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D&D Older Editions
[COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8311400" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>So now we come to the last volume in the Historical Reference series, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16927/HR7-The-Crusades-Campaign-Sourcebook-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>HR7 The Crusades</em></a>, and I find myself wondering "why?"</p><p></p><p>Not so much "why did they pick this, of all things?" But rather, "why oh why did you remove the poster map at the back of the book, teenage me?! WHY?!" It's one of the only times I've removed those perforated maps, and I still regret it now. Not that I've <em>lost</em> the map or anything; I was very careful on that front. I just wish it was still attached. Apparently I wasn't nearly as concerned with condition and collectibility when I was younger.</p><p></p><p>That said, the former question is an entirely valid one, to my mind. As much as I've whinged about how reluctant the HR series has been to go outside of its European parameters, I can't help but find this to be an extremely technical answer to that particular complaint. More importantly, this is perhaps the most D&D-like HR supplement in the set, surpassing even <em>HR3 Charlemagne's Paladins</em>. Given the aforementioned book's existence, you have to wonder exactly what niche this one was meant to fill.</p><p></p><p>The cynic in me can't help but wonder if there was some need to fill out the timeline. That's clearly not the case, and yet I can't help but take notice of how it fits rather nicely into the historical procession. Glancing back through the earlier books in the series, they shake out like so:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>HR6 Age of Heroes</em>: 2200 B.C. - 279 B.C.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>HR5 The Glory of Rome</em>: 753 B.C. - 476 A.D.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>HR3 Celts</em>: 600 B.C. - 900 A.D.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>HR2 Charlemagne's Paladins</em>: 711 A.D. - 987 A.D.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>HR1 Vikings</em>: 800 A.D. - 1100 A.D.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>HR7 The Crusades</em>: 1095 A.D. - 1192 A.D</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>HR4 A Mighty Fortress</em>: 1550 A.D. - 1650 A.D.</li> </ul><p>If I were being more ingenuous (the opposite of disingenuous), I'd say that the appeal of this idea was the wartime backdrop, particularly with its religious, political, and other dimensions providing fodder for gameplay. But if that was the idea, I wonder how well it actually works in practice, particularly for an extended campaign. The usual rule for a war in D&D is to have the PCs either be the ones leading it, or to be a quasi-independent commando unit, given goals to achieve with little oversight regarding how they achieve them. At least this book didn't trip over itself to recommend that we use the <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16943/Battlesystem-Miniatures-Rules-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Battlesystem Miniatures Rules</em></a>. (Though, having said that, I find it ironic to compare this book to <em><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16828/FR12-Horde-Campaign-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">FR12 Horde Campaign</a></em>, a book about a crusade in the Forgotten Realms that has only three pages of (Battlesystem) stats, with the rest of it being flavor text!)</p><p></p><p>Before I go any further, it's worth mentioning that this book does have the distinction of being one of the very few AD&D 2nd Edition books to receive a <a href="http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20010327e" target="_blank">web enhancement</a>, presenting two kits that were cut for space. Oddly, it also adds some minor benefits to the "Templar" and the "Hospitaller," describing them both as "Holy Order Knights." Don't go crazy trying to find any kits with those names in the book, however. In fact, they're actually part of the Monastic Warrior kit (pg. 27-29), since you choose one of those orders when you take the kit.</p><p></p><p>More generally, I have to give this book credit on a mechanical level, because it tries hard to make the crunch match the setting. While I rolled my eyes at this being - once again - spliced into three different levels of fantasticalness (in ascending order: Historical, Legendary, and Fantasy), it eschews presenting modifications to classes, instead going with its predecessor volume's tact by outlining appropriate kits for each class (though once again, druids are conspicuously absent). Smartly, the book itself adds only three new kits (not including that web enhancement) - the Warrior Priest, Monastic Warrior, and Pardoner - with the others being drawn from the <em>Complete Fighter's Handbook</em>, <em>Complete Thief's Handbook</em>, <em>Complete Priest's Handbook</em>, <em>Complete Bard's Handbook</em>, and <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16871/AlQadim-Arabian-Adventures-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures</em></a>. That last one is referenced quite a few times over as the sourcebook for more fantastical instances of the Middle East (the entire book being set in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusader_states" target="_blank">Outremer</a>).