Review of SM03 Cityguide to the City of Karan

Review of SM03 Cityguide to the City of Karan, available now on DriveThruRPG.

Title:  SM03 The City of Karan
Author: Dunromin University Press (Simon Miles)
Illustrator: Gareth Sleightholme and Simon Miles
Rule Set: OSRIC
Year: 2020
Pages: 70
Number of Players: N/A
Rating: ★★★★★

This book is a gazette style introduction to the City of Karen, the second city of the Land of the Young in the Barnarnia setting. I used the word gazette, but this book is 70 pages long. Each section delivers what the DM needs to walk their players through this excellent and unique setting.

The artwork is a step above Dunromin's normal work, Miles' typical artwork is there but Gareth Sleighthomlme really kicks it up a notch. Core to the product are three maps, one of the Land of the Young and the other two are maps of the City of Karan and the caves below the city. Check out the other books in the series, I just can't get over the art.

Priced a pay what you want, you can't go wrong with this title. I can't wait to check out the rest of the series.

Check out my other reviews from this series:

ORSIC Module Review - SM12 The Trials of a Young Wizard
Dunromin University Press' SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young Review
OSRIC Module Review - M06 The Warren

Build Worlds, Second Edition by Dancing Light Press

I've been looking at Build Worlds, Second Edition by Dancing Light Press for a while. It retails for $4.99 and tops out at just shy of 90 pages at 89. The cover art is excellent and the table of contents is tight. The book is divided into three main headings, Intro, Format and Elements, each one bigger than the last.

From the links above, you can see I am heavily invested in World Building for my B/X and AD&D campaigns. Back in the day, I picked a wonderful book for second edition AD&D called Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide. While I had a low awareness of second edition and a slight dislike of it, this book was a revelation to me. Now, it isn't exactly built for world building, but it drags you through the process of designing the adventures within your world.

Building Worlds is specifically meant for world building and is totally rule set agnostic. That means it should rejuvenate your eyes, giving the reader fresh insight in to their current campaign or a new one they are planning.

Go ahead and give them both a try. Both are available at DriveThruRPG from the links above.

#TBT review - Miniature Treasures - The Moldy Unicorn

Title: The Moldy Unicorn
Code: N/A
Author: Nate Treme
Rule Set: Angostic
Year: 2019
Pages: 6
Number of characters: As needed
Levels: N/A
Rating: ★★★★★

If a book has a good cover, I'll probably take a look. If it has that haute 70's look, the smash of day old banana and lime colored paste, I'll do a double take. If it has both of the above, plus the childish, rounded look of a composition notebook, my brain shuts down and the money comes out, no questions asked.

Well, that's what happened with The Moldy Unicorn a few days ago. I purchased one of a few physical copies based on a single image on MeWe.com. And then I forgot about it.

It arrived today.

I opened the envelope and was all disappointed. It was tiny. Really tiny. "I paid money for this?"

Then I opened the booklet. And the frisson hit. Suddenly, I was 8 year old me, standing in Walden Books, smelling nasty carpet chemicals and mall pretzels, looking a copy of the Red Basic D&D rule book. Gary, Dave and Tom whispered, "Go ahead, turn the page."

The thing is six g-ddamn pages, packed with amazing stuff. Pages 1 and 2 describe The Moldy Unicorn with a colorful map. Page 3 lists encounters for the Inn. The next page describes how to design a Demon, with 3 tables, conveniently labeled 1-12 for easy die rolling. The last two pages are a mini dungeon, Grotburk Crypt.

The artwork is excellent. It isn't excellent in the sense of a masterpiece, but the odd, brightly colored outsider art that masters cannot duplicate. The text is tight, it has to be in a volume this small.

While its only 6 pages (8 if you count the covers, the thing that made me **WANT** this 'zine), those pages are highly concentrated. Being so tiny, it is delicate. I already know that I am going to buy a special picture frame for this. I am just moments away from heading to DriveThruRPG and purchasing an electronic copy, to jealously protect the physical copy like mage protects his spell book.

It's been decades since I have been this happy with a purchase. Of course, I've read it cover to cover. But I'm going to do it again tomorrow. And the next day. This is great buy. This is well worth the $6.00 for the physical copy (Sold out, sorry), $10.00 for the PDF.

