Customer Reviews

Fields of Fire (Shadowrun, No. 7114)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just recently got this book and though it is a little out of date(about five years)but it is still a great book that has all the weapons, armor, vehicles, cyber and bioware etc. This book also contains a lot of helpful rules for being a full time Merc. Personally this is my favorite book mainly because it contains all of the gear and rules you could ever need. This book contains gear from SRII,Street Samurai Catolouge,and Cyber and Shadowtech.

Fields of Fire was originally the 2nd weapons expansion for Shadowrun. It was mostly the mercenary sourcebook and was 1/3 new stuff, 1/3 new rules, and 1/3 an essay on how to be a mercenary.

As of Shadowrun 3rd edition and the Cannon Companion this book is really outdated. Some the weapons and stuff in it may not even be useable under 3rd edition rules without some conversion. However, it does have 2 strong suits that I think make it worth picking up if you're into Shadowrun.

First of all, the part at the beginning about what it means to be a mercenary is pretty interesting and potentially very useful as far as role playing goes.

Second, there are pictures of all the gear and vehicles in the book. While the Cannon Companion *does* have listing for all of the weapons in this book (I believe) it's always nice to be able to put a picture to the item.

Be warned though that some of the stuff in this can unbalance your game as most of the weapons are military and very powerful. I'd reccomend keeping it hard for your runners to get ahold of this stuff and keep it very expensive. After all, military grade hardware should not be easy to come by on the street.

It's middling easy to find and you can pick it up for a decent price.

Although the stuff in here may be a little to powerful every runner needs at least some action packed runs these things really help mercs and sams get some extra punch and the new rules are good. Just use whatever you like and ignore what you don't

I wouldn't want anything in this book pointed at my player character.

Can we please do something a little more subtle than throwing Insect Spirit Queens, Force 20 Free Spirits, and Juggernauts at the PCs in direct combat? I know if I went up against a Juggernaut, I'd at least want a tank, and tanks are way beyond Shadowrun's game mechanic limits; the lesser (but not by much) weapons found in this book, although pretty cool, do not belong in either PC or Corporate hands. If a Corporation finds itself deploying this sort of stuff its bottom line would sink overnight.

This book, if nothing else, is one of the best Shadowrun Sourcebooks to just read through. Even if you never ever use any of the fun little toys (although you have to admit the mortars would be a lot of fun to try in ANY run), the information it gives all runners as far as how they should behave is something that will make a GM shudder with joy at the mere thought that his runners could be such professionals. And anyway, it's cheap so ... why not buy it?

A good sourcebooks if you are running a very high-powerd campaign, or for arming those nasty corporate goons your always threatening your PCs with. A very good secion of what seperates a merc from a Street Samurai, and an apendix o almost every weapon and piece of equipment published from the date that saves a lot of time looking for damage codes and clip counts.

Well, here's yet another sourcebook full of new and improved equipment for the players. Most of it is just too powerful to simply have your players carry around. Who on Earth would want to see characters walking around in Heavy Military Battle Armor, armed with portable lasers? All of the above is now quite affordable. Still, it does contain some quite logical rules clarifications. Question is, do we really need to make the game more complicated? It is, however, nice to see a sourcebook dedicated to the mercenary archetype, although the street sam will probably make equal use of it. The equipment in this book is well-suited to the cyberware in "Cybertechnology", and should only be used in a multi-threat campaign world.

Unless your GM runs a very different type of campaign, then this book is mostly just a bunch of new toys for the Samurai. Not very useful, and most of the items/ rules listed imply a scale of combat larger than what I'd like to get my character into. Some of the rules expansions in the back can be useful, though- if you love having a million rules to govern every single thing you can do.

At it's $15 dollar price, this is one sourcebook to
have in hand. Primarily a source for the mercenary archtype, it also contains a catalog for numerous pieces of equipment as well as a section devoted to the essence of being a mercenary, as well as the level of professionalism involved. Great for any gamer in the world of Shadowrun. Also includes extra rules and an index catelog of firearms, cyberware, equipment, and more from 9 different sourcebooks. A truely great buy

When one of my players bought this book I thought that it would be a good thing but when I started to read it I was horrified at the way fasa took this book I thought that I was reading a Rifts book and that made me want to head for the hills and find shelter from the end of the world. I think that it was just a book for munchkins and I don't like the idea that shadowrun is moving to the more power less roleplaying end of the spectrum.