Castles & Crusades' long-awaited Monsters & Treasures is almost perfect. It skillfully maintains the flavorful and rules-light Castles & Crusades \"feel\" that is very reminiscent of early D&D.
Nice review! I concur on most of your points. I found the Experience section a bit offputting, with the "per hit point" XP values of each creature unneccessary, and requiring a bit too much math for the rules-lite feel of the game. The monsters would've been better served with a total XP value that included this bonus, based on average Hit Points for the creature. That way, the CK could assign XP at a glance, rather than having to figure it out.
I intend to go through my book with a pencil and mark down these average values for myself, to cut down on later prep time, but it would've been nice to have it done for me.
Other than that, yes, Monsters and Treasure is a fine book and well worth the wait.
__________________ Jason Vey, The Grey Elf: http://www.grey-elf.com/
Yankee Pack, Son of Liberty; Cult of Howard; Maiden Militia President, Elf Lair Games--go buy Spellcraft & Swordplay!
Author, Dungeons and Zombies; co-author,All Tomorrow's Zombies; suggestions and original pdf editing, ZeFRS "The spell is called "Cure Light Wounds" because I strongly suspect Gary thought a spell called "Restore Small Random Amount of Arbitrary Abstract Resource" didn't sound as nice....He was right, too." -Old Geezer, on AD&D "Thus the first generation begins to pass and the second generation mourns while the third barely understands and generations in the future will not know." -Xeno, on Gary Gygax's passing
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Err ... my print copy hasn't reached Helsinki yet, but in the final draft each monster had the average XP value listed, in the form of "base" + "per hp" ("total average").
Err ... my print copy hasn't reached Helsinki yet, but in the final draft each monster had the average XP value listed, in the form of "base" + "per hp" ("total average").
In the version I have it's "Base (+per hp)"
__________________ Jason Vey, The Grey Elf: http://www.grey-elf.com/
Yankee Pack, Son of Liberty; Cult of Howard; Maiden Militia President, Elf Lair Games--go buy Spellcraft & Swordplay!
Author, Dungeons and Zombies; co-author,All Tomorrow's Zombies; suggestions and original pdf editing, ZeFRS "The spell is called "Cure Light Wounds" because I strongly suspect Gary thought a spell called "Restore Small Random Amount of Arbitrary Abstract Resource" didn't sound as nice....He was right, too." -Old Geezer, on AD&D "Thus the first generation begins to pass and the second generation mourns while the third barely understands and generations in the future will not know." -Xeno, on Gary Gygax's passing
Laugh Points: 4, Awesome Points: 1, Layout Points: 1, Best Thread Title Evar Points: 4 Disturbed the Mortal Vessel of Cthulhu Points: 1, Most Honest Author Points: 1 Tryptophan Points: 1
Excellent review, Mythmere! I agree with most everything you said. Thanks for saving me the trouble of writing a review myself.
(Btw, as you probably know by now, the 'frostworm' is not a new monster.)
__________________ Akrasia: literally, "lacking command over oneself," the Greek term for the character flaw of weakness of the will.
My 'Old School' Fantasy Role-Playing Games Blog: Akratic Wizardry!
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What happened to the review thread format? Does anyone else find this a bit obtuse?
If you click on "view complete forum thread" at the bottom of the review posts, and then "switch to threaded mode" at the top right once you reach the forums it'll be a bit easier to follow.
Linear Mode
