Esper Genesis 5E Sci-fi – Core Manual by Rich Lescouflair is a role playing game supplement published by Alligator Alley Entertainment. This is one of three core books for the Esper Genesis system, the other two being the Threats Database and Master Technician’s Guide. Esper Genesis is a science fiction role playing game based on Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition; as such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $24.95 and is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was purchased at a reduced price during a sale, and has 304 pages with two pages being the front and rear covers, one the front matter, one the Table of Contents, one the Open Game License, four the Index, three the character sheet and one is an ad.
The Foreword looks at the different things that science fiction can mean, what it does and why the game was designed.
The Introduction starts by explaining that this is a role playing game in an epic science fiction setting. It gives an overview of what characters and the Game Master are (though anyone reading this book likely already knows) and the goal of the game; which, as with most RPGs, could basically be boiled down to “have fun.” It briefly looks at the universe, and particularly the planetary systems known as the Silrayne Arc, and the mysterious Crucibles; structures the size of small moons where sorium forms inside. Sorium can be used to power many things, including Channeling, a process of warping the fabric of the universe. There are some notes on expanding the universe.
Rules of Play explains that Esper Genesis uses the 5th Edition rules. It gives an overview of various concepts that should be familiar to anyone who has played with the 5th Edition rules, then looks at running adventures, and the three aspects of play; exploration, social interaction and combat.
1. Character Creation explains that you need to create a character concept, choose a race, choose a class, generate ability scores, with several methods given, come up with a background and description, select your equipment and then finalise the last parts of the character. It then looks at moving beyond 1st level, and describing the four tiers of play and the levels needed for them. An experience chart is given for levels 1-20, with the proficiency bonus gained. Finally, there is a short piece of fiction.
2. Races starts off by explaining that the people of the Silrayne Arc have founded multicultural cities and sectors, and the idea of alien only really applies to a race or species not seen previously in the Arc. It also states that there are thousands of species and subspecies, not just those defined here, and that the Master Technician’s Guide provides tools and tables for creating random NPC species.
The new races are then described. Each is given some history as well as the usual racial details, different subtypes and example names. The ashenforged are a made species that were originally created for war but no for other matters, though they can choose what they want to do. They are essentially artificial intelligences in a physical form. The belare are an old race of energy beings that wear containment suits around others, due to the heat they give off. The dendus saw their homeworld invaded and their civilisation destroyed several times. The eldori are one of the oldest major races and are part of the nesieve. Humans are self-explanatory. Kesh are explorers who now lack a homeworld. Matokai are humanoid lizards that are also bound to primordial energy. Prometheans were once human but have made themselves into something new. Valna are beasts more connected to their origins than others.
3. Classes looks at the eight classes available in the game. These follow a pretty standard makeup, and all classes in the game are considered to be espers, one who can harness the Crucible’s energy, though they do so in different ways.
Adepts are psions who channel specific forms of energy through sheer force of will.
Cybermancers view the world as a system of cores and commands that can be hacked and controlled.
Engineers are tech experts who produce tools, robotic constructs, energy weapons and bio-enhancements.
Hunters are expert trackers capable of extra-sensory and physical feats.
Melders channel energy and shape the forces of creation with cosmic powers.
Sentinels use solar and celestial energy to produce devastating effects.
Specialists Aare experts in espionage and infiltration.
Warriors are masters of combat and tactics, armour and weapons.
4. Personality and Background looks at the details of a character beyond their race and class. This starts with the character’s details; name, gender, height and weight, additional characteristics, alignment, languages and different personal characteristics, being personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws. Some of these have a definite game effect whilst others do not, but they all help flesh out the character.
Inspiration is something the GM can use to reward a player for playing their character in a way true to their personality traits, ideal, bond and flaw. When gained, it can be spent on attack rolls, saving throws and ability checks to give advantage on that roll, or it can also be given to another player to reward them.
Backgrounds are where a character came from and each comes with proficiency in two skills, possibly additional languages, a package of starting equipment and some suggested characteristics. It’s also possible to customise a background using specific rules. Twelve backgrounds are then described, with a brief overview, details as to what they get, a feature, suggested characteristics and a d8 table of personality traits and d6 tables of ideals, bonds and flaws. Finally, esper origin is covered with a d20 table of options.
5. Equipment starts by explaining that each character gets a set of equipment during creation as defined by their class and background, or alternatively a starting amount of wealth, again determined by class and background. The amount is shown, which is partly randomly generated.