</p><p></p><p>But the book doesn't stop there. Not by a long shot. The kit table not only lists which religion (Christian or Muslim) each kit is used with, but also which sub-culture/sect they belong to. So Hakima priestesses (from <em>Arabian Adventures</em>) are not just Muslims, but Sunni Muslims, whereas Holy Slayer rogues are Shiites, and the aforementioned Monastic Warriors are Frankish Christians, rather than, say, Italians. Also, the book outlines that women are limited to a much narrower subset of kits.</p><p></p><p>This is, in other words, a book that would never be written today.</p><p></p><p>After we get the usual breakdown of how magic is more plentiful/usable as you turn up the fantasticalness dial, and the requisite lists of banned spells/magic items, we do get some interesting restrictions and alterations to how magic works. For instance, while spellcasting once again takes an order of magnitude longer, the lower-magic campaign options compensate for this by having <em>durations</em> be increased proportionally as well. Likewise, certain categories of priest spells aren't considered to be spells at all, but <em>miracles</em>, which have a percentage system on the likeliness that God will grant them (which, interestingly, is presented as being Christian in scope; Muslims are instead told to use the alternative "Calling Upon Fate" (where "Fate" is clearly meant to be "God") rules in <em>Arabian Adventures</em>). Holy relics can use spells from the banned spells list. Clerical turning works on extraplanar creatures of all types as well as undead. Along with several other new rules, such as how resurrection is a particularly hard miracle to receive, and the limitations of healing spells. It's quite interesting if you want to run a low-magic game.</p><p></p><p>I will note, however, that I found myself running into a few errors here and there as I re-read this. Nothing major, in fact they were usually quite the opposite, but small enough things that they made me frown. For instance, at one point the Hakima priest kit is referenced as being one of the only wizard kits allowed. Likewise, the book talks about how its meant to cover the First through Third Crusades, but its timeline in Chapter Five only covers through the end of the Second. And, of course, it doesn't mention what an epic rap battler King Richard the Lionheart was:</p><p></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]kgJMaP4msTs[/MEDIA]</p><p></p><p>As much as it doesn't fit the focus of the book, I somehow still find myself wondering if a greater focus on Robin Hood - since the Third Crusade was the backdrop for that particular story - would have made this book more useful. I doubt it, since that particular story is tied rather strongly to the specific individuals involved, but it feels awkward somehow to have this book be so perfunctory in its acknowledgment of how that story was also going on. I can just see the PCs in a Crusades campaign deciding to quit the field and go back to England because they want to stomp all over Prince John.</p><p></p><p>I'll say again that this book is absolutely overflowing with flavor text regarding the feel of the campaign. Not just the timeline - the latter of which is presented at least twice, once in a year-by-year overview and once by outlining each of the first three Crusades - but also in terms of presenting the Crusades from a Christian standpoint and a Muslim standpoint, as well as a primer about life in Outremer, and a basic examination of how the various wars and battles were conducted. It's exhaustive and exhausting at the same time. Of course, there are only a few adventure hooks at the end of the book, rather than anything more substantive.</p><p></p><p>Going back over this one, I found myself wanting to like HR7 more than I did. Maybe it's just because I'm already burned out on the entire <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110324/HR1HR7-Historical-Reference-Series-2e-BUNDLE?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">Historical Reference Series</a>, but this one just seemed to exemplify everything that was wrong with the books. The setting could just as easily have been any standard D&D pastiche. The overviews were long and obtrusive, trying much too hard to evoke a feeling that I doubt many players were concerned with. The minor errors that cropped up here and there. It was all just a major downer, one that they admittedly-insightful low-magic rules couldn't compensate for. Monsters were barely even mentioned in this volume, for instance.