Overall I like the setting and the layout of the product. I have some problems with content and game mechanics. Specifically:
Firearms: DW 1 was made using the d20 system, but not d20 Modern, therefore the authors pretty much had to make their own stats for modern firearms. I do not feel they put enough effort into this area. Most of the attributes of the firearms are extremely unrealistic, or outright strange. Such as a 150' range increment for a handgun or Submachine gun. Such weapons lose a great deal of accuracy after 20 feet, much less 150. Firearms also have only a standard critical hit threshold, of 20. It seems to me that a firearm should have at least the same critical threshold as a crossbow. I also find it odd that an air rifle does almost as much damage as a Gauss Pistol. So much for future technology.
One argument from the authors on this subject was that they didn't want to make firearms too deadly, and to focus on gameplay rather than weapons. I can understand that, but I don't understand why one would go to the trouble of making several levels of firearms only to not do them properly. It also doesn't make sense to have an extremely high range increment for something that was not supposed to be as deadly as the real thing.
There is also very little provision for automatic weapons fire. In a 6 second round, a character can fire 2 bullets from an SMG. If they have certain feats and under certain conditions they can fire one or two additional rounds. There is no provision for emptying a clip at a group of opponents, or for firing a burst. These types of limitations hardly make it worthwhile for a character to purchase such weapons.
Vehicles: Some of the vehicle combat rules do not make a great deal of sense to me. Example: If one vehicle rams another, the ramming vehicle's forward motion is stopped upon a successful ram. Why? If a small car rams a big car, certainly. But a larger vehicle ramming a smaller one will only slow slightly, if at all. Certainly a semi-truck won't slow a whit if it rams a motorcycle, or anything less than half its own mass. There should be a provision to allow for vehicle mass.
There are no specific vehicle-mounted weapons. One would expect wider variations in vehicle-mounted weapons other than standard weapons attached to a vehicle, much like such weapons today are different from man-portable weapons.
Apart from these inconsistencies, I do like the game very much, and give it the highest rating.
Jeff Alberts
Infinite Realities
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