OSR [Old School Essentials] Advanced Fantasy Races?

[RealAlHazred]

How well does OSE do with mixing both styles at the table? Are the race-as-class characters roughly comparable to the characters where those two are split?

Pretty well, actually. One player can play an Elf (race-as-class) and another can do an Elf (race) Magic-User (class) and they feel similar-but-different. The race-classes generally include a mix of abilities (well, except for Dwarves, I guess) so they still feel like distinct character types.

I'm currently gearing up to run a one-off one-shot. I'm planning to use A Fistful of Feathers, which is technically for Cairn but I foresee no issues converting it. A lot of the great OSE scenarios would take longer than the 4 hours I've got to fill. But I've got some 5E players in the mix, so I'm preparing my race options ahead of time!

 

[RealAlHazred]

Ah, I missed the race and class note. I'm a dyed-in-a-wool race-as-class guy.

Not a problem! You're coming down with something, so rest up! Them hexes ain't gonna populate themselves!

 

[Evaniel]

How well does OSE do with mixing both styles at the table? Are the race-as-class characters roughly comparable to the characters where those two are split?

I'm running a West Marches style game of OSE where we're mixing both styles, and so far it's working! I'm not using the multi-class option, so many of the race-classes fill that niche nicely. We have race-classes like Dragonborn, Half-Elves, and Drow alongside halfling Thieves.

I like, for example, that the Dwarf class has better overall saves than, say, a dwarven Fighter, but comes advances more slowly and caps out at 12th (rather than 14th) level. Also, with Carcass Crawler #1, Fighters get manuevers, making them a bit more distinct from the race-classes.

 

[John Quixote]

Pretty well, actually. One player can play an Elf (race-as-class) and another can do an Elf (race) Magic-User (class) and they feel similar-but-different. The race-classes generally include a mix of abilities (well, except for Dwarves, I guess) so they still feel like distinct character types.

Advanced Labyrinth Lord / Advanced Edition Companion is the same. Outright says that you can have an elf and an elf fighter/magic-user adventuring next to each other and it'll work out just fine. And it does.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I should add a note here: how @thirdkingdom does it in the Populated Hexcrawl series is different. Instead of separating race and class, you can extensively customize race-classes with Knacks, and he also provides a bunch of specialty race-classes to start from. Not what I'm looking for in this thread, but a really cool way to do it.

I have to ask, sir, did you make much use of Paul Montgomery Crabaugh's "Customized Classes" article from Dragon #109? Or did you balance it by eye?

 

[thirdkingdom]

I should add a note here: how @thirdkingdom does it in the Populated Hexcrawl series is different. Instead of separating race and class, you can extensively customize race-classes with Knacks, and he also provides a bunch of specialty race-classes to start from. Not what I'm looking for in this thread, but a really cool way to do it.

I have to ask, sir, did you make much use of Paul Montgomery Crabaugh's "Customized Classes" article from Dragon #109? Or did you balance it by eye?

I did, in fact, use that article, but I also went through the OSE Classic and Advanced classes and reverse engineered them to come up with the formula I used in the Classing up the Joint publication.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I did, in fact, use that article, but I also went through the OSE Classic and Advanced classes and reverse engineered them to come up with the formula I used in the Classing up the Joint publication.

I was myself hugely influenced by both Tim Brannan's posts about it on his blog, Erin "Breeyark" Smale's Building a More Perfect Class and BX Options: Class Builder book, and Thoul's Paradise's four posts on the topic, in addition to Classing Up the Joint (which I need to get a physical copy of one of these days...).

 

[RealAlHazred]

Okay, I went through and put in all the links. I also included a few that I had in the last thread I did on this topic (I forgot I did that!)

I noticed when I did the links that the Domain of Meru stuff from Marc Braden is no longer on DTRPG, which is sad -- it was inspired by Ukrainian folk tales and traditional stories. It wasn't complete, but had some really nice ideas in it.

The Dolmenwood Player's Book is not OSE, but it's adjacent -- originally, the books were going to be fully OSE, but after the OGL license debacle, Gavin Norman decided to release it as OSR. It would require minor adjustments to use it in OSE.

I'll try to remember to update the list again when Lisandro Linares releases his Oriental Adventures adaptations for OSE, instead of doing a whole new thread!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Dolmenwood Player's Book is not OSE, but it's adjacent -- originally, the books were going to be fully OSE, but after the OGL license debacle, Gavin Norman decided to release it as OSR. It would require minor adjustments to use it in OSE.

Other than player-facing aspects of it (setting-specific classes and races), isn't it OSE? Or are there rules changes?

 

[thirdkingdom]

Other than player-facing aspects of it (setting-specific classes and races), isn't it OSE? Or are there rules changes?

It's mostly OSE, but is technically a bespoke system.