Pathfinder 1e: Timelines

Can't you just play the old world with the new rules?

I suspect after reading this, most people will - it is easy, the books are readily available, and for most, it will be straightforward to just do a tone change, get group signoff, and play with the old lore instead of Lost Omens - easy-peasy.

Lost Omens feels off, like the TikTok version of Golarion. The tone is all wrong; it goes hard on that: Burning Man, Day of the Dead, Harry Potter, Starbucks, music festival, and neon-pastel aesthetic that culturally appropriates from everywhere and turns it into millennial selfie bucket-list tourism for Instagram. To be honest, many Wizards releases go here as well.

Stop it, please.

There was a time when everyone overused the Day of the Dead festival in every product, and I sat here shaking my head, wondering when they would quit and stop saying 'Us too!' It was cringeworthy and kept happening whenever a cultural festival went 'pop' on social media. At best, it feels like a desperate plea for attention; at worst, it is borrowing another culture's traditions to sell your books.

Where the game's original creators borrowed from every fantasy novel in sight to create the game in the 1970s, today's creators borrow every bucket list fad from social media to sell it.

I know, every Wall Street company does it!

Can't we be better than them? Can't we have creator visions and creations, things we have never seen before? Or are we doomed to culturally appropriate every pop festival and fad on social media as our fantasy worlds?

The rules are great, but the new world is too damn safe, colorful, modern, and happy.

It feels like a fantasy world for people who hate fantasy worlds.

Golarion went from a theme-park world to selfies at theme parks.

Nothing stops me from using 2E to recreate the OG world, and the world is of my making. Most people play in their own worlds and must remember the official setting, which means nothing. If I were playing in my game world, Pathfinder 2E would be a better setup since the core books feel more setting-agnostic than the Pathfinder 1e game.

However, Pathfinder 1e worked hard on blending the rules, setting, supplements, and splat books into the game. I can get a guide detailing one part of the world or organization and get talents, spells, and powers unique to that group.

Does 1e become a slog at high levels where it is easy to break the game? Yes, but this is true about most games, even 5E. But I am not cross-referencing tags for every item, power, feat, and ability. Once you learn the 2E system, it becomes second nature and easier than 5E since the rulings are clear, but having played 3E and 3.5E, my heart is still in Pathfinder 1e. Granted, they still do the hit-point scaling that Wizards introduced to make high levels seem more powerful (multi-attacks and the like), and that slows down the gamer compared to any OSR game.

The Wizard's changes to D&D (3E and on) to damage and AC scaling ruined the game's balance.

The B/X original AC, damage, and hit point scales are D&D.

Of the Wizards scaling, 3.5E is the best (low levels are similar), 4E is the worst (3X), and 5E falls in the middle but is still wrong (2X).

One of the things that makes Pathfinder 1e so amazing is Hero Lab. I bought into this, collecting the books in the system and real life for over 10 years, and the amount of depth and data here amaze me. I usually dislike computerized character creation systems, but this one is complete, especially with community content. The online version of PF 1e is also near-complete (but with no community content), and you can also buy into PF 2 and Starfinder (online only, $25/year). Also, Tales of the Valiant is coming.

Supporting other games is the best of all worlds.

But the new world isn't the same as the old. It is hard to put into words, but it feels empty as I flip through the Lost Omens 2E books. The art is pretty but rarely gives a sense of danger or impending threats. Some entries talk about "tourist economies" of places like the world has mass transit and airports. Many pieces of art float on a page, showing a figure, but they need places where they live.

It all falls flat to me.

Pathfinder 1e: The Drow, Part 1

In the core rulebook, drows are mentioned in an art and fiction piece at the beginning of the character's chapter, in languages, there is a poison named after them, and they are mentioned as being a possible starting race in the bestiary. So they are lore in 1e, and the pictures at the beginning of chapter 2 paint them as wicked, blueish-skinned dark elves. There is also a nice illustration of the city as well, and it is very evocative and striking.

