Although ultimately flawed, WW2 Heroes - Players Guide has many good ideas in it that make it worth a look for fans of d20 Modern putting together a World War II game.

Through focus in character creation, the WW2HPG (uh, acronyms, yay!) provide some good ideas for adapting D20 Modern to a game where everyone is an American soldier in WWII. Backgrounds, previously just a basic outline of pre-level-1 activities, are divided into your situation when you were recruited and the way you were trained. Equipment focuses (somewhat obsessively) on what characters may be issued or find in their backpacks, right down to the suspenders they wear with their uniforms. Units are given introduction and detail and specialization of the unit (rather than the soldier) helps give a good flavor to the team. WW2H is not afraid to extend the d20 Modern system in areas where it might help, adding new attributes such as Leadership and Guts. This is a degree of customization many other games of the d20 era shy away from, to their detriment.

Advanced Classes are about as well balanced and well-thought-out as the ones in d20 Modern; namely, not at all. But they do fulfill the function of Advanced Classes, which is to provide additional flavor and detail to the class-based system.

The presentation is marred with numerous typographical errors and references to things that aren't described well or thoroughly. It barely makes the three-star grade, and it does so purely on the strength of its willingness to really focus down on one thing: American WW2 soldiers and how d20 Modern might be used to handle that. If you want other countries' soldiers, or non-soldier adventures, or fantastical looks at WW2, or anything else, really, this is not the product for you.

But if you are looking at a d20 Modern game about American soldiers in WW2 (and the proliferation of American-soldiers-in-WW2 first-person shooters tells me that this is something people might want!), then definitely check this out. At the very least you're going to come away from it with a solid idea for organizing equipment, units and some additional mechanics that might help you put something together.

It's a really good book, with lots in it. Only one downer for me. The character sheet, which should have been the back of the PDF, was missing. Kind of an importnant thing to be missing from an RPG and the steelmagic studios website isn't anywhere to be found on the web.

I downloaded it twice just to be sure. Not a happy camper. If I could have down-loaded it from the website, that would have been fair enough.

World War II Heroes is an...interesting game. Let me tell you first, do not buy this game if you are not a fan of the D20 system. You will also need to have the D20 Modern rulebook as well because it refers to that a ton instead of just explaining in the book which I thought was credibly annoying since I'd have to switch between rulebooks to refresh myself.

Besides that, this game isn't half-bad. It has a decent amount of depthness and the rules seem to fit together well. I was disappointed in this game because you can only be an American soldier. Now, if you know enough about the German, Russian, or any other army that partook in WWII, then you can re-adjust the rules pretty easy to make it so that you can be a part of that army. A nice thing is for the equipment, it includes equipment from the USA, German, and Russian army. That didn't make a whole lot of sense since you can only be an American soldier, but it was a nice add-in.

Overall, this game isn't too bad of a game. Nothing to go bragging about to your friends, but it'll keep you entertained for a while. I do like that it is flexible in a way that you can kind of just flip flop rules around so that you could actually play different armies eventhough you technically can't. I also liked the equipment lists. But be weary, do NOT buy this game if 1) you are not a fan of the d20 system or 2) you don't have the d20 modern rulebook. If you do like the d20 system, you should have a lot of fun with this game. I'd have to say if I liked the d20 rules, it'd probably be 4 stars because it'd tailor to what I would like more, but since I don't I gave it a three. It doesn't get 5 because it doesn't have as much depth as I hoped and you actually have to do some work if you don't want to be American.

Seems like a good system for WWII realism and appears to fit in nicely with other d20 modern games. That said my biggest issue is that the game introduces a new feat named Battle Indoctrination, but there is no description of the feat. Anyone know what this feat is/does? Please let me know.

i say not to bad, it worked out for my other WW II rpg books i wish there was more.. but i had to change some fo the things i did not agree with like in the first book. they promised futer books with stuff from the german side of the war and stuff but i guess they got bord or something. i say get it for some ideas for WW II gameing just do not hold it to bible stats.

Imagine all of the d20 modern srd components [modern, arcana, menace and future] streamlined and packaged with 3D art and comic book flavor text... and you'll have the concept of this pdf. ...complete with sample characters. The best OGL buy for the money.

