Darwin's Guidebook of creatures, Mythical and Mundane for the Gaslight RPG

So I have been quietly working on this:

Art by Nolan Segrest

Darwin's Guidebook of creatures, Mythical and Mundane for the Gaslight RPG.

It is the first Victorian age monster book I have ever done.

The Gaslight RPG is a late Victorian Age Setting for d20 and Savage Worlds from Battlefield Press.
The Second Edition game will be out soon. along with another book I co-wrote, Dr. Challenger's Guide to the Unknown.  I did a whole bit on the Hollow Earth which was wicked fun.

Darwin's Guide was fun, but a lot harder than expected.
The design goal was easy enough.  Write a monster book with some common monsters, do it for the Victorian age, but write it in the style of Charles Darwin.

Since I am a fan of Darwin I went back to his most popular works, "The Voyage of the Beagle", "On the Origins of Species" and "The Descent of Man".  I also read his autobiography and a couple biographies.
Darwin was an interesting man and soon it became obvious there is no way he would have accepted a world that had magic in it.  He was too rational, too ordered.
Soooo I had to cheat. A lot.

In the end I hope the book is pleasing for Game Masters and players.  I hope that through this book you pick up one of his books.

Not sure when this will hit the shelves.  The publisher is in control of it now.
But expect a lot more from me on it when it comes up.

Skills in AD&D 1

I got to play some AD&D 1st ed again this past weekend.  The boys are really enjoying it.
But the one thing that now feels awkward are ability checks.

Back in the day if we wanted to do something that would require a "skill check" we would roll a d20 and aim to roll under the ability in question.  Easy and it worked for us till the 1st ed Proficiency system came along.

Looking back I remembered something.  I hate the 1st Ed Proficiency system.

I think what I want is something more simple.  AD&D isn't really about what skills and how many skill points you have.  Your skills are defined by your class or race and Ability scores are key.

So I am thinking of taking some ideas from d20, Castles & Crusades and even a little bit of D&D4.

Skill checks will still be Ability checks.
Instead of the roll under mechanic, I am going to use a d20 style Difficulty Classes. Since 3.x d20 and AD&D1 make the similar assumption of 20 levels I think the numbers are good.

Abilities will use their default modifiers.  So 0 +1, +2 or +3 (or negatives as the case may be).  Additionally characters will add +1 per level.  I *might* cap that at 10th level.  I have not decided yet.

Borrowing from Castles and Crusades each character will get two Primes.  These will be the same as the Prime Attribute for their class. Humans will get one extra. Primes will add +2.

So a skill roll then would be like this.
A 1st level Cleric with an 18 Wisdom is making a Spot check.  Wisdom is his prime.
His chances are +3 (wisdom) +1 (level) +2 (prime) for a total of +6.
That might sound like a lot, but a Cleric in 3.x with Spot as a skill would get +4 Wis and +4 for the skill for +8.

I might also give each character a chance at a signature or trained skill.  Something very specific that they get and extra +1 on.  So my cleric in the above example might have Religion as a signature skill, and get an extra +1.

I think this will work fine to be honest.  Course if I wanted that "old school" feel I could put it all in a chart.

Winners, Losers and the Tomb

Winners
Wow!  What a day yesterday.  All I wanted to do was celebrate my birthday and give out some free stuff. ;)

Well I have emailed the two winners, I am just waiting for them to confirm their emails.  (ok both have gotten back to me!)

So congrats to John Harp and Michael Bolam!  You can thank the d20 and d6 I rolled!

Honestly that was a lot of fun and I need an excuse to do that again soon.

Losers
The big loser of the week is (or will be) Tracey Alley for publishing Mystara books.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/06/ugh-do-we-have-to-do-this-one-again-ip.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/06/ugh-do-we-have-to-do-this-one-again-ip_13.html
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mystara.reborn/
I did not set out to ruin her week but seriously folks, IP is IP is IP.

I have seen a lot of comments of "well WotC isn't doing anything with it".  Sorry, but there is no such thing as "Abondon-ware" in fact the Mystara property is alive and kicking with the release of the "Dungeons & Dragons Chronicles of Mystara Game" out next week.
Or even "She is not making a lot of money on it". The amount made (lots, little or none) doesn't matter.  I bought those books (but got a refund) because I thought they were official Mystara books. There are lots of people that would love to make more Mystara products, people that I would love to support.  But they don't make them because they know they are not allowed too.

Of course the other loser in this is me.  I thought I had found a new series to read and instead I have to drag all this out into the light.

The Tomb
The best news though is for my birthday and Father's day I am going to play some D&D with my kids!  YEAHH!

Since it is also D&D day I think a classic is in order.   So Liam and Connor will be headed to The Tomb of Horrors!

I have copies for every version of D&D (well 1st to 4th) so I am not sure which system to run it yet.  1st ed is the obvious choice, but the boys are playing 3e now and their 1st ed characters are only 1st level.

I am expecting it to be a lot of fun!

What D&D Character Am I?

Latest internet toy. http://easydamus.com/character.html

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Wizard (6th Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-13
Dexterity-10
Constitution-13
Intelligence-19
Wisdom-13
Charisma-12

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment when it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

NG? Ok. I guess I am more socially-aware than I thought. Wizard of course makes total sense. Not sure how they got to 6th level, but that is fine. Human. Sure. I'll take that.

D&D PDF reveiws

For these D&D PDFs I will review the content as it is with the intended version in mind. I'll also look at these in terms what you can get out of this for any other version of D&D. Finally I'll look PDF conversion itself.