With a small army of merciless dark elf warriors fast on their heels, escape from the drow city seemed unlikely. While the human Sajan and gnome Lini might survive as slaves, Seltyiel knew the drow would only keep him, a half-elf, alive long enough to boast over while they tortured him.

Cursing his mixed blood again, he sneered and turned abruptly, instantly summoning to mind the words of his most devastating arcane fire.

“Come on, you fungus-eating freaks!” he shouted at the relentless drow. “Let me show you how elves from the surface world dance!”

-Pathfinder 1e Core Rulebook, page 19

We next meet them in the Bestiary, where they do not have HD and use character class levels.

Although related to the elves, the drow are a vile and evil cousin at best. Sometimes called dark elves, these cunning creatures prowl the caves and tunnels of the world below, ruling vast subterranean cities through fear and might. Worshiping demons and enslaving most races they encounter, the drow are among the underworld’s most feared and hated denizens. 

-Pathfinder Bestiary, page 114

Also, in this entry, it is said, "one of the many demon gods to whom the drow offer worship," so it is left vague. A "spider queen" could be in there, but it isn't laid out explicitly. It also says they are chaotic evil, so it would be demons they worship and not lawful evil devils. So, if we don't want to do a "Great Value renamed spider queen," what are our choices for who they worship?

This leads us to the Lords of Chaos book, and our drow will diverge from their D&D brethren. Let's say no spider queen, and we need to use the choices from this book. The choices we pick here will define our not-D&D drow in ways we might not expect and put a little more thought into who they could have been if Lolth-envy hadn't dominated the lore for them in Golarion.

I know, what? No spider queen?

Who runs drow like that?

First, we need to exclude demons that their enemies could follow, environments they don't like, and concepts where they don't have a frame of reference. Dagon, a demon lord of the sea, is an obvious example. Any demon that serpent-folk, frogs, troglodytes, or other natural enemies are out. Nurgal (deserts and sun), Shivaska (clocks and aberrations), Pazuzu (the sky), and Jezelda (the moon) are all out.

Who are the best ones left? I need to include entries where drow are specifically called out as worshippers. My top twelve are:

• Abraxas = forbidden lore, magic, and snakes
• Andirifkhu = illusions, traps, and knives
• Areshkagal = greed, magical and mundane portals, and riddles
• Cyth-V’sug’s = disease, fungus, and parasites
• Flauros = fire, salamanders, volcanoes
• Haagenti = alchemy, invention, transformation (drow flesh warping mentioned)
• Jubilex = ooze monsters, poison, sloth
• Mazmezz = bindings, driders, and vermin (spiders too, but not the same)
• Nocticula = assassins, darkness, lust
• Shax = envy, lies, murder
• Socothbenoth = perversion, pride, and taboos
• Zura = blood, cannibalism, and vampires

That is quite a rogue's gallery of demons and paints them as very dark and twisted kin. Seeing this list makes me sad that more effort was not put into them in 1e, and the team spent a little time creating their own drow flavor that had nothing to do with the archetypical "spider queen" of D&D.

I would put a few of these above others, but I would not discount some strange ones. Snake-themed drow and fire drow sound very cool. Vampire drow cults sound amazing.

Notice no Orcus and no undead except for vampires. So out is the drow who summons the dead. Other significant omissions are the four major evil gods of the setting, including Lamashtu. So, no drow that breeds monsters. No Baphomet so no minotaur allies. No werewolves. No hags. No winged creatures. No storms. No gargoyles. No troglodytes. We can start to see enemies appearing.

In the book that covers devils, drow is never mentioned as worshippers, so get that lawful evil drow society out of your head.

In fact, if you look at this list and put a little effort into it, they come out much better than D&D's dark elves. The mess of temples and beliefs in drow society is something akin to a horror movie of nightmares and sadism. These cults and vile sects of darkness elevate them as better dark elves than the monotheistic ones of Greyhawk, and the softer ones in the Forgotten Realms.

