Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN num: 9781887953542
ISBN number: 188795354X
Label: Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
Manufacturer: Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
Quantity: 1
Printing Date: 2002-07
Publishing house: Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
Sale Popularity Level: 874080
Studio: Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
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Rated by buyers 
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This is a great asset to a D20 Modern game and much better than any of the other D20 weapons guides. Now the D20 Modern system wasn't designed to be realistic exactly, it was made to flow and be fun, more Hollywood blockbuster than Tom Clancy. This isn't Jane's, you will find some inaccuracies and errors, but for the none expert wanting to add some variety to their campaign it is great. I would say it is a bit more realistic than its competition. The chapters are well laid out and easy to understand.
There is quite a variety of weapons, from firearms and knives to homemade bombs and crossbows and it is more than what is needed for most campaigns. The descriptions are well presented, and the art is accurate. Any of the weakness of this book, like the lack of in game prices of many of the weapons, can be compensated with by a DM with the D20 Modern RPG guide or the Spycrafter campaign setting.
Rated by buyers -
Design
Unlike the previous releases for Spycraft, the Modern Arms Guide is a soft-bound book totalling 144 pages. The cover, in keeping with the previous releases, is silver with a monotone drawing depicting a man firing a submachine gun and is printed on stiff card. The interior is printed on heavier, non-glossy paper than the previous releases and the silver ink is replaced by grey for the headings and border and by grey for the page edges and chapter lead pages. Included throughout the book are various pieces of grey and white art, the majority of which are line-art drawings of selected weapons. Overall, the presentation and layout is of a very high standard and the replacement of the extremely reflective silver ink is a definite positive point.
Content
As would be expected from something calling itself a "Modern Arms Guide" this supplement contains a heavy bias towards weapons. The supplement is divided into eight chapters: New Rules, Melee Weapons, Hurled Weapons, Exotic Weapons, Firearms, Accessories, Tactical Weapons, and Protective Gear.
Chief among the rules additions is the inclusion of a new prestige class, The Triggerman, based on the archetypal pistol-in-each-hand combatants made popular by the likes of John Woo. This prestige class is balanced and well thought-out, adding to the cinematic feel of the main rules. Following on from this are three advanced combat options: fluid initiative, new movement actions and morale. The most adventurous of these is the fluid initiative. The Spycraft writers have attempted, successfully it must be said, to inject some realism into the initiative rules. At the very modest cost of slightly increased complexity, initiative can now change during combat - from round to round. Taking damage, or even firing a weapon with which the character is not proficient, lower the appropriate initiative, while aiming or being on higher ground improve the appropriate initiative. Although these additions are marked as "of greatest interest to experienced Game Controls, and should be considered optional" they have been written in such a straightforward manner that they can be incorporated with ease into any session. Likewise, the new movement actions and morale rules add an element of realism to the proceedings.
Also introduced are various qualities that can be incorporated into weapons and gear. Examples of such are armour piercing (which enables the weapon to ignore 3 points of damage reduction), and suppressed (which makes it more difficult to hear the weapon being fired). Many of the weapons detailed later in the supplement have at least one of these qualities but rules are also presented for characters to incorporate these qualities themselves thereby creating masterwork items.
The remaining new rules are weapon and gear concealment, new weapon malfunctions, damaging (and repairing) gear, and the grey market. Perhaps the most useful of these are the concealment and grey market rules. The concealment rules are extremely useful, given that the characters are secret agents, whereas the grey market rules add an alternative method of procuring gear while "in the field".
The remainder of the supplement, some 114 pages, detail real world weapons and gear. The majority of these pages are descriptions of the weapons or gear and game statistics, although there are optional recoil rules and amplifications on the use of the Improvised Weapon feat.
The recoil rules are, again, very simple, but very effective. Although having no effect on standard attacks, recoil comes into effect during autofire, burst, and strafe attacks. Each firearm has a recoil rating and if this is higher than the character's Strength then penalties to hit are accrued based on the difference between the two numbers. That is, if the weapons recoil rating is 14 and the character's Strength is 12, the character accrues a -2 penalty to all autofire, burst, and strafe attacks.
As a side-note, the supplement was originally to be called the "Modern Arms and Equipment Guide" (and is still called such in parts of the supplement itself) and a ninth chapter, "Other Gear" was intended for inclusion. Unfortunately, space requirements necessitated the removal of this chapter. However the Spycraft team have made it available as a free download from the official website.
Overall
A very well written and thought out supplement, the Modern Arms Guide will appeal to the majority of Spycraft players. Although there are some that, perhaps, will not be that interested in the detailed weapons, the additional rules and prestige class provide something for everyone. Indeed, with little work, the initiative rules could be used in any d20 game.
Rated by buyers -
Spycraft: Modern Arms Guide is 144 pages of guns, rifles, explosives, bladed weapons, bows, and even rocket launchers. Smartly divided into simple, clear sections, the book is pure reference suitable for use with any D20 modern system.
One thing that helps this book bring more realism to a modern-era roleplaying game is that it acknowledges the skill and effort required to handle most modern weapons. All weapons have both a critical threat range AND an error (critical failure) range. The bigger the damage or more complex the equipment, the more likely it will malfunction. Instead of only a roll of 1 signifying a critical failure, some weapons have ranges of 1-3 or 1-4.
Chapter one briefly offers new rules that provide greater realism for the game. The chapter reintroduces the idea of initiative modifiers (an old 2nd edition idea), adding and subtracting from initiative rolls based on a variety of factors from failing a save versus an explosion to becoming fatigued. There are also rules for creating masterwork arms, dealing with illegal arms brokers, and weapon malfunctions. There is also a new prestige class available called the Triggerman, fashioned after the gun-fighting style of the Hong Kong cinema.
