From publisher blurb:
Psi-Watch presents a slick, stylish new way of looking at Psionics, not to mention modern espionage and supers gaming, powered by the best-selling Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Ultimate Psionics (Dreamscarred Press) rules. The campaign setting owes a major debt to my life-long love of comics, and is inspired by my generation’s comic book renaissance.
Psi-Watch was designed to emulate the thrill of early Image comics, to allow players and gamemasters alike to bring some of their sleek style and overwhelming firepower to the gaming table.
Black Operators revamps all the major races found in the original and Unlimited Editions of the Psi-Watch Campaign Setting, plus adds a few new surprises. These races have been rebuilt from the ground up, sometimes radically, with the Pathfinder and Ultimate Psionics rules in mind. Some of these changes are fairly minor, while others are comprehensive and radically change how these aliens and supersoldiers operate. Inside, you’ll find everything you need to play as a Culture or Neon alien, or any of a dozen breeds of Earth-born super-mutant.
What’s Different?
If you’re an existing fan of the Psi-Watch universe, what’s changed as of Black Operators? Most of the races pretty much the same as they are in earlier editions, but the races formerly known as Blooded Ghosts, Gravediggers, Steamers, Patriot Ivories and Spetnaski get worked over pretty good. These races got changed so racially, the old names no longer seemed appropriate. Take a look at the new Xenobreed, Graverobbers, Vaporlocks and Military Post-Humans to see how much everything’s changed.
Type and subtype play a more important rule, with new subtypes like Psionic, Mutant and Patriot, among others, helping define these character’s powers and place in the world.
Rather than a single Mutant species, being a Mutant is now a subtype shared by several of the races. These races are interfertile and culturally linked, making “Mutants” as a whole more diverse and interesting. A few existing races have their types altered to make them more interesting to play: Shiftsteel Symbionts are now Outsiders, and the radically redesigned Gravediggers are now, finally and actually, Undead.
Even races that stayed fundamentally the same, such as the Anvils (who dropped the Patriot prefix from their name) and Cityborn gain a few new traits in line with the Psionic race rules produced by Dreamscarred Press. Finally, everybody gets several alternate race traits.