Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Hacking Shadowdark

Shadowdark is awesome.

I love not adding modifiers to damage rolls - those things are flat on the die, except if you have a special modifier. There are many books out there on this topic that break the system or introduce complexity when it isn't needed.

The "Shadowdark" way of doing things keeps that "flat & dry" level of balance, where characters aren't stacked full of powers and abilities like some over-frocked 5E Christmas Tree with too many lights and ornaments.

That said, we have a few books adding extra "stuff" and filling in a few holes in the system. You begin to run into a problem with the community using the same names as other books or even the official ones. Speaking of official classes...

One great place to start is the official Bard & Ranger classes straight for the Arcane Library. Looking for a bard and ranger? Well, here they are.

Unnatural Selection is another excellent book with a few detailed classes, spells and powers, and many new ancestries. New spells, magic items, and monsters are included, too. We get premium necromancer-style, beast-master, and shaman classes, among many others. This is the best single-book expansion for the base game and has more of everything.

Player Companion for Shadowdark is a good "stuff book," but it has a few issues with quantity over quality. We have many new classes but no class and level titles; some have the same class names as other books. There is a necromancer here that is sort of like a mage, not as in-depth as the Unnatural Selection's Grave Warden, but still, the class holds up. There are some good options here, but be prepared to sort through a lot of chaff for wheat kernels.

I like this book because of the variety of options but be prepared to untangle many conflicts with similar-named stuff in other books. This is a solid book if you want to expand your game but pick and choose the best options that speak to you and your table.

Nashcraft offers a good option and a blackguard class if you are looking for the elusive Paladin. These have titles as well, so you are getting full support.

The Book of Shadows is a book with a bunch of interesting stuff, including an interesting expansion to the base game's skill system. If you want to "hack" Shadowdark into having a more traditional skill system, this is a good book to start with. This takes your professions, assigns three subskills to each, and gives you a +1 rank in each subskill.

The game is straightforward, which makes you want to expand it infinitely.

Without too much effort, you can add a special class or ancestry here or there and not break the game's great feeling and tight balance.

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