I was going through the Dark Sun conversion for Castles & Crusades when I had to stop a moment and realize what the SIEGE Engine in this game replaces. And it is an impressive amount of cruft, tables, charts, saves, odd legacy mechanics, and cleaning the junk-packed garage of B/X and D&D style game rules bloat.
I saw one Youtube reviewer say the SIEGE Engine is an extra "add-on" that C&C did not need, and I held that feeling for a while. Why not just do roll-under ability checks? Why do we need this extra thing?
Well, in my Dark Sun conversion, I started to see the boxes full of years of rules, subsystems, and other strange minutiae that SIEGE replaces, and I wanted to write an article to collect my thoughts. So to answer the question of why we need this extra system, let's take a look at everything it replaces.
Saving Throw Tables
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| Old School Essentials Advanced, Cleric Progression & Saves |
Toss out all those class-specific, different for every flavor of B/X, level up strangely, take up room on the character sheet, what class and level does this monster save as, and please hand me the book saving throw tables. They are gone now; we save on ability scores like 5E.
And we can finally get rid of the wands save, which ideally should have just been a bonus to spell saves; wands are still spells, just weaker. And we get more saves, including charisma and strength, so the save system does much more with less record keeping.
Percentage Tables
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| AD&D 1e, Thief Skills |
All of those take up more room on the character sheet roll-under percentage charts for thief skills, assassination chances, ranger tracking, and other class features based on charts, percentage calculations, and spreadsheet grids? Gone, we don't need them anymore.
Ability Score Check Systems
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| Basic Fantasy, Ability Rolls |
Many B/X games use a roll-under ability check system, and some (Basic Fantasy) use an ability roll system based on level. SIEGE Engine unifies everything to a roll-high system based on ability scores and adds a level to your roll (for most actions). No more roll-over for attacks, roll-under for abilities, everything is the higher you roll, the better, and no charts or special systems needed - it all works the same way.
Class Features
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| D&D Expert, Cleric vs. Undead |
Any time you have a class-specific ability, such as a cleric's ability to turn undead or monks deflect blow ability, this is covered by the SIEGE engine too. At most, you need to note the ability name you have and the effect, but rest assured, if a check is required for the ability, it is handled the same way as everything else in the game. There are likely a few special rules behind how things work, but getting rid of charts and disparate systems for handling different things is a huge time-saver and simplifies the rules.
The above four sections are for almost every D&D style game, and they simplify traditional B/X. If we go into games like AD&D 2e, 3e, and Pathfinder 1e? We throw even more out and gain all the improvements in those games for free.
Non-Weapon Proficiencies and Skills
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| AD&D 2e, Non-weapon Proficiencies |
AD&D's non-weapon proficiencies and Pathfinder 1e's massive skill system are now gone. You can rationalize taking INT as a C&C primary as "my character picked a lot of INT skills." Any ability scores as primaries are that way; when you pick a primary, you also specialize in the skills related to that primary and are assumed to be good in them. I do this when I have a high ability score, instantly looking for the skills that let me "unlock" using that ability score with the game's skill system so I can use them without penalties.
If you were playing B/X, it is like getting a free skill system. And if you don't want it, this use of SIEGE can easily be ignored.
If you were playing Pathfinder 1e, it removes a massively complex and dozens of pages of rules and specific charts skill system. Also, this system removes the "skill monkey" classes in Pathfinder 1e and the constant need to raise INT for characters who want a lot of skills. All classes are on the same ground and improve the skills in the class's primary attribute and the character's secondary attribute(s).
This alone is such a vast improvement over Pathfinder 1e since I found myself loving skills and having to push INT higher. In C&C, we can have a barbarian who is still good at survival, strength, and wilderness skills and does not have the best INT. That barbarian could have a low INT and pick that score as a primary and still get a benefit.
We are also not spending piles of skill points at every level and fearing some skills are falling behind the others. Classes that had abilities moved to skills (thief abilities) do not have characters required to spend points raising their class ability skills at every level. No class skills to keep track of either, and different costs for different classes.
All gone. A primary attribute in C&C means "all skills included."
It is fair to mention an optional secondary skill system in the Castle Keeper's Guide that covers specialized professions, such as blacksmith or animal handler. If your character needs one or two profession-style skills to better define them, a system is there to cover you.