Deities & Demigods (1e)
Deities & Demigods was the first Hardcover D&D book I ever purchased. So it is fitting then it is the first of the re-release (1/22/2013) of the D&D PDFs that I have purchased.

First of this is book is an update on the old OD&D Gods, Demigods and Heroes. Presented here are the gods (greater and lesser), demigods and heroes of 15 pantheons. Included are: American Indian Mythos, Arthurian Heroes, Babylonian Mythos, Celtic Mythos, Central American Mythos, Chinese Mythos, Egyptian Mythos, Finnish Mythos, Greek Mythos, Indian Mythos, Japanese Mythos, Nehwon Mythos, Nonhumans' Deities, Norse Mythos, and Sumerian Mythos.

There is plenty of information for build your world myths and the multivesre around your world. This also features the first update to known planes that appeared in the Player's Handbook.

The layout is somewhat like a Monster Manual, which is unfortunate. I can say that back in 82-83 that is exactly how we used it.

The art is now classic in my mind, with some of the biggest names in D&D/TSR at the time.

If you are playing newer editions then all the gods you know about had their start here in this book. All the other deities books are sequels to this one.

The PDF is clean and easy to read. There has been some post-scan cleanup on it so the pages appear very white and not scanned in white.

I feel as good about my purchase today as I did 30 years ago.

D&D Basic Set Rulebook (Basic)

If you are like me then this is it.  THIS is what D&D was.  Sure I had read a friends Holmes/Blue-book Basic set and I knew of AD&D through the Monster Manual.  But this is the D&D book that started it all for me. This is the one that set fire to my imagination.

This is a complete set of rules.  Character creation through to 3rd level. Monsters, treasures, dungeons.  Everything that ever was or will be D&D had it's start right here (more or less).  Honestly this book is not worth 5 stars here.  It is worth 6 out of 5.

I almost would say that if I could only play one version of D&D ever, then this might be the one.  It lacks the complexity of AD&D or 3e, but anymore I see this as a feature.

64 pages plus cover.  Marbleized dice and crayon not included.


D&D RPG Starter Set "Quickstart" (4e)

Everything you need to start playing D&D 4e except for people, dice and some monsters.

You have heard a lot about this game to be sure, but the proof is always in the playing.  At the incredibly low price of Nothing you can see how the most current version of D&D (as of this writing) plays.

H1 Keep on the Shadowfell & Quick-Start Rules (4e)
The first module of the great Orcus/Raven Queen campaign for 4e.  The module itself tries to harken back to another Keep; The Keep on the Borderlands, but the feel here is very, very different.  There is a lot more going on and it can feel very combat heavy and even a touch predictable.  But that is fine for a 1st adventure.  Everyone is still too busy figuring out moves and markingins and surges to worry whether or not rumor X or rumor Y turns out to be true.
The big feature of this module though is also the quick start play rules.  There is lot here that can help the new 4e player and DM.  So it you are at all curious about 4e then give this one a look.


Adventurer's Vault (4e)
Tons and tons of magic items for your 4e games.  Broken up basically the same way they always have been.  Armors, Weapons, Swords, Potions, Wands, Rods, Staves, and Miscellaneous. At 250+ pages with multiple items per page this is a packed book and there is something here for everyone.

Looking at this with an eye towards other editions, you could convert these to 3e without much difficulty.  Other editions have more or less the same items (or similar ones) in edition specific books (The Book of Marvelous Magic comes to mind).  But still a good selection for the money and a must have for the serious 4e player.

The art is top notch and the PDF is straight from the digital source file.

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (3e)

The 3rd edition update to the classic Gygax intro adventure.

Return to the The Temple of Elemental Evil has a new generation of characters returning to the Village of Hommlet (where time seems to have stood still) to investigate the new uprising of evil.
Designed obviously to appear to adults who were kids when the original T1 and ToEE came out, it looses none of it's appeal.

Regardless what version of the game you play, if you ever played the original ToEE then pick this up.
If you have never played or run the original, but are a fan of the 3rd game, then certainly pick this up.

This is one of those adventures that should be republished for every edition of D&D.  Great to start with and run some 1st level characters through but dangerous enough to merit coming back to at a later time.

Besides who doesn't want to go up against ultimate evil, stare in into it's ugly face and say "come get some!"

This PDF is in great shape.

Damn You WotC for giving me what I want!, Part 2

And one of the other rumors I mentioned the other day is now to be revealed.

As many have already guessed the D&D pdfs are back at DriveThruRPG.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=44&affiliate_id=10748

As of this writing they have 85+ PDFs up for various versions of D&D, Basic through 4e.

There is even a new sub-site called D&D Classics, that has "Red Box" trade dress and all the pdfs.
You can even get a copy of module B1: In Search of the Unknown for free!

I don't see any POD yet, and no idea if that will happen, but the ability to finish off my collection with pdfs is still really nice.

All the reviews from when the pdfs were originally on DTRPG are still there.  So nothing has been lost.

I think this is a good move for WotC to be honest.  I am hoping to see much more.

Dragonborn Books

My son loves Dragonborn.  He plays Skyrim because there is a "dragonborn" in that.  He wanted to get all the Doctor Who episodes on DVD that feature the Draconians, and in every game we play that is the character race he wants.

Well...not every game has them.  But there are a lot of great third-party publishers that feel the same way.

Good thing for me I know about Goodman Games.
They have two products out, The Complete Guide to Dragonkin (for 3rd ed) and Hero's Hanbook Dragonborn (for 4th ed).

