Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 Review

Here is Endzeitgeist's review of Crimson Dragon Slayer D20.

It's a solid review, but there's something I'd like to address - the "broken" cleric class.  Before getting into details, all 4 classes are kind of broken in their own way.  Which means that each one is "the best" in its own way, assuming you stick to class abilities.

I'm copy/pasting my comment, just in case it disappears from the internet.  Not because of anything the reviewer is doing, but software glitches, etc...

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Thanks for the review, hoss!

Regarding the cleric, in play I've found that his unlimited healing works rather well. Let's say an adventuring party of 5 PCs has 2 clerics (something you might actually see, if playing Crimson Dragon Slayer D20).

This last round was brutal on the PCs. 1 guy down and unconscious (a fighter), and 2 others badly wounded (a cleric and sorcerer). There are still a couple monsters remaining. Does one cleric heal the unconscious fighter? Would that even make him conscious again? What about the wounded members of the party? Is 1d6 healing going to prevent the sorcerer from dropping if hit next round? Wouldn't it make just as much sense for the clerics to attack rather than heal, in this instance? I feel like it's a toss-up, and an interesting dilemma for those playing a cleric.

As for the thief's backstab, I see what you mean. Personally, I like things kind of nebulous so the player is forced to come up with some sort of cunning plan or sneaky maneuver to get that bonus. If he's willing to put in the creative work every single round, there's a possibility (depending on the circumstances) of continual backstabbing. A lot depends on the GM, player, and environment.

VS
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So, I've already gone into detail re: the cleric (his lack of spell list is another drawback) and touched on the thief.  The review mentioned how over-powered the wizard can be (any spell, as long as he has enough HP to cast it).  And, if you take a good, hard look at the fighter, he obviously owns the battlefield - the most damage, the most HP, adds +1 to both to-hit and damage every level.

Incidentally, if the cleric wants to aid the wizard (allowing him to cast higher level spells) by healing him right away, that's a very doable and legal "cheat".  However, the cleric is then focusing on the wizard, and not those on the front lines.

The fantasy worlds I run are so deadly that even in a one-hour game with only 1-3 combats, PC deaths happen frequently.

On the other hand, compared to old D&D, the cleric, along with his other 3 pals, probably seem super-powered.  If I remember correctly, the old school cleric didn't even get a spell, prayer, or whatever until 2nd level.  And I'm sure that was usable once per day.  And he probably started with 3 HP.  And the party had to walk uphill to get to the dungeon... both ways!

And that's precisely why I love the OSR.  It's not necessarily shackled to however they played in 1979.  It's a mix and match of everything from the last 45 years!  Of course, a few traditional tenets must be followed, but those are also malleable and hard to pin down.

In any case, CDS D20 works great for quick and dirty online games containing one or more noobs.  I've been using this system / hack / house-rules for almost a year now.  That's not a ton of playtesting, but it's held up remarkably well so far.

You can download the FREE PDF here.  They're also included as an appendix in Cha'alt.  Speaking of which, check out the latest Kickstarter campaign for Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise.

VS

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HOTT 52 - Battle 4 - Attack On An'Burkag's Encampment

I fought my HOTT 52 Week 4 battle over lunch today and had a blast! I tried out the Magician unit for the first time. After the battle report, I'll give you my thoughts on this unit and how it plays out.

To create my armies I have tables that represent armies when they're all militia, all regular/professional, or a mix of the two. Regular armies have (more) elements like heroes, magicians, blades and knights. Militia armies have more of riders, warbands, spears and hordes, plus the cleric that sees to the needs of the common folk pressed into service!

This battle, I wanted to mix it up, so I rolled randomly for regular/militia or militia/regular, then rolled to see which exact army was to be used. The human army would be a militia/regular army. The Orc army, led by the War Chief An'Burkag, would be regular/militia.

Humans General/Spear x1 (2 AP) Spears x3 (6 AP) Shooters x2 (4 AP) Riders x2 (4 AP) Knights x2 (4 AP) Blades x2 (4 AP)

Orcs General/Knights x1 (2 AP) Knights x1 (2 AP) Blades x4 (8 AP) Spear x2 (4 AP) Shooters x2 (4 AP) Magician x1 (4 AP)

The orcs were supposed to have Spear x3 and Hordes x2, but I swapped them out for the Orc Shaman as my Magician experiment.





The orcs lined up outside of their camp, howling and cursing at the humans who appeared on the horizon. They anchored their right flank with an impassable hill.

The human commander put her knights and riders on the flanks with the intent of sending the speedy riders to threaten the stronghold or Orc reserves.



The Orc Shaman Oz'turk, seeing the hateful Human Knights to their left, moved over to that flank, preparing foul spells to cast at them. Meanwhile, An'Burkag detailed a unit of Orc Spears to line up with him to prevent the Human Riders from flanking them or attacking their camp!



