Gaming Cheap-Basic Fantasy

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So here's going to be an ongoing  series of reviews for RPGs you can pick up for super cheap.  Of course I'd like people to go pick up our product (free), but self analyzing can be tough, and bit weird.   So here I'll look at almost anything I can my hands on, especially if its low cost.  

So here's my first contender I have been looking at over the last couple of weeks. 

Basic Fantasy, 3rd edition.   you can find it  HERE at Drivethru RPG. 

So, it costs $0.00, and thus there is no excuse not to pick it up for giggles.  It certainly isn't all that long, and pretty well laid out, in a very classical sense.

There's a word that kind sums up this product, classical-ish.  

Basic Fantasy is...well basically...a simplified version of D&D, perhaps some AD&D, with some smattering of OGL d20 thrown in to it. 

From a formatting point of view the only complaint I have is needing to flipping back and forth for stats like attack bonuses, saves, turn dead checks and the like.  But that's more likely that I have gotten use to stats being all in one place in modern gaming and become quite lazy about flipping. 

Otherwise its nicely designed and the art triggers nostalgia quite hard.  Though I think the full color and sometimes photo realistic modern gaming art is quite awesome, there is something to be said for hand drawn black and white art that I often miss.   Love the retro looking cover as well.

Rules wise, if you are an old school D&D player you are going to notice a lot things right after flipping through it causually.   Available character races are Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, and Humans.  Your classes are Cleric, Fighter, Magic User and Thief.    There are restriction on what you can play based on your race, and ability (Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha) requirements for certain races and classes abound.   Bonuses for good ability scores are kind of weak and in many cases don't apply to a whole lot of things.   So rolling up new character at the table  and playing where the dice lie is encouraged.

There is also your classic saving throws of Death Ray/Poison, Magic Wands, Paralysis/Petrify, Dragon Breath, and Spell.  Oh how I missed you save vs. Death.   Player:  "Hey GM what's my save against this random thing"  GM: "I don't know/care, save vs. death like always!"  

From the modern Gaming era Basic Fantasy does something I wanted as a kid when I first started to play in the late 80's and early 90's, screw the THAC0, just roll over the AC.  Thank You.  It's something as a kind of bad math kid I tried to get rid of in my games long before BAB came into fashion.    This alieves a lot of burden on the GM to look stuff up all the time and confusion amongst players in some cases.  Certainly not worry about bonuses to AC should actually be negative numbers,  and penalties should have be positives is nice.   It also allows  the classic trope of keeping information from players to challenge hinder, screw them over, since the old THAC0 system always worked quicker if you just told the players the AC they where adjusting for, if used in its mathematical rather than chart format.    
The fact  it took to the very late 90's to realize "higher the better" made logically sense (at least for bad math me) still boggles the mind.    But ranting on THAC0 is a completely different discussion.

Same goes with saves, just roll over the stated number, though this will require you to check the chart,  which is 50 odd pages from where you find the classes, and pretty much negates my praise and rant above, so there's that.  Though just adding the array to your character sheet does work fine.

However, there is still the roll under a % for thieves skills, surprise rounds occurring on rolls of 1d6 (lower the more likely you are surprised), some occasion of rolling against (under) your own ability score, so sadly not everything is roll higher = better. 

Happily there's no % bonus to Xp just because one of your stats is higher, no bonus Xp for being a certain race in a certain class.   Nor is there any of the "you get x bonus for every 1/3 level you gain"  rules hidden in massive scrunched together paragraphs seen in classic D&D, most of the important rules in Basic Fantasy are separated out, or bolded.  Though a few lone rules have to be searched for.    
Classes are really, I mean really, bare bones.

 Honestly playing a fighter in classic AD&D wasn't exactly the prestige class for actually do stuff other than hitting things, but at least there HD where quite large, and there were rules for additional attacks, moderate weapon specialization, and rule that made every GM swear, getting a ton of followers.   

But in Basic Fantasy, Fighters get the short end of the stick with the second worse advancement (after magic users), slightly better hit dice than clerics, decent attack rolls (both HD and attack balance out to average with their slower advancement), and the ability to use all weapons and armor.  This last part might be great for random treasure drops, but certainly feels like you are in stationary orbit starting right from level 1 with really no other development of your character.  Either giving them a version of Cleave (one extra move, charge or attack action after killing a foe with at least 1 hit dice, useable only once per round), or exchanging fighter Xp/level for Clerics Xp/level  would certainly  give them a slight boost up the scale.



To maul that clerics are so weak..

In Basic Fantasy (as I did in AD&D 2nd ed once), I'd like to get an entire party of Clerics to see what would happen.  Since stripping any requirements for alignment (which I support) hand wavy rules for following doctrines, and no rules for taking a domain a lot restrictions are lifted from them. Cleric also have average advancement, average HD, average saves, average attack, can use any type of armor, and can cast spells on the fly.  Who cares if I can only run around with a blunt weapon, I'm getting me a maul TYVM.   

Thieves, are recognizable and closest to their original iterations, with the fastest advancement and the classic sneak attack that simply does double damage it if hits.   Since abilities don't grant specific % abilities to do things, if you need something done skill wise, get yourself a thief.

Magic Users are back to their "not really that great until above level 6" mode, extremely squishy, hard pressed to get spells if the GM is a jerk or random treasure rolls go badly, and advanced the slowest.  Many of the game altering spells have been nerfed or gotten rid of, but they can still kick some butt at higher levels, or spam magic missile of course.

Otherwise, the book has well put together spell section,  an encounter section, an Xp calculator that really we should have used for DRev instead of Pathfinder, a ton of monsters, and your classic A, B, C, etc. treasure charts. 

The treasure has slightly less chance (at least eye balling it) of giving me random art instead of a weapon or something useful, like gems and gold.  AGAIN TY.  I still have memories of my old 2nd edition character being in party where the GM got us to roll separately per character for treasure finds, and I got Art object encounter after encounter to the point where I asked if I could use a painting or vase as a club. 

The temptation to do house rules and creations for the system is quite high.  Until you realize all you are going to build in the end is  AD&D with slightly more stable rules, 3.0, 3.5 or more likely 5th edition.  However, Basic Fantasy is basic, easy to understand and $40 less than the last option ($80 if you take at least one monster manual into account), so go nuts.  Also it is a great window into why the old systems changed over time, and the many, many issues they had that limited access to new players and especially new GMs that Basic Fantasy tried to weed out. 

Enjoyment:  V__V  in some parts;  ^__^ with some minor mods maybe...house ruling away!!!
Value:  $$$$$  Not picking this up means you are more lazy than me...How?!
Investment:  Pick up the field guide as well for free, which is their big ass book of monsters of course.