Drow priestesses that wield fire? Drow alchemists? A god of illusions and another of riddles? Drow vampires? Fungus and ooze clerics? Inventions? Flesh warpers?

We are coming out way ahead on exciting and varied drow here. These old-school dark elf baddies are amazingly diverse and can throw plenty of wicked magic at you - not just your typical spider magic. D&D drow? Webs, spiders, poison, assassins, stealth, and magic. These drow? Some may summon spore clouds to choke you with, while others throw poison gas, some are vampires, some are inventors, others summon insects, some can summon snakes, others throw fire, some oozes, etc.

By the time Pathfinder 2E rolls around, drow is as they were but renamed "cavern elves" in some lame way to include them without calling them out. They are monsters in the PF2 Bestiary called drow (a strange lack of consistency) and have turned blue-white. They weren't presented as character options in the base game, so you can tell they are already being pushed out the door here and deemphasized.

By the time the remaster rolls around, they get erased.

People like to paint this as "people angry they lost Drizzt."

If you know your lore, we lost so much more.

The drow are in the 5.1 SRD in the Creative Commons, so they are not owned by anyone.

Still, are the drow a "junk ancestry" if they can never be split from D&D, Drizzt, Lolth, and matriarchal spider worship? If the general public can' unsee this connection and view them in a new light, it may be time to step away. You get characters in comics like this (a few notable examples in the Batman mythos), where they just get so overused, sell-out, corporate, and tired that you can never get away from their toxicity.

Are the drow the Harley Quinn of roleplaying? Once incredible and iconic but leaned on so hard for profit, she became a sell-out Bart Simpson corporate counterculture character. Give her a rest and reboot 5 years from now. Honestly, give me a Joker without her.

Part of me feels D&D because they see Drow as 'product identity' - will always have them be one way, and they will never really change. But then again, they put them in the Creative Commons. Everyone owns them now.

Me? The dark elves are not overused. I can split the profit-minded corporate crap from the diamonds. The original Pathfinder 1e drow ancestry is fantastic, as long as you never use the spider queen. Lolth and the Spider Queen are tired and overused tropes. Give them a rest, too.

She never existed, or the demons saw how she ruined the drow. They killed her before she ever ascended. The drow ended up worshipping who's here.

And they turned out so much better once free.

Ironically, this backstory enables the goody-goody drow if you want. What inevitably happens, though, is the drow morph into "elves," and there is no real difference and no reason to keep them around.

The list of demons they worship, the inability of gamers to disassociate them from D&D, and people wanting to play them, yet every time they are mentioned, they are creatures from horror movies in the setting, created a toxic soup where Paizo probably thought it best to bin them altogether. Also, that list of demons is a laundry list of themes they want to remove from the game, so in addition to being highly messy to re-integrate into the lore, just putting the work needed to make them an essential part of the setting would have taken too much focus and effort.

But the Pathfinder 1e drow was cursed in the best possible way as the ultimate subterranean evil. You put a little effort into thinking how they could exist in Golarion, and you end up with something far better than the dusty cobweb worshippers of D&D.

Every time I do a little reading and research, I find another fantastic thing we lost with Pathfinder 2E. I still like 2E, but things like this make it difficult to leave the wonderful world of possibilities that Pathfinder 1e created.

3.75E is still a solid game and very playable. The designers on it are among the all-time greats.

Also, knowing all the above could help you integrate these ideas into a 2E game - but it is sad this all lives in history. At least we can still have the PDFs, and Paizo deserves praise for these earlier works. After all, they created the original world and maintained the books as PDFs for sale. At least history can be preserved, learned from, and recognized. I may disagree with the current direction of the 2E game, but the system is solid and fun. I thank them for all their beautiful creations and support.

Thank you.

It is essential that this article isn't all vinegar, and the ideas here can be used to craft a 2E game that uses the old lore with the new rules. However, all divorces are painful and have loss, hurt feelings, self-blame, and pain. Turning those feelings into a positive makes us human - and good people. Me? A lot has already been done in the old game, and it is still worth playing and exploring for ideas like this.

