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Chamber book detailing the Pan Asian Collective.
Pan-Asian Collective
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Pan-Asian Collective
Pan-Asian Collective is a "chamber book" for the Shadowforce Archer setting of the Spycraft espionage game. The Pan-Asian Collective is a part of the Archer Conspiracy, a nominally well-meaning worldwide conspiracy that acts against various threats to peace and security in the world. The Pan-Asian Collective is the chamber that is chiefly operates in India and East Asia, and has a gaming theme based on martial arts action thrillers and high-tech anime.
Pan-Asian Collective is written by Steve Crow, Scott Gearin, and Clayton A. Oliver.
A First Look
Pan-Asian Collective is a 96 page softcover book prices at $24.95. As is the case with most of AEG's Spycraft and Rokugan books, this is a bit pricey for a d20 System book of this size.
The cover of the book is done in a similar fashion to most Shadowforce Archer, with a grey figure on the front against a black background. In this case, the character on the front is a long haired woman wielding a sai. The cover illustration is by Veronica V. Jones.
The interior is black-and-white and features the work of Fred Hooper and Steve Ellis. The interior art is generally good, with several interesting ink action scenes. Most of the scenes are not as comical looking as some previous Shadowforce Archer and Spycraft books.
The interior text is fairly dense, close spacing is used between paragraphs, and the header font is fairly clear but interesting and conservatively sized.
A Deeper Look
(Spoiler Warning: This section touches on some campaign secrets revealed in the book.
Pan-Asian Collective provides a variety of background information and supporting mechanics for running games in the sphere of influence of the Pan-Asian Collective in the Sahadowforce Archer setting.
As with other chambers of the Archer conspiracy, the Pan-Asian collective is a tenuous conspiracy with resources within a variety of intelligence organizations and other organizations in various nations. The Pan-Asian collective is perhaps a bit grittier than most other chambers, in that some of their operations and resources are clearly criminal in nature. This provides some interesting roleplaying potential, as agents' motivations and loyalty may be called into question if they discover the methods that the PAC uses in some situations.
The book provides details on both the chamber and its major opponents. Some potential enemies that were introduced in the Shadowforce Archer book such as the Shop and the Chrysanthemum Dawn are covered in greater depth. Some new adversaries are introduced as well, such as the enigmatic villain Dr. Fu (who has been killed several times and keeps coming back) and the Army of Ten Tigers, as well as a few adventure ideas involving the Shop, a rogue Archer cell with a penchant for high technology.
The Army of Ten Tigers was, in fact, started by a member of the Pan-Asian Collective as a sort of secret army of martial artists. Now it intermittently works as either allies or foes of the PAC. In truth, the Tigers are dedicated to rooting the corruption in the PAC, but work with them for worthy goals. The idea of a "rogue right hand" of the collective is not new; the Chrysanthemum Dawn (introduced in the Shadowforce Archer campaign book) is based on the same concept, but I think that the Army of Ten Tigers provides more interesting role-playing opportunities.
The book provides background material and adventure ideas. The introductory chapter includes newspaper type headlines presenting situations that the PAC might have to deal with. After the "players' eyes" headlines are a number of adventure seeds and plot possibilities for the GM related to those headlines, telling the real story. In addition, the last chapter includes a number of threats. (For those not familiar, a Threat in Spycraft is the skeleton of a pre-planned adventure with situations and NPCs.)
The rules material provides some nice support for the Pan-Asian Collective subsetting. As mentioned in the Shadowforce Archer campaign book, the source materials for the Pan-Asian Collective includes martial arts/espionage thrillers as well as over-the-top near future anime like Akira and Bubblegum Crisis, and the rules support this well.
Topping the list of new rules entries is the Martial Artist core class. As you might guess, the martial artist receives many bonus martial arts feats, but gains many other benefits fitting the source materials as well. For example, the martial artist receives bonus abilities called ploys that have a bit more of a high-action martial arts flavor. One example of a ploy is strut. Basically, if you spend time posturing after a successful strike in combat, you gain a free action dice (sans XP) for your audacity.
New prestige classes include the Blank, Dai Lo, Mole, and Raptor. The blank is a psionic class with the ability to blend into the environment and otherwise go unnoticed. The dai lo is a team leader for PAC cells. The mole is a specialist at infiltration. The raptor combines close combat expertise with advanced technology.
A number of short (10-level) NPC classes are also introduced for use as mundane enemies. This includes the martial arts mooks, bloodstained penitents, deep cover operatives, shadow warriors, special inspectors, technophiles, and urban bikers. This concept was originally introduced in the Archer Foundation book (which I do not yet own). They are convenient classes made to quickly realize a lot of common NPC archetypes, but are perhaps a bit too specific to justify a whole class of their own in most cases for my tastes.
The feat selection is rather broad and should appeal to anyone playing Spycraft with an taste for martial arts (which is just about everyone who plays so far as I can tell.) Feats include martial arts stances and maneuvers, new weapon category feats (concerned with more primitive weapons such as bows), and other genre appropriate feats such as wolf-pack tactics (which allows those with the feat to not have to be on opposite sides to flank a target.)
There are also many new gadgets and other equipment items to be had. The most noteworthy of these - and one which helps the book live up to it's alleged source material - is the addition of powered armor and power armor rules, much akin to Bubblegum Crisis.
Finally, in addition to the rules and background material, the book provides a very condensed chase map for what is likely to be the site of many PAC adventures: Hong Kong.
Conclusion
Overall, I was fairly happy with the content of the book. The Pan-Asian Collective struck me as one of the most promising chambers in Shadowforce Archer and the Pan-Asian Collective sourcebook did not disappoint, dishing up the martial arts and hardsuit action that they had promised in spades.
