More From Barrel Rider Games

I won't lie. I love Barrel Rider Games.
A full Basic-era class for a $1. Not a bad deal really.

Here are a bunch of my recent purchases.

In nearly all cases the books are 5 to 6 or so pages with a cover, some art and the OGL and Labyrinth Lord licenses in back.

Angel
What is says on the tin. The Angel class is something like a more powerful flying Paladin.  It works and if you like playing divine messengers or celestial ass-kickers of evil then this might be a good class for you.
Limited to 9th level the Angel has such special powers as Heal Touch, Holy Aura, Wings and Flaming Sword.
What I like the most about this class is that it could be used as something akin to a Prestige Class for Basic-era Paladins. That is if your GM allows multi- or dual- classing.

Bard
The Bard is a full 20 level class for Labyrinth Lord. Like the Bards in other games they have the ability to perform with musical instruments and they have some thief abilities as well.  These bards though do not have magical abilities. I would like to see some spell casting with Bards, even if it is limited to just 5th or 6th level spells.

Berserker
The Beserker class takes us back to some of the earliest days of D&D and The Dragon magazine.  The Berserker presented here is different but the feel is the same.  This class is a full 20 levels for Labyrinth Lord and gives the beserker such powers as Terror of the North and Form of the Bear. One can almost hear The Immigrant Song playing in background.  There is a decidedly Norse flavor to this one (as opposed to say a Celtic one) but it works great.

Commander
Commanders feel like they are on the opposite end of the fighting spectrum than beserkers.  They are cool efficient battle strategists.   The Commander is like a Basic-era Fighter, but his "powers" are his abilities to command and bolster others.  For example at higher levels those under his command are immune to fear.
It is an interesting class and has some nice features.

Death Knight
This class is something of a cross of warlock and an anti-paladin.  The Death Knight are not undead per se but do have their life force changed to undead or demonic power. It is a full 20th level class and in addition to fighting prowess the Death Knight has powers and spells.  The class is very comparable to a Paladin only Chaotic of course.  Like some of the alternate classes that used to appear in Dragon magazine the Death Knight works great, and maybe better, as an NPC class.

Explorer
This might be the consummate PC Class.  It focuses on adventuring and that thrill of discovery.  It mixes a bit of thief and fighter with some sage-y abilities (id magical items, read magic) and cast some spells.   If you are missing a class or two in your group the Explore might help feel the missing bits.  Worth it for a look.

Forester
FULL DISCLOSURE: The genesis of the class was based on discussion I had the James Spahn on what sort of class my youngest son Connor likes to play.  All the material in this book is James' own original work, I am just rather fond of it.
The Forester is basically and elven Ranger with thief and hunting abilities thrown in.  It is a 10 level class.  The forester gets a lot of interesting abilities to help it in it's role as a protector of the forests including the abilities to hide in shadows and better fighting abilities when wielding a bow.  The coolest though is the ability to get an animal sidekick in the form of an Elven dog.
Since this was built more or less for my son he has been using the class in our Old-School game.  It plays like a Ranger with a few extra tricks up his sleeve.

Friar
Friars are holy men, like clerics, but are a wandering sort.  They do not get spells but instead a new special ability at each level.  Additionally since they can't wear armor they have a Divine Protection power that keeps them from harm.  in fact the highest level friars can have an AC as low as -6 if they reach 20th level and have a high dexterity.   For those that want a different take on the cleric this is a good choice.

Goblin
Who doesn't love goblins?  Well now you can play one!  This might be BRG's smallest book but there is enough her to play 8 levels of goblin fun.  8th level goblins don't get a special title, but they do get a dire wolf of their own. Which you have to admit is pretty sweet.

Greensinger
The Greensinger is something akin to an elvish Bard/Druid.  Greensingers get some special abilities and can cast spells like that of a cleric/druid.  The idea is a rather cool one and frankly I wanted more.  The forests of Barrel Rider Games seem to be full of all sorts of strange and magical creatures.

Kassai Rider
The Kassai Rider is a mounted warrior similar to the Mongol hoards.  The class is a full 20 levels and has a number of special abilities based on combat on their horses.  Lightly armored and using bows for the most part these warriors are superior on horseback, but I wonder how well they might function in the dungeon.

Pirate
Again, exactly what it says it is.  An interesting class with some thief like abilities the best part is the "Sea Stories" power which gives the PC information in the form of rumor and hearsay that might be beneficial to the Pirate.   The idea that pirates hear a lot of strange tales out at see.

Sword Master
This class might be called a duelist in other systems, but basically the idea is the same; a master of the sword.  The most interesting twist to this class is the inclusion of the Mastery Points.  Each level the Ps hass a certain number of these point they may use to increase their dice rolls. It is a neat mechanic and helps the Sword Master to score hits when he really needs too. There is an appendix for applying this to other fighter like classes as well.

War Chanter
What the Bard is to humans and the Greensinger is to Elves the War Chanter is to Dwarves.  In addition to being fighters the war chanter also has some powers "Songs" that they can use to aid others.  If you are playing a Basic-era game and have more than one player that wants to play a dwarf, have one choose this. It is a pretty interesting class and one that would make good use out a larger group of characters.