To put some perspective on the Star Rating above, I review a lot of things. Computer hardware and software, novels, games, historical books, etc. If I'm not going to give something 3 stars, I'm not giving any stars. If you're not going to give at least 3 stars, its like trash talking people. This is the first time I have been compelled to give 5 gold stars, underlined. I've reviewed several of my mom and dad's books. I don't hand out gold stars. It is very rare that I am so enchanted with any product to completely rethink my rating system.

#TBT review - Dunromin University Press' SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young Review

I just picked up a copy of SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young and it is my new favorite item.

Title:  SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young
Author: Dunromin University Press (Simon Miles)
Rule Set: OSRIC
Year: 2018
Pages: 28
Number of Players: N/A
Rating: ★★★★★

This is supposed to be a full color map folio of the Free City of Dunromin, but the work goes so much further. In addition to the beautifully drawn Free City, Mr. Miles killed it with amazing details of the surrounding area, political and physical maps of the Land of the Young, barony maps, maps of the continent and of the world.

The artwork is incredible, a great addition to any old school gaming campaign. Being a set of maps designed for OSRIC, it is generic enough to fit into any fantasy game system.

I just can't get over the art. The cover and some other images are wholly digital, but others look hand drawn. It's a near thing, I can usually tell the difference, but not in this product. Many of the pages are on a graph, but I can't tell if it's pencil on graphpaper, or digital work meant to look old school. There are a few pages where I think I can see blowthrough, like a scanner picked up information from a page behind the scanned page, but I can't be certain it isn't photoshopped to look like that.

I probably won't use this in my campaign, but I am already looking to see which pages I will print and frame. Simply put, it's awesome!

Priced a pay what you want, you can't go wrong with this title. I can't wait to check out the rest of the series.

If you need a Christmas gift and you have a nice printer and paper, this is perfect.

Dad's Modeling Skill

In this video post, Dad shows off some of his modeling skills. My Dad made a video for his game Yanks & Tanks, which is available at DriveThruRPG. Each click supports him and my website.

Updates to Compass Rose Inn and Kobold's Folly

I have updated the files for The Compass Rose Inn and The Kobold's Folly products. These items are still pay what you want, however, in each case I have increased the suggested price to $3.99 each.

In the case of the Compass Rose Inn, the map has been reworked to be 1 inch = five feet. This now brings the page count to 63 pages. Additionally, this file has map tiles that enable you to print out additional green space for more terrain. To fill some of this space, there is now a barn map with two levels, a stable or work shed with two levels, a well and bake house map.

In Kobold's Folly, I detail what is different between the Tribe of Minwan and other kobolds and provide images of King Minwan and his sister using the two magic items found at in the folly.

If you have already downloaded these files, my thanks. You should receive an email shortly with the new files. If you can't wait, simply check your Library tab at DriveThruRPG.

Click the images below for full resolution example images from the Compass Rose Inn.

As an additional preview of the Compass Rose Inn, I have loaded full resolution images of the entire basement area.

#TBT - A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young

Let's take another look at Simon Miles' SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young published by Dunromin University Press. Set in the world of World of Barnaynia but is easily adaptable to any type of campaign. The city maps are gorgeous and go on and on. As soon as time permits, I will do a full review of this product.

Simon's artwork is impressive. I have not decided if it is all handiwork or digital or a little of both. It looks great, very old school but clean.

This title is pay what you want. I chipped in a dollar, but I think I will either have to go back and bump that up or purchase more products from Dunromin University Press.

It's Been a While Since a Plug...

The logo and covers for my products on DriveThruRPG are reminiscent of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. Sometimes, we are not as flexible, adaptable or available as we feel we should be. We can't possibly have all of the resources we need, when we need them.

It will be ok. We just do our best.

Today's plug is for DriveThruRPG's charity bundles. 100% of your purchase goes to the following organizations:

Disaster Relief and Recovery - Australia Red Cross
Bushfire Emergency - World Wildlife Fund of Australia

Fantasy Core & Settings $19.95
Starships & Posthumanity $29.95
Modern & Urban Horror $19.95
Fantasy Supplements $29.95
Capes, Grit, and Gunsmoke $19.95

EDIT January 22nd, 2020: The folks at DrivethruRPG have added 3 more at $9.99 price point for an even better value. Here is a link to the whole category. I'd also like to thank Jeremy over at Thought Eater Blog, host of The Frothcast podcast and all of the others who reshared this post. What a great community we have.