The Complete Guide to Dragonkin
This book is the older of the two, so let's do it first.
76 pages, covers, OGL.  Pretty packed really.  A brief intro and some background on dragon-kin and how they are all connected to each other (an interesting touch).  This assumes that a lot of different races inter-bred with dragons like humans, orcs, goblins and of course kobolds. So we have a variety of bloodlines; half-dragons, dragon-touched and "wyrm-bred".
The Half-Dragon Racial Template is presented and the associated powers.  If you are playing 3.x/Pathfinder and want to play a "Dragonborn" character then this is a great book.  It predates the Dragonborn in 4e and the Dragon bloodline sorcerer in Pathfinder, so a Pathfinder update would be nice to have, but still this is a solid book.
There is a lot in this book. It even covers how these races view, and sometimes worship, the dragons they are related to.  There is a chapter on Dragon magic which includes new spells and "dragon egg sculpting".
There is not much in the way of news monsters, but I think that is fine.  There is a Dragon/Kobold crossbreed that works well as an antagonist. Especially if your players tend to laugh when you throw kobolds after them.
I compare this book rather favorably to their Complete Guide to Fey.  It was because I owned that book that I felt comfortable picking up this one.  I was not disappointed.

Hero's Hanbook Dragonborn 
99 pages, GSL, covers. There is a quite a lot in this book.  While Goodman Games could have used a lot from their previous book (The Complete Guide to Dragonkin) this one has a completely different approach.  Dragonborn are well established in D&D4, so none of that material is repeated here. Instead the book covers different clans and variations of Dragonborn.  There is also a lot of crunch to go with the fluff.  Frankly Dragonborn need a lot more "fluff". Unlike all the other fantasy races, Dragonborn/Dragonkin are really a creation of D&D.  Sure there have been other types in the past, but even in the early days of the game their origin is purely a D&D one. That gives this book a lot of room to run.
There is also a nice collection of items to help give this race a sense of history. Plenty of powers for Dragonborn characters, options and magic items.  If you are like my son and love to play Dragonborn in 4e then this is a great book to have.

This book though suffers from the fate all 3rd party GSL books suffer and that is the material is not in the character builder.

In the process of reading these books I became aware of other ones, not by Goodman Games though.

One of the first is from Barrel Rider Games, The Dragon and it is only a dollar.
Again, I don't expect a lot for a buck.  Barrel Rider Games though gives you a whole class for a buck.

This one is a bout Dragons as a class/race.  Not Dragonborn or Dragonfolk, but full blown dragons.
Now my first thought is these characters could be unwieldy in a group of adventurers or even overpowered.  That is best left to the Labyrinth Lord to decide really.
The book is five pages: Cover, 2 pages for the class, and 2 pages for the OGL and the Labyrinth Lord compatibility notice.
There seems to be a bit missing though. I would have liked have seen a little on how to play this character class and what motivates them to adventure.

Fehr's Ethnology: Dragonblood is another one for Pathfinder by Purple Duck Games, a name I have grown to like.
This one is pretty good really. Nice art, clear easy to read text and 7 pages of content (1 full page art, 1.5 of OGL and ads for 10 total pages).  Simple race rules with not a lot of fluff, but a lot of crunch. There are some alternate racial characteristics and some feats.  There are class suggestions and suggestions on play.  For 10 pages it is really packed full. My son has been using this in our 3.x game now for a bit and we like it the most out of the many free options we have also found.  At $1.25 it is an absolute steal.

Return of the Dragon Slayers!

I got a chance to play with the boys again today.  We continued the DragonSlayers game from a while back.  To recap they had just entered the Temple of Tharizdun and had held off the advancing hordes with a Wall of Flame spell.

I upped the stats of all the goblins, trolls and norkers in the place to make them partially demonic.  Centuries of interbreeding has made them them evil, but dumb.  The boys cleared out one side of the temple and found the access to the Black Cyst.  

They recovered the Lament of Tharizdun, but the mostly Neutral Good party wants nothing to do with it.  They have no issue with the legendary 333 gems of Tharizdun.  

I am setting Tharizdun up as the next big bad.  But not till the next generation. That is the 1st Ed AD&D game I started with the children of these characters.

I printed out the newer symbol of Tharizdun and had it ready. One of the demonic trolls had it on his armor, so I showed it to the boys.  After some Knowledge Arcana, History and Religion rolls I announced that they didn't know what it was.  My youngest, playing a half-elf Sorcerer/Ranger/Arcane Archer stated "I know exactly what it is. It's a target!!" and he fired two flaming arrows into the troll.

I have to admit, I was pretty amused by that!

They finished the adventure and high tailed it back to Glantri City.  They are planning on taking a couple of months break before the next leg of their adventures, but I doubt it will be that long.  There is some trouble brewing in Two Lake Vale and strange cloud over the land.

Random Pre-Coffee Thoughts

Still thinking through some of my ideas for Ordinary World.  I did not get to go over all my notes for the various games I have laying around though.

Swords & Wizardry was mentioned as a contender for the rule set and that idea has merits.  I am also still looking into Labyrinth Lord as well.  Regardless what system I use I think I want to have it use a compatibility logo.  I did not do that with the Witch because I wanted the broadest appeal and frankly to make it work with ALL the games I had to make some assumptions and changes.  So while it works great (in my playtests) with BFRPG, LL, S&W and the original game, it is not beholden to any one of those.

Rob Conley over at Bat in the Attic has posted link to all the current "big" SRDs for playing various d20 and OSR games.

