A Little Nod To Basic Fantasy

 Haven't drawn a hot dwarf in a while!

The four books below, 1 hardback, 3 soft covers, cost me a total of $26.45. 

• Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game
• The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign
• The Basic Fantasy Equipment Emporium
• Morgansfort: The Western Lands Campaign.

All you need to play D&D, literally, for years. 

And, the PDFs are all actually FREE to download (along with optional races, classes, adventures, spells, etc.) at: https://www.basicfantasy.org/

I like to reward such efforts with a physical purchase. Plus, I prefer books.

Most of you know Basic Fantasy already, but I make this post on the off chance that you do not.

So, Basic Fantasy's been around for a while, why am I only buying it now? Not sure. It popped into my head recently, as things do... actually, I was thinking about saving throws and different ways to do them and I seemed to remember that Basic Fantasy saving throws followed a different progression than B/X, BECMI, or AD&D.

One thing that bothers me (well, "bothers" is actually too strong a term) about old-school D&D is that your saving throws don't progress more smoothly.

Even if you're aware of Basic Fantasy's existence, you might not know how it actually differs from the game it clones (mainly B/X) and how it differs from other clones. Some things I noticed after a quick glance:

• Race and Class are separate: 4 races, 4 classes. More options can be found at their website.
• Turn Undead uses a d20, not 2d6 (but 2d6 is used to determine the number of undead.)
• Individual initiative.
• Slightly (and I mean slightly) different spell list.
• Sleep allows a saving throw.
• Every 2 levels, 2-4 of your 5 Saving Throws improve by 1, sometimes 2.
• Class levels are 1-20.
• Energy Drain gives "negative level" penalties, but not actual loss of levels.
• Scale Armor is considered better than Chain Mail. (In the Equipment Emporium)
• Dragon Breath is based off Hit Dice not Hit Points.
• Demons & Devils are called Infernals. (In the Field Guide)
• Gold for XP is listed in the optional rules section (as are customizable thief skills.)
• NO ALIGNMENT. 

A solid clone.

And it's easily the best bang for your buck.