By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer

Available at FRP Games for $13.55 (you save ($3.40)!!

Initiative Round
The Modern Player?s Companion is a d20 Modern supplement from Green Ronin Publishing and The Game Mechanics. This 80-page softcover is written by Stan!, with cover art by James Ryman depicting four modern heroes set against the backdrop of a computer case designed by Hal Mangold & Marc Schmalz. Clarence Harrison provides the interior art. The Modern Player?s Companion retails for $16.95.

The Modern Player?s Companion is a repackaged and printed version of two PDFs that were previously offered by the Game Mechanics; Modern Player?s Companion, Volume I and Volume II. Lacking a copy of either of the original PDFs, I won?t attempt to go over the differences, but instead, I?ll tell you what this book contains and you can decide for yourself if the cost of the upgrade is worth it. A copy of d20 Modern is required to make full use of this product, and a copy of Urban Arcana would be useful, but not absolutely necessary.

Modern Player?s Companion is all about options. It isn?t a campaign setting, or an adventure, it?s a collection of new rules, new classes, new feats, and new concepts that will enhance any d20 Modern game. The book is well-organized, though I would like to have seen it mirror character creation just a little bit more (as it stands now, advanced and prestige classes come before feats) and sidebars placed throughout the text offer interesting insight into why d20 Modern is designed as it was. The artwork is consistently pleasing throughout.

The book kicks off with some new talents for the base classes. While those provided in d20 Modern were sufficient to handle most any character, more is always better, so the Modern Player?s Companion offers up a few new ones. For characters like the strong hero or the tough hero, who have three talent trees to choose from, each is given two new talents to help round out existing choices. For the smart hero and the fast hero, both of whom seemed to get the short end of the stick when it came to talents, two entirely new trees have been presented (in addition, the smart hero gets two additional talents for the Strategy talent tree).

As the Modern Player?s Companion states, ??when it comes to breathing life into our characters, ?squeezing in? is rarely an acceptable phrase.? Thus, Stan! offers seven new occupations to help players round out their characters a little. The list adds nicely to those found in with the offering of the Bohemian, the Bureaucrat, the Craftsperson, the Domestic, the Educator, The Politico, and the Tribal. With the 19 occupations outlined in d20 Modern, this brings the total number of choices to 26.

Many gamers have noted (correctly) that bilingualism is a common trait in the modern world, yet d20 Modern provides no mechanic for handling this. Fortunately, the Modern Player?s Companion does. It does so by offering a new feat, Multilingual, as a bonus feat that does not take up any of the character?s starting feat slots. This feat is only available by special permission from the GM.

Despite the ease of the wealth system, many GMs and players insist on converting wealth back to dollars (or euros or what-have-you). However, for those who insist on bean counting, the Modern Player?s Companion offers a system to help you achieve this goal. Note that characters that use this system will have greatly reduced buying power. The Modern Player?s Companion also addresses the issue of credit rating (as an optional rule). Though it requires a little extra record-keeping, the proposed system does present a very viable (and fairly accurate) representation of the way that credit works in the real world, and is a fine enhancement to any game where the players feel as though they are being cheated out of something because the wealth system doesn?t account for credit.

Class combinations are not exactly a new concept. They were first begun in Dragon magazine a few months after 3E was released. The idea is to develop a system of progression, from 1st to 20th level, which a player can take to represent a specific type of character. The Modern Player?s Companion now brings the concept into the d20 Modern arena. An archeologist character, for example, might be a combination of smart, dedicated, and charismatic. Of course, this isn?t the only route to go to design such a character, it represents one possible way to develop it. Along with the chart of level-by-level progression (from 1st to 10th level) are suggestions on what choices to make for occupations, talents, and feats that can further aid in achieving the character?s goals and the reasoning behind the level progression. Nine professional paths?archeologist, bouncer, counselor, entrepreneur, lawyer, lay clergy, professional athlete, reporter, and rock star?are provided in the Modern Player?s Companion, though volumes more are possible.

The Modern Player?s Companion also offers a selection of advanced and prestige classes for players to choose from. Where an advanced class is meant to be pretty easy for a character to achieve, a specialization for the character to refine and hone her skills. Prestige classes are a concept introduced to d20 Modern through Urban Arcana and are meant as true specialists, experts in a given field. Prestige classes are very difficult to qualify for and are the ultimate expression of specialization in d20 Modern. The Modern Player?s Companion offers 14 new advanced classes and 7 new prestige classes. The advanced classes are the adept (read: sorcerer), the arcane scholar, the bounty hunter, the confidence artist, the criminologist, the dead shot, the enforcer, the fixer, the gentle warrior, the hacker, the opinion maker, the profiler, the survivalist, and the transporter. All can easily be obtained by a 3rd level character who plans his or her ascension carefully. The prestige classes, however, are a little more demanding. Each covers only 5 levels, and the requirements are such that most characters, even those devoted to taking the class, will need to be between 6th and 8th level. The prestige classes are the commander, the dark sage, the martial arts master, the master tinkerer, the mentalist, the psionic assassin, and the silent intruder.