• The original 3.5 d20 SRD
• Pathfinder SRD
• Swords & Wizardry SRD

The S&W one is new to me, so thanks Rob for pointing it out.

This got me thinking.
Would you like to see a S&W version of The Witch?

It would be stripped down to just the class and spells.  Maybe some magic items.
I would include notes on making covens, but I think my goal needs to be 20 pages.
I would include a new Tradition to make it have some value above what you already have from The Witch or Eldritch Witchery.  The Witch has five traditions plus the Eclectic, EW also has five traditions (only 1 that is the same) and five Warlock lodges.  So that is 15 so far.  I am going to do a web freebie when EW comes out for a new total of 16.

I'd like to aim it at $1.50.  Though to be honest I have paid a buck for classes in the past and have gotten about 4 pages.  I am going to struggle to keep this one under 20 pages.

What do you think?

Edited to add: I suppose I could also do a Free one that did not include any new spells, just the class, a new tradition (that is important to me), some Occult powers and some art.
Weigh in on that as well.

History of The Witch

The Witch is my latest book of rules to play the Witch character class for a version of the World's Largest and First Fantasy Roleplaying game.

It is not my first book.  Or even my second.  To date this is my third book on witches.

My first was a "netbook" called "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" for the 2nd Edition version of the game.  It was totally a fan-driven work and most of it had been written for the 1st Edition version of the rules.  Back then the file on my computer was called "thewitch.doc".

This original "thewitch.doc" was never really meant to be seen by anyone but my gaming group. Indeed, I figured I'd be the only one to ever play a witch character.  I took a Magic-User character I had rolled up with the idea of playing her like a witch and then stopped her MU advancement and started her out as a 1st level witch.  Occult Powers were spells back then and all I had was a list of spells from the Cleric and MU lists that I felt were "witchy".   That document grew to become the "The Complete Witch" and then finally  "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".

The CNoWaW was in my mind a great sucsess. I released it between October 28th and October  31st of 1999.  In fact I remember sitting in the hospital room right after my first son was born posting it on a laptop while my wife and new baby slept.  Well that baby turned 13 over this past weekend!  Kinda nice that my newest Witch book  was released 13 years later.

After that in 2002 released  "Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".  This one was far more polished and I considered a "real" release.  It used the OGL and the d20 logo.  I worked with what was then called the FANCC, or the Fantasy Community Council.  Their goal was to make and release quality netbooks that adhered to the OGL.  Many of the members would later go on to do other things.  I went on to Eden to work a number of their books including WitchCraft, Buffy and Ghosts of Albion.

In the case of all my books I would go back to my ever evolving research notes.  Pictured above and below is just one of maybe 4 binders of information I have collected over the years.  One of the print outs has a date scrawled in red pen (former teacher here!) of March of 1997.  I know I have some materials even older than that. Lots and lots of notes.

 

In every case and especially when starting a new project I like to go back to my notes.  Revisit old ideas, question why I rejected some and kept others.

The Witch is different from the CNoWnW or LM.  While in each book the witches have "Occult Powers" their mechanisms are different.  Each witch can for example cast "Wave of Mutilation", but how it works is slightly different.  Complete Netbook witches are akin to that  edition's Priests.  Liber witches are more like Wizards.  The witches in The Witch are something new.  Older versions of my witch needed high Wisdom as their primary stat.  Witches in The Witch need a high Charisma.

It is a ritual for me to go back even further when I start a new project to go not just to my notes, but my primary sources.  For the Witch I really wanted that feel of a game supplement from the late 70s early 80s.

 

So I went back to my books.  I re-read not just game books and the latest retro-clones, I also hit books about witches and witchcraft from the 60s and 70s.  The things the first and second generation of gamers would have read if they were making a witch class.  I watched the old movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Initiation of Sarah".  In fact, look over my lists of movies from the October Challenge of the last couple of years.  That will give you an indication of my "Research".

You can still find my older books online, I don't link them here really for a couple of reasons.  First they were done a LONG time ago and I would like to think my writing has improved significantly since then.  Also, at least in the case of CNoWaW, they are predominantly fan works and written under that assumption.  Those assumptions are not the same that The Witch (well and Liber) was written under.  While I don't explicitly state any compatibility I did do a lot of playtesting to make sure that The Witch works with what ever version of the Basic Era game you are using, be it the original games or the newest Retro-clones.

You can read more developments notes under the Basic and Witch tags (there are a lot though).

It was on this day...

12 years ago that I stayed home from work so I could be at my FLGS to buy a copy of the new D&D 3rd Edition Player's Handbook.

Sorry if I choose to be selective on how I remember this day.

In truth 9/11/2001 was also a watershed date for me personally.  I had just gotten laid off from my "Dream job" in the Dot Com world (they had laid off 65% of their workforce that day).  So I was home with a new baby when all the events went down.

I then spent the next few months (before I swallowed my pride and went back to teaching) working on various RPG products.  One, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, lead to many, many other projects that eventually landed me Ghosts of Albion.

Since 9/11/2001 was 11 years ago, it was also a Tuesday when it happened (perpetual calendars are 11 years long), so to me the "big anniversary" of something is not 10 years, but 11.  Weird I know.  But that is why it is on my mind more today than say this time last year.

3.5 Reprints

The 3.5 reprints are hitting the shelves soon.

They look nice, very evocative of both the 3.0 and 3.5 covers. Though they lack the "old tome" feel the originals went for, and were often imitated during the entire d20 boom.

I am not sure I will get them though.

I have my 3/3.5 books.  I even have the leather bound deluxe 3.5 books. And Pathfinder.