The Human army rolled down on top of the orc defense and pushed them all back!



Undaunted, the orcs and goblins gnashed their teeth, gripped their cold iron weapons and charged back at the humans, pushing them back!

(It was an amazing story the dice told! Every orc unit on the line recoiled when it was the human's bound, and almost the same in reverse when it was the orc's bound!)



The human knights, seeing a potential trap, charged at the flanking Orc knights. With nowhere to go, the retreating Orc Knights crashed into the melee between goblin and human archers. The unit broke up! Unfortunately, the impetuous Human knights made a mistake in turning to attack the Orc Shaman. When they attacked, they were overcome by his foul magicks!

(In HOTT, if a Knight (Kn) attacks a Magician and suffers a minor defeat in that same bound, they are destroyed! I had to reread that rule several times to make sure I understood it. It's subtle in the wording... if the Magician had charged/initiated contact, then the way the rule reads, the Kn would not have been destroyed!)



The Orcs also protected their rear/right flank, with the Orc spear destroying the light Rider cavalry. The orc line, however, suffered several defeats and began to fragment.



The human army pressed their advantage and pushed the orcs back. Warchief An'Burkag raced to reinforce the line and the Shaman Oz'turk rained spells and curses on both the flanking knights and units in the humans army, but they had little effect.



In the end, the orcs were unable to mount a serious defense and An'Burkag was forced to sound the horns of retreat. The humans marched upon the remains of the camp and burned it all to the ground, celebrating a hard fought victory!

Orcs: 12AP lost, Humans: 8 AP lost.

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I rolled quite a few 6 to 1 combat rolls, in favor of the humans, which almost always spells defeat for the orcs. Once the line developed gaps, the bonuses for overlaps from the intact human line spelled the story out. Which was surprising, as the defeats on the flank really blunted whatever advantage I thought the humans would need.

So.. the Magician unit. Fun! It's basically an advanced artillery unit, being able to launch spells at 3x the distance of shooters, a little further than regular artillery. It does require PIPs though, so it requires a choice to be made between moving a unit or two, or using spells. Unfortunately, out of 4 attempts at a spell, only one had any sort of effect (a recoil), so the results weren't as good as I hoped. I was taken by surprise at the result of the Magician killing the Knight unit, though! I'll remember that for the future.

I don't know how this would have turned out if the Orcs had kept their Hordes and extra Spear unit, but it was a fun element to play with. Now I need to try a Cleric... and I need to buy 15mm human Wizards and Clerics! I don't have any!

PS. If you're curious about my force composition tables, as well as how I conduct my fantasy wargames campaigns, here's a link to my rules. https://drive.google.com/open?id=18CUi40wW6OSm4FhTzdOoH-ct0NxW9jImGyF-okiMOrk

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Super AiG Screenshots Of The Year: 2019

This week on Super Adventures, I've got a page full of screenshots with writing under them for you. Sounds pretty typical for this site, but this time there's a twist: you've seen them all before! There's absolutely no new content here for you!

I usually do my Screenshots of the Year post on New Years Eve, but I didn't see the point in keeping you waiting a few weeks when I'm already done writing about games this year. I'm taking another break, no more games until the end of January I'm afraid.

Taking all these two months breaks has really helped me out though. For one thing it meant I only had half the amount of posts to look through when I was picking out my favourite screenshots. Plus it meant that my short list turned out to be a lot shorter than usual, so I didn't have to agonise over what screens and GIFs made it into the final post. The moral of the story, doing less work is... good?

(If you see a screenshot from a modern system you can probably click it to see the same image in glorious 720p!)

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TAP THE TAP: An Advergame To Promote A Brazilian Brewhouse

This site is a platform to discuss gaming concept ideas, but it's also a place where I can show a little bit of my game designing work. In this post, I want to present a game that I developed for Let's Beer – a Brazilian brewhouse located in São Paulo.

TAP THE TAP is an advergame; in other words: a game to promote a brand, a product or a service. A ludic project with advertising purposes. TAP THE TAP is a hyper-casual game with simple mechanics where you must tap the beer taps to match the same order from the clients at the bar. As the game advances, you must be faster to deliver the beers or you can lose a life. Let's Beer brewhouse used the game to give its customers discounts based on points, engaging them to a branding experience and promoting a new bitter ale produced by the company. Click here to play the game.

TAP THE TAP is a very fast experience created with HTML 5 programming. The game does not require any plugins and players can open it directly on the browser (desktop or mobile). The game is an attempt to promote de brewhouse and to establish a new dialogue with customers that can share the game with friends in a viral way.



One more produced. One more to use as an example in classes and for the portfolio.

#GoGamers

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