It then looks at wealth and currency, which includes selling loot; this is divided into the different categories of items that could be sold. The different types of equipment are then covered. Armour comes in light, medium and heavy, and shields are an option. Different types of armour require different amounts of time to get into. Weapons come in different kinds of melee and ranged weapons, and they have different properties which affect how they are used. Both armour and weapons have tables of their properties. Following this are details on miscellaneous gear, which are items that aren’t weapons or armour, but have special rules or which require further explanation. Tools are self-explanatory, and covered in the same way; there are various artisan’s tools to cover some new skills. Vehicles are briefly covered as spaceships and starships are covered in more detail later. Expenses are the daily costs for living at different standards. Finally, there is a short piece of fiction.
6. Customisation Options looks at some optional rules that can be further used to design a character. The first is multiclassing, which is where a character has multiple classes and can gain levels in them. The player can choose which class advances when a level is gained. Though two classes can be the most common, three or four classes could even be used, possibly more. How multiclassing works is then covered.
Another option is feats, which are talents or expertise that give characters extra abilities. Feats have prerequisites that need to be met before they can be gained. Feats can be gained instead of using the Ability Score Improvement when a level is reached that grants that; which to use is decided each time. A variety of feats are described and the chapter ends with another short piece of fiction.
7. Using Ability Scores explains that the three main rules of the game, the ability check, saving throw and attack roll, all depend on ability scores. Ability scores generate a modifier to die rolls, and a table provides them from scores of 1 to 30; low scores have a penalty and high scores a bonus.
Advantage and disadvantage is another important rule; when either is present, two d20s are rolled instead of ones. With advantage, the higher roll is taken, with disadvantage the lower one. Advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out; in even numbers, they have no effect. If abilities are possessed that allow the reroll of a d20, only one die can be rerolled.
The proficiency bonus is another bonus that is added to die rolls. Following this is a table of Difficulty Classes, and how hard the values are to do something. A roll may also be opposed by another in a contest. Skills affect die rolls as well, and passive checks are those that don’t involve die rolls. Just as checks can be opposed, characters can also work together on a check.
Next each ability score has suggestions as to what checks it would be used for. Finally, saving throws, which are pretty similar to normal ability checks but which can have different modifiers – each class proficiency in at least two saving throws.
8. Adventures and Exploration explains that this chapter covers the day-to-day activities, from movement to social interaction to off-time activities, as well as rest and healing. Time is tracked when it is important to be tracked. In cities and wilderness, hours may be used as the unit whilst for longer journeys days are more appropriate. Combat and fast-paced situations use rounds, which are 6 seconds long, covered more fully in the next chapter.
Movement can be summarised when it’s not important, but again in combat this is more important and characters and monsters have different movement rates. Travel speeds are given for different forms of travelling, and there are special types of movement; climbing, swimming, crawling and jumping. Alternate gravity can affect movement as well. Whilst travelling, characters will have a marching order, which is important if they are attacked, and there are sensors and other things that can detect them as well as other activities they can do whilst moving.
The environment can also be dangerous, and there are rules on falling, suffocation, vision and light, with different types of vision, and the need for food and water. Characters can also interact with or damage objects.
Social interaction is dealing with non-player characters. This often involves actual role playing, which is covered in two different ways; either the player describing what their character does, or the player actively doing it. This can then influence the NPC, but ability checks are used to determine the outcome of an interaction.
Resting, divided into short and long rests, allows character to recover in some way, with longer rests being better, from their actions.
Between adventures, characters are still doing things. They will incur lifestyle expenses during this time, and there are a variety of activities that can be doing; crafting, practicing a profession, recuperating, researching and training.
9. Combat starts with the order of combat, which is a five-step process. The first is to determine if anyone is surprised, then determine positions of the combatants. Initiative then determines the order of turns, and each combatant takes their turn in initiative order. Once a round is finished, the next starts. It looks at movement and position in combat, and how terrain can affect movement, as well as moving around other creatures, moving in zero gravity, flying and creature size.
There are a variety of actions that can be done in combat, not just attacking; these include dodging, dashing, using esper powers or objects and helping others. When a character takes an action in combat, that is the only action they take, and as well as the standard ones there are others gained from classes or special features.
How to attack follows, including the attack roll, modifiers to it, rolling a natural 1 or a natural 20, which are misses, no matter what, or a critical hit. How unseen characters can be attacked and ranged and melee attacks are looked at and the effect of cover.