Otherwise, no one will ever know.

I can't blame Paizo for the censorship either; if they kept going with the triggering, edgy, 2010s content, they would be forced out of business by Twitter trolls. They do their best given the sad time we live in. I am a classic liberal. Artists should be free to create without fear.

The 2010s were one of the best eras of gaming, and Paizo was the reason why.

Today, we live in that era's shadow with all the fear, outrage, and censorship.

And we lost so much.

Pathfinder 1e: More Than a Game

If there is one thing about Pathfinder 1e I like, it is how specific many character options are.

I can zoom into an area of the world, find character options for specific places, and play something definite and tailored to one place, in one nation, and have that character feel like they fit in and are a part of the original OG Golarion world.

With Pathfinder 2E, the entire world is genericized and cookie-cutter. The roles and background options are mono-culture and generic, not tied to one part, nation, place, or culture. Like every character is a playing piece in Monopoly. The options and choices are fantastic, but they all feel generic. In Pathfinder 1e, I have options for any character I can imagine.

I get it; most groups play in their own world. Generic options are better than specific ones. I play GURPS, after all; what is the problem? The possibilities here are tied into this world so tightly they invite me to explore deeper. Where was this option created? Who is it for? Can I tell stories with them?

But the original OG Golarion world - this place was something else. Every bit as violent, vile, noble, savage, hopeful, and dark to the depth of Hell you could ever ask for in a fantasy world. This out Game of Thrones the books and beats Forgotten Realms and makes that look like a McDonald's playground. Hell was on the world, and entire peoples - no matter their ancestry or skin color - were enslaved by evil. If you were good, it was your job to push back the tide, bring these fiends to justice, and free those in shackles and bondage.

Great stories were written into the setting. The hero's journey is there.

The OG world is the best example of the 9-axis alignment system brought to life in a game world. Greyhawk has nothing on this. The 2E remaster does away with alignment.

The 2E Lost Omens version of the world feels like it was revised out of fear. Like the writers were ashamed of all the cool stuff they wrote and created, they pulled it back massively. The fatal mistake all writers make is pulling back out of fear. And readers see it instantly.

I am not a hater either; I went hard on subscriptions for the first two years - and have a complete set.  I paid my dues. With every book and adventure I got, the world felt less and less for me. Everything was too happy, colorful, peaceful, and modern. After a while, I realized the new books made me dislike the old ones. I didn't care if the rules were better; the tone was wrong.

And I can't blame Paizo for the censorship. Twitter mobs would run them out of business.

But I do mourn what was lost.

There were no internal struggles between good and evil.

Those choices we all have to make.

Adventuring in Lost Omens feels like sightseeing - it is far too happy and modern. Neon lights and pastel landscapes. Borrowing real-world cultures and festivals is placed ahead of worldbuilding. It does not feel like the Golarion I fell in love with in 2009; it feels like a version the creators needed to clean up. paint over, and tone down.

The drow elves are gone. Cheliax has been hidden from view. The violent, savage cultures are gone. There are no slavers to destroy. There are far too many backgrounds. Extraordinary things aren't unique; they are every day. Of course, it is expected to see talking houseplants and puppets walking around every city. Steampunk is everywhere and gives us modern conveniences. Everything is too cosmopolitan, contemporary, and mixed together like some overly sweet fruit drink; you can't tell what it is, but it is citrus-something.

I was reading the old Golarion 3.5 book for Gods & Magic. This book is just fantastic. There are entries for all the original OG gods; some are downright brutal and savage, and others walk a thin line between good and evil - or just not caring.

The entry for Calistria is shocking and reads like something out of Game of Thrones or a mature-themed fantasy novel. They removed the concept of her clerics working as prostitutes, and the entire theme and nature of the goddess changed to a more PG caricature mean girl.

