Dragonmech (Dragonmech)

Rating:
Summary: An excellant book, with more on the way.
Review: DragonMech was an impulse buy from a bookstore shelf for me. I picked it up for $35, but since then I have reconsidered that to be a very cheap price. After all, it's a book about mechs!

I found that, in addition to impressive core and prestige classes and mech rules, this book also boasts a complicated, exciting world setting. The history of Highpoint and the locations inside it were very well explained, but there were enough places where the DM could simply wing it and use their own imagination. I found the world setting well-integrated into other areas of the book, but many of the concepts could be taken seperately and used to enhance an existing campaign.

There were many rules and variants that I liked. There were several new skills, but quite a few were simply new categories for old types of skills. I'm glad that they were designed that way, because it made importing them into other campaigns much easier. There were only a few new feats, but the small number helped to cut down a disadvantage that many sourcebooks have: an overproliferation of worthless abilities. The new spells definitely seemed interesting, though unlike many things in this book they are extremely setting-specific. Less than six were easily integratable into other settings.

Equipment was very much a part of this book. There were rules for modifying current weapons, a plethora of new devices to be used, and even modifications to the new equipment to keep it interesting. The mech rules seemed unnecessarily complicated in places, but I suspect that was partly because of the sheer volume of information they had to get across. Considering how the rules could have turned out, I'm pleased that they were this simple.

All in all, an excellant book. There are more supplements for this setting coming out soon, and I, personally, will have to buy every one.