I've heard off and on a lot of good buzz for Shadow of the Demon Lord. Now it's up on Bundle of Holding. What exactly does it have that's worth my gaming dollar(s)?
Thank you for your insight.
Thank you for your insight.
Sell me on/off: Shadow of the Demon Lord (Bundle of Holding) (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter MichaelWMattei
- Start date
Oh my that is a lot of stellar stuff for about 25 $ You cannot really go wrong with that as long as you don't actually dislike dark fantasy.
Mr. Schwalb wrote it after he was involved in writing D&D 5E and it shows.
Take D&D 5E, (and some WFRP and a little bit of D&D 4E) make it faster and leaner and add a lot of fluff to it. Then drench the whole thing in filth and bleakness. After that sprinkle some black humour on it and voilà:
You have Shadow of the Demon Lord.
Best managed kickstarter I have backed so far. So much bang for my buck.
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I always take it as a kind favor when posts mentioning the Bundle of Holding link to the offer: Shadow of the Demon Lord Bundle
It's my go-to WFRP-facsimile game these days, and really probably my go-to fantasy rpg these days. You can't go wrong with this, and you'll probably get about 3 billion pdfs for your money too.
Funnily enough I was looking at Shadow of the Demon Lord books at the weekend. Although I'll probably stick to my original plan of getting them as POD as I have the core book both electronically and physically, and prefer actual books.
Mechanically the game is brilliantly simple. Roll a D20 vs a target number. Unless it's opposed then it's always 10. If you have advantages then you get to boon dice. Any problems, then roll bane dice (these are d6). You may have several, and they can cancel each other out. Highest roll is added to the D20 roll.
Combat is both simple and satisfying. There are lots of little options to keep the gear heads and munchkins in the group engaged, but at it's heart it's very simple, and if you dont want to get bogged down, you can keep it simple. I thought 5e was simple, at least compared to 3e and 4e. This is possibly easier, really is in initiative.
You have fast turns and slow turns. Players go first. Fast turns you can either move or take an action (attack, cast a spell, use a skill etc.) , note you can charge which is an attack action with movement, but comes with banes on the attack roll. Slow turns are more standard move and action. So PC'S choose if they want a fast turn or slow turn. A turn goes all PC'S taking a fast turn go first. Then any NPC'S taking a fast turn. Then all PC'S taking a slow turn. The NPC'S. Finally end of round where any end of round stuff is worked out.
Monsters are fairly simple. Far less complicated than D&D except Basic style monsters. A nice monstrous bunch, along with more regular foes. Also it's not difficult to modify them (there are guidelines in the core for that).
Onto the last great thing. Characters. The system uses a path system to create you character. You start at level 0. Here you're pretty much cannon fodder. You have basic stats and two professions that give you some skills and a bit of background. Survive and you level up and pick a Novice Path. Here you have 4 to choose from. Mage, Priest, Rogue and Warrior. You get some cool stuff each level. Lvl 3 you pick your expert path. Here you have a choice of a further 4 paths, for each path. So 16 paths in total. So Assasins, Paladin etc. Lvl 4 you get a race bonus. A level each of your Novice and Expert paths. Then 7th level you get to pick a master path, or a second novice path. Master paths are where you have a large choice. Around 64 iirc.
So yes, at first two players pick warrior, they will be similar. However their professions, and the random charts for their race's will make them different. By 3rd level, they'll start to find their niche.
That's the quick overview. After ignoring the game for a year, I've been rereading it over the weekend, and getting really excited. It's easy to dismiss this game as a dnd or warhammer heart breaker, however what it is, is a very well written and easy to run fantasy game. The default setting is fun, there is a mad max apocalypse supplement called Godless. It might default to dark fantasy, but if you ignore corruption and insanity rules, you'll have a decent heroic fantasy game.
I'm thinking of a setting inspired by the Witcher, or just converting the 5e adventure books.
Mechanically the game is brilliantly simple. Roll a D20 vs a target number. Unless it's opposed then it's always 10. If you have advantages then you get to boon dice. Any problems, then roll bane dice (these are d6). You may have several, and they can cancel each other out. Highest roll is added to the D20 roll.
Combat is both simple and satisfying. There are lots of little options to keep the gear heads and munchkins in the group engaged, but at it's heart it's very simple, and if you dont want to get bogged down, you can keep it simple. I thought 5e was simple, at least compared to 3e and 4e. This is possibly easier, really is in initiative.
You have fast turns and slow turns. Players go first. Fast turns you can either move or take an action (attack, cast a spell, use a skill etc.) , note you can charge which is an attack action with movement, but comes with banes on the attack roll. Slow turns are more standard move and action. So PC'S choose if they want a fast turn or slow turn. A turn goes all PC'S taking a fast turn go first. Then any NPC'S taking a fast turn. Then all PC'S taking a slow turn. The NPC'S. Finally end of round where any end of round stuff is worked out.
Monsters are fairly simple. Far less complicated than D&D except Basic style monsters. A nice monstrous bunch, along with more regular foes. Also it's not difficult to modify them (there are guidelines in the core for that).
Onto the last great thing. Characters. The system uses a path system to create you character. You start at level 0. Here you're pretty much cannon fodder. You have basic stats and two professions that give you some skills and a bit of background. Survive and you level up and pick a Novice Path. Here you have 4 to choose from. Mage, Priest, Rogue and Warrior. You get some cool stuff each level. Lvl 3 you pick your expert path. Here you have a choice of a further 4 paths, for each path. So 16 paths in total. So Assasins, Paladin etc. Lvl 4 you get a race bonus. A level each of your Novice and Expert paths. Then 7th level you get to pick a master path, or a second novice path. Master paths are where you have a large choice. Around 64 iirc.
So yes, at first two players pick warrior, they will be similar. However their professions, and the random charts for their race's will make them different. By 3rd level, they'll start to find their niche.
That's the quick overview. After ignoring the game for a year, I've been rereading it over the weekend, and getting really excited. It's easy to dismiss this game as a dnd or warhammer heart breaker, however what it is, is a very well written and easy to run fantasy game. The default setting is fun, there is a mad max apocalypse supplement called Godless. It might default to dark fantasy, but if you ignore corruption and insanity rules, you'll have a decent heroic fantasy game.
I'm thinking of a setting inspired by the Witcher, or just converting the 5e adventure books.
Yes they are simple but they are also well formatted and usually don't suffer from bag-of-hit-points-syndrome. Most of them have some special abilities to spice up things.
Monsters in SotDL are one of the little bits of 4E influence I mentioned before. I was very happy with the chapter in the book.
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So if I've already got two editions of WFRP, plus numerous OSR games competing with 5e, what does this give me that I don't already have?
Frankly ? The same but with a faster and more modern rule set. Also it is a very well supported game because Mr. Schwalb seems so to be a one man writing machine.
At the end of the day it is a fantasy rpg set in a dark fantasy world with a rule set that focuses on fast play. It doesn't invent the wheel again. It is just very well done and has a lot of material.
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