Well I've now got the second edition of the Casltes and Crusades Player's Handbookand have been immediately struck by the improvement in the layout and design. The rules changes seem to be fairly minor with encumbrance being clarified and made a bit less restrictive on many characters. The equipment section has a fair number of new weapons added, but these have some typos in the stats and lack descriptions or illustrations, which is a pity as some are not necessarily obvious to those of us without a background in medieval history or D&D's love affair with obscure pole arms. "You are attacked by the orc with it's glaive-guisarm"
The layout helps a lot in the spell descriptions and lists where it makes the book much easier to use. I've not had time to read it in any detail yet so I'll have to leave my more detailed impressions for when I write a review of it on ENWorld. Art seems to be similar, but some new pieces have been added and some others removed from the 1st edition.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
C&C Houserules part2 Wizards and magic
Now the next part that I really feel like houseruling, the other spellcasting classes of Wizards and Illusionists. In a lot of ways I welcome the return of the Illusionist base class as I'm not so keen on the use of specialist schools of magic as in 3e to create an illusion or necromancy specialist Wizard. I am tempted to add a specialist Necromancer base class to my C&C game with obviously adjusted spell lists and some specialist class abilities.
My main thoughts are similar to those about clerics in having schools of magic replacing the domains of the clerics, but using constrained spell list though C&C has considerably less spells than say D&D plus splatbooks, but it would not be hard to convert over spells from other sources than the core C&C PHB.
Types of wizard apart from the aforementioned Illusionist and Necromancer could include a conjuror, diviner and evoker. This then requires the meaning of these types to be clear and different enough to give some flavour and reason to use these rather than the base spell lists. More of that in a second part to this post.
My main thoughts are similar to those about clerics in having schools of magic replacing the domains of the clerics, but using constrained spell list though C&C has considerably less spells than say D&D plus splatbooks, but it would not be hard to convert over spells from other sources than the core C&C PHB.
Types of wizard apart from the aforementioned Illusionist and Necromancer could include a conjuror, diviner and evoker. This then requires the meaning of these types to be clear and different enough to give some flavour and reason to use these rather than the base spell lists. More of that in a second part to this post.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
C&C Houserules pt 1 Clerics
Inspired by houserules from the D&D 3.5 campaign that I'm playing in and comments from my 101 days of Castles & Crusades thread at RPG net I've decided to start developing my own houserules for C&C.
Start off with Clerics, a class I seem to play with some frequency in all versions of D&D or similar class based RPG. In fact one of my first three D&D characters back in the original days of the White Box was a cleric, Eskel, along with a fighter Agrippa and Theo the elf (of course this was when an elf was as much a class as a race).
Domains:
Initial thoughts are to use a set of domains based on what a deity is a god of, including the four traditional elements and things which I might use a synonymous domain for like harvest and fertility.
First cut list: Earth; Air; Fire; Water; Healing; Thunder; Fertility; Death; Sun; Moon; Hunting; War; Love; Sea; Sky and gods with trade or skill based domains like brewing, smithy and weaving. One that I might add is something like Trickery because of gods like Loki in the Norse pantheon or the West African Anansi.
This is very much my inital thoughts and many would overlap so much that I'd probably make them synonymous like Air and Sky or Sea and Water. The domains would be used to give a limited list of spells so that it was appropriate for each god and avoided the usual D&D cleric trope of combat medic, which is not particularly satisfying to me.
I'll add some spells as well as the first edition of the C&C PHB has a relatively limited set of spells for clerics so depending on domain add some Wizard or Illusionist spells would fit quite well. For a trickery domain I'd certainly think that a lot of illusion based spells or things like polymorph fit into. Fire domain has things like fireball and burning hands.
Start off with Clerics, a class I seem to play with some frequency in all versions of D&D or similar class based RPG. In fact one of my first three D&D characters back in the original days of the White Box was a cleric, Eskel, along with a fighter Agrippa and Theo the elf (of course this was when an elf was as much a class as a race).
Domains:
Initial thoughts are to use a set of domains based on what a deity is a god of, including the four traditional elements and things which I might use a synonymous domain for like harvest and fertility.
First cut list: Earth; Air; Fire; Water; Healing; Thunder; Fertility; Death; Sun; Moon; Hunting; War; Love; Sea; Sky and gods with trade or skill based domains like brewing, smithy and weaving. One that I might add is something like Trickery because of gods like Loki in the Norse pantheon or the West African Anansi.
This is very much my inital thoughts and many would overlap so much that I'd probably make them synonymous like Air and Sky or Sea and Water. The domains would be used to give a limited list of spells so that it was appropriate for each god and avoided the usual D&D cleric trope of combat medic, which is not particularly satisfying to me.
I'll add some spells as well as the first edition of the C&C PHB has a relatively limited set of spells for clerics so depending on domain add some Wizard or Illusionist spells would fit quite well. For a trickery domain I'd certainly think that a lot of illusion based spells or things like polymorph fit into. Fire domain has things like fireball and burning hands.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Joining the (Castles &) Crusade
I've recently been reading through my copy of the Castles & Crusades Players Handbook to write a review, which got me started on a thread in the 101 days format at RPG.net. C&C looks like a good system for my fantasy gaming as it combines a lot of features that I was looking for, such as: unified mechanics, easy character creation, and a rule framework that allows ready customisation.
Weaknesses: with the first edition of the PHB the amount of typos is high and this can affect some of the rule interpretations, I think my biggest example is Power Word Kill where there are two different figures for the total HP of creatures affected. Not enough examples of play are present which is not a weakness for the veteran gamers that C&C has attracted to date, but is less helpful for newcomers.
Strengths: Price, C&C is reasonably priced; Consistent rules: pretty much everything works on the basis of roll D20 add modifiers and try to beat target number; simple and easy to learn, largely due to limited options, but this makes it easier to customise than 3e D&D where you have to replace existing rules and consider the impact on everything else.
Though I will still use other RPGs (Conan for example) I suspect C&C will now become the default fantasy system for me to use as a GM.
I'll start to develop houserules to expand my version of C&C with my blog as a workspace for this.
Weaknesses: with the first edition of the PHB the amount of typos is high and this can affect some of the rule interpretations, I think my biggest example is Power Word Kill where there are two different figures for the total HP of creatures affected. Not enough examples of play are present which is not a weakness for the veteran gamers that C&C has attracted to date, but is less helpful for newcomers.
Strengths: Price, C&C is reasonably priced; Consistent rules: pretty much everything works on the basis of roll D20 add modifiers and try to beat target number; simple and easy to learn, largely due to limited options, but this makes it easier to customise than 3e D&D where you have to replace existing rules and consider the impact on everything else.
Though I will still use other RPGs (Conan for example) I suspect C&C will now become the default fantasy system for me to use as a GM.
I'll start to develop houserules to expand my version of C&C with my blog as a workspace for this.
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