Neo
Mongoose
A new review Babylon 5 RPG Second edition..
2nd Edition Game Design by Gareth Hanrahan and Ian Belcher
Additional text by bryan Steele, August Hahn, Ian "Lizard" Harac, and Greg Lynch
This big beautiful beastie of a book has the new logo and starbusrt effect (As depicted above) on the exterior cover. The interior covers front and back are maps of the star systems and borders of the universe as of 2259. And the whole thing weighs in at 360 pages.
The book itself is broken into the following Chapters
Credits
Contents
Introduction
Welcome to Babylon 5
Characters in the Babylon 5 Universe
Ability Scores
Races
Classes
Skills
Feats
Influence
Telepathy
Equipment
Personal Combat
Space Combat
Atmospheric and Surface Combat
Spacecraft, Aircraft and Surface Vehicles
Games Mastering
All Alone in the Night
....And the Sky Full of Stars
Appendix A - Full Order List
Appendix B - Conversion Notes
Appendix C - Character Sheet
Index
License
Ill touch a bit on each chapter to give you some idea of what it contains
INTRODUCTION
Usual things found here what you need to play, tips for folks new to Babylon 5, tips for those new to the system, how to roll dice, calculate the occasional results with fractions involved (round up or down..) and determining multiplied results. Also some tips on the differences between the B5 system and standard d20 for veteran d20 players and summed up with some information about playing Babylon 5 in general. All pretty much standard introduction fare.
WELCOME TO BABYLON 5
Basics of the Babylon 5 universe from the start of the Earth Alliance through to G'Kars leaving the station to investigate the source of attacks on Quadrant 37.
CHARACTERS IN THE BABYLON 5 UNIVERSE
Covers a brief run down of the 9 steps of character generation, Concept, Ability Scores, Race, Class, Skills, Feats, Influence, Equipment and finishing Touches and an example of character creation showing what is done through each step as part of the process of creating Catto Jaddo a 1st level Centauri Agent.
ABILITY SCORES
This section covers the methods of generating a characters ability scores Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma as well as a table showing the modifiers for the various ability scores; also what the effects of ability loss are and also a breakdown of what the three saving throws Fortitude, Reflex and Willpower represent.
RACES
This chapters covers the base races in the game that players can choose from when makign characters, of which there are Eight The Abbai, Brakiri, Centauri, Drazi, Humans, Minbari, Narn and Pak'ma'ra Each races is broken down into description, personality, physical description, relations, systems, beliefs, language, starfarers, names, and racial benefits as is typical of racial write ups in d20 type game books.
CLASSES
This section details all the core classes in the game Agent, Diplomat, Lurker, Officer, Ranger, Scientist, Soldier, Telepath, Traders and Workers as you will note two new additions here the Ranger Core class is now included and also the Trader. All the classes are changed from 1st edition ones in a number of ways, different class abilities, defence bonus, addition of influences which reflect standings with certain political bodies, organisations or groups. And also a number of skill changes and refinements to reflect the new more compact skill lists of 2e. Also all core classes now follow a 10 level format over the usual 20 level format making multiclassing far more likely. People who play D20 modern will be familiar with this kind of set up. Also telepaths have changed a little to reflect the new telepathy mechanics.
With regard to the new classes the Ranger, which is intended to be an ISA Ranger is something of a hybrid of the An’lashok Ranger (prestige) and the ISA Ranger Core Class found in the 1st Edition Ranger Sourcebook though in no way invalidates the usage of the prestige class. The core class offers more benefits but has restrictions and is mostly representative of those who have trained to be rangers for many years, whereas the prestige in the rangers book is more for those who follow the path later in life.
Traders are pretty self explanatory they are the merchants handling the supply and demand of the universe at large in whatever their particular field of commerce is. Their abilities are based around their investments and ability to find a market and aid in negotiations.