Excellent! Well thought-out and crafted for people who want a WWII RPG. If nothing else, this thick book will provide very good source material for anyone wanting to do their own WWII RPG. Shame it did not go further.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Amount of rich material and information provided. Excellent!<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Can't think of any.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Nice addition to the WWII Heroes RPG. It's a shame the additional mission packs were not published. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Amount of information provided. Good stuff.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some mistakes in places, such as with the pre-made characters provided, that should have been corrected with proper editing.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

great wonderful not to bad how ever i wish they produced more books like the german army guid and other stuff and even a wepon guid.. and they forgot to but down the damage die for the howitzers but other then that it is good<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: for what i wanted out of it. provided more freedome<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: lack of other stuff<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

This book was well intentioned, but poorly executed. I had high expectations (as I have ran WWII games in the past). I was looking for a more through look at the genre in game terms, but this book fell short. Don?t make the same mistake I did? pass this one and wait for something better? <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

Despite the disappointment of the ?World War II Heroes- Players Guide,? this mission (though brief) wasn?t that bad. I cannot say I would recommend the Players Guide, but I could recommend this. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

This is an idiosyncratic look at the Second World War for d20 Modern. It might be more accurately described as the US Infantry Player's Guide as there is little outside Airborne Divisions and US civilian life in this book. Some of the information presented in general way (such as the section on Gender) is true for the US but totally incorrect for other nations.

The layout looks great with good use of archive photos. I also appreciated the provision of a landscape version of the text (but no text only option for printing). However the text often seems sloppy with the captions having particularly noticeable spelling and grammar problems. The links from the Table of Contents did not work either.

The rules implementation is not to my taste with the addition of three new stats all of which could have happily been addressed via Feats and none of which link to any skills. Few of the new Skills really deserve to be separate from the Profession or Knowledge catchalls. Some like Interrogation could well have been a specific task under an existing Skill (such as Intimidation). Others are far too specific such as "Protect Military Information" while others, such as Parachuting might have been better as a Class Feat than a skill in their own right. Crawl was a particularly odd one for me, is Crawling really a skill? If it is about being able to crawl for long distances surely the Endurance feat already has it covered?

This is really an enthusiastic fan effort and needs much harder thinking on the design and a broadening of scope before it can be truly be described as a WWII Player's Guide. The price is also way off beam, this is more of four or five dollar product than fifteen.

Very good implementation of the concepts into d20. My only real complaint is that there isn't an image-less "printer friendly" version like other publishers do on here. I'm not one of those people who uses these books on computer only, so a version that can print quickly and easily is very important to me as a consumer. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how good the material is, I can't use it.

A very realistic environment and system, with an impressive historic research, this guide succesfully puts the players into the battlefield supported with a great amount of vehicles and weaponry.

No magical healing or bullet-dodging. You are hit: unless you are extremely lucky or really high level PC, you are dead. Using of full or 3/4 cover is a must (unless you have suicidal tendencies).

The author implemented a real nice set of rules to handle automatic-weapon (or burst) fire and sniping.

Although, this guide has many typos (nothing really important) and some errors/omisions that need an Errata (or second version) RIGHT NOW. IE: Mentions some inexistant feats/skills. Some feats/skills are poorly explained and others are crystal clear. The web support in the author site sounds promising, but so far, it fails to answer many questions regarding the rules. So don't count on it. Probably you will need to figure them out using your logic/imagination.

The system makes some changes to the d20 system, that although clear and logic, not easier to translate to gameplay for a master/player used to DnD. Get ready to some slow first game-sessions. IE: Any PC level 1 has AT LEAST 10 feats and 40 skill points (character creation times increases A LOT).

Despite all this, I must agree with other reviews: This game is GREAT. Worth buying it !

If you are looking for a realistic war setting forhte D20 system, this is deffinitely the one you want!

There are loads of classes & info on War during the WWII era. Lots of guns & vehicles. Realistic combat & character classes. If you play this, don't expect to go charging headlong into gunfire unless you plan on dying quickly!

I have not had a chance to realy playtest it or pour over the rules too heavily but from what I've read, this is a well put together book. I hope these guys release some more stuff with this level of quality & insight!!