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The Star Wars RPG recently underwent a "reboot" to the Saga Edition and Wizards of the Coast has seen fit to start releasing Campaign Guides for various periods that people like. There have been guides for Knights of the Old Republic as well as The Force Unleashed, but the latest one was one that I was looking forward to and it covers The Clone Wars.
The Clone Wars guide is a traditional campaign book for the Star Wars Saga edition role playing game. The first chapter covers new alien races to add to your growing list of playable races in the game; they include Dug (Sebulba's race), Gen'Dai (Durge's race from the original Clone Wars Cartoon), Iktotchi (Saesee Tiin's race), Kaleesh (Grevious' race before he became a cyborg), Kaminoans (the race who makes the Clone Troopers), Nautoloans (Kit Fisto's race) and Vurks (Coleman Trebor's race), There are also Nelvaanians (some race from the original Clone Wars cartoon) and Kerkoidens (who we have yet to see in the new cartoon.) I would have liked to see some other races from the Star Wars universe like the Weequay and Talz in the book rather than the limited use Nelvaanians who have only been seen in a grand total of one episode in the old series.
The second chapter gives us new talents as well as talent trees to use with our characters. All the classes are included, and some of them get the addition of adding followers to your group. I kind of like the addition of followers to the game because that was something that was in Dungeons and Dragons 3.0/3.5 and was really hazy on the rules. Also in the second chapter are new uses for skills. The new uses for the skills are rather limited and only on skills that might help in combat heavy scenarios. The next to last addition to the second chapter is new feats for your character. Like the skills they are mostly combat oriented, but there are some like Droidcraft and Expert Droid Repair that have use outside of combat. The last part of chapter two is the rules that cover gaining followers and their game statistics. The rules for followers are very heavy and may take a few readings before you gain a basic grasp on them.
Chapter three covers new prestige classes as well as giving more talents for those prestige classes that have been in other books. The Republic Commando talent tree is by far my favorite of the ones for the Elite Trooper prestige class. The talent trees are mostly for the combat oriented classes like Jedi Knight, Elite Trooper and Officer Prestige Classes. There are also three new Prestige Classes in the book and they are: Droid Commander a droid who leads other droids into combat. The Military Engineer is a tech specialist (presented in another book) who is a master at fixing military hardware and making things easier for the troops on the battlefield. The last PC is the Vanguard who is a scout type that goes ahead of a military force and finds the enemy and reports their location.
Chapter four covers both the good and bad sides of the force during the clone wars. There are new Force Powers like levitate and malacia that can cause all kinds of havoc on the battlefield. A cool one to have when you are fighting droids in the clone wars is technometry. It allows you to jam a droid or electronic device from seeing you or it allows you to gain one piece of information from the droid's memory. There are also new Force using Talents, Techniques, Secrets and Traditions.
The fifth chapter covers new weapons, armor and equipment. New weapons include things like the Garrote and Vibrorapier which have no place in a book about the Clone Wars or Star Wars in general. The listing for these two weapons is like someone took an idea for a weapon in D&D 4.0 and added it to the Star Wars books instead. For ranged weapons there is a Wrist Rocket Launcher that is very expensive and is probably something thrown in for those of you who want to play a bounty hunter like Jango or Boba Fett. New armor includes things like Camo Armor or a Shadowsuit or Thinsuit, but my favorite is the Tracker Utility Vest. It has twenty-four pockets and pouches total that can each hold something up to one Kilogram in them. Equipment is next in the chapter and it is pretty light. There's the Bioscanner which is a essentially a medical tricorder for Star Wars, a Bracer Computer that is a data pad that fits on the forearm, Halo Lamp which is essentially a flashlight and the Visual Wrist Communicator which gets a lot of usage in the new cartoon. Droids are another part of the chapter that covers some of them that we see in the new cartoon as well as a favorite of mine from Episode I, the Pit Droid.
The sixth chapter covers starships like freighters and star fighters that can be used in any era of game, but are not specifically designed by either side. It includes stats for the G9 Rigger class freighter the Twilight is based off of.
Chapter seven is pretty much standard how to run a game in the time of the Clone Wars. There's one little sidebar in this chapter that if you Game Master allows it, means you can play a Clone Trooper as a heroic character. That was something that I have been waiting for since Episode two came out and I had the idea for a Clone Trooper that has the Force Sensitive feat. Also in this chapter there are rules that allow for Mass Combat to be used in the game.
Chapter eight is the Galactic Gazetteer chapter. This is mostly a fluff chapter that covers the worlds that are brought into play during the Clone Wars as well as worlds that have been introduced in the main book.
Chapter Nine is all about the Jedi. This chapter is a good amount of crunch and fluff, and it includes the stats for the various Jedi that are around during this time and the basic stats of the vehicles used by the Jedi.
Chapter Ten is all about the Republic. It covers the organization of the Galactic Senate as well as the High Command. Again this is a fluff heavy chapter with a little bit of crunch for good measure in the form of specialized clone troopers. It also has stats for the ground vehicles as well as the space vehicles like shuttles, cruisers and frigates used for transport and other needs in the Republic.
Chapter Eleven is much like chapters nine and ten in that they cover both the dark Jedi and Confederation personnel, vehicles and space ships. This is a good mix of crunch and fluff with some of the personalities that are involved in the formation and command structure of the Confederation of Systems.
The last chapter, twelve, covers the Fringe factions that are involved in the Clone Wars and much like the three before it, just covers some of the basics on personnel that are involved in less than savory things during that time. It also has a few starships and ground vehicles used by the Wookiees during the final stand of the Confederation on Kashyyyk.
Overall, the book is well done and really sheds some, but not a lot, of insight into running a game during the Clone Wars.
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