Chapter two focuses on melee weapons. Whether your character is beating a thug over the head with a police flashlight, engaging in a little swordplay, chasing down a helpless teenage with a chainsaw, or trying to poison a mark with a hypodermic needle, you will find the damage, weight, initiative modifiers, cost of just about everything you need. The Improvised Weapons feat allows you to get special bonuses to defense and damage for using barstools, potted plants, or even cell phones as weapons. If you can pick it up, you'll find the rule for hurting someone with it here.
Chapter three focuses on hurled weapons. Besides the obvious weapons such as grenades, Molotov cocktails, javelins, and arrows, you can also find rules for using a nail gun (remember Lethal Weapon 2?). Chapter four offers more exotic weapons. Here you will find everything from chakrams and boomerangs to foot spikes and flutes.
Chapter five is the largest part of the book and focuses on the various styles of firearms available to a would-be secret agent or terrorist. There are no less than 8 different styles of Glock listed, just to give you an idea of the detail involved in this chapter. Chapter six provides all the necessities to use your new toys, including different styles silencers and night vision sights. Planning an all-out assault on an enemy fortress? Then you'll need chapter seven for flamethrowers, grenade launchers, machineguns, mortars, and rocket launchers. Finally, chapter eight covers all the protective gear a special operative needs to survive.
The Modern Arms Guide is an easy to follow collection of charts and simple illustrations designed to allow quick reference during game play. For modern-era gamers, it could easily become the most used book into your library.
Rated by buyers -
Spycraft's Modern Arms Guide (MAG) has been described as the equivalent of D20 Modern's "UltraModern Firearms" for Spycraft. However, MAG is a much more useful book for Spycraft - both because it is written specifically for Spycraft's mechanics, but also because of the greater variation in weapon statistics. The D20 Modern mechanics do not support a detailed weapons model and as such its weapons tend to all have similar game stastics. Spycraft's MAG however supports much more variables in the weapon descriptions, making the choice of weaponry more interesting and highlighting variations in different guns.
The book itself is split into a number of chapters, covering a wide range of weaponry and/or adding new rules. Each chapter describing weapons has a sections with textual description, followed by tables detailing game statistics. Whilst this is generally works well, it sometimes means you have to look up both the description and the table to discover all features of a given weapon. Surely some of the properties (e.g. weapon firing modes) could have been included in note form on the tables?
Make sure you get the Chapter 9 bonus material from the Alderac website. Whilst not strictly weapons related, it is something you'll want to print out and keep in the MAG book. (I'm not sure why they decided such gear would be associated with the Modern Arms Guide - but its a useful chapter to have).
Chapter 1 covers new rules. Anyone expecting new feats or prestiege classes will have to look at the Soldier/Wheelman book instead. These new rules are mostly combat actions, grey market rules etc. They do work quite well, but unfortunately, not all the rules within MAG are detailed here - for example, optional rules on recoil are detailed in Chapter 5. It is therefore quite hard to locate rules during gameplay - it would have been better had all new rules (optional or not) been included under this chapter.
Chapter 2 covers Melee weapons - standard and improvised.
Chapter 3 covers Hurled weapons. Strangely, this is not only throwing knives and grenades, but also crossbows ...
Chapter 4 covers Exotic weapons. Much of these are familiar to any DnD player, but some additional treatment is also given to martial weapons (although you'll really want the excellent Blood and Fist for modern martial arts).
Chapter 5 is the bulk of the book, covering firearms - from pistols through shotguns to assault rifles. There is an excellent selection of guns - over 15 pages of table entries alone (plus a significant amount of weapon descriptions). Unfortunately, whilst there is a section of different ammunition, it seems to have been added as an after thought - with no variation in ammunition features, cost or availability based on calibre - all dum-dum rounds cost the same and do the same damage bonus (making them relatively *less* effective as you go up in calibre). Unfortunately, almost all the non-pistol and non-shotguns are listed as restricted - meaning no actual costs are available - this is a main complaint of the book (see below).
Chapter 6 introduces weapon accessories - scopes, suppressors, sights etc.
Chapter 7 covers tactical weapons - from explosives to flame throwers and mortars. Unfortunately, almost all these items are listed as restricted.
Chapter 8 covers protective equipment. It introduces some new armour rules for weakness of damage reduction against certain forms of attack.
One main complaint is the absence of cost for a number of weapons. The book treats these as specialist weapons - only available via Budget Points (a unit of currency within Spycraft). But not every game situation or campaign will demand the purchase of weapons via Budget Points. And while there are rules for blackmarket weapon purchases, it's hard to reconcile the statements regarding Budget Points having no real-world currency conversion, with rules designed to give an actual cost based on Budget Points for items which do not have an actual cost. As a result, the usefulness of the book is slightly diminshed for those who want to obtain their weapons outside of Budget Points. This could have been overlooked if it was only for "difficult to obtain" weapons like the heavy weapons in Chapter 7 - but almost all the assault rifles, submachines and sniper rifles in Chapter 5 are restricted - so there's no price for the ever popular MP5 for example.
Also, it can be hard to locate rules relating to the new game mechanics - they are not all detailed where you'd expect them to be. No one should have to know every rule in a role-playing game, but it is important to be able to find it quickly in order to speed up play - and the layout of mechanics descriptions in the book doesn't always help this.
However, these are annoying issues rather than serious errors, and overall this is a very good book for anyone running ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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Lots and lots of guns! Mostly pretty well detailed, and I have been using for a replacement to the weapons listings in D20 Modern by WOTC. Much more detailed and realistic portrayal of real-world weaponry.
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