Castles&Crusades: Is this "The One"?

[Ralif Redhammer]

C&C came along when I was getting exhausted running 3e, and was precisely the system I needed at the time. However, my preference these days is for DCC RPG, OSE, or just playing 1e, BECMI, or OD&D directly. But for quite a while, C&C was my absolute favorite.

 

[GothmogIV]

The fact that Troll Lords offers a 50% to veterans and active service members in the US military means a lot to me (since I am a veteran). That's awesome.

 

[GreyLord]

5. If you want Saving Throws similar to AD&D, just lower the Challenge Base by 1 every other Level.

That's a GREAT idea. I may actually incorporate that into my C&C games!

The one thing I did was similar with Spells. The Spell caster casts it at spell level (rather than their class level) to determine the difficulty and the one being cast at uses their class level.

This accomplishes much the same thing, but on a broader scale. I like it!

 

[dead]

There have been many “Printings” but they have still made changes to the rules over those printings from what I hear.

An old Troll Lord Game's post sums up the Player’s Handbook “Printings":

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1-3 printings: a barbarian which is basically a berserker, and an illusionist who's pretty standard

4-6 printings: a barbarian who's similar to Conan, and an illusionist who's also the party healer

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The idea behind the illusionist being able to heal is that they can shape reality. Some people like it. Some people don’t. I’m not a fan of it.

I’ve got the 1st Printing and will stick with that, I think.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The idea behind the illusionist being able to heal is that they can shape reality. Some people like it. Some people don’t. I’m not a fan of it.

The eternal dilemma of "wait, no one wants to play the healer?"

We ended up importing clerics being able to convert turning undead uses into heals from 3E into C&C to increase the pool of available healing, as I recall. Nowadays, I'd probably just go with the 5Eism of letting clerics always have cure spells prepared as a bonus free spell, so the cleric don't have to choose between being a medic and the fun spells.

 

[Retreater]

The eternal dilemma of "wait, no one wants to play the healer?"

We ended up importing clerics being able to convert turning undead uses into heals from 3E into C&C to increase the pool of available healing, as I recall. Nowadays, I'd probably just go with the 5Eism of letting clerics always have cure spells prepared as a bonus free spell, so the cleric don't have to choose between being a medic and the fun spells.

I offer cash.
Still, I end up often playing an NPC healbot.
Maybe the best option is to just give out lots of potions or CLW wands? (Or use gamist solutions such as Healing Surges.)

 

[CleverNickName]

I've played C&C quite a bit...it was one of the game systems that we "auditioned" during the 3.5E/4E split. We really enjoyed it, especially for running some of the old-school B/X and BECM modules. I ran five players through "Master of the Desert Nomads" (X4) that I converted for the purpose. It was a lot of fun, and really captured that old-school feel.

The more we played it, the more it made us miss the older system. One of my players compared it to lowfat ice cream--the more you have, the more you miss the 'real thing.' So we ended up switching back to the Expert Rules to run the sequel ("Temple of Death," X5).

Ultimately we went with Pathfinder, then 5E. But I do remember C&C fondly. Even if it wasn't quite what we were looking for, it was pretty darn close.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Even if it wasn't quite what we were looking for, it was pretty darn close.

Yeah, that's exactly how I felt about it in the end. Like an ex-girlfriend with no hard feelings involved on either side, just not quite the right fit.

 

[GothmogIV]

I'm looking forward to reading up on it and trying it out. Right now we are enjoying Dragonbane.

 

[Jahydin]

There have been many “Printings” but they have still made changes to the rules over those printings from what I hear.

Very true. The last big update they brought in a lot of material from other books, like more monsters and taking PCs from 13th to 20th level.