Damage and how to heal from it are covered next. There are a variety of different types of damage, and certain creatures may be immune or less harmed by certain types. Damage isn’t permanent unless it results in death, and dropping to 0 hp doesn’t mean instant death unless the character is taken an amount below 0 that equals or exceeds their hit point maximum. If not killed by being reduced to 0 hp, the character is unconscious. Death saving throws must be made every turn started with 0 hp, which can bring a creature closer to death and eventually kill them. They may be stabilised at another before then. Creatures may also be knocked out.
Vehicle, underwater and zero-g combat all add differences to combat, and these are looked at, and finally there is a piece of fiction.
10. Starships and Space Travel explains that much of space travel is cantered on the Crucibles; every major galactic system has at least one. The Crucibles generate sorium which is an energy source that can be used to, amongst other things, power stardrives. These stardrives can cause ships using them to travel faster than light without time dilation. A ship with a stardrive that comes with 500 miles of a Crucible can also use the Crucible to jump to another system.
There are three different kinds of travel speeds for starships, being standard, FTL and intercept, which is used in combat. Details are given on recharging stardrives and the two main types of ships. Standard ships have crews of 1 to 8, whilst grand can have crews of 50 or more and can have other starships in hangars. Ships may be operated in single-person or multi-person mode, depending on the ship in question. The different roles for crewmembers on ships are discussed.
Ship combat is in some ways similar to regular combat, but with the ships being the combatants. There are different manoeuvres that a ship can do, and the different crew roles on a ship also have manoeuvres specific to them. Ships once damaged will need repairing, and as damage increases, so too can damage to structural integrity and the chance of system failures. Any ship that isn’t destroyed can be repaired, whether a quick patch or a full repair.
How ship statistics are calculated is covered, both for player ships and for enemy ships, the latter being slightly different, then there are example stat blocks for both player and enemy ships. Finally, there is another short piece of fiction.
11. Esper Powers details what are, for all intents and purposes, spells, though in the setting they are esper powers. It begins with instructions on how to read the power descriptions and how to use them. Like spells, they range from level 0 to 9 and, depending on the specialisation of the esper, are wielded in one of two ways; Talents and Channeling or Techniques and Forging. How many powers an esper can use is detailed, how to boost a power’s rank and the potential problems with pushing too far. After the instructions on how to use them, which are similar enough to spells in use and formatting that they should be familiar to those familiar with spells, is a list of esper powers by class.
The rest of the chapter is taken up by descriptions of the powers. Many of these will be familiar, as they are effectively standard 5th Edition spells, though they have been tweaked, in names and descriptions, to make them appear science fiction in nature rather than fantasy; a description might say the power forges microdrones, but the effect of these is recognisable as a spell.
12. The Galaxy provides some details on the setting. It starts by looking at time and space and timekeeping in the galaxy and then the Silrayne Arc, the galaxy which has been divided into different regions and the Crucibles. Different regions of the galaxy, divided into core sectors, inner colonies, mid-expanse, rim sectors and outer zones are then covered, with locations of interest in them all. The different Guardian Factions are briefly mentioned, though these are covered in more detail in the Crucible Corps Player’s Guide, different megacorporations and their primary focus and the Silrayne Intergalactic Matrix, the primary galactic data network.
Appendix A. Conditions lists the different conditions characters can be subjected to; these are all familiar ones.
Appendix B. Threat Statistics has stats for some of the various creatures and constructs characters can create, summon and control through esper powers.
Appendix C. Inspirational Content has a list of books, graphic novels and manga, movies and television and anime and video games that have provided inspiration.
Appendix D. Project Contributors is a list of Kickstarter backers.
Esper Genesis 5E Sci-fi – Core Manual in Review
The PDF is bookmarked, though not as deeply as it could be. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. The Index is more thorough but lacks hyperlinks. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a number of colour illustrations up to full page in size. Presentation is good.
This is one of three books that form a combination of system and setting. The system is based on 5th Edition, and has enough similarities to it that it should be easy enough to migrate over from; it’s closer to science fantasy than science fiction and a lot of the elements are broadly similar, even if they might be called by different names. The esper powers are similar enough to spells; the changes are, in many ways, more cosmetic than anything. The biggest single change is the addition of starships and starship combat; nothing like that exits in the 5E SRD and it involves new rules. The setting, though covered in the book, isn’t covered in any great detail; there are, given the size of the SF setting, only a few places covered, and none in depth. Most importantly, this isn’t a true standalone book; the other two are really needed to sue it. Esper Genesis 5E Sci-fi – Core Manual can be found by clicking here.
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