This is really two requests: The first is "Tell me about C&C." The wikipedia entry gives me a good overview of the Siege Engine, so I get that. Is it an AD&D retroclone? With ascending AC?

The second request is broader, but more general. I'm hoping C&C fits the bill. Do you know of any OSR game with the following features:

1. Doesn't have different XP tables for each class.
2. Ascending AC.
3. No racial limits.
4. Solid skill system.

There is a secondary skill system in the first Castle Zagyg book and I think it's also in the Game Master's book.

So, Castles and Crusades is sadly disappointing.  No, really, it fixes some things, doesn't fix other things, the Siege Engine is a ridiculous mess I'm not sure you could have unified or prevented the OSR with C&C but they started it with their rigid adherence to bad rules.

So the Good:  Lots of classes, fighters are actually the best fighters getting +1 to hit at first level and weapon specialization, other classes start at 0, good range of races, no level limits, full range of alignments, long bows aren't ridiculously overpowered (though heavy crossbows are which isn't really an improvement, they eventually fixed the incredibly restrictive encumbrance system enough that it works, monster stat blocks are lean, monster hit dice by size is a good concept you really need more dice steps and size steps to really pull it off but it looks good.  Combat is basically D&D combat.  Stat bonus range is the one from basic.  The art is nice if a bit Paladins & Princesses.  I guess really it's what you'd get if you had basic rules with advanced classes and races.

So, the bad, most weapon damages are straight out of the Player's Handbook but lack the various traits outside of damage so there's a lot of strangely sub optimal weapons with no real reason to use one or another, combat could be cleaner and better organized though I haven't seen the latest edition, the encumbrance system is no longer ridiculously restrictive but it's still a bit annoying give me real weights and measures any day, there's a few too many class abilities for my liking, it's not the end of the world but it could be a little cleaner, IRRC each class has its own experience cost per level, some like it some don't, I don't, the monster book is a bit short and generic, I know there are more monsters in other books but it's just a little dull I guess ,  I hate the Siege Engine, it's sloppy and lazy, makes a non-prime 18 as good as a prime 3 which is ridiculously huge but it also makes saving throws weird and clerics better at detecting traps than thieves, well, non-human thieves and human thieves who didn't put their extra prime in wisdom.  I don't know, I played first edition a fair bit and it annoyed me enough that I wrote a retro-clone, when I started there were two, Castles and Crusades and OSRIC, when I was done there were at least two dozen.  I'll probably finish writing the third version of mine one of these days, I want to get a bunch of kids into D&D and fifth edition is a bit too complex and too expensive for a starting point.*

*By which I mean that I want no more than race, class, alignment, six stats, hit points, armour class, and equipment on the character sheet.

Quote from: Aglondir;999913This is really two requests: The first is "Tell me about C&C." The wikipedia entry gives me a good overview of the Siege Engine, so I get that. Is it an AD&D retroclone? With ascending AC?

The second request is broader, but more general. I'm hoping C&C fits the bill. Do you know of any OSR game with the following features:

1. Doesn't have different XP tables for each class.
2. Ascending AC.
3. No racial limits.
4. Solid skill system.

Beyond the Wall. The XP tables are very close to the same and I don't recall a skill system in BtW but I don't have the book/pdf at hand to doublecheck. And there are no racial limits because there are only ten levels.

Quote from: Voros;999993Beyond the Wall. The XP tables are very close to the same and I don't recall a skill system in BtW but I don't have the book/pdf at hand to doublecheck. And there are no racial limits because there are only ten levels.

There is an open skill system that you can add modifiers too it's based on your attributes. It's simple but elegant at the same time.

C&C's closer to AD&D than it is to any other edition, but there are other, more faithful clones of AD&D.  I remember it being billed as a mid-point and Rosetta stone edition to other editions, which I can see some truth to.  It's easy to convert in and out of for anything pre-4e.

SIEGE engine seems to be the most common hangup, but some of the hate always struck me as aesthetic.  It's easy to houserule, and a 10/15 or 12/15 split addresses some of the complaints.

About the only thing I don't like is it keeps 3e's schema of spells getting harder to save against with caster level.  That's a really important change from older editions where saves only key off the target's level, and fighters eventually get good odds of standing up against wizards' save or die spells.

Ultimately I like it well enough, but it's no longer as compelling a choice now as it was before the full flowering of the OSR; we've just got more choices now.  ACKS is my own default now.  (Which doesn't have unified xp charts either; I suppose you could get there by rebuilding every class as custom, but that's the long way around.)

Quote from: Aglondir;999913This is really two requests: The first is "Tell me about C&C." The wikipedia entry gives me a good overview of the Siege Engine, so I get that. Is it an AD&D retroclone? With ascending AC?

The second request is broader, but more general. I'm hoping C&C fits the bill. Do you know of any OSR game with the following features:

1. Doesn't have different XP tables for each class.
2. Ascending AC.
3. No racial limits.
4. Solid skill system.

It's not OSR per se, but Radiance RPG is a solid d20 system with all these features. The book is designed as such that you simply print out the 4 choices for each player and attach to the character sheet. The 4 choices are 1) race, 2) class, 3) theme and 4) deity. It's a streamlined approach but not fully "rules light". You can download the player's guide for free at DTRPG -> http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/105102/Radiance-Players-Guide-A-Complete-Roleplaying-Game-in-the-Age-of-Electrotech - note that you can ignore or elimate the electro-tech / steam tech stuff by ignoring a few classes and leaving that tech out (which are detailed in seperate chapters). Each choice is self-contained. There are no lists of spells, etc. Each class has all those choices built-in. I believe it's worth checking out!