How about you all?

Pathfinder Witch

Witch by cromaticresponses

It looks like I am *finally* getting a chance to play Pathfinder style witch in a game.

I don't have many details yet, except I am excited about the prospect since I haven't got a chance to play one yet.  My son wants to run a game sometime with "Alternate-reality" versions of the Dragonslayers.  All the same classes and everything, just in a Pathfinder world.

I also quite pleased to see there is so much good stuff online for this witch, in addition to all the products I keep buying, but hardly ever use.

It will be interesting to see how she differs from the Liber Mysterium witch I have been playing all these years.
Hexes seem a little like my Occult Powers, save that the PF witch gets 11 of them vs the 3 (or 4 if you count the talisman feat) occult powers.  But the LM witch gets more spells; usually an additional 2 per level.  So it feels roughly similar.

But reading over all the Pathfinder material yesterday and today reinforced the idea I had a while back. There are not enough witch-like Prestige classes out there.
I am going to have to come up with some more I think.

Links
Local
Prestige Class: Queen of Witches
Prestige Class: Witch Priestess
Witch Books, Part 3. Pathfinder

Pathfinder SRD
Witch
Witch Spell list

D&D Zombies vs. The Walking/Running Dead

"Zombies are the new Vampires" - True Blood

Zombies are a great threat for lower level characters in any version of D&D.  They can be deadly in groups, but are slow.  They are affected by all the same magics other undead are, so Clerical turning or Radiant Powers really get to ..er...shine.

The trouble is that D&D-style zombies are stuck in in a old modality of just being undead shamblers. Think Shaggy from Scooby-Doo only more dead.

Zombies in the game All Flesh Must Be Eaten by Eden Studios are much more deadly and their bite is lethal, just not right away.  Plus there are all sorts of Zombies in AFMBE including what we now call "quick"  or ""fast" zombies.

Of course the question has been and will be asked again, "why not just use Ghouls?".  Well simply put Ghouls are eaters of the dead.  If thought about I'd add subtle demonic influences to them as well to reflect the Ghoul/Ghul  relationship.

Improved Zombies
Let's take a page from modern interpretations via AFMBE and define a few new zombies.  Instead of full blown stat blocks, I'll just talk about how to make changes to your current game's Zombie.  Let's assume a couple of basics.  First, Zombies have no intelligence, they are slow, attack last in any round and had HD roughly equal to twice a normal human (so 2 HD in older games). XP awarded for these needs to recalulated up.

The Hungry Dead
This zombies appear to be most like Ghouls.  Their stats are the same as a regular zombie but once they kill a victim they begin to eat it.  They turn as if they were one slot higher ("Ghoul" for older games).

Plague Zombies
These might be the scariest of all. They do not appear to be any different than a regular Zombie until they bite a victim.  Then the differences are more apparent.  They look and act like The Hungry Dead, but their bite spreads the zombie infection. Anyone that is bitten (a roll of a Natural 20) becomes infected and will become a mindless zombie in 1d6 rounds.  They can be healed by a cure disease, but once dead they are dead forever. These zombies typically have twice the HD as their counterparts.

The Fast Dead
These zombies also appear as normal, until the move.  These are no shamblers, these zombies know the value of running.  They have an effective Dexterity of 16 and can attack normally (not last).

Alchemical Zombie
Stats-wise this is the same as any other zombie. The difference lie in how the zombie was made.  The alchemical zombie comes for a vat of foul smelling liquids produced by an alchemist and not a necromancer.  These zombies can not be turned.

These types can also be combined, so a Fast Plauge Zombie or a Hungry Alchemical zombie is possible.

I Hate Myself for Loving You

Interesting article up on the whole Graz'zt/Iggwilv love affair.

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/dra/201208history#82019

Rule specific material is minor and can be adapted to any version of the game.  I am going to use this with my 1st ed game in fact.

As can be expected I like Iggwilv.  To my knowledge no one has ever penned her "biography" in full, but it would make for a good read I think.  Raised by Baba Yaga, infiltrating the Circle of Eight, her years with Graz'zt as master, lover, prisoner and bitter rival.  The authoring of the Demonomicon.  The Rise and Fall of the Witch Queen.

Iggwilv is a great villain not because she is evil (though she is that) it is because she lack any moral compass whatsoever.  If she needs a tome of magic and entire village stands between her then she had no issues burning it down to the ground.  It isn't because she doesn't care, it because she has no concept that anyone other than herself matters.

I am sure she is going to play some role in my 3.x and 1st ed games.

Gaming Wrap-up

With Gen-Con, some time off and weekend gaming I have managed to get a ton of gaming in over the last couple weeks.  Here is a wrap-up

3.x/Dragonslayers
The Dragonslayers are heading into Epic levels, but there are some characters that need some help filling out their last levels.  Also my kids wanted some side-quests for some special magic weapons, so we did that.
Module: WG4 (upgraded)

1st Edition Game
The boys left B1 and on their way discovered the Keep on the Borderlands.  They are currently planning their attack on the first of the caves.
Module: B1

4th Ed Game
The larger group is getting ready to attack an sort of different Keep, this time the Keep on the Shadowfell.  They still don't know who Nera is, but are learning more about the cult of Orcus.  They also just learned a big secret, the God of the Dead, Kelemvor is dead himself.  No new god of the Dead has been named.
Module: H1

All in all the games are going very well.  My two boys, the commonality in all groups, have now played at least 5 different versions of the D&D rules in the last couple of weeks.  It has been a blast.

