Authors: Dave Morris & Oliver Johnson
Both the authors contributed to the White Dwarf magazine.
When I played this gamebook I immediately loved it.
Why? Because it was the most innovative idea available on the market.
Battlepits of Krarth has 6 traits I loved
1) A ruleset of its own to explain combat mechanics. Not a sophisticated one, but it was something that no one tried before.
2) The possibility to play the game in group. As far as I know no gamebook included the option to form a party and run the adventure.
3) Squared maps to manage the encounters.
4) A leveling system that the book calls ranks.
5) Character classes with abilities and other stuff.
Keep in mind that at those time I had never played any roleplaying games, I was like 13 years old and I had just bought Heroquest. So you can imagine how amazed I was.
Attributes
The book starts introducing four basic attributes (the equivalent of ability scores in other words).
Fighting Prowess (to determine if you hit or not the target)
Psychic Ability (to determine if you hit with a spell)
Awareness (to determine the order of combat)
Endurance (how much damage you can take)
Attributes were not rolled, they increased accordingly to your level.
Action Economy
The ruleset contains some important and substantial differences for what concern actions economy, at least compared to the most common D20 systems.
You can take only one action per round. Attack, Move, Cast a spell. So, if you move your character on the grid to engage an enemy, you can not attack until the next round.
The attack roll
You basically roll 2d6 and you have to score equal or less than your fighting prowess. So, the chance of hitting an enemy don’t depend on enemy armor, just depend on your specific attribute. We’ll see in the next paragraph why.
Armor & Damage
Armor is useful to reduce the damage received, a sort of damage reduction that almost works against any type of attack. Damage inflicted depend purely on your level, the higher the level the higher the damage. All damage rolls are expressed in six-sided dices.
I have something to say about armor and damage, beyond the review of this book. The sequence attack roll – damage has always been a fact in the world of roleplaying games.
However, at some point, a split happened, like two school of thoughts.
One stated that the armor impacted on the attack roll, making the target harder to hit,
The other stated that the armor influenced the damage inflicted, thus reducing the damage.
For reasons unknown to me, the first school of thought got the upper hand, this is how most D20 systems work.
However, when the Rules Cyclopedia was released, they included the optional rule to use armor to reduce damage. I never adopted it, cause it was a bit messy and not so balanced, but that optional rule existed. After this digression, let’s come back to the topic.
Magic
A magical attack works exactly like a melee attack. You just use the Psychich Ability instead of Fighting Prowess to determine if the hit is successful.
Two types of magical attacks exist. Blasting and Psychic. A Blasting attack suffers damage reduction depending on the armor worn by the target. A Psychic attack usually produce an effect that can be resisted with a Psychic ability check. Like a saving throw.
Experience
Yes, the ruleset includes experience points. Rank 1 is of course 0 experience points, rank 13 requires 3,249 (or more) experience points. However the rules also states that the players begin the game at rank 2 (four characters), rank 3 (three characters), rank 4 (two characters) and rank 8 (one character). However I wouldn’t bet on the balance of this distribution.
Classes
Four classes are presented:
The Warrior
Nothing new under the sun. This class is good for close combat fighting. Underated in my opinion because he doesn’t possess any special feat.
The Trickster
The analogue of a rogue or a thief if you prefer. He can attack in melee and at distance. He possesses the following feats, no matter the rank (or level): Dodging technique, Archery, Quick thinking.
The Sage
A mixture of a cleric and a monk, useful in close combat, ranged attacks, and can heal also. He possesses the following feats, no matter the level: Archery, Quarterstaff technique, Healing. He can launches spells, only four to be honest and they are called psionic powers – Esp, Paranormal sight , Levitation and Exorcism. However these spells can’t be activated whenever you want, the book specify when it’s possible to use them.
The Enchanter
Well, this is easy. And no, it’s not the Wizard. It’s the Sorcerer. Those who knows something about DnD and Pathfinder know the difference.
However, it’s an overpowered sorcerer. He has a short list of spells subdivided into five complexity levels. The spell list contains 12 spells, it’s not a lot but it’s better than nothing. Every spell of every complexity level is available, so no connection between rank and spell level exists.
What is “interesting” is the mechanic to launch the spells.
As you can guess the attribute Psychic Ability applies. Consider that a rank 4 enchanter has psychic ability 8 and the check is made by rolling 2d6 + complexity level. If you score less you can launch the spell.
Now you could ask “Can I launch every spell in the list? Nope.
You have to prepare (or memorize if you prefer) the spells, however you can prepare any spell at any moment. By calling the spell into mind. Any spell that you call into mind, reduces the Psychic Ability by one point, always one point, no matter the complexity level.
Important! If you start a combat without any spell prepared, it takes a round to call it into mind. A good balance.
Spell list
Complexity level 1: volcano spray, nighthowl, white fire.
Complexity level 2: swordthrust, eye of the tiger, deliverance.
Complexity level 3: mists of death, the vampire spell.
Complexity level 4: sheet lighting, ghastly touch.
Complexity level 5: nemesis bolt, servile enthralment
What is the story about?
I don’t want to spoil, maybe someone who wants to give a chance to this beautiful gamebook exist. So I’ll give a really short preview.
Your party enters the battlepits of krarth to recover an object. You are not alone of course, because other parties composed by npc want the same. It’s like a tournament that take place every year and many people die inside the pits. Pits is not appropriate in my opinion, I’d call Krarth a maze.
Inside this maze you’ll find things much more dangerous than a band of desperate glory seekers.
The whole concept was very innovative for a gamebook, quite amazing.
I actually mastered my first D&D adventure inspiring me on this book. The fact that you can have your party challenge other – non monstrous – enemies was very interesting.
Forget about challenge rating or things like that. When you met another party they could match yours easily. Krarth is a deadly adventure if you screw it.
The whole collection is made of five episodes.
The Battlepits of Krarth
The Kingdom of Wyrd
The Demon’s Claw
Doomwalk
The Walls of Spyte
Should I buy (and play) this serie?
Hell, yeah! If I post an article and get an headache to write it in english, there must be a reason.
I do not consider the Blood Sword Serie a banal purchase.
It’s an investment.
Stay tuned if you want to know more and give a like to Angry Golem Games
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