...anyways, got my paws on the Player's Manual for d20 Thieves' World. Not quite halfway through, but some pretty interesting stuff, though seems to emphasize the recent books a bit much. Their is probably a book to set things back in the good ol days of yore.
Anyways, the Ranger is pretty awesome. Hands down better than 3.5 or any other. No magic, but more of an actual outdoorsey feel. The alternate Styles are a great change, really fills out the archtype better than the 3.5 ranger imho. The Assassin, Godsworn and Survivor look interesting, and the Savant (skill experts capable of adventuring!) should be used in some form elsewhere... the everyman hero is a popular enough trope. The new classes probably arent strictly better than core, but many abilities improve based on stats, but I doubt stats are anywhere near as easy to boost.
No alignment, which kinda fits. I like the alignment system, but people arent good at working within it often.
Combat looks WAY more dangerous, ie realistic. Not yet far enough in for granularity, but looks gritty as heck... infected wounds and all.
Spellcasting is gonna take some time to figure out though, but it sounds good so far. Not like core.
So, I've perused this tome more thoroughly, and its really interesting... specific cool things include:
-combat is frickin' dangerous! REALLY dangerous. Dangerous like reality mostly, with a very low damage threshold to trigger 'massive damage', long term injuries with ability DRAIN (semi permanent!), and even infected wounds. Combat in Thieves' World is grittier than wood rasp. Even a high level barbarian would be wise to avoid unnecessary fights, you know, like in reality. Maybe not everyone wants their fantasy to be realistic, but this seems less ridiculous than a 200hp Barbarian with no hesitation to fight 20 or 30 lvl 1 enemies. In the books, Tempus even avoided stupid fights, and he's pretty near a Mary Sue in terms of being overpowered.
-Magic is VERY complicated. As in, this might need some dumbing down... but I do think its comprehensible. I love how much more balanced magic is though. Its still crazy powerful, and ritual casting can clearly be brutal if you can use it right, but you have to be clever to use magic. High level spells are VERY hard to cast, yet a lower level character can risk casting one. IE a 10th level Priest (cleric, but different indeed) can probably cast even a 9th level spell as a ritual in certain circumstances. But not really in combat. The Mana system is nifty, but makes combat casting potentially pretty risky; you CAN flub a spell. The key to the magic system is building up energy, so combat casting high level magic is slower, and riskier. I see this system as a refutation of the quadratic wizard linear fighter silliness... casters are more versatile, and probably more powerful, yet an equal level character COULD defeat them. They really cant in most editions of DnD.
-Many classes are based on 'real life'... ie not assumed to be a vague, poorly defined 'adventurer'. Which makes sense, since not many legal oriented societies would be interested in having relatively powerful people running around doing whatever they please. Not that powerful folks in Thieves' World dont tend to do as they please, but they tend to exist in a structure of some kind. You might not be strongly oriented with a group, but in this system, you likely have more ties than an adventurer does in many systems. Contacts are part of this, as are classes based on business... lots of prestige classes are primarily about money making via more realistic routes, legal or not. Your character is going to end up a part of the world, not just existing in a vacuum.
-Everyman heros are very doable... before, you had to play a rather irregular rogue to get this, but here its more common. You likely wont be useless either, also cool.
-Emphasis on actual roleplaying over hack and slash. Pretty huge actually. As previously noted, a character hoping to solve problems via combat likely wont last too long. Failure to attempt to descelate potential conflicts will be very dangerous; an enemy with a pick can one shot even a high level character. Complete abandonement of alignment is a bit bittersweet, since I like alignments, but people use it poorly often. You can be really, really evil in Thieves World, but you can still do a good deed if its in character... this is in keeping with the books of course. Jubal is evil beyond most Blackguards, but he still is strictly a businessman at heart, and not evil for some metaphysical cause. Similarly, Strick is almost ridiculously Good, yet he lies quite regularly. Constantly even. Yet he's clearly more 'good' than many Paladins in core DnD. Very organic.
-Many of the classes are 'powerful', but on closer examination, they really arent better than core classes.
-Greater emphasis on skills to accomplish, well, everything. Very good, makes skills significant choices.
