Sunday, December 29, 2013

The NOD Companion Released (About Damn Time)

So I finally went and done it - I finished The NOD Companion for Blood & Treasure. What is it?

This supplement for the Blood & Treasure RPG collects in one place articles that players will find useful from NOD Magazine, including more than a dozen new character classes, new character races, new spells, new equipment and several optional rules to help customize your game experience. You’ll also learn the history of the NOD campaign setting and get a glimpse at just how large that setting is!

In more detail, the following is included in the game:

* An overview of the NOD campaign setting

* The History of NOD and its races

* Racial Class Variants - Half-Orc Thug (Barbarian), Elven Gallant (Paladin), Dwarf Prospector (Thief), Gnome Prankster (Thief), Halfling Gypsy (Thief),

* New Races - The Macabre, Notac-Ichat and Utu (the fellows on the cover)

* New Classes - Anarchist, Beastmaster, Charlatan, Chevalier, Curmudgeon, Demoniac, Demonologist, Diablo, Elementalist, Gourmand, Jack-of-all-Trades, Leech, Psychic, Puritan, Scientist, Shadowdancer, She-Devil, Slave Girl, Soulknife, Tomb Raider, Valkyrie, Vampyre, Venturer, Vigilante, Wushen

* New Weapons and Weapon Variations

* New Armor

* Partial Armor

* Used Armor

* New Henchmen and Hirelings

* Clothes Make the Adventurer

* New Spells - for the Charlatan and Elementalist, but most are available to other classes as well

* Optional Rules -

* Proficiency System for Weapons, Tasks and Spells

* Psionic Powers for All (including psychic duels)

* New Heroic Tasks (Appraise Value, Attend Court, Communicate, Disguise, Drive Wagon, Gather Rumors, Identify Specimen, Note Unusual Stonework, Seafaring, Spelunking, Tumble)

* Zero-Level Characters

All packed into 102 pages

So, if you like extras for role playing games and you like Blood & Treasure, you might want to look into grabbing this book.

E-Book is $5.99

Soft Cover is $9.99

Hard Cover is $19.99

AND - if you buy the hard cover, I'll throw in the PDF for free. Just send me an email (check the right-hand column) with a copy of the receipt. That deal's so good, I must be CRAZY!

A good way to end 2013, now I need to get busy writing for 2014!

18 comments:

  1. If I've got all the NOD mags is there any reason to get this beyond convenience?

    Cheers :D

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    1. Actually, it's mostly rules stuff converted to Blood & Treasure (and some additions, as well); if that is not your system of choice, there is - unfortunately - not much material for you.

      It is a bit of a disappointment to me, but that might be my fault for it WAS announced as a supplement to B&T explicitly.

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    2. Thanks, I like B&T but it is too close to 3E for me, feel wise. I generally play S&W so probably not that much use to me, esp as I have 1 ~ 21 of the NOD mag.

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  2. I picked up my copy, look forward to looking through this!

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  3. I had many requests to compile material from NOD, and convert the older stuff to B&T, so that is primarily what I did with The NOD Companion. The Optional Rules material is new, and a few of the classes have not appeared in the magazine - Anarchist, Chevalier, Curmudgeon, Leech, She-Devil, Slave Girl, Soulknife, Tomb Raider, and Valkyrie. Sorry that I disappointed some folks.

    Word of warning - the upcoming B&T Monster Book will also be a compilation of new monsters from the magazines, again along with some monsters that have not yet appeared in the magazine.

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    1. Considering that TSR did the same thing with UA, and to a certain extent MM2, it's actually somewhat fitting...

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    2. No, it's really fine; the material is top-notch, it's just I thought there would be a little more material on the setting itself. I also bought the missing the issues of te magazine, so I shouldn't be complaining afterall.

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    3. I understand. As I mentioned, though, so much of the setting beyond the bare bones comes as I'm writing them. When I begin a hexcrawl, I know about seven or eight things I definitely want there - usually city-states or some encounter idea I already had - the rest comes from random placement in this big excel spreadsheet I put together. Now, I move some of this random stuff around, and ignore some of it, but mostly I use whatever is there, trying to find ways to make it make sense - that's the fun I get out of writing these things. Take the desert in Antillia called Coyote's Haunt. I see it as a sort of fantasy Mad Max with some ruined villages, convoys of weird things that came from the Black Gulph, some pseudo-American Indian villages in the hills, etc. For all I know, though, when I run the randomizer there will turn out to be a huge metropolis in the middle of the desert. How does that make sense? Well, maybe I'll make it a huge underground city of grey aliens who feed on the psychic distress of the creatures trying to survive on the surface, so they do their best to make sure it remains a Wild West setting of mayhem and destruction. In fact - I like that idea, so that city is now going to be a part of Coyote's Haunt (assuming I remember this when I get around to writing that hexcrawl). But you get the idea.

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  4. Bought using the LULUEMP2013 code for 40%. Hope that 40% comes out of Lulu's cut

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  5. Ordered! Been looking forward to this one!

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  6. Instant PDF buy. Glad to see the thing come together

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    1. Also, I really like the Psyhic, maybe even a little more than my Psion in Psionic of Lore (though both are valid). The save to succeed is interesting and a cool new way to do magic.

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    2. Thanks! When I did the alternate spellcasters, I tried to use different methods of casting spells rather than just different spell lists.

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  7. So very, very happy with this purchase. The new Weapon/Skill/Spell Proficiency system is worth the price of the book, all by itself.

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  8. I picked upbthe hardback at a used book store oddly, but I love it! Granted I don't own B&T but it's still usable with my OSR of choice with mild modification.

    I LOVE the wild talent psychic rules! Have you ever made a version of the psychic class that plays nice with those rules? As is the psychic can't really fight a wild talent in psionic combat...and frankly I am not a huge fan of the Save to use your power system.

    Otherwise awesome stuff!

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    Replies
    1. I wonder if you got one of the ones with a screwed up cover. When I fixed it, I sent out new copies to folks who had purchased it, so maybe some old ones ended up in used book stores.

      In terms of using the wild talents with the psychic class - I'll give the rules a look again and see what I can come up with. The wild talents thing was really just me trying to make something akin to the psionics system in AD&D, which itself was sort of an awkward add-on. The "save to use power" bit is an adaptation to the task system (i.e. skill system) in Blood & Treasure. When I make a new class that is essentially a spellcaster, I try to come up with a different way for them to access their spells, as opposed to just using spells/day and coming up with a different spell list, hence the skill rolls to access psychic powers. You might also check out Tanner Yea's "Psionics of Lore", which is available as a free download on the Blood & Treasure page on this blog - it's an attempt to translate the Psionics SRD into Blood & Treasure, and so uses a power point system.

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  9. Thanks for that. Yeah I've seen Tanner's PDF, but I really am looking for an osr easy to use system for handling old school psionics...like what you did. I just wish it integrated with the class!

    Can't say if the cover is messed up, it looks fine to me. I was just so chuffed to find it.

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