Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book
And it's finally done. I think. Going to see what people think and if there are any mistakes/clarifications/missing shit they point out, because even though we (as in, Melissa, myself, our playtesters, and a bunch of other people) have gone over it a bunch of times I'm sure there's something that got overlooked.
I'll give it a few days, and if nothing crops up I'll do a BW PDF (added for free of course), and then start working on the various print options. As usual if you buy the PDF before the print stuff becomes available, we'll send you the print-at-cost links (for every print option) so you don't have to pay anything extra (and might even pay a bit less).
In case you have no clue what Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book is, this is for the most part Dungeons & Dragons how I'd do it, which might also be in some part how you'd do it, too.
It's still roll-over-target-number d20, you still got ability scores and saving throws and armor class (mostly). If you've played D&D or something d20 this should be stupid-easy to learn, and one of the playtest campaigns uses the Age of Worms adventure path so in practice it's easy to convert stuff over (the other uses A Sundered World so that'll be a d20 thing at some point).
But of course we have changed some stuff.
For starters, the magic systems: wizards and clerics don't use the same pseudo-Vancian mechanics, wizards can recover spent magical energy sooner than clerics and have a wider array of magical abilities, but they burn through random amounts and can exhaust or even kill themselves if they aren't careful (and/or lucky). They're also squishier.
Kobolds and some other monsters like ghouls are more inline with their mythological roots. Kobolds replace halflings as a starting race choice because they can do more interesting things, but if you really want halflings just use the abilities and mechanics from your favorite edition and add them back in.
Other assorted things include: armor mitigates the damage you suffer, characters have a small hp pool that recovers with a bit of rest (short rest that takes 30 minutes), magical healing isn't essentially required to get by, and characters are a lot more flexible (and you can to a point control how complex your character gets, yeah even wizards).
There's more, and if you don't like the entire package even mostly as-is odds are you'll find something you can lift for another game.
We're very interested to hear what people like/don't like about this game, primarily the stuff you don't like and why. We're going to build on it over time, adding more classes, races, expanding the level cap, craft skills, an organic multiclassing system (that Melissa has been really digging thus far), magic items, houserules for a bunch of stuff, and so on, but we don't want to build too much only to find out people really don't like this or that.
You can see previews of it over on DriveThruRPG.
Another Note: If you purchase using the PayPal Buy Now button, we will also send you a complimentary copy through DriveThruRPG. Please allow up to 24 hours for delivery, though it usually ends up being at most eight (depends on if you buy it after we've gone to bed).
I'll give it a few days, and if nothing crops up I'll do a BW PDF (added for free of course), and then start working on the various print options. As usual if you buy the PDF before the print stuff becomes available, we'll send you the print-at-cost links (for every print option) so you don't have to pay anything extra (and might even pay a bit less).
In case you have no clue what Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book is, this is for the most part Dungeons & Dragons how I'd do it, which might also be in some part how you'd do it, too.
It's still roll-over-target-number d20, you still got ability scores and saving throws and armor class (mostly). If you've played D&D or something d20 this should be stupid-easy to learn, and one of the playtest campaigns uses the Age of Worms adventure path so in practice it's easy to convert stuff over (the other uses A Sundered World so that'll be a d20 thing at some point).
But of course we have changed some stuff.
For starters, the magic systems: wizards and clerics don't use the same pseudo-Vancian mechanics, wizards can recover spent magical energy sooner than clerics and have a wider array of magical abilities, but they burn through random amounts and can exhaust or even kill themselves if they aren't careful (and/or lucky). They're also squishier.
Kobolds and some other monsters like ghouls are more inline with their mythological roots. Kobolds replace halflings as a starting race choice because they can do more interesting things, but if you really want halflings just use the abilities and mechanics from your favorite edition and add them back in.
Other assorted things include: armor mitigates the damage you suffer, characters have a small hp pool that recovers with a bit of rest (short rest that takes 30 minutes), magical healing isn't essentially required to get by, and characters are a lot more flexible (and you can to a point control how complex your character gets, yeah even wizards).
There's more, and if you don't like the entire package even mostly as-is odds are you'll find something you can lift for another game.
We're very interested to hear what people like/don't like about this game, primarily the stuff you don't like and why. We're going to build on it over time, adding more classes, races, expanding the level cap, craft skills, an organic multiclassing system (that Melissa has been really digging thus far), magic items, houserules for a bunch of stuff, and so on, but we don't want to build too much only to find out people really don't like this or that.
You can see previews of it over on DriveThruRPG.
Another Note: If you purchase using the PayPal Buy Now button, we will also send you a complimentary copy through DriveThruRPG. Please allow up to 24 hours for delivery, though it usually ends up being at most eight (depends on if you buy it after we've gone to bed).
$6.99
$6.99
Announcements
If you're curious about FrankenFourth and/or Dungeons & Delvers, you can find public alpha documents here and here respectively.Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!
Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!
By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).
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