Castles & Crusades, Players Handbook
One can't really talk about classes and not first look to the core, the Players Handbook. This book serves the same purposes as the D&D Players Handbooks; it introduces the rules and the classes. In this case, the comparison to AD&D 1st edition is most appropriate.
I have repeatedly made the claim that Castles & Crusades is the spiritual successor to AD&D 1st Ed. No slight against 5e or other versions of D&D, but if you want modern rules and a 1st ed feel, your game is Castles & Crusades. Obviously, the publisher, Troll Lords, feels the same way given the new cover art for the 8th Printing of the C&C PH.
The classes in the C&C PH are: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Illusionist, Knight, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard, and the Assassin (a special class). Compare this to the ones from the AD&D 1st Ed Players Handook: Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Thief, Assassin, Magic-user, Illusionist, Monk, and a special class for the Bard. Add in the Unearthed Arcana we get the Barbarian and Cavalier along with the Thief-Acrobat. So all in all a very, very similar list of options.
In Castles & Crusades, each class has a Prime Attribute which really helps define the class. This is a bit more "hard coded" into the class than say it is in AD&D.
The classes, even with the same name, do have some differences. For starters, all the spell casters can cast spells up to 9th level in C&C.
A few details. Bards do not get spellcasting ability here but a number of spell-like powers. Clerics are limited to wielding the weapon their deity favors. So a cleric of Thor naturally gets a hammer, but one of Odin might take the spear. Druids get a lot of abilities and spells. Fighters actually get a few abilities as well, especially involving weapon specialization. As mentioned Illusionists get spells to the 9th level. The Knight fills the roles of the Cavalier. Monks are fairly similar to their AD&D counterparts. Both Paladins and Rangers are similar enough to their AD&D counterparts. They both have a number of special powers but neither has actually spell casting powers. At first, I did not like this particular change, but I did not miss it as much as I thought I might with the paladin. I did in the Ranger, but I tended not to spend a lot of time on spells for my AD&D rangers to even begin with, save for spells that helped their normal ranger powers/skills. Rogues are very close to their Thief ancestors. Wizards get a nice boost at the 13th level when they start to get some new powers/abilities. It reminds me, rules-wise, of the BECMI magic users from the D&D Companion set. The Assassin is a special class that is designed to be added to another class with the C&C Dual- or Multi-Classing and Class-and-half rules.
Just looking at the classes, C&C can provide an interesting twist on the AD&D experience while retaining the essential feel of these archetypes.
The logical extension of the Castles & Crusades class discussion is to go through the Castles & Crusades Player Archive.
I will give a brief review of this book so people will know what I am talking about. For this review, I am only considering the PDF from DriveThruRPG. I thought I had the hardcover version of this as well, but I guess I don't. Will need to remedy this.
PDF, 128 pages. Hyperlinked and bookmarked. Color cover art and black & white interior art.
This book collects most of the classes published in various Castles & Crusades books including the core and the Adventure's Backpack. What is not here are some of the classes from the various Brian Young Codex books. There are some here, but I would have to go through all the books to know how many are here and how many are not. I do not see this a miss. Many of the Codex classes are very specific to their time and place and to remove them from that context they would loose something special.
This book covers the basic (levels 1 to 12/13) and advanced (expanded) information (levels 13 to 24) for all the classes. The classes are:
Arcane Thief, Archer, Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Chromatic Mage, Cleric, Divine Knight, Druid, Duelist, Dwarf (Heisen Fodt), Elf, High (Oraalau), Ethereal Knight, Fighter, Foresworn, Gnome (Hugrin Dun), Goblin, Eldritch (Ieragon), Halfling (Felon Noch), Illusionist, Knight, Luminary, Magic-User, Monk, Oathsworn, Pacer, Paladin, Pirate, Primal Druid, Ranger, Rogue, Rune Mark, Seeker, Skald, Thief, Warrior Priest, and Wizard.
There is a split between the classes "Basic" entry which covers levels 1 to 12 or 13, and the Expanded entry later in the book for levels up to 24. This has some immediate consequences. While I am not a fan of my class information getting split up like this, many games only go to about levels 12-14 anyway. So this would cover the majority of all games played. It does give us a nice split today port these classes over to any OSR game based on B/X D&D (max level 14) or something Hyborea (max level 12). Then you can pull in the expanded information as it is needed if it is ever needed.
The Core/Players Handbook classes are here as are some classes that only appeared in limited-run products. It is really nice to have them all in one place. Great for anyone playing a C&C game, you just need to make sure that your Castle Keeper agrees on them.
Old School Games based on D&D usually do not handle multi- and dual-classes as well as say more modern versions of D&D. Castles & Crusades makes some vast improvements here with rules on this. They also add options of "Class Plus" or add some features from another class, Dual classing and Reclassing. What is missing here is the Class and Half from the Core Players Handbook. While anyone with this book will have the Players Handbook, it might have been nice to see here.
I mentioned in my coverage of the Adventurers Spellbook that the spells can be ported over to other D&D and D&D-like RPGs. In particular, I mentioned the Chromatic Mage being used in the OSR clone Chromatic Dungeons. The class is presented here in the Player's Archive. Yes, this class can be moved over rather easily, maybe even easier than moving it over to AD&D. Likewise nearly any class here can be used in AD&D or OSR clone. Want to play a Primal Druid in Old-School Essentials? No problem, they can be added with ease.
Note: Speaking of which the layout here aims to give each class a two- or four-page spread to keep referencing the classes easy to read and view at the table. The PDF then allows for ease printing of these classes. Playing a Warrior Priest and don't want to cart your hardcover around? Print pages 90 and 91 back to back and staple them to your character sheet. Everything you need. This does mean there is some unused white space after each class, but for me, this is well worth it.
With this book and the option within I could spend an entire month creating and posting characters and no two would even be remotely the same. A must-have for any Castles & Crusades fan.
Huh, my copy of C&C has the Assassin as a standard class. Sounds like at some point they took some inspiration from the OA Ninja? I've got a C&C-with-Hyperborea-mods game about to start so this series has been nice. I am a little curious about converting spells (and by extension, spellcasters) between AD&D/OSR and C&C's 3e based design, since things like cantrips, full 9th level progression for all spellcasting classes, and spell progression are some of the larger changes I think of in the move to 3e. Do you have a method or do you just not worry too much about the differences?
ReplyDeleteAs usual, great write up thanks for doing it. This may be more detail than you put into your research but I wonder which version of classes like the Archer made it into the book. I know it (and some others) have gone through a few variations depending on which book they pulled it from.
ReplyDeleteI could look into that. I have considered doing a Class Struggles on just the various versions of the archer.
ReplyDeleteThe assassin is not treated any differently than any other class. An assassin may multiclass etc just like any other, but there is no requirement to do so. It can function as its own stand-alone class.
ReplyDelete