Ever played Four Against Darkness? Well, you should. It's Ganesha Games' newest game; a standalone, simple, yet engrossing RPG that only requires you and one d6. The best part? The entire rulebook is only $8 and their first two expansions are under $3 each (you can check out their products
HERE). This game comes from the same company that brought us all
SoBaH (another one of my favorites). Anyway, after I finished my first dungeon I was hooked and decided to expand the game out a bit with some new classes that I've enjoyed from other RPGs.
You can download a copy
HERE, but you'll of course need the Four Against Darkness rules first. I will keep this link updated with the latest version as I continue to refine and playtest it.
Uncanny Against Darkness is a fan-made expansion to the official game Four Against Darkness. It was made without the permission of...well, anyone. This is a no-profit, made with love for the game PDF and is only meant to promote Four Against Darkness further. Happy gaming!
Hello! I'd be curious to try your fan rules, but the link is dead... Could you please PM the link? Thanks!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see it, however the link provided doesn't go to the file only the main Filedropper page.
ReplyDeleteNot...really sure how I pulled that off. Link has been fixed, sorry about that!
ReplyDeleteI'd really like to try and leave you feedback on your supplement, as after 3 scenarios, I do find the same Vermin, Minions and Bosses starting to become repetitive!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the link still doesn't work... could you please PM the file? My personal email is silenceindigo (in one word) and my service provider is Google's well known mail service. Thanks a lot!
Hello again! I managed to playtest a few of your classes, notably by playing a team of four characters from the same class. Here is my humble and personal opinion on the subject:
ReplyDelete- The Paladins are a strong class, too strong IMHO. Even when gremlins took out all their weapons, the paladins slaughtered just about everything. Their abilities are simultaneously offensive (Smite) and defensive (Lay on Hands, Protect), and in addition they fight as well as clerics. Notably, Lay on Hands is too powerful, much more than Healing, because 1) it guarantees 5 Life points; 2) it can be spread over several encounters instead of being wasted as a single encounter. Compare to the Cleric, who'se Blessings aren't very used often. In addition, Smite is almost identical to the barbarian's ability, but without any of its weaknesses. My suggestions: build them as Clerics for weapons, attacks vs undead and demons, armour and Life (except for bows and slings) but replace all their other abilities by a single use of either Smite and a single use of the Healing spell, or perhaps a single spell choice among these on reaching levels 1/3/5. Versatilty makes them quite strong. In addition, keeping track of the Lay points left was fiddly. Healing would be preferable and more balanced, IMHO.
The monk is an interesting class. The counterstrike ability is very interesting, and risky, and the limited availability of double attacks force a tactical choice. Their hit points, however, are very low, but perhaps it's not really a problem. Monks are very fragile at low levels, more similar to halflings or mages. This class is interesting. However, unfortunately, the official Swashbuckler class has strong similarities with it (same Attack and Defence bonuses, two attacks, same armour and weapon restrictions). Perhaps something like a whirlwind kick (ex. inflicts 2 damage when doubling a boss' level) in substitute for 2nd attacks could make them more distinctive. I like that class.
At first glance, these are comments about classes I haven't played yet. Please keep in mind I'm trying to be constructive; I really appreciate your effort into writing these classes.
The Mystic seems a weak class. Since I always attack monsters first, the class' abilities didn't seem very worth it compared to playing a Swashbuckler, for example. Perhaps consider giving it a mind control power (limited uses), that could allow one to take control of a few minions or vermin?
The Warlock's random powers is far too fiddly and unpredictable for my taste.
The Necromancer's reanimation spell seems too weak to be useful, it's not as strong other attack spells such as a Fireball or a Lighting. I suggest a raised minion could fight with the rest of the group until killed again (1 Life), instead of just making a single attack. It would be nice, too, if the Life drain inflicted a bit of damage to reflect the necromantic effect. Perhaps it would require a creature to be wounded first, making the necromancer a parasite of sorts?
