Greetings all!

About a week ago I came across the first review that I've seen for
Treasure Hunter; all in all I was quite pleased.

Here it is.

Reviewer: Crothian

"In the modern era the idea of treasure hunters is seems to have
lessoned. At the turn of the ninetieth century there were more people
and more stories of people exploring the Egyptian Pyramids and the
dark continent of Africa. Now with communication lines open world
wide, the little mysteries have seemingly fallen to the side. But of
course that does not have to be the case in the role playing games.
Treasure Hunters is a new book that brings back the mysteries of tomb
raiding and getting the priceless artifacts before the bad guys. It
uses d20 Modern and it has some options for greater amounts of magic
in the world if that is what is desired.

"Modern Campaign Options: Treasure Hunter is a new book by Emerald
Press. These one hundred and eighty pages are written by Nathanael
Christen. Emerald Press has put out a few very interesting books of
those I enjoy their book on Labyrinths best. This PDF comes in two
versions one for one screen viewing and one for printing out. The one
screen version is full color though not with much art. The lay out is
good and the book is well book marked.

"Treasure Hunter starts strong, has some really great things in it,
but I found too much of it reprinted from elsewhere. I do like the
feel of the book and I am part of the target audience for this book.
If I were to run a modern d20 game it would be of the same feel and
direction of this book. It could have gone a little more Pulp for me
as it does have plenty of the same foundation that pulp games do.
That is a short version of this book, now to look at it a little more
in depth.

"The first six chapters are pretty much all about new characters
options. They include six new advanced classes, advice for using some
of the advanced classes from d20 Modern in this setting, a couple new
occupations, information on skills, some new feats as well as many
reprinted ones, and a chapter on alliances, contacts and relations.
The Retrieval Specialist a.k.a. tomb robber is probably my favorite
of the new advanced classes. The items in these first few chapters
really do a nice job of setting the theme with the characters and
giving options that support it all.

"The book continues on with more DM oriented material though the
players can get use out of it to. The new tools are nice like ice
climbing equipment and multi tools. The book has some simple ideas
for chases and traveling the globe as these types of games can easily
include both. There are some nice occupational hazards like the
classic quicksand, avalanches, and frigid water.

T"he magic section has some good ideas for magic in the modern world.
Many of the spells though are reprints form D&D although they did a
nice job of including ones that make sense for the setting. There are
also two types of spells one for a much lower magical setting that
they referred to Discreet and more obvious ones referred to as
Vulgar. Magic items include the options from the DMG that make sense
of the setting, but it is the artifacts that really are a great part
of the book. There is a nice variety of items from myth and history.
One could easily have a book on these sorts of items and I would
really like to see someone actually do that. But until that day this
section serves to offer some great ancient artifacts that many
players will recognize.

"There are some really good animal write ups of gorillas, snakes,
bears, and other creatures. With the artifacts and mystical locations
presented here I was surprised to not see anything on mythical
beasts. But the Mythical Locations are another great area and another
topic that would make a great individual book. Mythical Beast for the
modern era complete with backgrounds would also make a great book.
But I digress. The locations offered here are many of the famous and
not so famous places. There are over two dozen places from the real
world mentioned here and each is provided with a nice plot hook.

"The book does a great job of capturing the Treasure Hunter and this
type of campaign. The reprinted material is a difficult thing for a
publisher to decide to do as there are many reasons to include it and
to not to. I really enjoy the mystical locations and artifacts. This
is a great book for anyone wanting the pulp feel for a modern game."


My question, for those of you who've had a chance to take a look at
it, is what do you all think?

-Nate