The Modern Player?s Companion details 35 ?new? feats, most of which are suitable for any campaign (a few are more specialized). I use the quotation marks around ?new? because not all of these feats are original. A few have been liberated from Charles Ryan?s excellent resource Ultramodern Firearms d20. Not all of those feats have been duplicated here, however, so if you like what this book has to offer, that one is worth checking into.

Three of the skills require that psionics be used in the campaign to be effective, and three require the presence of magic. The others work fine in a campaign that includes one, both, or neither of these elements. The feats are Back Off, Brain Burn, Bull?s Eye, Code of Honor, Cohort, Collector, Cross-Training, Deep Pockets, Expert Advice, Financial Wizard, Focus Power, Follow That Car, Good Impression, Greater Dodge, Greater Magic Defense, Guns Akimbo, Hard-Eyed, Haggle, Hail of Bullets, Improved Dead Aim, Improved Dodge, Improved Magic Defense, Linguist, Lucky, Magic Defense, Martial Arts Weapons Proficiency, Moonlighter, Multilingual, Poker Face, Psionic Resistance, Self Improvement, Sidestep, Signature Skills, Stage Presence, Star Employee, and Supreme Dodge. If you?re interested in knowing more about these feats and what they offer, I suggest you check out the free Complete Feats download at The Game Mechanics website.

I?m a firm believer that, when it comes to modern-day adventuring, you can?t have too much gear. Apparently, Stan! agrees with me, because he included three pages of new stuff in the Modern Player?s Companion. From bags and containers to survival gear, you?ll never be without that essential piece of equipment again. In addition, to make the character generation process a bit easier, several equipment packages are provided. Each includes a selection of basic gear that almost any character can afford, plus some specialized gear for those who are financially well-off. Just select a package, make any final adjustments, and subtract the cost from your wealth rating. You?re equipped and ready to go!

I did say that to make full use of this book, you?d need a copy of Urban Arcana. That?s because the Modern Player?s Companion also has some new FX abilities and items. There isn?t much here, but what is provided is pretty good. A dozen spells that are sure to please the modern mage, as well as a handful of FX items (like the ever useful backup disk, which can copy the entire contents of a computer simply by touching it) offer some pizzazz to a magical campaign, while gun-nuts will appreciate the appendix which details a wide variety of ammunition variants, from ball ammo to dragon shells for shotguns. Appendix 2 provides a complete list of feats, their prerequisites, and their effects, from d20 Modern, Urban Arcana, Ultramodern Firearms d20, and the Modern Player?s Companion. (This also happens to be the aforementioned free download.)

Critical Hit
What?s not to like? New feats, new occupations, new talent trees, new advanced classes, new prestige classes, new spells; they hit just about everything! I?m sure the fans of psionics will be up in arms that no new psionic powers were included, but there were three new psionic feats (and since I don?t use psi, it?s no big loss to me). The material here is original (mostly), balanced, and sure to bring new excitement to any campaign in which it is used.

John?s Hot Pick
My Hot Pick this time around is the one that made me laugh out loud; the personal soundtrack spell. Yes, it?s just what it sounds like. The spell creates a musical theme or sound effect that matches the actions of the subject. Now really, how many of us haven?t craved such a spell for use in everyday life? This is just such a great addition to the game! Too cool!

Critical Fumble
The only real weak point of the book is the layout. Originality suffers slightly, simply because, well, this is a repeat of two PDFs. However, I do feel that 2-inch margins were a little excessive, considering that the sidebars were actually placed in the margins on only six pages. I would also have preferred the layout mimic the steps of character design (with feats preceding classes), if only because it flows more naturally that way. An index would have been nice, but the table of contents is comprehensive enough that you don?t suffer too much.

Coup de Grace
Open game content flourishes throughout; pretty much everything except the artworks, logos, and character names have been declared OGC. If you don?t have the PDFs, this is a definite must-have for your d20 Modern campaign. If you do have them, you?ll need to look at what is contained here to decide if it?s a worthwhile purchase for you (as I said at the outset, I don?t have them, so I don?t know if anything has been added or changed). Sure, the book is aimed at players, but there?s nothing in here that the GM couldn?t make good use of as well. Fair is fair, after all. If your PCs are going to take the Hail of Bullets feat, why shouldn?t your NPCs be permitted access to it?

Review Scores

Overall Total (does not include OGL Rating): 113 (90%)
Final Grade: A-