Abadar went from a lawful neutral god that could have temples in Cheliax, to a boring, for the good of all, accountant. The description of the Lost Omens Gods and Magic reads like he is a goody-two-shoe. Still, in the original Chronicles book, he is a god of merchants and has no problem enforcing an order or allowing his followers to buy and sell people. He is a hardcore Lawful Neutral - and not good nor evil. You could ask one of his clerics why they allow the buying and selling of people under their noses, and they would say it is just business and supported by their god.

That is some serious, hardcore stuff.

It reflects on the worst parts of humanity and is profoundly literate and poignant in our history. How could you ignore this? How could you say nothing? How could you support this system?

He gets his cities and civilization; he does not care.

Does it make him evil? Today? Yes. On the nine-axis alignment system? He is a neutral. This is what neutrals do. They don't judge good or evil. Think of that next time you make a neutral character.

People today can't stand that or even understand it. I don't condone it, but given the world that created our civilization, I know where it comes from and the damage it caused - even today, we live with it.

Civilization? Right. At what price? Your soul?

By omitting sensitive subjects, the hard choices and moral dilemmas disappeared. Any chance we had to talk about them was gone. That game and world changed to a tabletop battle game. Builds and tactics mattered, but the story and hard choices didn't. We loved that tight tactical gameplay in 4E; it does not appeal to me today. I crave conflict and story.

Lamashtu went from a more tribal, primitive goddess with followers in wild lands to a demon that preys on outcasts. Her entire tribal worship aspect was erased, and in the original book, the tribes seemed to care about their children significantly (sternly dealt with, but still protected). The tone change here from a primitive goddess to a monster breeder is pretty noticeable. She feels like the setting's patron bad guy now since many of the boss monsters lean hard on disfigurement, which raises my progressive eyebrow.

It is easy to equate disfigurement with evil, but given all their efforts to move the setting hard into socially acceptable themes - it feels like a shortcut in art and message that would send the wrong message. Me? I understand moral tales like Beauty and the Beast or Quasimodo and know that even disfigured shells of flesh can have good hearts within.

You get this when social media culture worships appearance, and you accept it as the norm.

In the old game, it sounded like Lamashtu could be worshipped by those on the edges of society. Yes, it is a chaotic, evil religion, but there is enough here to work with to say a tribe of humans could worship her and still be considered civilized and a faction that could be dealt with. The new Lamashtu sounds like a stereotyped monster breeder and chaos goddess out of Warhammer FRP. They pushed a little too hard into stereotypes in simplifying things, and the subtlety and nuance are gone in 2E.

I know the 2E world is "what I make of it" - but it does not feel the same anymore. What made the setting feel real is gone.

And to find these topics, I need to return to the unfiltered, uncensored 1E books.

Pathfinder 1e Still Kicks Butt

Part of me lived in the cave in 2009 when D&D 4E was out; most everyone hated it. My brother and I loved 4E, but I also loved Pathfinder 1e, and my brother was not so hot on it. We used to have long discussions on using these rules, and he never was on board, and I was happily buying book after book and enjoying the ride. We still played 4E and enjoyed the figure battles, but it eventually let us down when we hit our mid-teens. Everything in 4E wasn't play-tested and blew up hard in our faces.

The 4E game let us down so hard that we never played 5E. We had the books, but since the ranger and rogue were meh, we did not care. We played a little Pathfinder 1e together, so I was happy.

But Pathfinder 1e is the best version of 3.5E ever written. It is a generic system tied to a world, but not really.

It is so good it competes with GURPS for me as my serious game.

I never got on board with Pathfinder 2E. I have the first-release books and many expansions, but the rules did not work, at least for me. I know people say this is simpler than 3.5E - especially at the high levels - but the classes are a mish-mash of special terms and keywords, and while I can play 3.5 solo - I can't even fathom playing one Pathfinder 2 character solo.