I haven't counted how many products or how much money you'd save, but just the Fantasy Core & Setting bundle took a heck of a lot of time to download. All five of them could take hours, depending on your internet speed. And playing them could last years.

If you still have extra money and time, you could also "buy" one of my products. They are priced at pay what you want. Don't be afraid to download them for free to get an idea if they will fit with your campaign.

Swashbuckler Character Class

Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners

Character Sheet for Use with Unearthed Arcana

The Compass Rose Inn Minisetting

Kobold's Folly

Clicking the links above will take you to DriveThruRPG for purchasing.

A little fun, a lot of good for OZ

I was looking for something to buy for my birthday over at DriveThruRPG. Nothing really stood out to me until I logged in to MeWe.

I saw a few people post on some bundles over at DriveThruRPG for the fires down under. 100% of your purchase goes to the following organizations:

Disaster Relief and Recovery - Australia Red Cross
Bushfire Emergency - World Wildlife Fund of Australia

DriveThruRPG and it's publishers have really stepped up, here. There are 5 bundles for every type of interest. I didn't bother to count the number of great titles included with each. All of them appear to gave more than a dozen books each.

Fantasy Core & Settings $19.95
Starships & Posthumanity $29.95
Modern & Urban Horror $19.95
Fantasy Supplements $29.95
Capes, Grit, and Gunsmoke $19.95

Personally, I'm going for the Fantasy and Core Settings bundle. What a great way to celebrate gaming, a birthday or whatever while helping out those in the awesome but beleaguered OZ.

Product Updates for 2020 - Kobold's Folly and The Compass Rose Mini Setting

I have updated the files for The Compass Rose Inn and The Kobold's Folly products. These items are still pay what you want, however, in each case I have increased the suggested price to $3.99 each.

In the case of the Compass Rose Inn, the map has been reworked to be 1 inch = five feet. This now brings the page count to 63 pages. Additionally, this file has map tiles that enable you to print out additional green space for more terrain. To fill some of this space, there is now a barn map with two levels, a stable or work shed with two levels, a well and bake house map. 

In Kobold's Folly, I detail what is different between the Tribe of Minwan and other kobolds and provide images of King Minwan and his sister using the two magic items found at in the folly.

If you have already downloaded these files, my thanks. You should receive an email shortly with the new files. If you can't wait, simply check your Library tab at DriveThruRPG.

Click the images below for full resolution images from the Compass Rose Inn.

Product Update! New, remastered maps for the Kobold's Folly Mini-Setting

Welcome to the Kobold's Folly. This map set is a mini-setting for your campaigns. It is rules agnostic, containing no references to rules or settings.

This set of maps is easily plugged into almost any campaign as a strange and wondrous location for your players to explore.

The Kobold's Folly is a small community of strange creatures, with an even stranger background and outlook on life. Explore the House of Minwan, the first civilized kingdom of kobolds.

An updated version of this title is now available as of Dec. 12, 2019. All images in the booklet are remastered to a higher quality as have all maps files. The Exterior file contains 18 pages of maps which can be printed as 1 inch equals 5 feet. The Interior is to the same scale. Additionally, a single page map is available for each floor plus the exterior, to no particular scale. Total page count is now 41, up from 13.

The images below are the small interior artwork from the book.

The exterior map of the Folly is 36" by 30" with 1" equaling 5 feet. While the interior is much smaller, it is to the same 1" to 5 foot scale.

Available as Pay What You Want with a suggested price of $3.99, it will make an excellent addition to many campaigns. While I envisioned this tribe of kobolds as the classic dog-reptiles of D&D, there are hints of the mine dwelling little men of legend.

If you have already downloaded this set, please go log into DriveThruRPG and download your newly updated product from the library. If you enjoy it, don't forget to throw some coppers in the tip jar.

Character Sheet for AD&D and Unearthed Arcana Update

It's done, it's done! I have updated my Character Sheet for AD&D and Unearthed Arcana. This second character sheet is an all new, digital creation using Claris on a 1999 G4 Sawtooth Mac.

This file is in addition to the scan of my AD&D sheet from the 80's. Being an all digital file instead of a scan, the sheet is much sharper when printed. If I keep creating new versions, I may have to rename this offering to something more descriptive.

It is available on DriveThruRPG as a PWYW title. If you have already downloaded, you should have an email with a link to your library. If you are not subscribed to email via DriveThru, merely log in and click the Library tab to get the new file.

