Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #22: Personal Shields is a role playing game supplement published by Skirmisher Publishing for use with the Mutant Future game system. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result. The Wisdom from the Wastelands series adds new options for the Mutant Future game; this particular issue adds personal shields, which are force shields.
This is a PDF which is available from RPGNow for $0.99 and is also included in the Wisdom from the Wastelands Issues 1-52 Bundle for $27.74, although it was actually purchased at the vastly reduced price of $0.01 as part of a special bundle. The PDF has seven pages of which one is the Open Game License and front matter and another an ad for other products.
The supplement starts with a brief overview of force screens, how the details on the screens are laid out and what limitations they all have.
Shield Table Definitions explains shield hit points and regeneration, which are the damage they can take and how quickly they recover damage, and the four types of damage protection offered by shields – not every shield will offer the same type of protection, and their battery life. Shields offer physical protection (which is basically dirt; not what might be thought of for such), kinetic, which is melee and physical attacks, energy, which is laser, plasma, electricity etc, and thermal, which is heat and cold based attacks.
There are tables with the different shields and their stats as well as the three main types; civilian, security/law enforcement and military/government, with the civilian shields offering the least protection and the military/government the most.
Shield modifications are next; there are a variety of ways of improving and modifying shields, including turning them into offensive weapons as well as defensive.
Next are anti-shield devices, which has three types of weapon designed to circumvent shields from grenades to weapon attachments for energy weapons that allow the wielder to fire through shields.
Finally, there is a new weapon, phased energy blasters, which function in a similar manner to one of the anti-shield devices and enable the wielder to fire through shields.
Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #22: Personal Shields in Review
The PDF is decently bookmarked for a short one and there is a hyperlinked table of contents as well. Navigation is therefore good for a short supplement.
The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noticed. The illustrations are Skirmisher’s usual stock images that have often been tweaked to make them look more like illustrations. Presentation is therefore okay.
The supplement is more useful than might be inferred from the title, or even from the beginning of the introduction. The title doesn’t make it clear that this is about force fields, not standard metal or wooden fantasy shields. To start with, it also looks like it’s a limited topic as well. However, there are a wide range of shield types and modification, plus useful information on weapons designed to counter them (otherwise this supplement would be a bit unbalancing). This is therefore a good, well detailed collection of force field and related technology. Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #22: Personal Shields can be found by clicking here.
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