Overall Grade: B+
-Alan D. Kohler
Pan-Asian Collective is a "chamber book" for the Shadowforce Archer setting of the Spycraft espionage game. The Pan-Asian Collective is a part of the Archer Conspiracy, a nominally well-meaning worldwide conspiracy that acts against various threats to peace and security in the world. The Pan-Asian Collective is the chamber that is chiefly operates in India and East Asia, and has a gaming theme based on martial arts action thrillers and high-tech anime.
Pan-Asian Collective is written by Steve Crow, Scott Gearin, and Clayton A. Oliver.
A First Look
Pan-Asian Collective is a 96 page softcover book prices at $24.95. As is the case with most of AEG's Spycraft and Rokugan books, this is a bit pricey for a d20 System book of this size.
The cover of the book is done in a similar fashion to most Shadowforce Archer, with a grey figure on the front against a black background. In this case, the character on the front is a long haired woman wielding a sai. The cover illustration is by Veronica V. Jones.
The interior is black-and-white and features the work of Fred Hooper and Steve Ellis. The interior art is generally good, with several interesting ink action scenes. Most of the scenes are not as comical looking as some previous Shadowforce Archer and Spycraft books.
The interior text is fairly dense, close spacing is used between paragraphs, and the header font is fairly clear but interesting and conservatively sized.
A Deeper Look
(Spoiler Warning: This section touches on some campaign secrets revealed in the book.
Pan-Asian Collective provides a variety of background information and supporting mechanics for running games in the sphere of influence of the Pan-Asian Collective in the Sahadowforce Archer setting.
As with other chambers of the Archer conspiracy, the Pan-Asian collective is a tenuous conspiracy with resources within a variety of intelligence organizations and other organizations in various nations. The Pan-Asian collective is perhaps a bit grittier than most other chambers, in that some of their operations and resources are clearly criminal in nature. This provides some interesting roleplaying potential, as agents' motivations and loyalty may be called into question if they discover the methods that the PAC uses in some situations.
The book provides details on both the chamber and its major opponents. Some potential enemies that were introduced in the Shadowforce Archer book such as the Shop and the Chrysanthemum Dawn are covered in greater depth. Some new adversaries are introduced as well, such as the enigmatic villain Dr. Fu (who has been killed several times and keeps coming back) and the Army of Ten Tigers, as well as a few adventure ideas involving the Shop, a rogue Archer cell with a penchant for high technology.
The Army of Ten Tigers was, in fact, started by a member of the Pan-Asian Collective as a sort of secret army of martial artists. Now it intermittently works as either allies or foes of the PAC. In truth, the Tigers are dedicated to rooting the corruption in the PAC, but work with them for worthy goals. The idea of a "rogue right hand" of the collective is not new; the Chrysanthemum Dawn (introduced in the Shadowforce Archer campaign book) is based on the same concept, but I think that the Army of Ten Tigers provides more interesting role-playing opportunities.
The book provides background material and adventure ideas. The introductory chapter includes newspaper type headlines presenting situations that the PAC might have to deal with. After the "players' eyes" headlines are a number of adventure seeds and plot possibilities for the GM related to those headlines, telling the real story. In addition, the last chapter includes a number of threats. (For those not familiar, a Threat in Spycraft is the skeleton of a pre-planned adventure with situations and NPCs.)
The rules material provides some nice support for the Pan-Asian Collective subsetting. As mentioned in the Shadowforce Archer campaign book, the source materials for the Pan-Asian Collective includes martial arts/espionage thrillers as well as over-the-top near future anime like Akira and Bubblegum Crisis, and the rules support this well.
Topping the list of new rules entries is the Martial Artist core class. As you might guess, the martial artist receives many bonus martial arts feats, but gains many other benefits fitting the source materials as well. For example, the martial artist receives bonus abilities called ploys that have a bit more of a high-action martial arts flavor. One example of a ploy is strut. Basically, if you spend time posturing after a successful strike in combat, you gain a free action dice (sans XP) for your audacity.
New prestige classes include the Blank, Dai Lo, Mole, and Raptor. The blank is a psionic class with the ability to blend into the environment and otherwise go unnoticed. The dai lo is a team leader for PAC cells. The mole is a specialist at infiltration. The raptor combines close combat expertise with advanced technology.
A number of short (10-level) NPC classes are also introduced for use as mundane enemies. This includes the martial arts mooks, bloodstained penitents, deep cover operatives, shadow warriors, special inspectors, technophiles, and urban bikers. This concept was originally introduced in the Archer Foundation book (which I do not yet own). They are convenient classes made to quickly realize a lot of common NPC archetypes, but are perhaps a bit too specific to justify a whole class of their own in most cases for my tastes.
The feat selection is rather broad and should appeal to anyone playing Spycraft with an taste for martial arts (which is just about everyone who plays so far as I can tell.) Feats include martial arts stances and maneuvers, new weapon category feats (concerned with more primitive weapons such as bows), and other genre appropriate feats such as wolf-pack tactics (which allows those with the feat to not have to be on opposite sides to flank a target.)
There are also many new gadgets and other equipment items to be had. The most noteworthy of these - and one which helps the book live up to it's alleged source material - is the addition of powered armor and power armor rules, much akin to Bubblegum Crisis.
Finally, in addition to the rules and background material, the book provides a very condensed chase map for what is likely to be the site of many PAC adventures: Hong Kong.
Conclusion
Overall, I was fairly happy with the content of the book. The Pan-Asian Collective struck me as one of the most promising chambers in Shadowforce Archer and the Pan-Asian Collective sourcebook did not disappoint, dishing up the martial arts and hardsuit action that they had promised in spades.
Overall Grade: B+
-Alan D. Kohler
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