These free updates will probably be part of a series, so you can expect more from your initial purchase. If you already tried it, let me know what you think either with a comment or a review. I'd love to hear from you. 

If you are new to the this product, click the link above to order it. Remember, it's PWYW, so give it a try in your campaign before dropping some GP in the tip jar.

Don't forget to try out my other products:

Swashbuckler Character Class.
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners.
The Compass Rose Inn Minisetting.
Kobold's Folly.

Still Working...

I still have some minor problems to fix with my updated Character Sheets. I'm finding how they print as opposed to how they look in the Mac is a problem. I should have something worked out soon.

Anyway, once they are done, I will post them up to my product on DriveThruRPG. If all goes well, I might rename this to "Character Sheet Pack" as I would like to do a series. If you have already downloaded, thank you. You're going to get this one as an update to the one you already have.

If you have any suggestions, please put them in the comments below.

Old School Mass Combat? Fantasy Hack

How I loved this game. Fantasy Hack is an old school mass combat game which fits right in with D&D, Lewis and/or Tolkien settings. If you are into OSR, this could be your go to mass combat set.

The rules are totally retro feeling because they are printed in one color, black, on yellow paper. Published in 1993, they'll send you back a couple of decades.

While not perfect for every setting, the set manages to handle most fantasy settings. Give it a try.

Update for Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners!

Send out the criers and the messengers. Have the herald hoist the flag. Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners has been updated with several new classes, some campaign notes from history, and many rewritten sections for clarity.

Ever wonder what the difference was between a papermaker and a parchminer? How about a leather worker, a lorimer and a tanner? What is ostracon? What is the difference between amate and papyrus? All updated to answer your questions.

I was thinking of holding off on this until November, but had the chance to get things done this week.

Everyone who purchased the old product can download the new product from their Library on DriveThruRPG.

If you haven't looked at Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners, let me tell you what it is and is not. In B/X and AD&D, characters were permitted professional skills to supplement their backgrounds, with nary a word on what those skills would be or how they would work. After decades of play and having my players want to have useful and memorable NPCs or codified professional skills, I wrote a set of rules to outline many common professions in historical times.

This expands in the information from D&D and AD&D, in a way that is very different than "skills" or "feats". Each commoner class member can advance up to 5 levels, from apprentice to master with hard work. Level determines the ease of success when operating as a professional class. Each class has distinct tools and skills, and where crossover exists, I have explained how these characters would work, while leaving the rules open to interpretation so they can fit into any D&D or AD&D campaign. 

There is commentary on economies, hiring, firing and all other aspects of gaining skilled tradesmen. Make no mistake, these are not alternate adventurer classes, they supplement the player characters, not replace them. It is not a sieve or character filter. In fact, this rule set can rescue hopeless characters and save you time at character generation.

It also answers some age old dilemmas about who can do what and why.

Price at PWYW, this rule set can enhance your campaign. Go ahead, give it a try.

Fighter, Cleric, Monk, Swashbuckler

I wrote up a character class for D&D and AD&D for Swashbucklers. What the heck is a Swashbuckler?

They are fighting men who have come down from on high to lead the masses of little people in the trenches. They are trained in sword fighting. Swashbucklers name their swords, their daggers and their junk. They like to drink and have high society type parties, even if they are not of that social standing. They might have tattoos of Payton the Runner, Pele the Asskicker, or other famous fighters on their person. They can dance around in combat, picking and poking people left and right, without killing anything. They can't be flanked or backstabbed when dancing about like this, nor can magic users concentrate when in close quarters with them.

In fact, the only way they can kill is by rolling a natural 20, monologuing for bit and if the person doesn't run away or surrender during "The Talk", they will stab them through the heart for double damage. On the off-chance they are forced to use lethal combat, they fight like thieves and clerics, without the backstabbing, heavy armor and magic.

So how does that compare to Clerics, Fighters, and Monks? Let's join the conversation, shall we?