Wild Wizard
The Wild Wizard is akin to the old Wild Mage.  It is a Magic-User, but it has a Magical Flux. Magical Flux is summarized as an 1d20 affect table.  It is is an interesting idea, but I think it needs something a bit more.

#RPGaDAY Day 28, Scariest Game you’ve played

#RPGaDAY Day 28, Scariest Game you’ve played

Good question!

I have played some great games of Call of Cthulhu and Chill that have been quite fun.  I have even played in some seriously scary AD&D games in the past.

But I have to say as far as scariest game line...that would have to go to Kult.

Everything about Kult is designed to put the players at ill-ease.

Though if we are talking about gaming sessions then there was this online WitchCraft game I was in call "Vacation in Vancouver" that was very Kult and Beyond the Supernatural inspired. Gifted and Lesser Supernaturals were disappearing all over the North West US and British Columbia.  The PCs quickly discovered an underground (metaphorically and literally) sex trafficking ring that sold gifted humans to greater supernatural types as sex slaves.  It was a pretty intense game and sometimes quite fearful.  It was an interesting game since we all took turns game mastering.  The bad part of that was we all felt the need to "out do" the others in terms of horrors. Eventually the characters all went in too deep undercover and we had to come up with other characters to go in and pull them out.

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #7 August 1975

Owl & Weasel #7 comes to us from August 1975.  I guess according to the editorial they were experiencing some uncommon heat then.  That is at least a explanation for the cover art.

Topics covered are the British Monopoly Championships, a set of rules for playing Frisbee (must have been the 70s) and coverage of a couple older (older even then) board games.

There is a quite a bit on Stalingrad, a game I still see played every so often.
The interesting bit is a letter from Action Games and Toys Ltd. They took exception in a page and quarter letter about the coverage from June on the London Toy Fair.

There is a letter complaining that the D&D combat system is "broken" since there is no way a goblin could ever hit a 20th level Lord with +5 plate, even 5% of the time.

Page 11 covers some more concepts in D&D like rooms and passages.
Finally there is a price list for more T.S.R. material.

Not a landmark issue by any stretch, interesting for the questionable line art, pink paper and the continued inclusion of D&D.

ETA: D&D pages.

#RPGaDAY Day 27, Game You’d like to see a new / improved edition of…

#RPGaDAY Day 27, Game You’d like to see a new / improved edition of…

That's easy.

C.J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG

There have been two editions so far. 1st Ed was from Myrmidon Press.

The more popular 2nd edition was from Eden Studios.

I would love to see (or better yet write!) a new 3rd Edition.

For a 3rd Edition I would like to see the course creation more streamlined. Like you see in the Cinematic Unisystem books.  Make the base rules the same as Beyond Human and add in some material from Armageddon (which looks very dated now).

I would also increase the number of Lesser Supernaturals you could play and bring the Bast under that group.   I would also provide an appendix for adding Cinematic style Drama points to the Classic game.

As much as I love the magic system in Ghosts of Albion I would keep the Essence based metaphysics of WitchCraft.  But I think I would also include the Ghosts/Buffy system as a lesser form of spell casting.

Though I will admit a 3rd edition is a hard sell.  Currently Eden gives WitchCraft away for free (sans art).
And in truth it would be very, very hard to top that cover.

#RPGaDAY Day 26, Coolest character sheet

#RPGaDAY Day 26, Coolest character sheet

Hard call.  I love character sheets.

The original AD&D sheets were not works of art, but they certainly fueled my imagination like no other.
I loved the "new" sheets for Mage the Ascension when it came out.

My favorite sheets though are some I made myself.
- WitchCraft RPG
- my hybrid Cinematic/Classical Unisystem sheet and character journal.

There are a lot of great custom sheets over at Mad Irishman and a lot of classic and original sheets at RPGSheets.com.

What is Missing from D&D 5?

So the D&D 5 lovefest is continuing across the internet and assuming the world (it was Amazon's #1 best seller in all books for a bit).  It seems to do everything everyone wants.

But is it missing anything?
Now before some snarks off and says "yeah the Monster Manual and DMG" take a moment to think about it.

I have played it quite a bit now and really it does everything I think it should do.
Though I have to admit I miss "Bloodied" as a condition.
Part of what I want here is covered under Exhaustion.  It even makes sense now that hp are also a measure of fatigue.

But I wonder how it would work it adapt 4e's Bloodied in to 5e.

Something like if you (or a monster) are at half or lower than your max hp then you have combat disadvantage till you get above the half-way mark.

Not sure how well it works with the current healing and resting rules though.

#RPGaDAY Day 25, Favourite RPG no one else wants to play

#RPGaDAY Day 25, Favourite RPG no one else wants to play

At home it is Ghosts of Albion.  Yeah, I can't even get my own kids to play my game!

Outside of that no one seems interested in any of the World of Darkness games.