True20 the Adept's Handbook: A Role Sourcebook for True20 Adventure Roleplaying

The Book Itself True20 Adept's Handbook is a 96 page paperback printed in black and white. A quick flip through shows much of every page devoted to text explaining how the game works, interspersed with B & W art. The print is a shade on the small side, but that allows for that much more information to be presented. Chapter Breakdown Chapter One: Adept Creation The chapter begins with a number of possible sample backgrounds to help develop Adept characters, a dozen new Core Abilities for use with Adepts as well as three new modified Adept Role variants: Scholar, Superhero and Templar. The addition of the Superhero Role seems very forced to me as True20 isn't particularly well set up to deal with power levels required to run a really flexible supers game. The remainder of the chapter is dedicated to explaining different possible "Supernatural Philosophies," a.k.a. what flavor of magic/powers you might want your Adept to use. Nearly 30 Philosophies presented allow for quite a bit of customization for your particular campaign, giving different Adepts a slightly different bent if necessary. Chapter Two: Supernatural Skills The Skills presented are few (three are covered) but well gone over, and are really only applicable to a particular subset of Adepts - those that might make use of prophecies. Chapter Three: Supernatural Feats The Feats presented are numerous (over three dozen) and all Adept specific, making this chapter less useful for other Roles. Only about half of the Feats are designed for combat, making them attractive for characters to shine in other areas. Chapter Four: New Supernatural Powers This chapter seems to have taken a page from the Expert's Handbook with its selection of new Feats - over 100 new Powers are presented for use. Much like the previous chapter, there is a good mix of combat and non-combat Powers. The end of the chapter also has a section describing "Advanced Powers," which goes into alternate uses for the Powers presented in the core book, which again provides the Adept with more versatility. The chapter wraps up with a brief bit about how to work "Psychic Grappling," where two characters vie for mental control. Chapter Five: Supernatural Items Creation and use of single use, multiple use and permanent magical items is covered in some depth in this chapter, giving options for both player and GM alike as to how they might want to have imbued items work in a given campaign. Chapter Six: Optional Rules As with the Expert's Handbook, I am once again somewhat puzzled that "Optional Rules" would be a separate chapter when the entirety of the book is pretty much "optional rules," but here are found some ideas and mechanics that didn't seem closely related enough to anything previously discussed. It starts with a method of providing for ritual magic and what sorts of things can factor into said rituals. "Supernatural Places of Power" and "Summoning" are covered next, with each being touched on enough to provi

Since True20 started with Blue Rose and Blue Rose had a "companion" book that added a lot to the arcane spell system I guess it makes sense that the True20 magic companion (this book) would cannibalize much of the Blue Rose Companion. But that doesn't mean I'm really all that happy about reading the same stuff. Maybe I'm a stickler but I found some of the wording inconsistent in this book and since I'm using parts of it in a book I'm writing it was glaringly obvious. I think some ...more Since True20 started with Blue Rose and Blue Rose had a "companion" book that added a lot to the arcane spell system I guess it makes sense that the True20 magic companion (this book) would cannibalize much of the Blue Rose Companion. But that doesn't mean I'm really all that happy about reading the same stuff. Maybe I'm a stickler but I found some of the wording inconsistent in this book and since I'm using parts of it in a book I'm writing it was glaringly obvious. I think some of the powers are way over powered, others so specific that they are really only usable for narrator characters because many players would never choose to give up one of their slots for them. But I got a bunch of cool ideas and it had many powers and feats that I didn't have to create. Loved the philosophies of magic and the more detailed description of supernatural item creation. So definitely worth it, especially if you have never seen the Blue Rose Companion.