It looks like a cool game, and I've heard good things about it. Unfortunately, my group isn't up for trying new versions of d20 when 5e works fine.

If I bought Shadows of the Demon Lord it would probably just collect dust next to my 13th Age and FantasyCraft games (which I also never get to play). Another well-made fantasy heart-breaker.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012603Direct that passive-aggressiveness towards the posters on here stating viewpoints and being generally dismissive of it without having played the game.

I'm directing at you.

Quote from: Robyo;1012650It looks like a cool game, and I've heard good things about it. Unfortunately, my group isn't up for trying new versions of d20 when 5e works fine.

If I bought Shadows of the Demon Lord it would probably just collect dust next to my 13th Age and FantasyCraft games (which I also never get to play). Another well-made fantasy heart-breaker.

SotDL isn't really d20 as I understand it. It advances characters quite differently (a hybrid of class/level and WFRP career paths), monsters and spells are done somewhat differently, there are few fixed bonuses and penalties (with boons and banes taken in dice-generated variable amounts), and magic items are pretty unusual. In fact, other than rolling a d20 for most task resolution, there's not a direct link to the d20 mechanics in there. As for links to D&D, there's a lot of links to be found in the names and themes.

Quote from: remial;1012189(snip) I have the pdf but I have yet to actually read it because I am so goddamn tired of edgelordy dark fantasy.
(that and the author said he had 500 pages worth of rules for the book but would only release X pages based on how high the kickstarter reached)

Firstly, it's not that sort of pretentious dark fantasy. It's a world gone to heck but the PCs do have hope of making a difference.

Secondly, your comment implies that something necessary was left out of the book. It wasn't. Sure, the size of the book was determined by the Kickstarter but that's because a bigger book costs more money. But what's there is more than enough to run multiple campaigns and the rest of the "500 pages" has been showing up in other products.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012464(snip) Run it or play it. Like ASAP. Seriously, this game is fucking good. Whatever you were planning, just leave that and do this game. (snip)

I expect I will one day but by 4E campaign takes priority for now.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012464(snip) You don't buy this game for the setting (which is perfectly serviceable), you buy it for the system. It's objectively better than the WHRP system just because of Paths alone not being shitefest of being purposefully badly designed and balanced.(snip)

I maintain it's a better generic D&D system than 5E. It's more of an evolution and revolution than 5E, too, but that doesn't scratch the nostalgia itch that so many 5E fans seem to have.

If I were to run it, I would probably use it to run Midnight.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012464The group leveling, scenario-based progression and the paths system is what I got it for and dude, I do not regret it in the slightest. Fuck D&D's class/XP progression and WHFRP's restrictive careers system, this is the third way.

Explain!!
 

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012464It'll scratch that itch and then pop the pustule.

Now that's a tasty quote.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1012861Explain!!
 

this is one thing I _do_ know about the game.  like was said before, you (apparently) start at level 0, then at level 1, you pick one of 4 Novice careers (basically fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief).
then at level 3, you pick one of 16 different Expert careers (they are grouped into 4 groups of 4, with each group loosely linked to one of the Novice careers, but none of them really have prerequisites).
at level 7 you pick your Master career, one of 64 (which I'll assume are similarly linked loosely to the Expert careers, but again, you are pretty free to pick what you want).  
and that is just the core book. there are supplements that provide additional expert and master careers.
So, if you wanted to, you could start off as (I'm not using the actual career names here) a thief, but you keep getting into fights with say, giants, so you take a the fighter themed giant slayer career, then you get back to town, and end up having to fight ice demons.  Well, what better way to fight a ice demons than with fire spells?  so you take Pyromancer as your master career.
you try doing that in D&D or WFRP and you have to jump through a whole mess of hoops and prerequisites.

Quote from: remial;1012873this is one thing I _do_ know about the game.  like was said before, you (apparently) start at level 0, then at level 1, you pick one of 4 Novice careers (basically fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief).
then at level 3, you pick one of 16 different Expert careers (they are grouped into 4 groups of 4, with each group loosely linked to one of the Novice careers, but none of them really have prerequisites).
at level 7 you pick your Master career, one of 64 (which I'll assume are similarly linked loosely to the Expert careers, but again, you are pretty free to pick what you want).  
and that is just the core book. there are supplements that provide additional expert and master careers.
So, if you wanted to, you could start off as (I'm not using the actual career names here) a thief, but you keep getting into fights with say, giants, so you take a the fighter themed giant slayer career, then you get back to town, and end up having to fight ice demons.  Well, what better way to fight a ice demons than with fire spells?  so you take Pyromancer as your master career.
you try doing that in D&D or WFRP and you have to jump through a whole mess of hoops and prerequisites.

Note that the guy that goes Rogue/Fighter/Pyromancer will suffer from the lack of focus, primarily in having a low Power which will limit his spell options. Of course, he's also got a broad range of other options to fall back on, so it might be worth it.

In addition to what was said, there is an additional Novice path (Adept) in, IIRC, Forbidden Rules (or was it Companion 2?) and several new Ancestries (race/species) in several books.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1012786SotDL isn't really d20 as I understand it. It advances characters quite differently (a hybrid of class/level and WFRP career paths), monsters and spells are done somewhat differently, there are few fixed bonuses and penalties (with boons and banes taken in dice-generated variable amounts), and magic items are pretty unusual. In fact, other than rolling a d20 for most task resolution, there's not a direct link to the d20 mechanics in there. As for links to D&D, there's a lot of links to be found in the names and themes.

Cool, I will check it out. It does sound different, yet familiar. Maybe I can get some D&D players to try it.