How close is C&C to 1e? The only thing I really know about it is that I bought it for Fantasy Grounds because someone built a 1e ruleset from it.

The weapon damages are mostly from 1e, the race and class range is from 1e plus Barbarians, Knights, and Bards.  I'd have to look up what weapon specialization does but IRRC between that and their attack bonus a fighter has a +2 to hit and a 16 or 17 Strength brings them to +4 at first level while others are often down at 0.  Fighters are +1 to hit per level.

To the best of my recollection combat runs on individual initiative with a to hit bonus for charging (or was it damage and the other guy gets a bonus to hit you?  It might have been that.  Roll to hit, roll for damage.  I don't think there's even a morale rule.  Saving throws run on the siege engine so you have a class based prime and a personal prime that are good for a +6, I think you get your level too.

I guess I'd say it's Blue Book combat + PHB weapon damage table and classes with ascending AC and stat based saves.  Really a dog's breakfast but it feels more like D&D than 3.0 - 5.0.  Wizards and clerics get bonus spells so L1 isn't quite so bad for the Wizard.  I wish they'd come up with 5e's Proficiency Bonus, that'd patch my biggest complaint.  Well, and get the weapon damages sorted out somehow.  At least it's not second edition's long bow with sheaf arrows.

I think people are way too harsh on C&C on these forums, and I suspect most of the griping is from people who have barely, or never played it. The Siege system sounds goofy but is actually good in play. More generally, this is 1E with a unified die rolling mechanics and stat based skill and saving rolls. I've played it a lot and think highly of it.

Not at all, I ran it quite a bit for two years when it came out.  That's why I dislike it so much.

Quote from: Aglondir;999913This is really two requests: The first is "Tell me about C&C." The wikipedia entry gives me a good overview of the Siege Engine, so I get that. Is it an AD&D retroclone? With ascending AC?

It's not really a clone. OSRIC is much closer, as far as clones go. C&C is similar to AD&D, but it has a lot of (sometimes subtle) differences. The use of the siege engine is a major one, and it's used all over the place, so it affects many things (and emphasizes stats instead of class/level too much for my liking). I tried C&C for a while after I had grown dissatisfied with 3e. At first, it seemed great. As time went on, I found myself less enthusiastic about the effects of the siege engine, and I started house ruling C&C to be more like TSR D&D. I house ruled surprise, I house ruled saving throws, I house ruled the way the siege engine affects certain tasks (like perception being Wis based, which often made clerics the best ambush detectors -- stuff like that), I excised spells (the cleric's 1st level sound burst spell comes to mind -- overpowered and stepped on the 1 level MU too much, IMO), et cetera. Eventually I realized that, for what I wanted, I'd be better off just playing AD&D.

QuoteThe second request is broader, but more general. I'm hoping C&C fits the bill. Do you know of any OSR game with the following features:

1. Doesn't have different XP tables for each class.
2. Ascending AC.
3. No racial limits.
4. Solid skill system.

Can't really help you with that, but I wouldn't say C&C fits those requirements.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1000116I think people are way too harsh on C&C on these forums, and I suspect most of the griping is from people who have barely, or never played it. The Siege system sounds goofy but is actually good in play. More generally, this is 1E with a unified die rolling mechanics and stat based skill and saving rolls. I've played it a lot and think highly of it.

Quote from: David Johansen;1000153Not at all, I ran it quite a bit for two years when it came out.  That's why I dislike it so much.

I, too, played it for a year or two before I moved on.

Quote from: Aglondir;999913This is really two requests: The first is "Tell me about C&C." The wikipedia entry gives me a good overview of the Siege Engine, so I get that. Is it an AD&D retroclone? With ascending AC?

The second request is broader, but more general. I'm hoping C&C fits the bill. Do you know of any OSR game with the following features:

1. Doesn't have different XP tables for each class.
2. Ascending AC.
3. No racial limits.
4. Solid skill system.

I think that Castles & Crusades was, in many ways, the first commercially available attempt at OSR gaming, coming out as it did effectively as an alternative to the D&D/3E/3.5E/d20 fad of the early 2000s. When D&D3E came out, it was the first time that D&D had a fully official skill list at the core of the game, which put it in line with almost the other RPGs of the day and was seen as the crucial element of 'modernising' D&D. C&C turned that on it's head by showing up the advantages of a non-skill based system - mainly in just keeping the game simple to play. I like some of the way that they developed Character Classes from variant archetypal perspectives - like the Constitution based Monk for example, with a D12 HD.

In all though, I feel that C&C has not only been superseded by other OGL/retroclone games, but also by D&D5E too. D&D still has skills of a sort, but the lists are much more reduced and the main focus has returned to to Ability scores again. So, if you are asking me which OSR game fulfils the criteria that you list the best, honestly, I think that the OSR-influenced 5E is actually the closest one to it.

Quote from: Voros;999993Beyond the Wall. The XP tables are very close to the same and I don't recall a skill system in BtW but I don't have the book/pdf at hand to doublecheck. And there are no racial limits because there are only ten levels.

That might do it.

Quote from: Dave R;1000020ACKS is my own default now.  (Which doesn't have unified xp charts either; I suppose you could get there by rebuilding every class as custom, but that's the long way around.)

I forgot about ACKS! I got it in one of those DTRPG bundles. That might work as well.