SKILLS
The skills section is much the same as the first edition one although there are fewer skills overall in second edition as some of the skills have become clustered together under new skill headings. such as Acrobatics now being the name for the skill that handles both Tumble and Balance and also Athletics that now covers Climbing, Jumping and Swimming. Etc. The exact skill changes are covered in the Conversion document at the end of the book.
FEATS
The feats section again is much the same as the 1st edition feats section although there are some new feats like Ability Focus, Adaptive Mind, Blood Oath, Blood Rage. Also there are some feats which have had their benefits altered somewhat like Dodge, Evasive Action and Precise Shot (all those and more are covered in the conversion section).
INFLUENCE
The Influence chapter covers this new aspect of second edition and indeed influences will play a big part of your games. As noted earlier Influence represents your influence, reputation and standing with the many political, diplomatic, species, faction or organised based groups that are found in great numbers throughout the B5 universe. Influence is gained and lost through your actions or those of others who may attack your influence and thereby harm your reputation or standing with a group. Influence can be used for numerous things such as drawing on resources, or pressuring another group toward some decision or activity, or even just to boost your Diplomacy or Intimidation skill checks. There are “many” different kinds of influence liste din this chapter from Narn Political, Narn Social, Narn Economic, Narn Military, Thenta Makur, Rangers etc.. to name but a few all of which can provide differing aid to those with enough influence and are able to make their influence checks.
TELEPATHY
As opposed to explaining how the new telepathy system works in second edition I’ll just post a link to the forums where I already covered this.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15104.
EQUIPMENT
This chapter covers the sundry items, weapons and armours of the Babylon 5 games as well as the starting money of the characters various classes. Additionally the Black Market and Weapon Qualities are also discussed. There are some new weapons and items here and some of the known ones are slightly different to those listed in 1st edition such as the threat range/critical modifier of the Minbari Fighting Knife and the likes.
This chapter also covers Services, Lifestyle costs, Business licenses and Drugs.
PERSONAL COMBAT
This chapter deals with combat there are some differences, such as Defence now not being determined via Reflex save but now instead included a class based defence bonus on top of the dexterity, and Size modifiers to add to the base. People who played the STAR WARS roleplaying Game will be familiar with this kind of set up. The inclusion of boxed texts covering optional rules like bleeding or accurate shots are also a nice new addition.
SPACE COMBAT
Space Combat in 1st edition was fairly clunky taken mostly from Dragonstar, the system wasn’t bad but it needed help and thankfully the new second edition system is far more narrative and fluid in how it plays out. Again rather than describe how the new system works I’ll post a link to a forum on the threads where I got into more detail about the system.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11450&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
ATMOSPHERIC AND SURFACE COMBAT
This chapter covers the differences in the Space combat when waging atmospheric or surface craft (or indeed spacecraft while inside an atmosphere) based engagements.
SPACECRAFT, AIRCRAFT, AND SURFACE VEHICLES
This section provides the details and statistics for a whole variety of spacecraft every ship from 1st edition is covered plus a few land and air vehicles too boot. A number of cleaned up ship images and CGI representations are provide which is a fantastic touch for those like me who love to “see” what a ship looks like. Not every vessel is depicted but a lot are.
Not only are the statistical blocks provided in the new format but the ship orders for the combat system and special qualities detailed are also covered here.
GAMES MASTERING
This section is the ever useful chapter on running games in the Babylon 5 universe including the styles and types of game from running games that work in tandem with events of the show to running epic campaigns of your own design. Where to start, how to break the story arcs down into adventure seeds and scenarios and even how to link them together with other story arcs in order to give your adventures that ongoing episodic feel. There are tips on doing things in ways that help to convey the right atmosphere that people will associate with the Babylon 5 universe as well as tips on how to handle player actions in relation to so called “canon” events from the series and books.
There is also a timeline in this chapter covering events from the Vorlons first moving amongst the worlds of the younger races many thousands of years ago right the evolution of mankind and its eventual departure for the out rim some 1,000,000 million years in the future.
