[Castles & Crusades] let's create a huge thread

[Pete Whalley]

Well my PHB finally arrived yesterday morning and I spent the afternoon devouring it.

I'm really pretty damn impressed with the game so far, love the simple class ethos and the feel of the game. I'm picking up some solid Leiber and Fighting Fantasy vibes from the classes, monsters and rules. And that's all awesome.

I like that the game runs up to 12th out of the PHB and seems to look at high end campaigns as being the exception, since PCs above 10th level should be raising kingdoms and ruling the land or plumbing the forbidden depths of knowledge.

I'd say the base of 18 for a non-Prime check sounds awfully high, but I'm not going to start modding the system without seeing how it hits the table first.

Oh and the lack of demons/devils etc in the monster book? That along with the distinct lack of the creepy aberration type things (whether due to OGL restrictions or simply because the designers didn't like them) is part of what contributes to that feeling I was talking about. I can happily sit down to play thinking that this isn't the game where you punch Cthulhu or face the hordes of Hell, and that's something that makes C&C distinct from the usual D&D.

 

[Lars Dangly]

Glad you are digging it. I have to disagree about the demons and devils. These are some of the best parts of the 1E monster manual and I miss them in C&C.

 

[Pete Whalley]

Glad you are digging it. I have to disagree about the demons and devils. These are some of the best parts of the 1E monster manual and I miss them in C&C.

Oh don't get me wrong, I am an unabashed devotee of D&D's fiendish bastards. The lower planes and their various denizens always make their way into my games sooner or later. Whether it's wandering the streets of Sigil, throwing down with the hordes of the Abyss or confronting the agents of Set, I really dig the planar elements of D&D.

C&C meanwhile, feels more grounded with it's lack of overt references to the planes, demons and active deities. It's different, but not in a bad way.

 

[cleaverthepit]

Monsters and Treasures does not have demons nor devils in it. I can nit remember the exact reasoning as to why they were omitted, I do recall that their inclusion would not have melded well with our thematic goals for the PHB and MT.

The Monsters and Treasure of Airdhe includes demons and devils of peculiar to that setting. Its 40% off now as well. The upcoming Planes book will have demons and devils in it.

 

[PrinceRemote]

Demons and Devils will be a welcom sight back into the folds of the C&C game. If you've seen the Monsters & Treasures of Aihrde book, you already know that demonkind and devilkind are insanely tough opponents. This alone was probably the reason that TLG never included them in the PHB and M&T - since the PHB only takes PCs up to level 12 anyway. With the release of character levels 13-24 the time is right for the biggest of the baddies to make it back into C&C.

 

[smug]

Monsters and Treasures does not have demons nor devils in it. I can nit remember the exact reasoning as to why they were omitted, I do recall that their inclusion would not have melded well with our thematic goals for the PHB and MT.

The Monsters and Treasure of Airdhe includes demons and devils of peculiar to that setting. Its 40% off now as well. The upcoming Planes book will have demons and devils in it.

I think that link should be to the pdf at the RPGNow/DriveThruRPG. I don't think that there's 40% off on the TLG site.

In other news, the Sixth Day of Christmas is supposed to contain "The Coded of Aihrde", but that doesn't exist yet (the "Codex of Erde", the d20 one, still does I guess).

 

[cleaverthepit]

Thank goodness someone knows what's on sale. Thanks for the link correction.

We have a 7th level party right now. By an accident, my character, a cleric, opened a gate to the netherworld. To follow up on the deadly accident, the party decided to run through the gate. We were in hell so to speak and facing 2 large demons from the MT of Airdhe. I can not remember the type. More were flooding towards us as well. As luck would have it, Mac's character had a demon slaying sword (he was unaware of this until the battle commenced). After a few demons went down they got positively irate. One demon banished Mac's character back to Airdhe. Now we were down our main fighter. Another demon cracked apart the bridge we were upon and slit the party while yet another demon slapped my character for a whopping 18 points of damage total (I have 38). This was one round. The next round was a nightmare. I had 1 hp left, Chris 3 hps, Mark 15 and Todd 12. Mark and Todd were split from me and chris. Chris pulled out his amulet of the planes and delivered us to some unknown location and Todd pulled out some magical horse thing that whisked him and Mark back to Airdhe.

Long story short, at 7th level, a couple of demons almost annihilate the party in 3-4 rounds. And not a single 'support' demon had even arrived yet.

Demons, if played properly, are a hard fight, even at 12th level. But they are fun fights and I always want to test my mettle against the powerful creatures. I still won't go dragon hunting though.

davis