Fighter: All that junk you do?
Swashbuckler: Yeah, pretty great uh?
Fighter: No, it's called sparring.
Swashbuckler: Really? That sounds like fighting words.
Fighter: No. Fighting words are said at the funeral. Better if they can't talk back.
Cleric: Both of you need to come to church.
Swashbuckler: Alleluia, brother!
Cleric: I'm a woman and I follow Kos. So, no on both accounts.
Fighter: Have you ever been on campaign?
Swashbuckler: I think so, was there booze?
Fighter: No, only watery ale and roasted smeerp. The ones with the 9 tentacles, not the ones with funny ears.
Swashbuckler: Sounds dreadful.
Fighter: Have you ever eaten iron rations?
Monk: Yes. I eat food, I just don't enjoy it.
Swashbuckler: So, brutha, what do you think of my moves? Pretty great, right?
Monk: It's all kabuki.
Fighter and cleric: Snort.
Monk: See this thumb? This one, not the other one.
Swashbuckler: Yeah?
Monk: This one goes in your eye and the other goes in your bum. Then I kill you.
Swashbuckler: How uncivilized.
Cleric: It's all relative.
Swashbuckler: You get it sister, we don't draw blood until we have to.
Cleric: Have you ever seen a flail?
Fighter and Monk: Snort.
Swashbuckler: I think the important thing is, we are all different and have our places in the world.
Fighter, Monk and Cleric: Chuckle.

New Product Launch - Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D

I rarely create new character classes for my campaigns, but I felt I needed a different sort of character for seaborne adventures. The Swashbuckler character class was born.

This pamphlet was intended to add flavor to any campaign without creating overpowering skills or mechanics. Very often, new classes are game breaking and I have sought to avoid this.

Initially, the plan was to create one section for Basic D&D and another for AD&D. Since the Swashbuckler does not require extraordinary abilities, nor to they have level dependent skills, I was able to combine the two.

It had occurred to me to give the Swashbuckler some of the skills of thieves, paladins, monks and acrobats but these characters are not the type to engage in professional level skills. They are more charismatic enablers, they don’t develop useful professional skills, they capitalize on other people’s skills.

I would encourage DMs and players to play towards the humorous aspects of Errol Flynn shenanigans. Many times, this style of play revolves around the needed belief in success rather than the actual outcome. Swashbuckling success features going to Plan B, then C and D and so on.

This product contains two files, the character class description suitable for D&D and AD&D, plus a set of 6 pre-generated characters. This product would work well with both my AD&D Character Sheet and the book Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners. 

Click here to purchase from DriveThruRPG, for a suggested price of $0.99 or PWYW.

The Kobold Warren Folly

Update - This post has been expanded into a short book with 4 maps on DriveThruRPG. It's priced at PWYW, with a suggested price of $1.99.  

Like the Compass Rose Inn Mini-Setting, this set of maps and descriptions are rule set agnostic. 

And now on to the original post from my birthday, Jan. 17th, 2016. 

This map is of a folly in the southwest of Potamus Bay. Who built the folly is lost to time. There is a larger ruin closer to the Lake, but it isn't as well preserved or interesting as the folly.

The tale of the folly's preservation is very odd and owes its history to the river. The river is subject seasonal flooding and one of those floods brought the kobold's to the folly.

The kobold's had their own underground village, which made them very happy. They stole the best food, killed the prettiest animals and had wild political intrigues that often ended in bloodshed. One day, the ruling clan pushed the wrong buttons and were tossed in prison to await their doom, as soon as the method could be decided.

A chance rainstorm freed the rulers, but washed them deep into the cave system. The village rejoiced at the apparent deaths. They were very kobolds happy, indeed. The ruling clan was washed away into the cavern system under the folly. They were able to squeeze and claw their way into the basement of the structure. The family rejoiced when they discovered the ring of pear and apple trees, the fresh water and rabbits.

There are no furnishing, no details inside the Folly.
The kobolds keep the interior bare.
The ring of trees continues, but is obscured by the
upper two levels. 

Over the years, they have set themselves up a kings and queens of the folly. They do not understand the principle of a folly, they believe that human or elven kings hold court in an empty building. The six rulers have set themselves up as the High, Middle and Low Kings and Queens. They receive guests through the windows, as there are no doors except trapdoors between the levels. They keep the folly up, but they do not live in it. They live below in finely finished chambers. Recently, they have hung curtains in all of the windows of the folly, purple, yellow and red. 

The family plans on enlarging the chambers, but for now they are satisfied.

The lowest level is almost all natural, only the eastern side has any finished features. The western side is often flooded with fresh water and sometimes contains fish.

Folly Details:
One Square equals 5 feet.
Height: 45 feet.
Depth: 75 feet below ground, as near as anyone can tell.
Population: 17 adults, 33 children.