For example, fighters must remember four special terms: flourish, open, press, and stance. If all you are playing is a fighter, I can master these. Got a cleric? You need to know meta magic. Add a rogue? Debilitation and flourish - at least one of those is familiar to fighters. Wizard? Meta magic again. Barbarian? Flourish, open, and rage. I am familiar with two of these from the fighter class but feel overloaded. Bard? Composition and meta magic. Another new one.

A six-character party with eight unique concepts to memorize. Every feat, power, and spell has multiple tags. Tags, labels, and tags are everywhere. I get overloaded. The character sheet is worse than many tax forms and gives people with that "fear of multiple holes" phobia a fit. PF2 needs a refactor aimed at simplicity and streamlining where all the math and modifiers are removed, and it needs to move in the direction of B/X.

Too many modifiers. 5E still does a better job with the advantage and disadvantage system; even though that is used as a hammer for all problems, it still eliminates the horrible user experience of a spreadsheet for every part of the character sheet - which is the mistake PF2 made.

I like the smoothed-out progression tables in PF2; a few other things are nice. Every class is designed well and optimized for the leveling experience. The improvements are substantial, but the implementation feels like a step back that relies on too many minor stacking modifiers. Every +1 matters, but keeping track of them all drives me insane.

To be fair, generated sheets like Hero Lab and Pathbuilder do a far better job of presenting all the information and keeping the character sheets clean.

Aftermath's character sheet was more straightforward. I still like Pathfinder 2, but I just don't love it. If it comes down to that choice, I will go with games I love every time, given my limited time.

Yes, I know with 1e classes, you need to understand how they work, like barbarian rage and bardic performance - but I have been playing 3.5E for decades. As you level, PF 1e scales harder in complexity, especially the combats - where PF2 is more linear. When it comes down to a turn of actions, most characters still act the same. It is still the same old 3.5E gameplay:

• A standard action and move.
• Or a full-round action.
• Everyone gets one swift action and one or more free actions.

Yes, Pathfinder 1e is broken horribly in some builds and combos, but like an older car, if you know how to drive it and its limitations, it will get you where you need to go. Like 5E, maintain a ban list, and you will be fine. If you see something crazy, make a ruling and fix it on the spot. You drive an older car, you keep a toolkit and roll of duct tape in the trunk. Can high-level combats be complicated and take a while? Name me a game where they aren't.

Pathfinder 1e is the Everquest compared to Pathfinder 2E's Everquest 2.

The original is still a classic, and the sequel is good - but it isn't the same.

And the classic 3.5E monsters are in PF 1e, the drow, and all my other favorites. I know; play with the not-remastered PF2 books; they are still there (but severely scaled back in their wickedness). But removing them feels wrong to me, like some sort of erasing of a race from history. This is Wizards' fault, so it is hard to blame Paizo, so I get it. I don't like it, but I understand it.

And make no mistake, the drow here are not some misunderstood good guys; they are demon-worshipping, conquering, wicked, and slave-taking bad guys. Without a spider goddess, they became even more vile and dark. In OG PF2, they became a shadow of themselves and were just cackling Batman villains. The writing was on the wall. By the remaster, they were gone, with no real reason for them to exist.

These are the OSR drow, and they were neutered and then erased.

Pathfinder 1e is fine.

People want to dump on it because of the "new factor" of PF2, and the fact Paizo has moved on from the OGL and SRD forever. In some strange cosmic turn of fate (corporate fire sales happen), I feel Paizo will someday end up owning D&D, and PF 1e will return someday. Don't ask me how, but stranger things have happened.

In most cases, game systems never age. In many cases, they age very well. This still has classic Wayne Reynolds art, pre-censorship, and we still get that Conan-style fantasy art vibe. A lot of the content can be edgy and triggering, and no one cares. With Pathfinder 2, I feel the game is made for conservative religious folk; the new 'sensitivity reader' vibe to the art and game content is so safe and asexual. If the old game, curses, evil classes, flesh warping, necromancy, mind control, corruption, insanity, and horror. There was plenty of male and female eye candy - of all kinds, even monsters. The game was unafraid and was made for a mature audience.

