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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eternalknight" data-source="post: 2011395" data-attributes="member: 1075">OverviewLone Wolf: The Roleplaying Game is a new OGL rulebook from Mongoose Publishing.  Based on the gamebooks released in the mid-80's by Joe Dever, Lone Wolf is a d20 game and setting in one, 304 page book.  It retails for $39.95 US and consists of a colour hardcover and fold-out map and black and what interior art.BreakdownLone Wolf begins by going through the basics of character creation.  This is all stuff you have seen before, with a few important exceptions:  Hit Points have been renamed to Endurance, Base Attack Bonus has been renamed to Combat Skill, and Alignment has been compressed into four categories:  Good, Evil, Balance and Unaligned.Chapter 2 contains seven character classes that players can choose from.  It is worth noting that race is tied to class in Lone Wolf, though in some cases you can choose different regions to come from.  Anyway, the classes use an innovative concept which adds a lot of flavour to each individual class.  Rather than having generic fighters, wizards and rogues running around, players can choose to be a Brother of the Crystal Star (a magic-user), a Dwarven Gunner of Bor (a rifle-toting warrior), a Kai Lord (a psychic warrior-monk), a Magician of Dessi (another magic-user, though very different from the Crystal Star), a Shadaki Buccaneer (a pirate), a Sommlending Knight (a mounted paladin style warrior) or a Telchos Warrior (a desert ranger).  Each class takes at least 5 pages to describe, with the Kai Lord taking 16!  This is due to the fact that each class has many special abilities that can be chosen as they advance. (These special abilities replace feats in the game).Skills make up chapter 3.  Nothing much here, except several skills are compressed into one skill (Listen, Search and Spot become Perception, Jump and Swim become Athletics, etc).Chapter 4 is Equipment.  A mixture of standard stuff and setting-specific equipment, such as the Bor Rifle, Laumpsur Potions and many more besides.  It even includes rules for the most powerful weapon in the world, the legendary Sommerswerd!Chapter 5 is combat.  Pretty standard stuff, with notable exceptions being the removal of Attacks of Opportunity and Grapples and the inclusion of Magical and Psychic Combat.Next up is Adventuring in Magnamund.  This chapter includes rules for terrain, travel, poisons and diseases.Chapter 7 provides advice for Lone Wolf Games Masters, including how to run adventures set in the Lone Wolf world of Magnamund, or even for ignoring the rules in the book and using it as a standard Dungeons and Dragons campaign sourcebook.Supporting Roles (chapter 8) provides NPC classes:  Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert and Warrior.  Don't think these are the standard classes from the DMG however; each class has received a facelift, gaining new abilities and powers that make them more powerful than their DMG cousins.Chapter 9 - The Magnamund Gazeteer - is the biggest chapter, running to 69 pages.  It begins with a history of Magnamund, followed by a roughly half-page description of each nation of the world, divided into sections:  Northern Magnamund and Southern Magnamund.  Fans of the gamebook series will absolutely drool over this chapter.Finally, we have the Bestiary, containing 70 odd monsters.  SOme of these are reprinted from the SRD (especially the animals), but well over half are brand new.ArtArt is black and white throught, with the exception of the cover and the fold-out map.  The art is sparse, and if you enjoy art in your books you may have a problem with Lone Wolf.  On the other hand, it does mean that more setting details can be cramed in to the book, which is a fair trade in my opinion.  The artwork itself is adequate, if not brilliant.The map, on the other hand, is a thing of beauty.  It is full colour and absolutely gorgeous.  However, one thing lets it down.  There are a few spelling mistakes on it, unforutanatley too many to let slide.  Aside from this, the map is great.ConclusionLone Wolf: The Roleplaying Game is a great translation of the Lone Wolf gamebooks into a role-playing game, and the d20 system seems to capture the world more than adequately.  Fans of the gamebooks will love this book, if only as a reference; ignoring the rules, it is a wonderful guide to the world of Magnamund (even more so than the fabled Magnamund Companion).  Even if you aren't a fan, this book still holds something for you.  It is a fantasy setting, but different from the norm - Lone Wolf contains no elves, orcs, goblins and many other staples, but replaces them with their own unique brand of monsters.  Even then, the way the classes are handled is very unique and well worth a look.5 out of 5.</blockquote>

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