Would ACKS be a good fit to capture the BECMI-feel?

[jdrakeh]

I found it.

Dark Dungeons 4th edition. The 475 PDF is free (the hardcover is over $60 ).

Haha! Beat me to it!

 

[TwoSix]

Not as such, although a character who reaches 0hp or lower is likely to sustain a serious injury (assuming they survive at all) and will often not be combat capable without some long-term rest and recovery, so PCs won't just keep bouncing back to their feet. For related reasons, there is also some incentive to save healing magic for when someone goes down, to try and mitigate the long-term seriousness of their injury.

The only point I'll add is that there is a Medical/Healing proficiency in the game; a character (or hireling, or familiar) with 2 to 3 ranks in the proficiency can provide a LOT of out-of-combat healing, enough to noticeably lower the amount of spell slots consumed by crusaders or other healing classes.

 

[The Soloist]

Haha! Beat me to it!

4e is different from BECMI. The author modernized the underlying 'setting' assumptions and redid the classes. Read the comment section for more details.

Dark Dungeons 3e is what you want if you are looking for something closer to the original.

 

[Jahydin]

4e is different from BECMI. The author modernized the underlying 'setting' assumptions and redid the classes. Read the comment section for more details.

Dark Dungeons 3e is what you want if you are looking for something closer to the original.

Oh cool. Will certainly check it out, thanks!

 

[Alzrius]

ACKS II is an improvement in just about every way IMO.
While ACKS was a cleverly houseruled B/X, ACKS II incorporates all the extra material that makes it clear why the system stands apart from the completion, namely its excellent world building procedures and high-level gameplay.

How compatible is ACKS II with the previous edition? Is there a conversion guide anywhere?

 

[Micah Sweet]

How compatible is ACKS II with the previous edition? Is there a conversion guide anywhere?

One was provided to Kickstarter backers. It may also be available in Drive-thru with everything else, I'm not sure.

 

[Jahydin]

@Micah Sweet
Didn't realize enough changed to warrant a conversion guide...

@Alzrius
Google "ACKS System Compatibility Guide PDF", that's the document you want to look through. Looks mostly to be tables with name changes to get away from the OGL.

 

[Micah Sweet]

@Micah Sweet
Didn't realize enough changed to warrant a conversion guide...

@Alzrius
Google "ACKS System Compatibility Guide PDF", that's the document you want to look through. Looks mostly to be tables with name changes to get away from the OGL.

There wasn't a lot of change. There wasn't zero, though, so I can see a conversion guide being offered.

 

[Thondor]

How compatible is ACKS II with the previous edition? Is there a conversion guide anywhere?

There wasn't a lot of change. There wasn't zero, though, so I can see a conversion guide being offered.

Seems pretty similar yeah. The Revised books themselves suggest using the existing ACKS adventures from the prior edition several times (in the Judges Journal).
We still have some of the fancy gold-foil covers and judges screens available through Compose Dream Games (and the PDFs too of course!) for reasonable CAD$ prices.

 

[Aldarc]

Yea, I def wouldn’t pirate it.

I definitely wouldn't play it because...

He's actually to the right of the alt-right, for the record.

That's reason enough. It is definitely eye-opening to read the people in this thread who are clearly willing to look over that fact.