A disappointing book that promises four color action for Savage Worlds, Dawn of Legends is filled with mediocre setting, awful puns, and an unbalanced system sure to ruin any campaign. Save your money on this one.
Re: [RPG]: Dawn of Legends, reviewed by Gamskee (1/1)
Interesting review.
First (and I have to ask), did you actually play the game? My group has been running DoL since shortly after it came out and we've been having a blast.
Have you checked out the free content online? I don't know that you'd care for the NCB Files any more than you did the characters in the main book, but it's like 70-some pages of more NPCs. And the rules expansion offers a few more edges and power level breakdowns for street level play on up.
The powers thing... I'm not sure what you're getting at as far as "no rhyme or reason" to how they're made. The how's and why's are listed in the power creation portion. I just know they do actually play well. I've had no problems thus far with the Freedom City characters that we converted from M&M.
The sonic boom thing. That was brought up on their forums once. They said it was meant to mimic things in DoL, but not all comics. A simple +0 modifier would get rid of the boom. Actually, that's something they've said a lot at the forums- the powers had the setting in mind, but can easily replicate anything in comics with little details like the sonic boom being covered with modifiers.
Combat, in my experience, has been all I could hope for. I've ran street brawls in a mall, subway battles, battles with fighter jets, and a slew of various powered NPCs. It's always been grand and truly felt like a comic battle. My group is used to Savage Worlds, so there were no real surprises as far as the effects of exploding dice and the possibility of the "One shot, one kill". But, with bennies and some of the uses they've added, I've yet to have any of those one shot situations.
I've used the adventure generator a few times and had fun results and one of my players now swears by the background generator. His dirt poor beginnings, idolizing his father growing up but his father was killed by his step-mom. He's been married and divorced (issues from the above) and currently works as a corrections officer at a women's prison. I don't have the character sheet with me, so I can't remember what all happened in the middle portion of his life. But, the whole thing came from the background generator, which was pretty cool, we thought.
The setting... I can't really comment on that. The games I've ran have been conversions from M&M, so I really haven't looked at the setting very closely after the first read other than to check the NPCs periodically for ideas.
My experience with the game has been nothing but positive thus far. My group, while loving their characters, had begun to grow bored of the M&M system, hence the reason I bought DoL. So far, it's scratching the itch.
I would just suggest playing the game. I noticed, as was mentioned, no warnings of any kind are given as far as how certain powers might affect a campaign. So, if you go in and make some crazy characters with no plan other than to see what happens, it could well break. I had already kept an eye on that when our characters were made in M&M, so I didn't have to worry about it here. But yeah, a mentalist can wipe the floor with someone in a non-mentalist campaign. Kind of like Professor X being the ultimate psychic killer when dealing with non-psychics.
Huh, guess instead of writing all that, I could have just done my own review, huh?
Re: [RPG]: Dawn of Legends, reviewed by Gamskee (1/1)
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghosthost
Interesting review.
The powers thing... I'm not sure what you're getting at as far as "no rhyme or reason" to how they're made. The how's and why's are listed in the power creation portion. I just know they do actually play well. I've had no problems thus far with the Freedom City characters that we converted from M&M.
The sonic boom thing. That was brought up on their forums once. They said it was meant to mimic things in DoL, but not all comics. A simple +0 modifier would get rid of the boom. Actually, that's something they've said a lot at the forums- the powers had the setting in mind, but can easily replicate anything in comics with little details like the sonic boom being covered with modifiers.
My example with Special Boy and Better Boy would have cleared up a lot of my reasoning for why I felt the powers system is garbage, unfortunately, the review killed all the formatting for some awful reason, making it an unintelligible mess *grumble*.
Special Boy------------------------vs.----------------Better Boy
Power:-------------------------------------------------Powers:
15 points on Color Manipulation 6---------------15 points on Daze 6
30 on Camouflage 6--------------------------------30 points on Invisibility 6
30 on Digestive Adaptation 6---------------------30 points on Disintegrate 6
12 X-Ray Vision, full--------------------------------12 points for ESP 4
10 Mental Resistance +4--------------------------10 Super Smarts 2
10 Spiritual Fortitude +4---------------------------10 Super Spirit 2
2 Self Destruct---------------------------------------2 Self Destruct
1 points left over------------------------------------1 point left over
The two characters here have similar powers where possible and identical costs. Only one of them is better at everything. Thats not balance, no matter how you look at it. Likely, your game has gone well as you took balanced characters from a balanced game and ported them over.
Sonic booms are flavor, and forums may give suggestions, but I'm not reviewing the forums- I'm reviewing a book. If sonic booms are setting flavor, there should be an option to include or remove them in the book, IF this is meant to be a universal superhero system.
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Re: [RPG]: Dawn of Legends, reviewed by Gamskee (1/1)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamskee
My example with Special Boy and Better Boy would have cleared up a lot of my reasoning for why I felt the powers system is garbage, unfortunately, the review killed all the formatting for some awful reason, making it an unintelligible mess *grumble*.
