For the low, low price of $1.99, there are dozens of ready to use characters for the ICONS roleplaying game. I have loved Dan Hauser's art from the get-go, but in this character pack you can really see a progression in his style. For example, in the original ICONS rulebook there is a drawing of the Revenant on page 7 that, while nice, is very much improved and detailed in this new character pack. That is not to say that the characters in this pack are do-overs of previous characters. Quite the contrary..there must be close to 100 character cards in this pack, presented as ICONS cards, 2 per page for the first 45+ pages. There are then several pages of cutout standups (much like in the original Marvel FASERIP box sets), and the final 25 pages or so consist of full character sheets for many of the characters drawn in the ICONS core book such as All-Star, All-American Girl, and the Mighty Saguaro.
All in all, I can't think of many RPG products that I've been as happy that I purchased than this one. The characters are all fresh and colorful and described in mechanical aspects, allowing me to come up with whatever type of backstory I want to incorporate them into my games. Like I mentioned earlier, I like Mr. Houser's art, and to see that it's only gotten better and better is an added plus.
And all of this for less that $2. I still can't believe it...
The only minor nitpick I have is that in the villain section of the character pack, the Real Name/Determination/Stamina section is hard to read being black text on a dark blue backdrop. Switching the font out with a lighter color to improve the contrast would help this set of older eyes. But this is a minor critique in the face of what is otherwise total and complete praise of my purchase.
I really appreciate what Adamant is doing with their new pricing structure. I would've bought this product at significantly more than the asking price and been just as happy with it. That it was only $2, means that this went from a merely great purchase to an epic one.
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