Character advancement is also covered in this chapter and discusses how to handle levels, abilities, influence gains and all aspects of improvement through experience. This includes Prestige Classes, which are all either 5 or 10 level affairs. Considering advancement beyond 10th level is now dependant upon multiclassing I had hoped there would be more but those included are The Fence, The Psi Cop, The Shadow Agent, The Terrorist, The Thenta Makur Assassin, The True Seeker, and The Xenoarchaeologist.
The first Ones are spoken of here also with a few paragraphs discussing both the Vorlons and the Shadows.
Also rules for Trade and Cargo shipping, finding buyers, paying expenses everything your self respecting traders need to begin building their economic empires.
Details regarding ship running costs, space travel, hyperspace and jumpgate procedures and all manner of Environmental rules and conditions, Encumberance, and Planetary Travel are also detailed here.
ALL ALONE IN THE NIGHT…
This chapter is the one which deals specifically with the Babylon 5 station itself, its sectors, its highlights its command staff and even the stat block for the station itself.
Of course statistical write up with details for all the major characters from the series from Sheridan, Ivanova, G’Kar, Mollari, Franklin, Delenn even Kosh.. right through to Bester and Mister Morden are covered.
The last section of this chapter is also pretty helpful as it provides stat blocks for a whole host of generic individuals broken down into race from Human Dock Workers and Medlab Personnel through to Centauri Dancers, Nobles, Narn Assassins and the like, essentially all the colourful characters that fill the background of the station from one moment to the next.
…AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS
This chapter details the state of the universe as it stands in 2259 pretty much from an Earth Alliance perspective. And gives details of Earth Gov, Earthforce, the colonies and even provides a timeline of the period from 2085 to 2257 of events concerning Earth Alliance.
Some talke of ISN, Idneticards and the Psi Corps in some moderate detail.
Finally this chapter covers the pertinent info and state of the various Major races and the Non Aligned Worlds.
THE APPENDIX A AND B
The first Appendix covers the orders for the ship combat system and gives a rbief description and the roll DC’s involved it is a nice easy reference (would also make a nice download handout..nudge nudge).
Appendix B is the Conversion Guidelines for changing things from 1st edition to 2nd edition I’ll make more mention of that below.
The Character sheet is a four page affair that is quite nice though a little cramped in parts. For those interested this can also be downloaded from the site
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/b52echarsheet.pdf
Finally the Index is a great reference and equals in my opinon the quality of the one found in Conan.
PRO'S
This book is a definite improvement upon the first edition the class improvements are in my opinion all for the better, and the much needed improvements to the telepathy and space combat systems are definitely for the better.
The inclusion of the Influence system is a really nice touch as is the class based Defence bonus replacing the Reflex based system of the previous edition.
The refined skill system is also for the better and the groupings provided work well.
Visually the book still includes many stills from the show along with some nice CGI ship images and the overall new layout and page borders are very evocative.
It is also this reviewers preference that they removed the season one info as this book is now purely a self contained game and season info can be saved for another book such as the Complete Season Guide that may or may not appear (fingers crossed).
CON'S
With regard to the downside of the book well I had hoped there would be some nice Illustrated images included for each of the classes. It is very much a D&D format to include an illustrated iconic with each class but I’ve always found that a really nice touch that helps give you the feel of each class better than any words can.
Classwise also my own preference would have been to include the Technomages as then ALL the base classes would have been in one book and second edition format, but that would likely have added another hundred or so pages to the book and bumped the cost up more. But as the Technomage isn’t covered in the conversion document and as it stands is now a totally different format to the new classes and is not an easy conversion off your own back, nor just as simple as making a few skill changes and adding influence without leaving it at least part 1st edition 20 level format it poses something of a question mark. I’ve seen a technomage statted for 2nd edition and not a great deal was changed but my point is that it should as it stands out like a sore thumb for its differences at the moment, whereas it should be in the new format like the other classes.
