
But the real biggest problem I have with this product is that it's so bland, it makes lettuce look spicy. Like, we have a master hacker, an evil CEO, a crime boss, and a ruthless assassin? I mean, sure, but have you considered making any of them interesting? I have no idea what the CEO is doing that's evil, for example. Or what enemies she's made. Or how. Or what her actual, tactical goals might be. These would all be great things for the adventure hooks to flesh out, if there was any effort at all being placed in this product.
This ain't it, chief.
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Art is excellent (well-cited and well-sourced - kudos to the team), and the information presented about the various areas is done so absent of dry demographic material. The focus is clearly on highlighting gameable content.
I also love the sidebars - "The Battle of Five Armies," "The Princess Fraud," et alia, are all great opportunities for a GM to steal for plot material. Damned good job!
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This book has three big strikes against it for me.
1) AI-generated content, and a lot of it, according to the introduction. Good on them for owning it, but that's a big ol' red flag for me.
2) No random job generator? There's exactly two d100 tables in here, one for names and the other for tech. Nothing for jobs, generating NPCs on the fly, etc. Not a focus on usability during prep.
3) While breaking down the megacity into sectors is a good idea, the sectors themselves feel very paint-by-numbers. There's a corporate sector! And a red-light district! And...well, it all feels very bland. Like the first cut of a cyberpunk city, not something that someone's spent a lot of time and interest coming up with weird and wonderful material for.
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While there were some issues with this product (very slow load times from each page), they can be mitigated in most formats. However, I just could not figure out how they were going to make piloting a Jaeger seem cool. Like, does one pilot move and another attack? Who gets the left arm?
Evil Genius cracked their knuckles and said, "We got you, son," and proceeded to come up with some really interesting, intuitive, and EASY TO RUN systems that actually make me look forward to spawning kaiju from the abyssal depths of my imagination to wreak ruin upon the WORLD!!!
My psychiatrist is working with me, OK?
The way Jaegers take damage, and how kaiju are handled, are well done. They keep the challenge of the original metaphors Del Toro introduced, and make sure you're not going to have typical 5E characters climbing up them Shadow of the Colossus style. I could keep going...but I'd rather you buy the book! :)
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This is a pretty solid product - 4/5 stars. The adventure has stakes, momentum, and meaningful choices, not to mention a decent introduction to the Skull Island / Monsterverse setting. The mechanics contained within are decent - gigantic creatures have some actual benefits from being as huge as they are, not the least of which is "Yeah, you're not hurting this thing without one of those Pacific Rim mechsuits." A variety of the flora and fauna from the movie make appearances, all with appropriately cool names ("Death Jackals!" "Psychovultures!"), and appropriately cool abilities.
Very good entry!
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Nations & Cannons takes the classic 5E engine and applies it to an historical basis. It cleans up a lot of things that are superheroic about 5E and leaves a fun, fast-paced, and simple overlay to 5E that lets you feel more like an early Assassin's Creed character. You're not playing George Washington, but rather irregular light forces he's assigned to various missions and duties during the Revolution. I suppose I should mention that these rules are written to be "side-neutral," so the enemy stat blocks say footman rather than redcoat, for example. You can play either the Americans or the Brits or (most interestingly) neither.
Stripping out spells leaves a massive hole in 5E, but the designers have fixed that with gambits, which take the spell concept of "cool thing you can do a limited number of times per day" and simply repackage them as feats of derring-do. So you can't use fireball, but you can absolutely blow up somebody's grenade as they throw it.
For a more nuanced review, I have also written one up for EnWorld: https://www.enworld.org/threads/a-new-d-d-revolution-nations-cannons-core-rules-review.697576/
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The book plays around with some great ideas, including giving martial characters techniques that do more than just "I attack," and reining in casters. It also jettisons the entire metaplot from the Clan War forward; the book is set right before the Emperor disappears. Much like Eberron, it's giving you the tools to create your Rokugan, not play through a pre-established story. Add in creative race / class options, a dueling system that actually makes you feel like your character is in danger, and a complete rework of the D&D magic system, and this book has a lot to recommend it.
However, the mechanics aren't nearly as simplified as I would prefer for a 5th edition game, and draw a LOT of inspiration from 4th edition. You're tracking various resource pools for martial characters, and the whole thing feels fiddly. This is definitely not the way to introduce new players to the game, but advanced players (or players who like 4th edition) might really enjoy it.
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