Help me with my Castles & Crusades dilemma

[Turanil]

Well, reading the answers and poll results, I am inclined to do this:
-- Use my Highlands Campaign Setting, but remove anything Tolkien and Stephen Donaldson like.
-- Then, I will add some Warhammer feel to it with: A German-sounding-names kingdom with Teutonic-like knights; an overall oppression of ancient evil with a race of almost dead-necromancers.
-- Some Moorcockian stuff of Chaotic forces and people who came from a couple of adjacent dimension long ago, with gates in the vicinity.
-- It won't be very Greyhawk like, as no Greyhawk deities (hehe, C&C doesn't have default pantheon and even doesn't require clerics to follow a specific pantheistic deity), but there will be all of the D&D staples though.

Well, that should be easily workable.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

Is C&C d20? Or is it 1st edition AD&D?


Scott

 

[jrients]

C&C is an OGL type product with 1st edition style classes.

 

[Treebore]

Its $20.00, cheap enough to check out. If you have problems with 3e that make you miss the simplicty/ease of older editions I think chances are very high you will like C&C (Castles and Crusades by Troll Lord Games). Especially if you tend to house rule a fair amount no matter what game system you use.

 

[Turanil]

Basically C&C is archetypal 1e AD&D but using simple game mechanics inspired from d20. BAB instead of the headache-THAC0 ; and a real cool super simple mechanic to handle both saving throws and task resolution (skills in 3e). I mean: I play 3.5 every week (Eberron, and yesterday it was cool as my character, an urban ranger, was in a train and climbed on the roof to punish thugs...), and what occurs to me is that having skills and keeping track of your skill points is not that much useful during the game session. I noticed that the 12/18 C&C system works as effectively and is simpler. (By the way, anyone converted the Eberron Artificer into a C&C class? If not, someday I will try it, as well as converting the Warforged to C&C... with different names of course.) Also less powergaming with C&C, and it looks like I would be able to handle a 20th level party of PCs with this game, while I am unable to handle PCs beyond 11th level in 3.5


ANYWAY, back to the subject: Most people vote Greyhawk/Zagyg-like style in the poll. Would anyone tell me what's Greyhawk for him? What's so interesting in it? Or is it just the name and is pure basic D&D (as opposed to Eberron and else). BTW: I will of course add a Scarlet Brotherhood-like organization in my setting!

 

[Angel Tarragon]

For me Greyhawk is the classic adventues like The Tomb of Horrors, The Temple of Elemental Evil, White Plume Mountain, Castle Greyhwak and the Ghost Tower of Inverness. But it is more than just the adventures, it is the feel of them and how seemless they fit into the campaign model. It is also how relatively close the adventures are to each other in the campaign model, the ability to not have to travel so far to be able to advance in your chosen class(es). I always loved Verbobonc, and the GM I used to adventure under so many years ago did such a beautiful job seamlessly putting the adventures together that my character could leave their home in Verbobonc and come back to it in only a matter of days if she had to.

 

[MonsterMash]

I voted Warhammer style.

 

[fuindordm]

I noticed that the 12/18 C&C system works as effectively and is simpler. (By the way, anyone converted the Eberron Artificer into a C&C class? If not, someday I will try it, as well as converting the Warforged to C&C... with different names of course.) Also less powergaming with C&C, and it looks like I would be able to handle a 20th level party of PCs with this game, while I am unable to handle PCs beyond 11th level in 3.5

Glad you liked the train ride! It's not over yet--those glidewings have it in for you, and someone might still need a last-minute catch!

I don't like the 12/18 system in principle because it doesn't allow for improvement over a character's career, but it is super fast and works OK as long as the players aren't attempting super-difficult tasks. For skills that are folded into class abilities (like climbing, tracking, rogue skills, etc) then the appropriate classes keep getting better because they get their level as a bonus; but you can't make your fighter get better and better at stealth, or spotting hidden rogues, or riding a horse, as you advance and that's what galls me.

And even if you have an 18 and a prime in your stat, you only succeed on a roll of 9+ and a 40% chance of failure seems pretty high. There's no way to beat that down if you're trying to develop a competence outside your core class, although one could introduce all sorts of things like skill backgrounds, feats, and non-weapon proficiencies to address the problem.

But budgeting and keeping track of skill levels in D&D is a pain, I admit, above all for NPC creation. I've been trying to come up with something simpler myself, but I'd prefer a happy medium between C&C's tactic and D20. Something based off fewer skills and max ranks assumed.

Ben

 

[fuindordm]

I voted Warhammer too, but it occurs to me on writing the last post that one of the attractive points of Warhammer was it's skill and evolving profession system--it's kind of the antithesis of C&C in that regard.

Ben

 

[Turanil]

The new Warhammer looks great, but one cannot buy everything and play everything obviously.

As for improving non-class abilities in C&C, there is more than just a plain 12/18 with 40% at best. In fact I am working on a houserule set (seems I have nothing else to do), but it will take time before all is finished and nice... See that later in April.