Finally the only other point of contention for me was the incomplete nature of the conversion document, yes it covers the important thing but it doesn’t do what Mongoose stated and keep all your 1st edition supplements entirely useable without you needing to do some guesswork. For example ships not covered in the rulebook that were in other sourcebooks you can make fairly good conversions of without too much hassles but those stats won’t be exact until the official ones that will be found in the Ships of the Galaxy book and rules for making your own in the Shipbuilders Guide (both of which are fantastic books to look out for anyway however). Also the conversion document isn’t much use as far as converting vehicles go, yes a few are in the main rules but as far as those in say the EA sourcebook etc.. go your going to struggle turning them into 2nd edition format without doing a lot of guesstimation. Again not a huge hassle for a DM but not what we were told.
Finally prestige classes as advancement beyond 10th level is now wholly dependant upon them it would have been nice to have a selection of at least 2 related to each of the base classes, however those included are very specific and specialised and although good not exactly useful outside of a very specific field of interest.
Beyond these few stumbling blocks however there is nothing else to complain about.
OVERALL
Overall this is a fantastic book and improves on the previous edition, which is exactly what a new edition should do. The changes made make right issues that people most complained about previously and things now mesh better all around making play easier and more streamlined.
With the exception of the points mention in the cons this book is a great start to a new era of the RPG.
Visually 8 out of 10, I would have liked some iconics art for the classes as mentioned but beyond that it is fine, better, clearer images of most of the ships were included which was something I wanted and the still included are not distorted or blurry but clear and appropriate. Additionally the page design and borders are very nice.
Content 8 out of 10, very good, almost perfect, all improvements were for the better, just the few slips mentioned in the Cons section prevent it from being a perfect 10.
Structure 10 out 10, Ideal, layout is sensible, helpful, boxed texts and option rules clearly defined and separated, examples throughout and finally a good and useful index and pertinent appendices couldn’t have been better in my opinion.
Overall 9 out of 10, Near Perfect, slight oversights on the conversion front and missing out one of the base classes were disappointments for me but overall the book is otherwise a total improvement.
2nd Edition Game Design by Gareth Hanrahan and Ian Belcher
Additional text by bryan Steele, August Hahn, Ian "Lizard" Harac, and Greg Lynch
This big beautiful beastie of a book has the new logo and starbusrt effect (As depicted above) on the exterior cover. The interior covers front and back are maps of the star systems and borders of the universe as of 2259. And the whole thing weighs in at 360 pages.
The book itself is broken into the following Chapters
Credits
Contents
Introduction
Welcome to Babylon 5
Characters in the Babylon 5 Universe
Ability Scores
Races
Classes
Skills
Feats
Influence
Telepathy
Equipment
Personal Combat
Space Combat
Atmospheric and Surface Combat
Spacecraft, Aircraft and Surface Vehicles
Games Mastering
All Alone in the Night
....And the Sky Full of Stars
Appendix A - Full Order List
Appendix B - Conversion Notes
Appendix C - Character Sheet
Index
License
Ill touch a bit on each chapter to give you some idea of what it contains
INTRODUCTION
Usual things found here what you need to play, tips for folks new to Babylon 5, tips for those new to the system, how to roll dice, calculate the occasional results with fractions involved (round up or down..) and determining multiplied results. Also some tips on the differences between the B5 system and standard d20 for veteran d20 players and summed up with some information about playing Babylon 5 in general. All pretty much standard introduction fare.
WELCOME TO BABYLON 5
Basics of the Babylon 5 universe from the start of the Earth Alliance through to G'Kars leaving the station to investigate the source of attacks on Quadrant 37.
CHARACTERS IN THE BABYLON 5 UNIVERSE
Covers a brief run down of the 9 steps of character generation, Concept, Ability Scores, Race, Class, Skills, Feats, Influence, Equipment and finishing Touches and an example of character creation showing what is done through each step as part of the process of creating Catto Jaddo a 1st level Centauri Agent.
