corwynn
November 27th, 2016, 10:08
(Apologies in advance if there's a better forum. It seemed like a general topic.)
Barbarians of Lemuria Ruleset 2/5
This is a review of the ruleset, not the game. Look elsewhere for peoples' thoughts on the game itself. This ruleset offers up the entirety of the Barbarians of Lemuria core book in a Fantasy Grounds format. I'll go with a qucik Pro Con and then offer some thoughts. Bear in mind I have only worked on prep, not play, at this point.
Pros:
Decent-looking character sheet
Formatting is quite legible
Adventure materials from the book are included with story, maps, and encounters (see cons)
Cons:
Lacking automation (armour in general)
Lacking protection on creatures (see automation) as well as boons/flaws (aka traits)
Lacking options
Very limited drag and drop
No documentation
Meh:
No pregens
Charsheet looks decent. It's not fully automated, unfortunately. It also isn't documented. Again, bummer.
The reference manual portion is quite legible. It's pretty easy to get to the section you're interested in.
The adventure materials are available and in good shape...except for the fact that the encounters suffer from the broken creature info. (Including broken tokens in encounters.) This is extremely problematic for one major reason: unless you own the actual rules in another format, you will never know what the creatures' protection values are... (GM fiat for how much damage things will absorb without the core book in another format.) Also, no boons/flaws are included for the creatures, and the entire section regarding what their boons and flaws do, how protection works, etc. is missing. That's page 99 and 100, and includes the creatures chart which is very useful...all of this SHOULD be in the reference manual, and simply is not. This is very, very broken. :(
The automation suffers, particularly where armor is concerned. In addition to flat out missing armor (armour, since, yeah) values on the creatures, there is no automation of damage, no effects (agility, priority, social, protection roll, AP expenditure) of wearing armor, or even any ability to indicate that you're wearing a helmet.
Again, worth mentioning: protection and traits (and most of two pages of the rules) missing is a major issue. As it stands it's guesswork for the GM. This is arguably close to game-breaking.
There's no custom options unless you count the logo. On that note, there's no party sheet...
There's very limited drag and drop content. Weapons (no armor), Boons, and Flaws. No professions (which is dodgy when spelling is what triggers automation for some profession features), no armor...
There's no documentation...effects (on a global scale, anyway...not on the sheet) are in, but there's no way to tell what if any syntax needs to be used.
I had to code in all 8 pregens, when it would have been better (and given examples of how to build characters) to include them. (Of course, then people might have been able to actually peek at the characters! Eeek!)
Conclusion: ruleset needs serious work. Getting it playable is a matter of fixing the protection info, broken tokens, and traits on all the creatures (and the relevant encounters, obviously). Getting it working as well as a ruleset should is more work, but I think it's worth doing a product justice rather than simply throwing it out unfinished.
Barbarians of Lemuria Ruleset 2/5
This is a review of the ruleset, not the game. Look elsewhere for peoples' thoughts on the game itself. This ruleset offers up the entirety of the Barbarians of Lemuria core book in a Fantasy Grounds format. I'll go with a qucik Pro Con and then offer some thoughts. Bear in mind I have only worked on prep, not play, at this point.
Pros:
Decent-looking character sheet
Formatting is quite legible
Adventure materials from the book are included with story, maps, and encounters (see cons)
Cons:
Lacking automation (armour in general)
Lacking protection on creatures (see automation) as well as boons/flaws (aka traits)
Lacking options
Very limited drag and drop
No documentation
Meh:
No pregens
Charsheet looks decent. It's not fully automated, unfortunately. It also isn't documented. Again, bummer.
The reference manual portion is quite legible. It's pretty easy to get to the section you're interested in.
The adventure materials are available and in good shape...except for the fact that the encounters suffer from the broken creature info. (Including broken tokens in encounters.) This is extremely problematic for one major reason: unless you own the actual rules in another format, you will never know what the creatures' protection values are... (GM fiat for how much damage things will absorb without the core book in another format.) Also, no boons/flaws are included for the creatures, and the entire section regarding what their boons and flaws do, how protection works, etc. is missing. That's page 99 and 100, and includes the creatures chart which is very useful...all of this SHOULD be in the reference manual, and simply is not. This is very, very broken. :(
The automation suffers, particularly where armor is concerned. In addition to flat out missing armor (armour, since, yeah) values on the creatures, there is no automation of damage, no effects (agility, priority, social, protection roll, AP expenditure) of wearing armor, or even any ability to indicate that you're wearing a helmet.
Again, worth mentioning: protection and traits (and most of two pages of the rules) missing is a major issue. As it stands it's guesswork for the GM. This is arguably close to game-breaking.
There's no custom options unless you count the logo. On that note, there's no party sheet...
There's very limited drag and drop content. Weapons (no armor), Boons, and Flaws. No professions (which is dodgy when spelling is what triggers automation for some profession features), no armor...
There's no documentation...effects (on a global scale, anyway...not on the sheet) are in, but there's no way to tell what if any syntax needs to be used.
I had to code in all 8 pregens, when it would have been better (and given examples of how to build characters) to include them. (Of course, then people might have been able to actually peek at the characters! Eeek!)
Conclusion: ruleset needs serious work. Getting it playable is a matter of fixing the protection info, broken tokens, and traits on all the creatures (and the relevant encounters, obviously). Getting it working as well as a ruleset should is more work, but I think it's worth doing a product justice rather than simply throwing it out unfinished.