Thieves' World d20

thalmin

Retired game store owner
I have been excited since I first heard Green Ronin was going to publish Thieves' World d20. I was even more excited when a very good friend brought back from Origins for me a pre-release copy of the Thieves' World Player's Manual. After skimming the book, and carefully reading some sections, I almost want to end my current campaign to start a new adventure in Sanctuary. A very grim world, low on healing, and a very interesting magic system.

The book opens with a (very) short story by Lynn Abbey. Then a Welcome to Thieves' World intro to the TW anthologies.
Chapter One: A Sanctan Primer introduces the players to Sanctuary, the primary setting of TW.
Chapter Two: Cultures and Backgrounds describes the different human cultures, with bonuses for each. Everyone in Thieves' World is human.
Chapter Three: Character Classes explains the minor changes to barbarian, fighter, and thief (not rogue) classes; then covers the new classes: Assassin, Godsworn, Initiate, Mage, Noble, Priest, Ranger, Savant, Survivor, and Witch.
Chapter Four: Prestige Classes lists 18 new prestige classes, plus explains which of those from the DMG are allowed.
Chapter Five: Skills and Feats gives us 2 new skills, Gamble and REad/Write Language (most people are illiterate). Then changes to existing skills plus a list of languages. The Feats portion lists dropped feats (Extra Turning, Improved Familiar, Natural Spell, Quicken Spell, and Spell Mastery); changes to metamagic feats; then a bunch of new feats.
Chapter Six: Supplemental Rules covers the new or revised rulse. These include Massive Damage, Severe Injuries, Infection, Reputation Checks, and Contacts.
Chapter Seven: Equipment and Resources covers the allowed weapons & armor, disguised weapons, herbs, drugs, poisons; plus explains appropriate and inappropriate magic items.
Chapter Eight: Sorcery covers sources of power, techniques, curses, magic item creation, and the new rules for magic.
Chapter Nine: Spells gives us the spell lists plus new spells in Sanctuary.
The Appendices cover the Gods of Sanctuary and a Character Glossary.

The book is 192 pages and will list for $34.95.
btw, Chris Pramas has given me permission to talk about the book.
 
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Thanks for the info! I'm pant wettingly excited about this book. The important question has to be - does it capture the gritty feel of Thieves World?
 

greywulf said:
Thanks for the info! I'm pant wettingly excited about this book. The important question has to be - does it capture the gritty feel of Thieves World?
It sure does! Between little healing, much lower threshold for massive damage, and receiving non-leathal damage every time you cast a spell, it is a deadly world. I feel like I need to wash my hands just from handling the book. ;)
 


Greywulf - I keep thinking that Ankh Morpork is slightly more like Lankhmar (which is more in keeping with the name, also), as Sanctuary is a much smaller city in terms of scale.

Oh, and the watch is far less effective.

Thalmin - we are all officially jealous of the pre-release copy you have. A bunch of us were drooling over them at the con, and Crothian got to play in a game and loved it.
 


Ok I read the info on Green Ronin's site and it didn't answer my one question: What the heck is Thieves World? I read about Sanctuary but that doesn't really tell me anything? Can someone give me more info about the setting? Thanks!
 

reveal said:
Ok I read the info on Green Ronin's site and it didn't answer my one question: What the heck is Thieves World? I read about Sanctuary but that doesn't really tell me anything? Can someone give me more info about the setting? Thanks!

This review of the newer book release gives some background:

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue291/books2.html

Here's some more information:

http://risse.tierranet.com/asprin/books/thieves_world.html

(If you use the right arrow under the summary, you can read about each of the early books and find out who the authors in each book were.)
 



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