ABILITY SCORES
This section covers the methods of generating a characters ability scores Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma as well as a table showing the modifiers for the various ability scores; also what the effects of ability loss are and also a breakdown of what the three saving throws Fortitude, Reflex and Willpower represent.
RACES
This chapters covers the base races in the game that players can choose from when makign characters, of which there are Eight The Abbai, Brakiri, Centauri, Drazi, Humans, Minbari, Narn and Pak'ma'ra Each races is broken down into description, personality, physical description, relations, systems, beliefs, language, starfarers, names, and racial benefits as is typical of racial write ups in d20 type game books.
CLASSES
This section details all the core classes in the game Agent, Diplomat, Lurker, Officer, Ranger, Scientist, Soldier, Telepath, Traders and Workers as you will note two new additions here the Ranger Core class is now included and also the Trader. All the classes are changed from 1st edition ones in a number of ways, different class abilities, defence bonus, addition of influences which reflect standings with certain political bodies, organisations or groups. And also a number of skill changes and refinements to reflect the new more compact skill lists of 2e. Also all core classes now follow a 10 level format over the usual 20 level format making multiclassing far more likely. People who play D20 modern will be familiar with this kind of set up. Also telepaths have changed a little to reflect the new telepathy mechanics.
With regard to the new classes the Ranger, which is intended to be an ISA Ranger is something of a hybrid of the An’lashok Ranger (prestige) and the ISA Ranger Core Class found in the 1st Edition Ranger Sourcebook though in no way invalidates the usage of the prestige class. The core class offers more benefits but has restrictions and is mostly representative of those who have trained to be rangers for many years, whereas the prestige in the rangers book is more for those who follow the path later in life.
Traders are pretty self explanatory they are the merchants handling the supply and demand of the universe at large in whatever their particular field of commerce is. Their abilities are based around their investments and ability to find a market and aid in negotiations.
SKILLS
The skills section is much the same as the first edition one although there are fewer skills overall in second edition as some of the skills have become clustered together under new skill headings. such as Acrobatics now being the name for the skill that handles both Tumble and Balance and also Athletics that now covers Climbing, Jumping and Swimming. Etc. The exact skill changes are covered in the Conversion document at the end of the book.
FEATS
The feats section again is much the same as the 1st edition feats section although there are some new feats like Ability Focus, Adaptive Mind, Blood Oath, Blood Rage. Also there are some feats which have had their benefits altered somewhat like Dodge, Evasive Action and Precise Shot (all those and more are covered in the conversion section).
INFLUENCE
The Influence chapter covers this new aspect of second edition and indeed influences will play a big part of your games. As noted earlier Influence represents your influence, reputation and standing with the many political, diplomatic, species, faction or organised based groups that are found in great numbers throughout the B5 universe. Influence is gained and lost through your actions or those of others who may attack your influence and thereby harm your reputation or standing with a group. Influence can be used for numerous things such as drawing on resources, or pressuring another group toward some decision or activity, or even just to boost your Diplomacy or Intimidation skill checks. There are “many” different kinds of influence liste din this chapter from Narn Political, Narn Social, Narn Economic, Narn Military, Thenta Makur, Rangers etc.. to name but a few all of which can provide differing aid to those with enough influence and are able to make their influence checks.
TELEPATHY
As opposed to explaining how the new telepathy system works in second edition I’ll just post a link to the forums where I already covered this.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15104.
EQUIPMENT
This chapter covers the sundry items, weapons and armours of the Babylon 5 games as well as the starting money of the characters various classes. Additionally the Black Market and Weapon Qualities are also discussed. There are some new weapons and items here and some of the known ones are slightly different to those listed in 1st edition such as the threat range/critical modifier of the Minbari Fighting Knife and the likes.
This chapter also covers Services, Lifestyle costs, Business licenses and Drugs.