Special Boy------------------------vs.----------------Better Boy
Power:-------------------------------------------------Powers:
15 points on Color Manipulation 6---------------15 points on Daze 6
30 on Camouflage 6--------------------------------30 points on Invisibility 6
30 on Digestive Adaptation 6---------------------30 points on Disintegrate 6
12 X-Ray Vision, full--------------------------------12 points for ESP 4
10 Mental Resistance +4--------------------------10 Super Smarts 2
10 Spiritual Fortitude +4---------------------------10 Super Spirit 2
2 Self Destruct---------------------------------------2 Self Destruct
1 points left over------------------------------------1 point left over
At which point I stopped reading, lost interest and decided to post...
Honestly I cant follow this reasoning... I could call it garbage, but somewhere down the path someone told me that just because I don't agree with something I don't have to insult it.
Color manipulation and daze have no point of comparison, with daze you stun opponents (and even incapacitate them) granted its more useful in combat, but with color manipulation I could make someone go crazy (just keep changing the color every now and again), I could rob the Mona Lisa and make look like I drew it in Crayola, I can change my clothes and avoid pursuit... yeah it sounds silly, but the power is actually pretty useful.
Invisibility seems like the best choice... buuuut camouflage has no power rating limit, which means it can go beyond the rank limit, in other words at novice rank I could have a wooping d12+7 to remain unnoticed, so yeah, invisitibility automatically works, but in a situation were a hyper-sense might detect a camouflaged hero and an invisible hero the camouflaged one has the advantage.
Digestive adaptation is conspicuous and leaves no trace, disintegration leaves traces behind.
With ESP while you are projecting you are unaware of your body, with X-ray vision you still have awareness of whats happening around you, aaaand, you can see through multiple walls at the same time, while with ESP you´d have to go one by one.
As for the added defenses... yeah I agree, the should be 4 points instead of 5... but as you already stated with so many PP to work with... meh...
I dont like the randomness of huge dice polls, but the exploding dice are like a quirk of the SW games... thats why bennies exist, and you can spend as much as you want rerolling soak
So a 1/1 seems a little extreme, specially when your pet peeve isn't even well explained... of course some powers are better than others in combat... DUH!, I'm not saying the game is perfect, but when people log in RPG.net and read your review they are going to walk away with a bad opinion due to misinformed examples.
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Re: [RPG]: Dawn of Legends, reviewed by Gamskee (1/1)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamskee
My example with Special Boy and Better Boy would have cleared up a lot of my reasoning for why I felt the powers system is garbage, unfortunately, the review killed all the formatting for some awful reason, making it an unintelligible mess *grumble*.
It's HTML. If you put in consecutive lines, it'll blend them together. You either need to put something like that in a table or mark it with <pre> tags. I did the latter to clean up the review for you.
Re: [RPG]: Dawn of Legends, reviewed by Gamskee (1/1)
Quote:
Originally Posted by tanaka84
At which point I stopped reading, lost interest and decided to post...
Honestly I cant follow this reasoning... I could call it garbage, but somewhere down the path someone told me that just because I don't agree with something I don't have to insult it.
Color manipulation and daze have no point of comparison, with daze you stun opponents (and even incapacitate them) granted its more useful in combat, but with color manipulation I could make someone go crazy (just keep changing the color every now and again), I could rob the Mona Lisa and make look like I drew it in Crayola, I can change my clothes and avoid pursuit... yeah it sounds silly, but the power is actually pretty useful.
Invisibility seems like the best choice... buuuut camouflage has no power rating limit, which means it can go beyond the rank limit, in other words at novice rank I could have a wooping d12+7 to remain unnoticed, so yeah, invisitibility automatically works, but in a situation were a hyper-sense might detect a camouflaged hero and an invisible hero the camouflaged one has the advantage.
Digestive adaptation is conspicuous and leaves no trace, disintegration leaves traces behind.
With ESP while you are projecting you are unaware of your body, with X-ray vision you still have awareness of whats happening around you, aaaand, you can see through multiple walls at the same time, while with ESP you´d have to go one by one.
As for the added defenses... yeah I agree, the should be 4 points instead of 5... but as you already stated with so many PP to work with... meh...
I dont like the randomness of huge dice polls, but the exploding dice are like a quirk of the SW games... thats why bennies exist, and you can spend as much as you want rerolling soak
So a 1/1 seems a little extreme, specially when your pet peeve isn't even well explained... of course some powers are better than others in combat... DUH!, I'm not saying the game is perfect, but when people log in RPG.net and read your review they are going to walk away with a bad opinion due to misinformed examples.
Both Colour Manipulation and Daze require touch attacks, your not going to drive someone "Crazy" by changing their colour. Not to mention changing it rapidly is going to require multiple touches, where as the Daze requires one touch and your opponent is dazed. You make a good point of Colour Manipulation being able to possibly disguise the Mona Lisa, but your playing Heroes here not Villains, so your example is kind of moot.