 Apparently the core book doesn't have much setting material. What supplements do?

Quote from: Robyo;1012910Cool, I will check it out. It does sound different, yet familiar. Maybe I can get some D&D players to try it.

 Apparently the core book doesn't have much setting material. What supplements do?

The setting material is dispersed, but mostly found in the Lands in Shadow Series that includes Borderlands of Tear, Caecras, Freeholds of Nar, Grand Duchy, Kingdom of God and others. The books on devils (Exquisite Agony) and the underworld add quite a bit of setting backstory as does the religion book (Uncertain Faith) and the Fey book (Terrible Beauty). I liked the book on the Jotun, A Glorious Death, for the treatment of that people and the Blutlands.

Still, most setting material is more suggestive than definitive so a GM that wants lots of hard details is likely to have to do much of that himself.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1012897Note that the guy that goes Rogue/Fighter/Pyromancer will suffer from the lack of focus, primarily in having a low Power which will limit his spell options. Of course, he's also got a broad range of other options to fall back on, so it might be worth it.

oh yeah, the example I used is going to be completely buggered over the lack of focus, he was just an example of what you COULD do, not what you SHOULD do

I was not a big fan of game, despite backing the original Kickstarter. It suffers from gross imbalance issues at higher tiers. The background is alright tho, albeit derivative of WFRP on steroids where Chaos is Everywhere.

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1013121I was not a big fan of game, despite backing the original Kickstarter. It suffers from gross imbalance issues at higher tiers. The background is alright tho, albeit derivative of WFRP on steroids where Chaos is Everywhere.

Can you give any examples of these "gross imbalance issues" and how do they compare with imbalance issues seen in high-level D&D5e?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1012861Explain!!

You start at lvl 0 and do 1-2 seshes. This is the prologue: a simple zombie is a fucking nightmare to take on at this lvl.

GM then says you advance to lvl 1 and this is where you get the first taste of the real meat of the system. You pick your Novice Path. The fantasy RPG archetypes are what you pick from and there are four of them. Lvl 2 is the augmentation of your Lvl 1 pick and each Path gains an additional ability such as doing an additional 1d6 DMG EVERY attack. These lvls are still pretty scary but at least you have a chance of fighting back.

Lvl 3 is where you pick your Expert Path. This is the closest to "classes" that this game gets. From this point on, you start to see serious diversity in the party (whereas in my home game of six players, four people were sharing Novice Paths). Choice matters. Wizards are power casters, they are BEASTS even from lvl 3. There is a specialist crafting class titled Artificer and in "bigger" parties (six is tiny for me, being real), these guys mean the difference between life and death for anyone using ammo or relying on armor (i.e. EVERYONE). Assassins are nasty fuckers (if you surprise/stealth attack a creature, it has to make a save or take damage equal to its total health -- it's a silent instant kill ability) and Rangers are actually more commando-hunters than "fighting druids" like D&D (they get to change their Favoured Enemy every rest, which is super useful, beasts at tracking and ambush detection too).

From this point on, it's augmentation frenzy. Once you hit lvl 7, you pick a Master Path and these are not "prestige classes" but are more like super-augs. They give a character a particular focus in a given area. They are not tied to any previous path, you freely choose one. Scouts with Templar are OP as fuck and are zone control masters. Assassins with Poisoner essentially become super stealth killers and WILL unbalance your game unless you back up your AOAs with proper sentry patrol routes and the like. Oracles with Engineer become WH40K Defilers once they've built their Eidolons. Fighter with Diplomat can essentially get their opponents to yield and then rabbit punch them when their guard is lowered (this is stupidly OP when pitched battles become a thing).

At all lvls, the GM decides when you progress. They'll do this when you complete a major goal or two. Everyone lvls up together, no exceptions (other than late joiners, then the GM just halves the sessions it takes for them to lvl up, problem solved). This is a very Chronicle-based game system in a way New World of Darkness never actually managed to pull off (for those on this forum who think I'm biased towards NWOD, I definitely am but I'll shit on something when it's legit bad). You really, really get a sense of a party in this game: characters who really do live and die and change together, even if they take a break over the in-game months/years (the corebook explicitly suggests this which I think is an underrated nice touch).

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1013121I was not a big fan of game, despite backing the original Kickstarter. It suffers from gross imbalance issues at higher tiers. The background is alright tho, albeit derivative of WFRP on steroids where Chaos is Everywhere.

See above. I agree and add that it's too the game's strength rather than just making it so certain Careers are no-goes like in WHFRP as the work against the system and setting.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1013144Can you give any examples of these "gross imbalance issues" and how do they compare with imbalance issues seen in high-level D&D5e?

As above. You'll see a lot of Triggered Action abuse in the game (but it's intentional from the way the paths have been designed). This happens from lvl 2/3-ish onwards. Once you hit lvl 6, some of the Expert Path and Ancestry abilities are OP. Orcs with Witch are dangerous for GMs using suppression-based enemies because essentially they can teleport in front of them, take damage, then deal extra damage on top of the extra damage they're already dealing due to the Fury ability. There's a lot of room for cunning/smart players in this game to prosper and I'm happy to see it for once instead of it being discouraged by system or convention (a la Leaping Wizards).

Wasn't this one of those games that were pushed as a kind of anti-5e reaction heartbreaker? If so, that would explain what happened: it failed, 5e succeeded.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1014080Wasn't this one of those games that were pushed as a kind of anti-5e reaction heartbreaker? If so, that would explain what happened: it failed, 5e succeeded.

Fuck off, Pundit. You haven't even read the game.