[Heroes Against Darkness] Neo-clone released FREE!

[justinhalliday]

While we're all gearing up for the public playtest of D&D Next/5th Edition, I wanted to let you know Heroes Against Darkness has released, it's a free d20 fantasy RPG.

Heroes Against Darkness pulls from all of the editions and makes a whole new game. It's been described as a neo-clone, 'cos it's got a little bit of Basic, and little bit of AD&D, a bit of 3rd Edition, and a bit of 4th Edition:

It's totally FREE, there's no Kickstarter and nothing to buy, so you can safely check it out here:

Heroes Against Darkness

There's an overview of the game here:

Heroes Against Darkness: Heroes Against Darkness - Overview

 

[Jools]

This looks fantastic - wow! How did you possibly afford to release this entirely for free? Surely the art budget alone must have been massive? You really are my hero for doing this. I have aspirations of producing my own free version of D&D as well. Its just a huge stack of notes so far but I'd really love to hear how you pulled this off; I'd love to follow in your footsteps one day.

 

[Retreater]

Downloaded and skimmed through it this morning. I'm impressed. The artwork is fantastic and the rules seem well thought out.

I do have a couple of questions:

Regarding use: Under Creative Commons, would I be allowed to take this to a print shop?

Regarding play experience: The creatures' hit points seem a little on the high side (similar to 4e). Does this slow down gameplay to the 1 combat > 1 hour I've found in 4e?

Retreater

 

[Serendipity]

Fascinating, downloading this now.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah the art work alone is amazing! I LOVE the cover. The rules are pretty nifty,at first glance, but I have so many RPG products to read ATM it will take a while to get this fully read too.

 

[darjr]

The free solo adventure is appreciated as well, thanks!

 

[justinhalliday]

Regarding use: Under Creative Commons, would I be allowed to take this to a print shop?

Yes, you can print out the PDF, you can even re-host it at your site (as long as you don't change it and you attribute the game to its author).

Here's my version printed out:

Regarding play experience: The creatures' hit points seem a little on the high side (similar to 4e). Does this slow down gameplay to the 1 combat > 1 hour I've found in 4e?

The player and creature HP are a bit lower than 4E at the start, and a bit higher later on. But in play, the player character and monster damage scale as they gain levels (2d at Level 4, 3d at Level 8, etc), so the overall length of combat (and the grind) is reduced.

Having said that, Heroes Against Darkness is balanced around encounters, rather than around a gradual daily depletion. If you want daily depletion (like Basic), you just houserule out the Rally power.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Just read your blog [MENTION=6686995]justinhalliday[/MENTION] and have a question on spell formats. Why did you chose to use the formula of (for example) 5' Per 1/2 level instead of 10' per level, which is the same thing?