Overall, it feels much more like 5th edition than 3.x, which is cool, since its older.
Hopefully someone else is interested in this stuff around here! I would recomend Thieves' World, with the caveat that the spellcasting system is more labrynthine/byzantine than some Engineering Code books. It will require some study, but the result is balanced magic use, a rare thing indeed.
Comments
Anyways, the Ranger is pretty awesome. Hands down better than 3.5 or any other. No magic, but more of an actual outdoorsey feel. The alternate Styles are a great change, really fills out the archtype better than the 3.5 ranger imho. The Assassin, Godsworn and Survivor look interesting, and the Savant (skill experts capable of adventuring!) should be used in some form elsewhere... the everyman hero is a popular enough trope. The new classes probably arent strictly better than core, but many abilities improve based on stats, but I doubt stats are anywhere near as easy to boost.
No alignment, which kinda fits. I like the alignment system, but people arent good at working within it often.
Combat looks WAY more dangerous, ie realistic. Not yet far enough in for granularity, but looks gritty as heck... infected wounds and all.
Spellcasting is gonna take some time to figure out though, but it sounds good so far. Not like core.
-combat is frickin' dangerous! REALLY dangerous. Dangerous like reality mostly, with a very low damage threshold to trigger 'massive damage', long term injuries with ability DRAIN (semi permanent!), and even infected wounds. Combat in Thieves' World is grittier than wood rasp.
-Magic is VERY complicated. As in, this might need some dumbing down... but I do think its comprehensible. I love how much more balanced magic is though. Its still crazy powerful, and ritual casting can clearly be brutal if you can use it right, but you have to be clever to use magic. High level spells are VERY hard to cast, yet a lower level character can risk casting one. IE a 10th level Priest (cleric, but different indeed) can probably cast even a 9th level spell as a ritual in certain circumstances. But not really in combat. The Mana system is nifty, but makes combat casting potentially pretty risky; you CAN flub a spell. The key to the magic system is building up energy, so combat casting high level magic is slower, and riskier. I see this system as a refutation of the quadratic wizard linear fighter silliness... casters are more versatile, and probably more powerful, yet an equal level character COULD defeat them. They really cant in most editions of DnD.
-Many classes are based on 'real life'... ie not assumed to be a vague, poorly defined 'adventurer'. Which makes sense, since not many legal oriented societies would be interested in having relatively powerful people running around doing whatever they please. Not that powerful folks in Thieves' World dont tend to do as they please, but they tend to exist in a structure of some kind. You might not be strongly oriented with a group, but in this system, you likely have more ties than an adventurer does in many systems. Contacts are part of this, as are classes based on business... lots of prestige classes are primarily about money making via more realistic routes, legal or not. Your character is going to end up a part of the world, not just existing in a vacuum.
-Everyman heros are very doable... before, you had to play a rather irregular rogue to get this, but here its more common. You likely wont be useless either, also cool.
-Emphasis on actual roleplaying over hack and slash. Pretty huge actually. As previously noted, a character hoping to solve problems via combat likely wont last too long. Failure to attempt to descelate potential conflicts will be very dangerous; an enemy with a pick can one shot even a high level character. Complete abandonement of alignment is a bit bittersweet, since I like alignments, but people use it poorly often. You can be really, really evil in Thieves World, but you can still do a good deed if its in character... this is in keeping with the books of course. Jubal is evil beyond most Blackguards, but he still is strictly a businessman at heart, and not evil for some metaphysical cause. Similarly, Strick is almost ridiculously Good, yet he lies quite regularly. Constantly even. Yet he's clearly more 'good' than many Paladins in core DnD. Very organic.
-Many of the classes are 'powerful', but on closer examination, they really arent better than core classes.
-Greater emphasis on skills to accomplish, well, everything. Very good, makes skills significant choices.
Overall, it feels much more like 5th edition than 3.x, which is cool, since its older.
Hopefully someone else is interested in this stuff around here! I would recomend Thieves' World, with the caveat that the spellcasting system is more labrynthine/byzantine than some Engineering Code books. It will require some study, but the result is balanced magic use, a rare thing indeed.