Unreview - The Gardens of Ynn

When I found this title, I fell in love with the concept of a procedurally produced adventure. I meant to write a review of The Gardens, but I never could capture the core idea. What struck me most was the author's (Emmy Allen) desire to break out of her writer's block. Wow. That was an amazing idea and the end result is spectacular.

Anyway, I have collected up 3 reviews of The Gardens of Ynn and added a bit of commentary on each review.

The Gauntlet Blog, called the book "evocative" and praises the use of all five senses in the area descriptions. (Edit - You can also read part 2 here.) The Gauntlet takes the point of view of White Hack players, which is a step removed from typical D&D. This perspective enhances the review as it leaves the typical D&D archetypes out. While I don't play White Hack, Fraser Simons' review of The Gardens makes me wonder if I should.  

Bryce over at Ten Foot Pole, stress the Gothic Horror aspect while digging right into the mechanics of how to use this setting. Bryce is right that this is a setting book as opposed to an adventure, which something that the reader could overlook, something that Emmy Allen took a moment to confirm in Ten Foot Pole's comment section.

d4caltrops calls The Garden "elegant". d4 praises the binary aspect of "go deeper/go back" to control where the adventurers go in The Garden. Even better, he suggests easy ways to use this book as a means of transport for your characters. Talk about taking a great idea and making it better.

I was surprised to see that no one commented on the artwork of this piece, which I totally enjoyed. Its Gothic simplicity is wonderful. I love this style of art.

You can pick up The Gardens at DriveThruRPG for just a couple of bucks. You can also go and add the three blogs above for free. Why not do both?

Character Buffs - Zero to Hero

D&D and AD&D had a system of allowing characters to be buffed by adding some sort of skill to one of the regular classes via professional skills. Noticeably short on details, it encouraged DMs and players to think outside of the box. AD&D had the ranger and monk classes which featured two hit dice at first level while clerics were buffed with not just first level spells, but bonus spells based on Wisdom scores.

With the release of Unearthed Arcane, players received a model for having a character start below 1st level in the form of the cavaliers. Magic users received cantrips which hinted at powers before first level. Weapon mastery made fighting classes much stronger while pushing other classes into the non-combat skills.

Obviously, the cavalier and thief acrobat were nods to the cartoon. Clearly TSR wanted to change and update their product long before 2.0.

At the time, 2.0 wasn't available to me and by the time it was, I was already too invested in AD&D. Basically, I was unwilling to change. I had a large group of players, between 5 to 12 players per session, a few of them running 2 character at the same time.

What made this possible was an embryonic idea to codify low-level, non-combat oriented characters. While much of this was roleplay for my players, a bit of it dove into the skills possessed by these secondary characters.

Fast forward 33 years to 2018. That stack of notes, rules of thumb and memories of the fun were transformed into an actual pamphlet so that others could implement these types of secondary characters into their campaigns. Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners was born.

It started with a list of 50 professions from the middle ages. In January 2019, the list increased by 9 and later reached 61 in October of the same year. The professions are broken into 3 groups: Sedentary, Active and Laboring which determines their hit points. The characters are average people, so they have ability scores generated by average dice, numbers 2-5 weight towards 3 and 4 or collectively as 9 to 12. Combat skills were limited to using the tools of the trade, which are poor cousins of real weapons. Each new "class" has its own abilities, which are flexible and sometimes overlapping. The classes feature their own levels, from 1-5 which have nothing to do with combat or treasure hunting.

These rules were meant to flesh out NPC classes and includes a table of modifiers for hiring them. But I also wanted to make rules for converting a non-player character to one the main classes in D&D and AD&D.

Once a professional becomes a fully fleshed out player character, I needed to include rules for the tools of the trade. Can a mason turned magic user use a hammer? Sure, why not. Within limits. Stats for mauls, hammers, woodworking axes, zaxes and various other implements were created. These improvised or unusual weapons were define in such a way so as to delineate them from traditional weapons of war. In the right hands, they are powerful tools, in the wrong hands they are poor cousins of their martial variants.

Due to the use of average dice for these characters, a path to "rescuing" a hopeless character was created. All of these rules were designed with the existing D&D and AD&D classes in mind. While not entirely balanced, because the regular classes are not balanced, they are not overpowering. The intent was to flesh out bit part NPC and color player characters with a background.

I hope you will take the time to read Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners and incorporate it into your game. I also have a character sheet for use with characters designed with Unearthed Arcana. Both are available at DriveThruRPG at a suggest price of $0.99 or PWYW.