"Tales of Blades and Heroes review" Topic

Hi people

I started playing skirmishes with 15 mm and according to many people SoBH is the game you absolutely have to go for quick and fun battles. As I discover more and more wonderful 15 mm minis, I now plan to play again with RPG rules and I wonder what the other Ganesha games are like. Someone could give me a small review of ToBH by chance ?

Regards

Khadrin

Oh, btw what Song of Deeds and Glory is like too ?

link

Thank you Psycho Rabbit, I read this one already. But as it has been 3 years since then and other books have been published, I was thinking that may be someone could give me a "fresher" review.

It surprises me too that there aren't many reviews as the game is selling well and is being played.

Hmm so except Steffan, none ever played this game ?

I just bought the game rules and just about every "tales" specific supplement (dirt cheap as a pdf) as well as ASoBH and the Arthur Song supplement.

I think on the first read, yet to play, it is a fine game, far easier to play than D&D and combat should be quick and dirty, and probably more lethal to PC's. Hero points are the big savers for PC life and I like this far better than "levels". The campaign game in Song is not much more than a generic scenario generator and not really RPG but Tales can use most of the stuff from Songs easily.

I wonder how long until Vol 2 of the GM book is to come out and I would love to see some compiled stock magic items and foes all in one document.

I do find the magic system a bit vague. "Songs" is very finite but at least it is defined. I can see some serious off-the-cuff figuring of effects for the more open-ended approach of "Tales".

I think something as simple as turning a character into a toad, would require a bit of thinking about how to do it so that it is not too powerful/easy to do.

Combat is great. Did a little solo battle and I love it.

Mick the Metalsmith, the key to magic in TBH is understanding what magic can or can't do… see the "limitations of magic" chapter.
Alternatively, there is a slew of detailed spells in Advanced Song of Blades, I did not try yet but I imagine that piorting them into Tales is quite easy as the scale (and the point values) are quite compatible.

I have had enough arguments in the old days of D&D to want too much vagueness, even those limitations don't really tell you what your spell is. Curse is a prime example. What might be the difference between a power 3 curse and a power 1 curse other than range and duration. Warts vs Clumsiness vs being turned into a toad? I find the off the cuff part of it a bit exasperating.

My wife likes it, she animated a tree which grappled and took out a big troll in her first fight but her attempts to set a skeleton knight on fire were less successful. She did not want to use a fire ball per se, but "Create Fire" directly on him, a la causing him to spontaneously combust. I wasn't sure really what was the best way to adjudicate. Ended up with a power 2 spell and the skeleton had to resist (which it did). Still I wondered would the end result be fatal or merely a wound or should it have been treated as a combat roll as per a thrown fireball as shown in the rules. My wife was emphatic that it was not a fireball…there were allies very close to the skeleton. She is not an argumentative player but I have had more than a few who will lawyer ad nauseum a ruling if they can. I just want to forstall the argument if I can!

My solution is probably going to be a mix of the very concrete magic spaell of Songs with Tales' system. Wizards will be able to do either.