Pathfinder 2 could be sold in a Christian bookstore. It is too safe. Great rules, but the presentation is afraid of its own shadow and stumbles over itself to be overly careful. The art and graphic presentation of PF2 is impressive, but the content is defined by fear.

I get it: 'Bring your own inspiration' - but it is nice to have some help in this age of constant distraction.

Pathfinder 1e treats its readers with respect. It doesn't say it's sorry or pander. It doesn't omit topics that may upset people. It is what it is, and you make of it what you want. There are no handrails here. You can tell darker and edgier stories since the art and game presentation empower you.

It is the difference between a horror novel written for YA versus adults. Yes, the YA market is enormous, but I will always choose the latter.

Pathfinder 1e has joined the OSR. The game and its PDFs are still sold, but we will never see hardcovers again.

I have 95 data packages for Hero Lab for Pathfinder 1st Edition, a gaming lifetime. The variety of characters I can build will never get old, and very few games will come close to this many options and choices. The choices and options rival GURPS.

It was my game in 2009, and it still is today.

Level Up 5E: Death & Dying

Mark a win for Level Up A5E in the death and dying rules. Every time you are dropped to zero hit points, you gain a level of fatigue. You get seven of those and are toast (gaining the doomed condition). In addition, fatigue levels introduce penalties that become more and more severe as they are gained.

Simple, clean, and puts a cost on zero hit points.

Tales of the Valiant and the 5E SRD go soft on this, with no levels of fatigue gained. I don't like this since it encourages "popup healing," and there is no cost to getting knocked unconscious. I hope the  ToV GM Guide (or even the core rulebook) adds some options for a more realistic death-and-dying system. I bet ToV did this to maximize compatibility.

A5E introduces a strife system alongside fatigue, which handles mental stress and is an elegant solution to the insanity problem. Also, these conditions are not regained quickly. A haven (safe spot) is needed to recover from a single point of strife and fatigue during a long rest. With a safe place, the first level of strife and fatigue can be recovered - and none others.

So if you have five fatigue levels without a safe spot to rest in, you are not regaining any of them.

The 5E SRD and current ToV Alpha have no mention of fatigue. Check another box where the SRD is missing rules.

Survival-based 5E games? I would use A5E exclusively here, the game has an amazing exploration and survival pillar. The strife rules let you run horror effectively.

A clear win for A5E.

The Sword of Cepheus II

The Sword of Cepheus II has been announced!

https://spacecockroach.blogspot.com/2024/03/whats-new-in-second-edition-of-sword-of.html

It looks fun; they are going more science-fantasy than bog-standard OSR and leaning into compatibility with Cepheus Deluxe Edition. I do like 2d6 fantasy, and making this lean harder into science fantasy is a win-win for me since the two games should be closer than they are.

Kickstarter on the end of March.

Mail Room: Battlezoo Ancestries Dragons 5E

I initially dismissed the Roll for Combat books as not for me or a little too cute for my tastes.

I was wrong; these are very high-quality books. They also fit in any campaign type, especially the ancestries books. In fact, they are doing more to make 5E accessible to a younger audience than even Wizards, but these books can also be played seriously. They have unique, cute art - but they are what you make of them. I can see kids wanting to play a party of dragons, and this book lets that happen.

I am really impressed by their content, quality, and production - and these will make a fine addition to my Open 5E library. Of anything, they are highly creative and well-designed rule frameworks for a more comprehensive ancestry choice where you can level up and power up your dragon.

I like supporting these types of Open 5E books, things that aren't "bog standard" D&D with that human-elf-dragonborn axis of power. Many Wizards settings are "same-y" with the same collection of backgrounds doing the same thing against the same foes. Books like this force me to think outside of my box and dream of new things, other stories I can play, and not the thee-thou pseudo-Renaissance setting they present too many times before.

They expand the focus on 5E, which is a good thing. I am looking forward to the hardcover for this, and it looks exciting.