I like using the modules for a couple of reasons.  First, I want them to experience these classic adventures.  And it helps me keep three (or more) games and adventures straight in my head.

No idea what we are doing next week.

This week it is back to work.

Gen Con Haul 2012

First up:  Yes. I know I owe you all a Part 2 of the OSR is Dead. But many of you made a lot of the points I was going to.
I also know I missed White Dwarf Wednesday.  I was away from my machine all day.
So instead a drive by post.  With pictures.

So here is my Gen Con 2012 haul.  I also picked up some things here for my kids.

Here we have all the books, minis (love that Gelatinous Cube) and swag.

I picked up a way cool game, Monsterhearts (pdf), that I want to talk about in much detail later.  Also my new ConX 2.0 book, Zenner cards and screen.

I got my two copies of Castles & Crusades from Troll Lord and Jason Vey's Amazing "Amazing Adventures".  Again, I want to talk about that one in detail too.  I picked up a replacement GURPS Horror (lost it years ago) and GURPS Castle Falkenstein.

I got some of the "Drow" D&D dice bags.  And a bunch of older d20 books on magic.

Minis.  I got some dragons (well my kids did) and some other minis.  I love that huge one.  It is a statue of some sort.  In my games it will be a Death Titan.

Some books for my games.  The Dragon (Mongoose) and Dragonlance is for the 3.x game, Faith & Avatars and the Dragon Mag Annual are for the 4e game.  Rokugan was just because it was a buck.

Finally I am replacing my worn out Pokemon backpack for a real gamer bag.

And a full set Drow dice.  We all got some and had to go to all the D&D events to get them. They are very cool.  My wife likes hers because they are purple.  All her dice are purple.

Gen Con recap: The name of the game is "D&D"

I did something truly special this Gen Con. Something that I would love to repeat.

I played D&D with my family through the entire Con.  One of the things I wanted to do with my boys was to play the history of D&D with them.  I didn't get into every game I wanted, but I got in enough to make it count.  I also wanted my wife to join in so she could give her unbiased opinion of the games.  I have learned to trust her judgment on many, many things over the years.

Part of the plan was that any XP, gold or magic the boys got in the games they could translate that over to  the special 1st Ed Game we were playing at night.

We played a D&D4 game on Thursday.  It was a fun game where we all played Dwarfs.  The DM was great and he played well with the kids.  Thursday night I had a game of my own to play (which I'll discuss later).

Friday was our Castles and Crusades game.  I REALLY wanted to play this one after going on and on so much about C&C a while back.  I picked up my new copies of the 5th printing of the Players Handbook and Jason Vey's amazing Amazing Adventures.  The game we played was also a lot of fun.  Again we had a great GM...er Castle Keeper, and in this we all played Assassins.  My youngest loved it.

Friday night we rolled up characters for 1st Ed AD&D!!  They rolled up two each, and these are the children of the Dragonslayers (their current 3.x game).  That took us till midnight since I had to look a lot of things up and we were sitting on the 2nd floor of the JW Marriott and everyone had stop by and comment on what we were doing.

Saturday we played D&D5/Next.  If I would have known we were making characters I would have gone into it with a different mindset.  But it worked out well and character creation was a snap.  Really.  It only took me 30 mins to do my character and help out my wife and two kids.  I playtested the Warlock and I like it so far.  The game itself was fast, I mean really fast. I am going to come back to that in a sec in fact.

Saturday night we played AD&D 1st ed.  I had the boys go on a quick adventure into Castle Quasqueton from B1 In Search of the Unknown.  The boys had some great rolls and they even took out some orcs, zombies and a group of kobolds. The boys made their objective (which happened to be a on sheet of paper I wrote on when I ran this in college around 1988-9 or so), find a missing witch (Marissa) and bring her back.  I hinted there was an evil cult at work (cause that was what I was doing in 88) and the boys ran with it.  Now this cult is "infiltrating" the lands and they now have to put a stop to it.  I might run with that.

Fighting the Kobolds
Quite by accident one of the common elements in the D&D5/Next playtest and my AD&D game on the same day was the party (6 and 5 characters respectively) fought 4 kobolds.  The combat for each ran very, very similar.  In both cases it was fast with hit points flying everywhere and characters on the verge of death. I can say that in at least this respect D&D5 is closer to old-school play than 3 or 4 was.

It dawned on me at one point or another while playing Saturday night.  I was playing AD&D. With my boys. At Gen Con!  I play a lot of D&D with them and I have played a lot of AD&D over the years, but this felt special. This felt like the best thing I could do then and there.

I have no idea what I am going to do with D&D5 when it comes out.  At this very same Gen Con Wizards of the Coast had announced that D&D5 would not be out till 2014.  That is a very good year in my mind.  Still gives us time to play some 4e AND be out in time for the 40th anniversary of D&D.
WotC also announced that previous editions would be made available again via e-book format of some sort.

There were copies of 1st Ed for sale at Gen Con and we all also picked up a full set of D&D "Drow" dice.

For me there is no debate. D&D still reigns as king at Gen Con.

Witch Books, Part 3. Pathfinder

To many Pathfinder is the heir-apparent to the legacy of D&D, to others it's the biggest retro-clone out there.   But regardless of how you view Pathfinder, one thing is for certain, it is wildly successful.

Pathfinder also has it's own witch class from the Advanced Player's Guide.  It is nice and has a cool vibe about it, there are somethings I don't care about it.  I talked about it detail here, and offered up a couple of Prestige Classes here and here.

Other companies though have filled the gaps with their own Pathfinder-compatible witches.