PERSONAL COMBAT
This chapter deals with combat there are some differences, such as Defence now not being determined via Reflex save but now instead included a class based defence bonus on top of the dexterity, and Size modifiers to add to the base. People who played the STAR WARS roleplaying Game will be familiar with this kind of set up. The inclusion of boxed texts covering optional rules like bleeding or accurate shots are also a nice new addition.
SPACE COMBAT
Space Combat in 1st edition was fairly clunky taken mostly from Dragonstar, the system wasn’t bad but it needed help and thankfully the new second edition system is far more narrative and fluid in how it plays out. Again rather than describe how the new system works I’ll post a link to a forum on the threads where I got into more detail about the system.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11450&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
ATMOSPHERIC AND SURFACE COMBAT
This chapter covers the differences in the Space combat when waging atmospheric or surface craft (or indeed spacecraft while inside an atmosphere) based engagements.
SPACECRAFT, AIRCRAFT, AND SURFACE VEHICLES
This section provides the details and statistics for a whole variety of spacecraft every ship from 1st edition is covered plus a few land and air vehicles too boot. A number of cleaned up ship images and CGI representations are provide which is a fantastic touch for those like me who love to “see” what a ship looks like. Not every vessel is depicted but a lot are.
Not only are the statistical blocks provided in the new format but the ship orders for the combat system and special qualities detailed are also covered here.
GAMES MASTERING
This section is the ever useful chapter on running games in the Babylon 5 universe including the styles and types of game from running games that work in tandem with events of the show to running epic campaigns of your own design. Where to start, how to break the story arcs down into adventure seeds and scenarios and even how to link them together with other story arcs in order to give your adventures that ongoing episodic feel. There are tips on doing things in ways that help to convey the right atmosphere that people will associate with the Babylon 5 universe as well as tips on how to handle player actions in relation to so called “canon” events from the series and books.
There is also a timeline in this chapter covering events from the Vorlons first moving amongst the worlds of the younger races many thousands of years ago right the evolution of mankind and its eventual departure for the out rim some 1,000,000 million years in the future.
Character advancement is also covered in this chapter and discusses how to handle levels, abilities, influence gains and all aspects of improvement through experience. This includes Prestige Classes, which are all either 5 or 10 level affairs. Considering advancement beyond 10th level is now dependant upon multiclassing I had hoped there would be more but those included are The Fence, The Psi Cop, The Shadow Agent, The Terrorist, The Thenta Makur Assassin, The True Seeker, and The Xenoarchaeologist.
The first Ones are spoken of here also with a few paragraphs discussing both the Vorlons and the Shadows.
Also rules for Trade and Cargo shipping, finding buyers, paying expenses everything your self respecting traders need to begin building their economic empires.
Details regarding ship running costs, space travel, hyperspace and jumpgate procedures and all manner of Environmental rules and conditions, Encumberance, and Planetary Travel are also detailed here.
ALL ALONE IN THE NIGHT…
This chapter is the one which deals specifically with the Babylon 5 station itself, its sectors, its highlights its command staff and even the stat block for the station itself.
Of course statistical write up with details for all the major characters from the series from Sheridan, Ivanova, G’Kar, Mollari, Franklin, Delenn even Kosh.. right through to Bester and Mister Morden are covered.
The last section of this chapter is also pretty helpful as it provides stat blocks for a whole host of generic individuals broken down into race from Human Dock Workers and Medlab Personnel through to Centauri Dancers, Nobles, Narn Assassins and the like, essentially all the colourful characters that fill the background of the station from one moment to the next.
…AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS
This chapter details the state of the universe as it stands in 2259 pretty much from an Earth Alliance perspective. And gives details of Earth Gov, Earthforce, the colonies and even provides a timeline of the period from 2085 to 2257 of events concerning Earth Alliance.
Some talke of ISN, Idneticards and the Psi Corps in some moderate detail.
Finally this chapter covers the pertinent info and state of the various Major races and the Non Aligned Worlds.
THE APPENDIX A AND B
The first Appendix covers the orders for the ship combat system and gives a rbief description and the roll DC’s involved it is a nice easy reference (would also make a nice download handout..nudge nudge).
