Fantastic Heroes and Witchery

[alcyone]

I, lacking Treebore's force of will, have not stopped buying OSR games, at least in PDF. What follows is not a full review, just some impressions.

I bought the PDF of Fantasy Heroes and Witchery yesterday. It's in the AD&D family of OSR games, and even has some lookalike art in it (e.g. the Paladin in Hell). There are over 30 classes. Some of these are race-classes for epic fantasy settings, some are regular classes which can have different races, optionally limited by ability score and maximum level. There are some "Weird Tales" classes including "necronimus", occultist, rifleman, sky-lord. The classes are roughly divided into different game types, but all are compatible if you have a zany campaign. Notably, this game also has psionics.

There are a number of new races including things like revenants, reptilians, and winged folk.

The traditional spells are there, and there are new lists for some of the new classes. I think some new spells are included also, at least I don't recall them.

There is a section on futuristic/science fiction weapons.

Like Swords and Wizardry there is a single save number, but the appropriate ability modifier always applies.

Initiative is of the segmented type, and includes weapon speed factors and casting time. There are no attack tables and formulae are given for both ascending and descending AC, as far as I can tell no preference is given to one or the other. There are a few new combat maneuvers, but they are the sorts of things a DM could easily houserule.

The first book does not include monsters, and these are coming in a future edition. There is a helpful section showing how to break down a typical AD&D/OSRIC stat block and convert it. Monsters in FHaW include a discrete BtH, and will have different HD types.

Given how close to AD&D this stuff is, I believe most of the ideas, classes, equipment, etc. would convert to C&C or in some cases Amazing Adventures readily.

[Added:] I paid for a bookmarked PDF with art at RPGNow. You can download a low resolution PDF with the rules for free: http://www.dcrouzet.net/heroes-witchery/?page_id=83 . A hardcover is available from Lulu.

[Treebore]

Free I will do, since all I am ever really interested in seeing is if there are any cool rule ideas I just have to use.