- I absolutely love the art. Even the worst pieces in it are completely bearable.
- Speaking of art, they leave Trampier off of the list of influential artists. Not. Cool. Trampier is the man. Interestingly enough they include an homage to his famous full page illustration in the treasure section of the Monster Manual. That's my favorite piece of D&D art ever.
- I was scared shitless when I read "skills," but they're more or less just ability checks. It's sorta similar to C&C. Sorta.
- I find it weird that it has a general mechanic but also has percentile skills for thieves.
- The example Wizard's patron is an evil frog demon? That's what I'm fucking talking about.
- I wish there were a few more monsters in the play test document, but it doesn't look to difficult to spitball.
- I really really hope the final product has rules for random encounters and dungeon stocking. Thats one of my favorite things about OSD&D (and might deserve a post on it's own).
- Right now there is no guidelines for xp, so I wonder how treasure is going to factor into that or if it will at all.
- The spell tables and crit charts remind me of Warhammer. This is a good thing.
- I think the tone is a bit too authoritarian. Can't the judge decide if he or she wants players to roll 4d6 and drop low?
- The setting assumptions are a tiny bit thicker than I would have liked. I wish the god examples were more explicitly examples rather than just the gods that are in the game.
- That said, the relationship between the gods and the old ones is cool. I'll probably steal that.
- Luck is cool, and I really like the birth omens thing.
- I sorta wish they had split race and class, but I can deal.
Note: this is only my thoughts after an initial skimming. One of my players expressed some interest in it last session so I may run a few sessions to put it through it's paces and to take a break from NWA, but we'll see. This should not be considered a review.
It seems like race and class are split. You start off with your occupation, but then you get to choose your class at level 1. you could be a dwarf herder who takes thief as his first class. the only rule I noticed about who can choose what class, is that demihumans are the only ones who can choose their respective classes. So in that way, class and race are split.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't noticed that! Thanks for pointing it out. That does change the game a bit.
ReplyDeleteThe example Wizard's patron is an evil frog demon? That's what I'm fucking talking about.
ReplyDeleteAmen, brother!
I think the tone is a bit too authoritarian. Can't the judge decide if he or she wants players to roll 4d6 and drop low?
Of course the DM can do whatever they want, but I think they want people to try character generation as written before deciding to do things their own way, especially for the beta, since playtest results for a heavily houseruled game aren't all that useful.
I actually played in a BETA-test game with Joe Goodman last Friday. I am in love with this system and will have to play it in some form or fashion at some point.
ReplyDelete