Blood & Treasure Fantasy Role Playing Game

Publisher's Blurb:
Blood & Treasure is the fantasy role-playing game for people who want to spend less time arguing over rules and more time playing! Compatible with most old school games but not shy to dip into the new school, it keeps the rules simple and the play quick. Includes easy to learn rules of play, including mass combat and naval combat rules

• All the information you need to create fantasy characters from one of seven fantasy races and one of thirteen fantasy classes
• Over 600 magic spells
• Rules for building strongholds and running a domain
• helpful guides to creating dungeons, wilderness, cities and other dimensions for your adventures
• over 400 monsters and scads of magic items. Desert the edition wars and play a game with Blood & Treasure!

User Summary:
A re-written version of the SRD incorporating elements of Basic & Advanced D&D, while making other aspects of the SRD (i.e. feats & skills) optional.

From publisher website:

Let's get into the nuts & bolts of the game.

Ability scores are rolled with 3d6 ... or 4d6 drop the lowest ... in order or rearranged ... you see, I don't really give a crap how you roll up a character in your game. The default is 3d6 in order, but you can do whatever you really want with it. It's the six ability scores you know and love, with ability bonuses/penalties inspired by B/X D&D (i.e. -3 to +3).

All the races and classes from the core SRD are present, with the addition of the Assassin and Duelist as full classes. I tried to walk them back to old school levels of power, and did my best to write-out the "one million bonuses and penalties" mentality of the SRD. Why? Because it makes for a simpler game.

Feats are there as an option, but they are significantly pared down and there are no feat chains. They just exist as simple ways to tweak a character, if they're permitted.

Equipment and weapons and armor are about what you would expect. Damage values are in line with the "advanced game". Most of the alchemical items and special materials from the SRD are there, but I couldn't bring myself to include tanglefoot bags. Sorry, I'm still a grognard at heart. You can add it back in yourself if you want.

Saving throws are in three categories - Fortitude, Reflex and Will. I figured it was a happy medium between S&W's one save and the five categories of old D&D. They work more like old D&D saves - a simple target number you need to meet and beat.

Non-combat tasks work like saving throws. The basic tasks for dungeon exploration are there - breaking down doors, bending bars, finding secret doors, picking pockets, find/remove traps, etc.. If something is difficult, you roll dice. If your character is skilled at something (i.e. thieves doing their thief things, fighters breaking down doors, rangers tracking), you roll a saving throw, modifying it with a relevant ability. If you aren't skilled at it, but have a knack for it (i.e. elves finding secret doors) you either roll 1d20 and try to meet or beat '15' or just roll 1d6 and try to get a 1 or 2. If you aren't skilled at it and have no knack, you roll 1d20 and try to meet or beat '18' or just roll 1d6 and try to get a "1". Each additional difficulty to a task, as determined by the Treasure Keeper (i.e. Game Master), applies a -2 penalty to the roll - nothing you need to look up, you can do it in your head. A skill point system is provided as an optional rule for people who prefer it.

Combat works like it does in most editions - roll initiative (group or individual), move and attack, etc. No attacks of opportunity, simple combat maneuvers (just attack a set "difficulty class" and then the target can negate it with a save), death at 0 hp (or use the optional death and dying system), etc. The only add-on here is the idea of tactical advantage. A few tactical advantages are listed as examples, but they're primarily figured out between the TK and the players. Each tactical advantage an attacker has gives him or her a +2 bonus to hit. Every tactical advantage a defender has gives him or her a +2 bonus to AC. So, smart players are rewarded, but you don't have to memorize a bunch of different combat modifiers. In Blood & Treasure, close enough is close enough.

Almost all of the spells from the SRD are there, but they are generally simplified, streamlined and brought back to older forms. A few of the psionic powers are also turned into spells, and a few from other sources show up as well to round things out. Spell casting is simple - spells are cast on a spell caster's turn in combat, and saving throws and magic resistance apply to everything (maybe there are a couple exceptions in the text, but you get the idea). My hope is that Blood & Treasure will be a game people spend more time playing and less time discussing and arguing over.

Almost all of the monsters from the SRD are in the game, along with many from other sources and a few originals. Monsters work like they do in old games - HD, AC, attacks and damage, movement rate, saving throws and XP value. I carried over the idea of set conditions (entangled, comatose, etc.) and special attacks (swallow whole, rend) from the SRD because it means less to memorize, but I tried to keep them simple. Monsters are also rated by size (tiny, small, medium, large and huge), by monster type (animal, humanoid, outsider, fey, undead, etc.) and intelligence (animal, low, average, high, super). Many monsters have a paragraph for using them as character races, and most of the humanoids have some rules for using them in mass combat. About the only monsters that didn't make it into the game were the ones where it was just an existing monster with added class levels or HD, some of the psionic monsters that rely more heavily on the whole SRD psionics system (which isn't in the game) and some of the epic monsters. There are a few templates, but primarily serve as idea generators for modifying existing monsters.

The SRD magic items are mostly there - again, a few that relied on rules I got rid of didn't make it, but I'd say about 98% of them are there. In all cases, they were simplified. I also include some ideas on gathering rare materials to make magic items.

Blood & Treasure does have a system for strongholds and domain play, along with some mass combat and naval combat rules. It covers dungeon design and dangers, wilderness design and dangers and settlement design and dangers, along with some nifty random tables to help you along.

Ultimately, I want a game that is playable with most of the editions, though some editions would need more conversion work than others. There will be an appendix that covers converting the game from the various "eras" of fantasy role playing. Also, races, classes, spells and monsters in the game are given a notation of "A" for "advanced era" and "E" for "expanded era" to allow TK's to screen out things they don't want in their personal campaigns.