</p><p></p><p>Overall, this was probably as good a place as any for this particular series to stop.</p><p></p><p><em>Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8311400, member: 8461"] So now we come to the last volume in the Historical Reference series, [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16927/HR7-The-Crusades-Campaign-Sourcebook-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]HR7 The Crusades[/I][/URL], and I find myself wondering "why?" Not so much "why did they pick this, of all things?" But rather, "why oh why did you remove the poster map at the back of the book, teenage me?! WHY?!" It's one of the only times I've removed those perforated maps, and I still regret it now. Not that I've [I]lost[/I] the map or anything; I was very careful on that front. I just wish it was still attached. Apparently I wasn't nearly as concerned with condition and collectibility when I was younger. That said, the former question is an entirely valid one, to my mind. As much as I've whinged about how reluctant the HR series has been to go outside of its European parameters, I can't help but find this to be an extremely technical answer to that particular complaint. More importantly, this is perhaps the most D&D-like HR supplement in the set, surpassing even [i]HR3 Charlemagne's Paladins[/i]. Given the aforementioned book's existence, you have to wonder exactly what niche this one was meant to fill. The cynic in me can't help but wonder if there was some need to fill out the timeline. That's clearly not the case, and yet I can't help but take notice of how it fits rather nicely into the historical procession. Glancing back through the earlier books in the series, they shake out like so: [LIST] [*][I]HR6 Age of Heroes[/I]: 2200 B.C. - 279 B.C. [*][I]HR5 The Glory of Rome[/I]: 753 B.C. - 476 A.D. [*][I]HR3 Celts[/I]: 600 B.C. - 900 A.D. [*][I]HR2 Charlemagne's Paladins[/I]: 711 A.D. - 987 A.D. [*][I]HR1 Vikings[/I]: 800 A.D. - 1100 A.D. [*][I]HR7 The Crusades[/I]: 1095 A.D. - 1192 A.D [*][I]HR4 A Mighty Fortress[/I]: 1550 A.D. - 1650 A.D. [/LIST] If I were being more ingenuous (the opposite of disingenuous), I'd say that the appeal of this idea was the wartime backdrop, particularly with its religious, political, and other dimensions providing fodder for gameplay. But if that was the idea, I wonder how well it actually works in practice, particularly for an extended campaign. The usual rule for a war in D&D is to have the PCs either be the ones leading it, or to be a quasi-independent commando unit, given goals to achieve with little oversight regarding how they achieve them. At least this book didn't trip over itself to recommend that we use the [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16943/Battlesystem-Miniatures-Rules-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Battlesystem Miniatures Rules[/I][/URL]. (Though, having said that, I find it ironic to compare this book to [I][URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16828/FR12-Horde-Campaign-2e?affiliate_id=820']FR12 Horde Campaign[/URL][/I], a book about a crusade in the Forgotten Realms that has only three pages of (Battlesystem) stats, with the rest of it being flavor text!) Before I go any further, it's worth mentioning that this book does have the distinction of being one of the very few AD&D 2nd Edition books to receive a [URL='http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20010327e']web enhancement[/URL], presenting two kits that were cut for space. Oddly, it also adds some minor benefits to the "Templar" and the "Hospitaller," describing them both as "Holy Order Knights." Don't go crazy trying to find any kits with those names in the book, however. In fact, they're actually part of the Monastic Warrior kit (pg. 27-29), since you choose one of those orders when you take the kit. More generally, I have to give this book credit on a mechanical level, because it tries hard to make the crunch match the setting. While I rolled my eyes at this being - once again - spliced into three different levels of fantasticalness (in ascending order: Historical, Legendary, and Fantasy), it eschews presenting modifications to classes, instead going with its predecessor volume's tact by outlining appropriate kits for each class (though once again, druids are conspicuously absent). Smartly, the book itself adds only three new kits (not including that web enhancement) - the Warrior Priest, Monastic Warrior, and Pardoner - with the others being drawn from the [I]Complete Fighter's Handbook[/I], [I]Complete Thief's Handbook[/I], [I]Complete Priest's Handbook[/I], [I]Complete Bard's Handbook[/I], and [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16871/AlQadim-Arabian-Adventures-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures[/I][/URL]. That