A Necromancer's Grimoire: Secrets of the Witch

This book offers up the Green Hag as a playable race for the Witch class.  Sort of.  It is more of a race-as-class, but close enough to the witch to work.  Anyone that played D&D back in the late 70s will have no issues with this really.  There are also plenty of new feats and hexes that can be used by the witch or Green Hag.  There are also plenty of new spells.  This is a good book if you are a witch completest like me, or would like to use hags in your pathfinder game.

For a fuller witch I would also grab The Book of Faith (spells) and Paths of the Druid (for some Prestige Classes and ideas for familiars).

Advanced Feats: The Witch's Brew (Pathfinder RPG)
Certainly one of the more interesting books for the new Pathfinder witch class. You will need the Advanced Player's Guide to get the most of of this book obviously.
We start off with a brief overview/analysis of the witch class.  Not bad really, but nothing we can get from the APG.
On to the meat of the book, the 30 new feats.  They are a mixed bag, but for the most part they add a lot flavor to the witch.  There are some familiar affecting feats which is nice, and commentary/sidebars on a few.
There are also 3 sample witch builds that you can use to make your own.

Witch Spell Cards for the Pathfinder Role Playing Game

Exactly what is says on the tin.  Spell cards you can print out and use with your Pathfinder APG Witch.
If you like cards then these are great.  If you prefer sheets then they can still be used.

Paths of Power
Described as a source book for Base and Prestige Classes.  This book features a new Witch class. This witch has "Circle" magic and gets spells based on Wisdom as do the witches in the 3.0 book I did years ago.  This witch is a nice alternative to the Pathfinder Witch.  If you were to use both I would call this one a "Witch" and the APG one a "Warlock".   In addition to the witch we get the Anti-Paladin, elemental wizards, gladiators, samurai and the Voyager.  NPC classes include the Courtesan, Captain and Sycophant.  Truthfully I only found the Courtesan useful.  Prestige classes include the Child of Bast, Crypt Stalker and the Envenomed.  Personally I would have liked the PrCs to be a little more related to the base classes.
There is though plenty of magic items and spells. There are also plenty of new witch-related feats.
Since I bought it for the witch alone, I am actually pretty satisfied with what I got.

Book of Arcane Magic
Another great book from 4-Winds Fantasy Gaming.  This one focuses on the Arcane Spellcaster in Pathfinder.  While the book predates the APG Witch, a lot of these new spells and ideas can be used with the witch.  Of course they are all also fine to use as they are.  In particular I liked all the new Sorcerer bloodlines and colleges of Wizardry.  I like the idea of my wizard doing post-graduate work in magic.
There are new familiars, spells and magic items.  So it is worth it just for these.

The Book of Divine Magic
Likewise, the Book of Divine Magic adds more material to your cleric, druid and paladin classes (and Rangers).  There is a list of gods and their domains. Plenty of new spells.  Rules for temples and divine animal companions (like familiars) and new magic items and relics. Avery densely packed 94 pages.

Up next are a the "With a Bullet Point" series on witches from Super Genius Games.  Designed to be quick guides that can be used with a minimal of prep time and minimal cost.  I like the idea.

#1 With a Bullet Point: 5 Magic Witch's Daggers
Here we have 5 magical Athame ("ath-a-may") or daggers that can be used by witches.  These weapons work in conjunction with the witch's hexing ability, though they can be used as magical weapons as well.
Short, sweet and to the point. There is nothing to complain about here.

#1 With a Bullet Point: 13 Witch Hexes
Again one page, one buck.  This time we get 13 hexes that can be used by the witch. Some blur the line between what could be a hex and what could be a feat, but all in all they work fine.

#1 With a Bullet Point: 9 Witch Hunter Feats
Hard to mess with a good thing.  A page for the cover, a page for the OGL and then a page of nine feats for Witch hunters to either protect them from witches or to help them when battling the forces of darkness.  If you enjoyed the Genius Guide to the Witch Hunter (below), then this is a great addition.  If you don't have that you can still use this product. 

Super Genius Games also produces the "Genius Guides" which are larger and go more in-depth.  

Advanced Options: Witches' Hexes
This book surprisingly has no overlap with SGG's With A Bullet Point: 13 Witch Hexes.  The hexes listed here are all new and there also Major and Grand hexes detailed.  There are even some hex-related feats.

The Genius Guide to the Witch Hunter
Where there are witches there will be witch hunters.  This is a full 20-level class devoted to witch-hunting.  Plenty of powers, abilities and feats are detailed.  I think this would have worked as a prestige class, but this is pretty good.

Legendary Levels II
This book, like the first LL, deals with Pathfinder "Legendary" Levels, of levels 21 to 30. What 3.0/3.5 called Epic Levels. I think they picked "Legendary" as not to confuse it with D&D4. There is a Legendary Witch in this book, which is why I got it, but the rest is pretty good as well. In particular I liked the Legendary Samurai  and the Dragon Lord prestige class.  I Would have enjoyed seeing more prestige classes myself, but the book's focus was "Legendary classes" and note really prestige ones.  Plenty of new feats and I REALLY liked the art in this book.  So at the end of the day it was worth it to me.

Witch Books, Part 2. d20 years

Continuing on my previous post on the witch classes for the D&D game.  In this post I'll focus on the the early batch of d20 and later books.