Feats
Another note before we begin, C&C does have feat-like abilities and a feat system presented as an "advantages" optional rule in the Castle Keeper's Guide. This gives you a bunch of familiar D&D 3.5-style feats to choose from every few levels.
If you play B/X, you have an optional feature-like advantage system.
But the SIEGE Engine also replaces hundreds of feats and entire feat systems. Some games require you to have a feat to perform a special combat action, like a trip attack, dodge, mounted combat, or disarm. A C&C player can look at their class, come up with a special thing their class should be able to do, and propose it to the Castle Keeper as a particular action that could be rolled as a check. Using the SIEGE engine, you can play the game where you make up special attacks, defenses, and maneuvers and roll for them.
This replacement is a "your mileage may vary" since it depends on your playstyle. If you are more by the book, you will be slightly more cautious when using SIEGE checks to create special attacks and new class abilities. Play fast and loose and love players inventing crazy stunts and class abilities on the fly; you will have a great time letting players be creative and come up with cool attacks, defenses, and unique ways to use the system in combination with their class and imagination.
B/X Minus the Charts
The question for SIEGE Engine isn't, "Do we need an extra system on top of the B/X rules?" The question should be, "Why do these other games need all these charts and tables?" You look at the sum total of everything you are throwing out, which is an impressive level of simplification.
It is funny when I first looked at C&C; I agreed with what others said, that the SIEGE Engine was something extra that B/X did not need, another system to handle things other systems did well enough.
What I did not realize was everything the SIEGE Engine did away with.
It threw out all of those other systems.
The ones I assumed were still there.
I had grown so used to all these charts, tables, paragraphs with hidden rules, bulleted lists, and special ways one class does something versus another that I stopped seeing all the charts and complexity. I played C&C and assumed the game had and needed all those charts.
It threw them all out like an epic bout of closet and garage cleaning.
The Dark Sun Conversion
Then, as I started to do my Dark Sun conversion and I had a little more experience with the game, I was going through the 2e books and was stunned at how many tweaks and changes they were making to AD&D 2e, and to do my conversion all I mostly said was, "Nope, throw that out."
To do a conversion, I got rid of more than I had to create because AD&D 2e is a complicated game. Even with Savage Worlds, I am permanently stuck in conversion mode, shooting for "close enough" and hoping the feeling of playing Savage Worlds carries the game (which it always does).
With Castles & Crusades, my conversions were darn well near perfect. I was playing the game with the original AD&D 2e monster stats and changing nothing. Playing the game got more accessible. I needed to convert nothing. All the initial challenges and combat difficulties were perfectly in place. Character and challenge progression was precisely like the original game.
And when I was done, I had a game that played like a modern game. It had the ability saves 5E and the deadly feeling of an AD&D or B/X. The feeling was spot on, and the gameplay felt modern and streamlined. This was like playing the original Dark Sun when it came out, minus all the time and complication spent learning and wrestling with AD&D 2e.
And I did not need a 5E conversion.
Everything works perfectly here.
If I want a "more 5E" feel, I will throw in advantage/disadvantage dice, short and long rests, tweak spell slots, and some of those tropes. The game doesn't need it, though.
I can play the game and get an authentic experience.
With less complexity and wrestling with old rules. And in fact, the experience was better since the rules were more modern, and C&C has a lot of great character and build options to add to a Dark Sun game. And I could be playing Dark Sun in 5 minutes after creating a character, with no reference or "how does this work?" book flipping.
This is the level of magic you feel when you find your favorite Super Nintendo game and find a device where you can plug the cartridge in. You can immediately begin playing again and reliving those memories - minus all the frustrations and complexities of wrestling with technical stuff, connections, A/V switches, cables, and other arcane knowledge about CRT sets.
Overall, this is becoming my fantasy go-to game for almost everything, and even over all the great flavors of B/X. It is a level of game design and simplification that makes me question the things we hold onto in B/X games, the charts, the senseless wand saves, the percentage tables, the mix of roll over and roll under, and the things we feel we need to copy and hold on to in order to be authentic.
Do we need to be authentic?
Or should fun and simplicity come first?
Castles & Crusades is a game that holds onto the best parts of the past while discarding anything tedious or complicated that we thought we needed.
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