last one is referenced quite a few times over as the sourcebook for more fantastical instances of the Middle East (the entire book being set in [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusader_states']Outremer[/URL]). But the book doesn't stop there. Not by a long shot. The kit table not only lists which religion (Christian or Muslim) each kit is used with, but also which sub-culture/sect they belong to. So Hakima priestesses (from [I]Arabian Adventures[/I]) are not just Muslims, but Sunni Muslims, whereas Holy Slayer rogues are Shiites, and the aforementioned Monastic Warriors are Frankish Christians, rather than, say, Italians. Also, the book outlines that women are limited to a much narrower subset of kits. This is, in other words, a book that would never be written today. After we get the usual breakdown of how magic is more plentiful/usable as you turn up the fantasticalness dial, and the requisite lists of banned spells/magic items, we do get some interesting restrictions and alterations to how magic works. For instance, while spellcasting once again takes an order of magnitude longer, the lower-magic campaign options compensate for this by having [I]durations[/I] be increased proportionally as well. Likewise, certain categories of priest spells aren't considered to be spells at all, but [I]miracles[/I], which have a percentage system on the likeliness that God will grant them (which, interestingly, is presented as being Christian in scope; Muslims are instead told to use the alternative "Calling Upon Fate" (where "Fate" is clearly meant to be "God") rules in [I]Arabian Adventures[/I]). Holy relics can use spells from the banned spells list. Clerical turning works on extraplanar creatures of all types as well as undead. Along with several other new rules, such as how resurrection is a particularly hard miracle to receive, and the limitations of healing spells. It's quite interesting if you want to run a low-magic game. I will note, however, that I found myself running into a few errors here and there as I re-read this. Nothing major, in fact they were usually quite the opposite, but small enough things that they made me frown. For instance, at one point the Hakima priest kit is referenced as being one of the only wizard kits allowed. Likewise, the book talks about how its meant to cover the First through Third Crusades, but its timeline in Chapter Five only covers through the end of the Second. And, of course, it doesn't mention what an epic rap battler King Richard the Lionheart was: [MEDIA=youtube]kgJMaP4msTs[/MEDIA] As much as it doesn't fit the focus of the book, I somehow still find myself wondering if a greater focus on Robin Hood - since the Third Crusade was the backdrop for that particular story - would have made this book more useful. I doubt it, since that particular story is tied rather strongly to the specific individuals involved, but it feels awkward somehow to have this book be so perfunctory in its acknowledgment of how that story was also going on. I can just see the PCs in a Crusades campaign deciding to quit the field and go back to England because they want to stomp all over Prince John. I'll say again that this book is absolutely overflowing with flavor text regarding the feel of the campaign. Not just the timeline - the latter of which is presented at least twice, once in a year-by-year overview and once by outlining each of the first three Crusades - but also in terms of presenting the Crusades from a Christian standpoint and a Muslim standpoint, as well as a primer about life in Outremer, and a basic examination of how the various wars and battles were conducted. It's exhaustive and exhausting at the same time. Of course, there are only a few adventure hooks at the end of the book, rather than anything more substantive. Going back over this one, I found myself wanting to like HR7 more than I did. Maybe it's just because I'm already burned out on the entire [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110324/HR1HR7-Historical-Reference-Series-2e-BUNDLE?affiliate_id=820']Historical Reference Series[/URL], but this one just seemed to exemplify everything that was wrong with the books. The setting could just as easily have been any standard D&D pastiche. The overviews were long and obtrusive, trying much too hard to evoke a feeling that I doubt many players were concerned with. The minor errors that cropped up here and there. It was all just a major downer, one that they admittedly-insightful low-magic rules couldn't compensate for. Monsters were barely even mentioned in this volume, for instance. Overall, this was probably as good a place as any for this particular series to stop. [I]Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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[COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
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