DMG Witch
Let's not forget that the witch was a "sample" character in the 3.0 edition DMG.  She was basically a Sorcerer that had a different spell list.  Dropped some of the iconic damage spells of the Wizard in favor of some minor Cleric spells.   I always considered this the baseline witch. Though since it was not in the SRD I avoided reading about it.  When working on Liber Mysterium back in the day I was very, very strict about what I would read.  In fact I have a spread sheet full of spells and I would have discussions on what was and was not a witch spell.  In the end I ended up with a list that was not too unlike the witch spell list in the DMG, but I have tons of documentation of how I got it.  We were more concerned back then that WotC was going to stomp out any d20 infraction they found.  Still glad I did all the work though.  I was able to go back to it for all my other witch books.

Relics & Rituals
While not a book about witches per se, there is a lot in this book to like.
This was one of the very first additional magic books available for the d20 game.  It has a number of things that would be expected.  There are a good number of Prestige Classes for starters and I particularly liked the Blood Witch and the Sea Witch.  There are new feats and hundreds of new spells.  But the real gem of this book and the reason why it is still good to have today are the ritual casting rules.  There was a time that including a copy of these was mandatory in any new d20 book magic it seemed. They were frankly some of the best mutli-caster rules I had seen to that date and I have not seen anything else in the d20 world that has since come close.  Throw in scads of magic items and the book is a steal at twice this price really.

The Quintessential Witch - Mongoose (Print) (PDF)
I am not a huge fan of the older Mongoose books.  There are number of issues with the classes all over over the place, odd editing and art that runs the gambit.  This book is not any different.  The witch class is pretty typical of the time (early days of the d20 boom).  There is a wide variety of Prestige classes, which is nice, but not all of them are usable.  The book tends to be full of a lot cliches.   Though the ones that are good (Occultist, Puppet Mistress) are very good.  There is a good section on new uses for skills including telling fortunes and a good section of feats. There are new spells and new magic items, as expected, but the coolest thing might be the Places of Power.  Some Times of Power ends the book (also a good section).

The Witch's Handbook - Green Ronin
Certainly a great effort.  There is a lot I really like about this book.  The gems of this book are the ideas for skills and of course the fantastic cover art by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law.  Like my own d20 book this witch uses Wisdom to cast Arcane spells.  I still kinda like that to be honest.   There are a lot of nice Prestige Classes here.  There are new spells and like Way of the Witch below it uses the Ritual Casting rules from Relics & Rituals which were very much in vogue at the time.
There is no PDF of this I can buy which is disappointing really.

Way of the Witch -  Citizen Games

Style-wise this is the best of the lot of the early witch books for d20.  Hard cover, with some of the most beautiful art I have seen in a book.  I mean look at that Thomas Denmark cover.
The witch is basic and has a lot a really nice features.  The prestige classes are simple, but functional, dividing the witch into White, Black, Grey and Brown witches.  There are some other nice ideas as well.  The authors really took their time and care with this one and it really shows.
Alas, Citizen games did not make it out of the d20 boon alive.  They were going to come out with a second witch book, Seasons of the Witch, and I had heard a little about it.  I had high expectations really.
I am also disappointed that there is no pdf of this I can buy anywhere.  It would be great to have all my witch books in one place on my hard drive(s).

Lions' Den Press: Classes of Legend: The Witch
This one is different enough from the Pathfinder or DMG versions of the witch class to merit it's own product.  There are some new feats and spells.  All 20 levels are presented as well as some "High Witchcraft" alternate levels. Some good ideas here and not bad for the price.

The Enduring: Witches and Shamans
This book gives us a Faery Witch and Shaman class.  There is some natural overlap between the two.   In addition there are also 3 new prestige classes and 22 new feats.  There are a fair number of new magic items and a lot of new spells. There are also quite a few new monsters that are likely to exist in the same worlds as witches and shamans.   The classes seem a bit overpowered for straight d20 ones, but might make good Pathfinder classes.  The feats and spells are mixed bag. I have seen similar sorts of feats and spells in other books, some better, some worse.  But for the price, this is a good deal.  I am not a huge fan of the art, but it is not bad.

Unorthodox Witches
A lot of different types of witches built from the d20 rules. A few new ideas and a lot recycled art.
If you are looking for new ideas for witches, wizards or other types of spellcasters.
After going over this book again all these years later there is actually quite a bit more for your money.  55+ pages, and plenty of classes, there is a lot here that can use right out of the box or combine for something new.  The key word that I was forgetting here was "Unorthodox" and these certainly fit.  While I see this primarily as a GMs tool, there is likely to be a class in here that you will want to try if you are into witches.  Just because it is called a Beguiler or Crescent flyer, doesn't matter, that is just to separate them all out from each other.
There is something good here if you like arcane classes. Or any class with a bit of mystery to it.
Actually I would not use them as classes, but edit them a bit for Prestige classes for the Witch.

Lost Classes: Chaos Witch

Some products you buy for the content, some for the art. This was both.  I was working on the Chaos Witch for WitchCraft a while back and I wanted to see what is was all about.  Plus the witch on the front looks like Raven from the Teen Titans.  I didn't actually use anything here for the WitchCraft Chaos Magick, but I did enjoy this.

It is an interesting Prestige Class that adds a bit of randomness to her spell casting effects. She gains a few extra spell-like abilities and a random "hex" to curse people with.
A lot of fluff is given for the class, but the crunch does not quite match up. Still an interesting class for an NPC or a witch-themed game.  Only 3 pages, but the price is low.


Dept. 7 Adv. Class Update: NeoWitch Guardian
An advanced class for d20 Modern.  Has some nice features and powers.  I particularly like the broom (Besom) attacks. Great for d20 modern with magic.