My new Warlock book is out for Old-School Essentials and it is natural to want to know what is in the book. More to the point do you need this book if you already own my The Warlock for Swords & Wizardry OR The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Tradition for OSE.
Very valid questions.
Let's go over the Warlocks first.
The classes are the same XP, HP progression wise save for where B/X and S&W differ.
- There are few overlapping spells, but I wanted to go with new spells for the book.
- There are few overlapping Invocations, again plenty of new and a couple revised ones here. For example, both books have an Arcane Blast, the bread-and-butter attack of all warlocks.
- There are no overlapping Patrons or Pacts. If you play OSE and use this Warlock book, but want a demon pact you can import it from the S&W book with no changes needed. Same if you play S&W and want a Dragon pact.
- There are no overlapping lodges. I wanted to include the Masters of the Invisible College warlocks from S&W for the OSE book, but space ran out. Instead, I am going to the Masters here at a later date with the text that was going into the book on how you play them with OSE and these Pacts. The Masters also take Cosmic Warlocks.
For the two Old-School Essentials books, the biggest potential overlap was the spells.
I mention in the Warlock book that witches can take warlock spells and the other way around. That is depending on your Referee. There is the subtle notion that the witches of the Pagan Tradition are at odds with warlocks. Granted this idea works best with the demonic pacts, but it is there for players to use. This can limit access to spells the others might "steal".
In both books, I also add new spells for Clerics, Druids, Magic-users, and Illusionists. How they get those spells is of course up to the Referees.
I have made all the spell names and levels available for you to see in this Google Sheet.
Spell names in Red are from the OSE Warlock. Blue links take you the book the spells appear in.
You can also link to it here: Old-School Essentials Spells.
This sheet has ALL the Old-School Essentials spells, not just mine.
I guess the question of "why is there any overlap at all?" Well, some spells are so ubiquitous to witches that not including them would be strange. A good example is Bestow Curse, which interestingly enough is not in these two books.
So here is a break down of all 1,078 spells I have used and 229 monsters. Again spell names in Red are brand new to the OSE Warlock book. This sheet helps you see the spell overlap.
Witch Books - Google Sheets
My goal is always to give you something new with each book while making it playable.
So any book can be your "first" witch book and it will work AND be 100% compatible with your "second" or "third" book.
I am currently drafting my next book which will be all monsters. After that, the plan is to do what I am now calling my last witch book, the High Secret Order Tradition.
