Classic Review by Crothian
Superheroes are a nice part of the gaming community. There have always been some good games on the subject but it just does not seem any of them have really had the great staying power. But with the movies of comics becoming big business hopefully more will start to see the light of day and with greater support. Superheroes have always come in different looks and types and even as I write this I am watching The Greatest American Hero one of the truly original takes on the genre.
Blood and Vigilance is a PDF by RPGObjects. It deals with superheroes in a modern setting. The seventy two page PDF Is nicely laid out. It has a version for on screen use and for printing. The book is well book marked and the art is good and very action oriented
Blood and Vigilance uses the d20 Modern rule set. It builds off that by offering new advanced classes, feats, skills, and other mechanics to build super heroes. It is easily compatible with most other d20 systems and genres making it versatile and easy to use. The book starts off with a good introduction and then right into character creation. The book uses a characters origin like the fantasy game uses races. The origin also determines if you have power points which are used for super abilities. Not all super heroes get super powers and this is reflected well in the origins area. What of the more original origin options is that of Jinx, a person with super powers but extreme bad luck to go along with it. Other origin options are like alien, freak accident, cybernetics, training, and mutant.
The book uses the base classes from d20 modern. One nice thing they have done is each super power is favored by one class so it acts like a class skill for it. This gives the classes a little more definition in my eyes as I found that they did not feel that different in the basic d20 modern game. There are also new advanced classes in here but first like it does for the base classes it gives powers for the advanced ones as well. The advanced classes presented in the book are very well fined for the super hero genre. They have acrobat, brick, energy projector, gangster, mastermind mentor, psychic, and speed demon. Each is very self explanatory and makes for easy use.
The powers section is pretty basic. The ones presented here seem to cover all the bases. One should be able to create almost any super powered being they would want to use these. There are disadvantages as well to give the hero that little weakness.
The GM section is really good giving good advice for the supers game and using the book to its full potential. It has good suggestions for types of campaigns, different environments, collateral damage, and rules for taking characters into the epic levels which is levels about twenty. The different sub genres in the super hero genre are talked about and what sort of characters and levels would be most appropriate for it. The game finishes with good lists of feats and of the powers.
This serves as a good super hero game for people looking for one that uses the d20 system. This book will fit right alongside most other d20 modern books making it easy to incorporate with other rules and items that fall outside the genre. RPGObjects is a good company that does consistent and solid work and this is no exception to that.