Camoflauge is never going to be as useful as invisibility. Sure you could waste your points buying Camoflauge up to an insane degree, but in the end the ability to simply turn "Invisible" is going to be better then changing the the colour of what ever your pressing up against.
Disintegration does NOT leave traces behind, and can be used at a range. Digestive adapability also is an "All or nothing" power, where as disintegrate will let you blow away pieces of it. Your examples keep involving "Getting away" with things, your playing a Superhero here not a Villain why are you spouting so much about how you can "get away" with things? o_0?
The Range and usefulness of ESP is arguably better suited toward reconissance then X-ray vision does, where as the X-ray Vision does allow you to spot a hidden armament on a person. This is an aspect where both powers have their uses.
Overall though, the system itself is terrible, and as a long time Savage Worlds GM its unbalanced as hell, and like the reviewer said, leaves alot to be desired. If your game requires you to go to forums for additional errata and extra supplements and basic clarifications, then your game is not "Complete" from the get go.
You can make all the argument in the world about "Oh you can just make it a +0 modifier to lose the Sonic Boom effect from speed powers" on the internet, but its not spelled out anywhere in the book, meaning you've set the tone for your game and system right there.
Not to mention, there are no visible uses for the mental and mystical toughness out of the box. A Friend and I had to ask on the Savage worlds forums, just where do these come into play? There not spelled out anywhere in the book itself.
The response was any bought power could just be "Set" to target any of the 3 defenses..Meaning arguably speaking, the most effective characters have a Mental Blast and a Spiritual Blast and should just carry a big gun bought in game with money, because every character is going to be weak in one if not two of these. Leaving toward more unbalance issues as it doesn't cost you anything, hell you could build 3 different high powers blasts into a Framework and just reek havoc on everything.
This is not even taking into consideration the setting itself. I read in an interview with one of the creators they had stopped reading comics around the late or early 80s, and I think it really shows in the creation of the setting and characters here. I've never encountered such dull uninspired or groan inducing npc's before.
I can forgive bad art, rpg makers only have so much money, and I completly understand not being able to get the best artists like some companies can afford.. but when your npcs litterally put me to sleep, or make me want to groan out loud.. (Mega gnat? The An-architect?) I figure your better off not using them at all.
If you just want a superhero system for Savage worlds, I have to agree with Gamskee here, just get Neccessary Evil Revised, the players guide, it's cheaper and a much better system.
Overall don't waste your money on this game. I bought it and so did my friends, thinking we were going to be wow'ed by the content and unfortunetly it left alot to be desired.
Re: [RPG]: Dawn of Legends, reviewed by Gamskee (1/1)
Quote:
Originally Posted by DoctorDogGirl
Maybe its because I was a fan of Autumn Arbor for M&M but where did the idea it was four color come from?
I thought its creators were always about the Iron Age and Modern Age.
(Actually, I heard they hated the "Age" classification)
Its scattered all through-out the PDF.. how this is "4 colour comic book Heroics in Savage World" its like being hit with a blunt instrument several times in the way its brought up all the time.
Had they came out and just said, "its a modern age superhero system" It would have been alittle better. As it stands its not 4 colour, neither the setting or the rules reflect a "4 colour atmosphere" despite claims from the game itself.
Re: [RPG]: Dawn of Legends, reviewed by Gamskee (1/1)
Quote:
Originally Posted by tanaka84
At which point I stopped reading, lost interest and decided to post...
I dont like the randomness of huge dice polls, but the exploding dice are like a quirk of the SW games... thats why bennies exist, and you can spend as much as you want rerolling soak....
So a 1/1 seems a little extreme, specially when your pet peeve isn't even well explained... of course some powers are better than others in combat... DUH!, I'm not saying the game is perfect, but when people log in RPG.net and read your review they are going to walk away with a bad opinion due to misinformed examples.
Exploding dice are inherent to SW. However, elevating the dice pools elevates the randomness and variance of damage. A blast in Necessary Evil gets to a maximum pool of 5d6, using various advantages for stuff like blowing up cars. DoL's initial Maximum is 6d6 and goes up from there. It's variability is inherently higher, leading to more blasts that utterly obliterate things randomly. Variance will grow as the dice pool grows. This is also discussed in the review, that you skipped on reading. Bennies are nice for wound soaking, but you'll be doing a lot of it in this game, and high damage variance means being forced to soak 6 plus wounds at high levels. In a simulated fight, a blaster shot a brick four times, doing no damage the first three hits and pasting him on the fourth- pretty disgusting.
I have no 'pet peeve' with this game. It has too many problems for me to pick one. HERO does a good job of making points spent for a combat power coming out roughly equal- so does Mutants and Masterminds. Just because it can run a game, doesn't mean it can do it well, or that it will go well without heavy use of game master intervention, to prevent the game from destroying the game.
People are not robots. If they read my review, they can read the positive review, compare, and make up their own minds. I tried, mentally, to think of suggestions to improve this game, but its too much work. I think neither the system nor the setting are good enough to salvage, and I certainly don't think anyone should spend $25 to make the attempt.
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