Finally, I like the Ranger and I look forward to trying it. The volley of arrows is a fun idea, even if it requires a lot of dice since it's useful against large hordes(imagine rolling against 15 bats...) The Construct is puzzling, too, though I think it's going to be very strong at high levels (ex. A+5, D+5 on level 5, even with 9 Wounds, is 2 more on defence than full-plate and shield-clad Warriors, with only 2 Life less... and that armour is free!)
Thanks again for providing free material for the community. I'll try playing your other classes at other times and will be posting play reports on boardgamegeek.com.
If you're into suggestions, I'd like to see a Goblin Fanatic with a huge ball-chain, a dancing slave-girl class, and Humanoid classes in 'Orcs of Thar' style... :)
This might be my favorite comment ever, thank you so much for the feedback. I'm on my phone right now, so my response won't be as in depth as this comment deserves, but I'm gonna give it a whirl.
DeleteI haven't read Swashbucklers yet, which seems to conflict with a lot of my creations. So I'll get on to reading that expansion ASAP.
My test games with the main rulebook's rules and characters all involved a Medusa or 3 and my games without a Cleric never ended well. So, under my experiences, Clerics are practically a necessity, but each person's experiences may vary. As far as their versatility, I can see where you're coming from. I wanted to make the Paladin better at combat than the Cleric, but worse at healing (since Lay on Hands does less overall healing by (potentially) a lot than the Cleric's Heal spells). The problem I keep running into is that the Cleric is great at combat already as well as healing. Ithought the balance I created was a good one, but it sounds like I need to dive into them again.
Glad you like the Monk, but damn the Swashbuckler...I'll look into them and make some changes, thanks for this. I'm also digging the whirlwind kick idea.
The Mystic and the Necromancer are easily my favorite classes, so I may have overcompensated and made them weaker so as to not show a bias towards them. The Mystic specifically went through more changes than any other class and it sounds like I might need to dial them back up a bit. Again, I'll need to look at the Swashbuckler thoroughly.
I assume Warlock = Wild Magi? If so, know that I'm aware that they're likely the most fiddly class out there, but that's kind of their intent. For those out there (me) that love random roll tables. The Wild Magi are meant to be very good and very bad at the same time as well; they're simply chaos. I've probably played this class the most and I'm pretty pleased with where it's at currently, but there are two expansions I need to catch up on, so I'm not going to say they're currently set in stone.
The Necromancer's mechanics were this weird balancing act where I couldn't get their spells just right. They either ended up being too powerful or too weak and, like I said above, in the end I likely left them too weak. Back to the drawing board!
Admittedely, the Construct wasn't planned out to level 5 (them or the Monk), so changes are likely to occur with them. Thank you for drawing it all out for me, though. That's incredibly helpful.
Finally, thanks again for all of the suggestions, criticisms, etc. The only way this thing can get better is with some constructive disection!
Also, sorry about not getting to your first comment. I read it and then promptly got distracted..
I'm happy to see my comments were appreciated. I also like necromancers and I'd like them to be a good alternative to mages. The group I'm using right now includes a Wizardess which I'm specializing in sleep and lighting spells only, just for style. Amusingly, she often gets "6" on melee attacks, and has a melee kill account almost better than my level 5 warrior and warband leader, who rolls "1" very often... It's fun how the dice get to colour a character's personality!
ReplyDeleteBTW, you might want to look at the free BARBARIAN PRINCE solo rpg from 1982 (available at boardgame geek and dwarfstar's site), it's so close to 4A4 in mechanics that I'm using the rules almost without modifications for hexcrawls. Just lower BP's Combat value by 1 to determine 4AD's Level equivalent, and treat multiple opponents as minions as per the 4AD rules, and you're in for a fun mix of dungeon crawl and wilderness exploration. (dwarfstar.brainiac.com/ds_barbarianprince.html)
I'll stay tuned for more of your creations!
Hahaha! Fun indeed. And I'll check that out; hadn't heard of it before now
DeleteFor your information, I've quoted you here:
ReplyDeletehttps://boardgamegeek.com/article/23954703#23954703
Awesome, thanks!
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