[BAD AXE GAMES] GRIM TALES Free Downloads Posted

[2WS-Steve]

You Yankee bastards with your quality local gaming stores!

I ordered it online today so hopefully the post office won't take too long.

BTW, when should we be expecting Tales of Cydonia (title?)?

 

[jaerdaph]

You Yankee bastards with your quality local gaming stores!

Unfortunately we have to share the store with Mets bastards too!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I picked it up from Compleat Strategist in NYC at lunch today.

Ok. Annnnnnnnnnnnnd?

BTW, when should we be expecting Tales of Cydonia (title?)?

Slavelords of Cydonia. I briefly toyed with hurrying it along to try to make it eligible for this year's ENnies, but it would have required rushing two very good writers through the homestretch. Even so, it will be going to the printer very soon, though it won't be out as quickly after Grim Tales as I had hoped.


Wulf

 

[NeghVar]

You Yankee bastards with your quality local gaming stores!

Steve - still fighting that war of "northern" agression - huh?

It was in the same Osseum shipment as Creatures of Freeport, and that showed up at distributors today according the daily receiving lists I just looked at. I'd look for GT on shelves early next week.

Chris - you got my $$$'s as well - two books to pick up next week!

Ben - Ed B. tells me the cartography is great - I will be picking up both Grim Tales and Slave Lords of Cydonia!!!

Thanks!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Ed B. tells me the cartography is great - I will be picking up both Grim Tales and Slave Lords of Cydonia!!!

Heh... There's humilty for you.

Just to be precise, there's no cartography in GT, but Ed did do all of the maps for Slavelords...

As for Slavelords, we're well over the announced page count at this point, trying to fit in all of the adventure plus all of the supplementary campaign material. I'll do what I can to hold my price point, but suffice to say this is a LOT of cool material-- lots of background fluff, lots of quality crunch.

Wulf

 

[jaerdaph]

Ok. Annnnnnnnnnnnnd?

Sorry - I was at work yesterday and couldn't really start diving in unless I wanted to suddenly find myself with all the free time in the world to look at it, if you know what I mean. Getting through the rest of the afternoon was torture, though, knowing that it was just sitting there only a few feet away...

At first glance, Grim Tales is really a clever blending of material from D&D into d20 Modern, especially in the areas of skills, feats (including ones related to magic), and talents. In some ways, this book isn't exactly what I expected (for example, I was under the impression there would be equipment lists by era), and in other ways, it is more than what I expected.

I really like how the d20 Modern basic classes were expanded out to 20 levels. The new talent trees are also very cool - the list is greatly expanded from those found in d20 Modern, and let you do things like Turn Undead snatch arrows and deflect bullets, and cast magic spells. I also like the idea of advanced talents.

One thing I didn't see that I was looking forward to based on some character's in Wulf's LXG Story Hour - the Paranormal Adept. There are rules for Arcane, Divine and Wild Adepts, but not Paranormal Adepts.

Anyhow, more later...

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

At first glance, Grim Tales is really a clever blending of material from D&D into d20 Modern, especially in the areas of skills, feats (including ones related to magic), and talents. In some ways, this book isn't exactly what I expected (for example, I was under the impression there would be equipment lists by era), and in other ways, it is more than what I expected.

Hmm, yes. Page 165 has a timeline of what I consider the "essential" discoveries of technology. I wish there had been more room to include equipment; in the end, I decided to include rules and "templates" for equipment rather than try to anticipate what equipment folks would want for every kind of campaign. You've got rules for building melee weapons and armor (in the Equipment chapter), a Firearms chapter, a Cyberware chapter, and rules on bringing Vehicles into the game.

If there's anything you feel you're missing, let me know and I'll see about a web enhancement.

I really like how the d20 Modern basic classes were expanded out to 20 levels. The new talent trees are also very cool - the list is greatly expanded from those found in d20 Modern, and let you do things like Turn Undead snatch arrows and deflect bullets, and cast magic spells. I also like the idea of advanced talents.

Hopefully I haven't offended any d20M designers with certain reclassifications of feats and talents... but the list had to be expanded in order to offer up enough options through 20 levels.

One thing I didn't see that I was looking forward to based on some character's in Wulf's LXG Story Hour - the Paranormal Adept. There are rules for Arcane, Divine and Wild Adepts, but not Paranormal Adepts.

The relatively late addition of Upper_Krust's CR creature design system completely eliminated any need for Paranormal Adepts. If I had to redesign Henry/Edward (from the LXG Story) he'd simply have Alternate Form and some enhanced abilities for a net gain of +1 or +2 CR (including Berserk for a loss of about .2 to .5, depending on how I felt at the time).

Thanks for the feedback-- this is my favorite part of every book's release!

Wulf

 

[philreed]

At first glance, Grim Tales is really a clever blending of material from D&D into d20 Modern, especially in the areas of skills, feats (including ones related to magic), and talents. In some ways, this book isn't exactly what I expected (for example, I was under the impression there would be equipment lists by era), and in other ways, it is more than what I expected.

I really like how the d20 Modern basic classes were expanded out to 20 levels. The new talent trees are also very cool - the list is greatly expanded from those found in d20 Modern, and let you do things like Turn Undead snatch arrows and deflect bullets, and cast magic spells. I also like the idea of advanced talents.

Okay, this just made it to my list of "must buy" products.

 

[jaerdaph]

Okay, this just made it to my list of "must buy" products.

If you think that's good, wait to you see what they did with Action Points.

A lot of neat new variants and options for using Action points for different styles of play. Can you say "exploding" Action dice?

 

[jaerdaph]

Hmm, yes. Page 165 has a timeline of what I consider the "essential" discoveries of technology. I wish there had been more room to include equipment; in the end, I decided to include rules and "templates" for equipment rather than try to anticipate what equipment folks would want for every kind of campaign. You've got rules for building melee weapons and armor (in the Equipment chapter), a Firearms chapter, a Cyberware chapter, and rules on bringing Vehicles into the game.

If there's anything you feel you're missing, let me know and I'll see about a web enhancement.

And I have to agree that makes perfect sense. There certainly are enough d20 sources to draw from already.

As for a Web enhancement, I think I'd like to see some vehicles stated out, perhaps for different eras/genres, as examples.

Thanks for the feedback-- this is my favorite part of every book's release!

Glad to do hear it and glad to help.

I was wondering though why you didn't include the Computer Use skill from d20 Modern. I also noticed that the combat chapter mentions the Extra Turning feat, but that wasn't included in the Feats chapter.

Today I'm going to dig into the wealth section of the Equipment chapter - at first glance it seems much different then the d20 Modern version.