New from Pen & Forge Productions: Advanced Back to Basics is a considerable expansion of the original Back to Basics – a mapless system allowing you to build a party of diverse heroes and run them through their first five levels of dungeon delving using a choose-your-own-adventure style of game play. While still a streamlined d20 system based on the most popular role-playing game in history, character creation content has been more than doubled:
- Six character races – Elf, Dwarf, Human, Halfling, Half-Elf and Half-Drow, each a fully playable character class on their own.
- Additional skills and feats allowing you to build a Barbarian class based more on the original AD&D barb than the modern version, a bare-handed Monk-style character, a Ranger and Druid that more closely resemble their 3.5 counterparts, plus the Eldritch feat allowing four possible arcane classes: Bard, Eldritch Caster (sorcerer), Eldritch Warrior (based on the Eldritch Knight™) or an Elven Caster.
- An entire library of Eldritch spells – including cantrips – that doubles the original selection of Divine spells (for Clerics and Paladins), plus additional spells for the Ranger and Druid classes.
- Animal companions are a new option for Rangers and Druids and all Eldritch classes will be able to gain a Familiar. That’s right, magical pets are in there too.
In addition, the town of Mountain View has 13 merchants that use 9 merchant tables for characters to barter with between each adventure – try to trade in your new loot or buy items if you have the gold – then head to the Pen & Forge tavern where you can brag about your latest exploits and even get into a bar brawl in the process. Everything, from the adventure to each spell and monster, has been written and adapted for solo play so there is no need for a DM, oracles or any other supplement books – Advanced Back to Basics is entirely self-reliant, but flexible enough that you could still import gaming elements that aren’t found within its pages.
And finally, all of the random elements throughout the adventure paths will allow you to play through the book over and over again with no prep time between adventures. You won’t find a better adventuring deal for $15. Available now at DriveThruRPG in PDF and soon to be in print.
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