Thursday, December 22, 2011

Lone Wolf (D20) The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook

The D20 Lone Wolf RPG was first published in 2004. It is based on the D20 Open-Game License so many of the core rules are very similar to Dungeons and Dragons 3.5.
This is a hefty book, clocking in at over three hundred pages. In this book you get content that it takes FIVE Lone Wolf Multiplayer books to present (core rules, Heroes of Magnamund, Book of the Magnaki, Magnamund Bestiary, Sommerlund, and the list will most likely also include Stormlands I and II when they're released).

The character classes are the core attraction to Lone Wolf that makes it different from other RPGs. Mongoose did one think GREAT when they made this game and one thing HORRIBLY.

The great thing is the tiered abilities each character has. When you go up in level, not only do you get to choose a new ability but the abilities you had selected previously become more powerful by allowing the character to access the next tier of that ability.

The horrible thing they did was have some character classes pay for the use of their skills with endurance points (health points or hit points). This almost completely breaks the game and makes some character classes worthless. Who would want to play a wizard with D4 HP if you lose HP every time you cast a spell?

The book is fully black and white. The information is presented in an easy-to-access format. There's a good index and table of contents. The little art that's in the book is okay at best... but I don't care about the art so that's okay with me. I don't know how widespread this problem is but my copy of the book is lightly used and the binding already came undone in the front of the book.... pretty bummed about that!

Overall, this is the best overall Lone Wolf RPG produced to date. My advice is to use the homebrew rule to simply ignore endurance point costs for skills.  It's a shame Mongoose stopped supporting this line.

1LR Review - 17 out of 20 - It's a Solid Hit!

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