Appendix B is the Conversion Guidelines for changing things from 1st edition to 2nd edition I’ll make more mention of that below.
The Character sheet is a four page affair that is quite nice though a little cramped in parts. For those interested this can also be downloaded from the site
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/b52echarsheet.pdf
Finally the Index is a great reference and equals in my opinon the quality of the one found in Conan.
PRO'S
This book is a definite improvement upon the first edition the class improvements are in my opinion all for the better, and the much needed improvements to the telepathy and space combat systems are definitely for the better.
The inclusion of the Influence system is a really nice touch as is the class based Defence bonus replacing the Reflex based system of the previous edition.
The refined skill system is also for the better and the groupings provided work well.
Visually the book still includes many stills from the show along with some nice CGI ship images and the overall new layout and page borders are very evocative.
It is also this reviewers preference that they removed the season one info as this book is now purely a self contained game and season info can be saved for another book such as the Complete Season Guide that may or may not appear (fingers crossed).
CON'S
With regard to the downside of the book well I had hoped there would be some nice Illustrated images included for each of the classes. It is very much a D&D format to include an illustrated iconic with each class but I’ve always found that a really nice touch that helps give you the feel of each class better than any words can.
Classwise also my own preference would have been to include the Technomages as then ALL the base classes would have been in one book and second edition format, but that would likely have added another hundred or so pages to the book and bumped the cost up more. But as the Technomage isn’t covered in the conversion document and as it stands is now a totally different format to the new classes and is not an easy conversion off your own back, nor just as simple as making a few skill changes and adding influence without leaving it at least part 1st edition 20 level format it poses something of a question mark. I’ve seen a technomage statted for 2nd edition and not a great deal was changed but my point is that it should as it stands out like a sore thumb for its differences at the moment, whereas it should be in the new format like the other classes.
Finally the only other point of contention for me was the incomplete nature of the conversion document, yes it covers the important thing but it doesn’t do what Mongoose stated and keep all your 1st edition supplements entirely useable without you needing to do some guesswork. For example ships not covered in the rulebook that were in other sourcebooks you can make fairly good conversions of without too much hassles but those stats won’t be exact until the official ones that will be found in the Ships of the Galaxy book and rules for making your own in the Shipbuilders Guide (both of which are fantastic books to look out for anyway however). Also the conversion document isn’t much use as far as converting vehicles go, yes a few are in the main rules but as far as those in say the EA sourcebook etc.. go your going to struggle turning them into 2nd edition format without doing a lot of guesstimation. Again not a huge hassle for a DM but not what we were told.
Finally prestige classes as advancement beyond 10th level is now wholly dependant upon them it would have been nice to have a selection of at least 2 related to each of the base classes, however those included are very specific and specialised and although good not exactly useful outside of a very specific field of interest.
Beyond these few stumbling blocks however there is nothing else to complain about.
OVERALL
Overall this is a fantastic book and improves on the previous edition, which is exactly what a new edition should do. The changes made make right issues that people most complained about previously and things now mesh better all around making play easier and more streamlined.
With the exception of the points mention in the cons this book is a great start to a new era of the RPG.
Visually 8 out of 10, I would have liked some iconics art for the classes as mentioned but beyond that it is fine, better, clearer images of most of the ships were included which was something I wanted and the still included are not distorted or blurry but clear and appropriate. Additionally the page design and borders are very nice.
Content 8 out of 10, very good, almost perfect, all improvements were for the better, just the few slips mentioned in the Cons section prevent it from being a perfect 10.
Structure 10 out 10, Ideal, layout is sensible, helpful, boxed texts and option rules clearly defined and separated, examples throughout and finally a good and useful index and pertinent appendices couldn’t have been better in my opinion.
Overall 9 out of 10, Near Perfect, slight oversights on the conversion front and missing out one of the base classes were disappointments for me but overall the book is otherwise a total improvement.
