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ZWEIHANDER Grim Perilous RPG: Player's Handbook
EVERYTHING A PLAYER NEEDS TO CREATE A CHARACTER FOR ZWEIHÄNDER RPG.
Abridged from the first ten chapters of ZWEIHÄNDER Revised Core Rulebook, this book contains everything you need to create a from professions & advancement to backgrounds & skills, for intrigue & combat, to exploration & trappings, and magic spells & rituals.
Using this book, you will embroil your character in low fantasy & dark fantasy adventures, inspired by the worlds of Bloodborne, Elden Ring , Game of Thrones , The Witcher, Solomon Kane, Black Company, and other Renaissance-styled fantasy horror works.
With 72 professions, 43 expert professions, 10 ancestries, numerous backgrounds, a myriad of weapons, character sheets in both horizontal & vertical format, and over 160 magick spells & rituals, you’ll have countless ways to create your vision of a grim character ready to embark upon perilous adventures.
Abridged from the first ten chapters of ZWEIHÄNDER Revised Core Rulebook, this book contains everything you need to create a from professions & advancement to backgrounds & skills, for intrigue & combat, to exploration & trappings, and magic spells & rituals.
Using this book, you will embroil your character in low fantasy & dark fantasy adventures, inspired by the worlds of Bloodborne, Elden Ring , Game of Thrones , The Witcher, Solomon Kane, Black Company, and other Renaissance-styled fantasy horror works.
With 72 professions, 43 expert professions, 10 ancestries, numerous backgrounds, a myriad of weapons, character sheets in both horizontal & vertical format, and over 160 magick spells & rituals, you’ll have countless ways to create your vision of a grim character ready to embark upon perilous adventures.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published December 17, 2019
15 people want to read
About the author
Daniel D. Fox
14 books9 followersDaniel D. Fox is the executive creative director of games at Andrews McMeel Publishing. He won two gold ENNIE Awards at Gen Con for Best Game and Product of the Year with his fantasy horror game ZWEIHANDER RPG. When Daniel isn't designing tabletop role-playing games or board games, he's enjoying his other favorite hobby: cafe racer motorcycles. He lives in the City of Fountains with his wife Ali and their two young kobolds.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 22, 2020
Zweihander a D100 based RPG inspired by the Warhammer Fantasy RPG. As a fan of D100 RPG game systems (and no stranger to Warhammer Fantasy, which my gaming group has an ongoing campaign with), I was excited to see what Zweihander brings and I was pleasantly surprised. This book is actually an abridged version of the core rulebook, including mainly information that would be of use to a player, which is still a hefty sum of material. Players will find rules for the character creation process (including the various standard and expert professions, minus those in the Main Gauche supplement), rules on using skills, talents, magic, combat and weapons and equipment. I think it’s a nice option for those who want to save a little money (and physical exertion) by getting this book instead if they are only going to be a player.
Compared to a lot of D100 systems I’ve played (Palladium, Delta Green, Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy to name a few), I found a lot that I liked. The method of figuring out critical successes and failures seemed more user friendly. The Action Point (AP) system for combat actions was a nice touch. The damage track (especially with the ability to “explode” Fury dice for damage, seems to be a different, but interesting (in a good way) of dealing with character injury and death instead of traditional wound or hit point methods. I love Profession tier-style systems (like in the Iron Kingdoms and Warhammer Fantasy RPGs) The Profession (class) system in Zweihander appears to be a good change from Warhammer Fantasy, where I believe there is less room to min-max the system.
I also found this book to be a joy to read. I enjoyed seeing in the art or reading in the text hints and jabs at gaming, sci-fi, comic and geek culture. The cost of the Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition book in the Trappings section was hilarious.
While I’ll save a more thorough look at the ruleset for after I read the core rulebook (since I don’t know what extra it includes on the Gamemaster side of things), there were some rules that I wasn’t too sure about, either because they seemed vague or not properly defined or because they appeared to be excessive. Two examples are the explanations of modifiers to combat/skill checks. There were examples of various modifiers for varying circumstances. Some were including in various tables and others were listed in the skill descriptions. There was talk of modifiers for hitting/defending against someone with a bigger/smaller weapon (using a dirk to block a sword), but these were not outlined very clearly. Of course, this could be left to GM arbitration (which it should be), but as a player it would have been nice to have some understanding what my character’s chances of success or failure might be in a given situation.
Which leads to my second concern- slowing down the game. These excessive modifiers add more time to the game (figuring out what modifier, if any applies). Again I realize that GM’s can implement what rules they want, but I always found having a limited set of universal modifiers for common situations (partial or half cover modifiers to hit a target, for example) to work better for games than more extensive life-simulation-type modifiers, for game speed (but of course, to each their own). Also, of concern is the Damage Threshold system. While I like the concept, I worry that characters can get into some outrageous levels of wound immunity when the standard damage roll is just a D6 with a modifier. Of course, there is the potential to “explode” Fury dice which gives me the impression that combat could easily be a lengthy frustration in hurting nothing to a quick explosion of death off a series of exploding dice. I'm also not too sure about the Peril mechanic. I understand what its trying to do, but worry how its implementation will just be another thing to track and slow down the game.
Overall, I was impressed with Zweihander and am looking forward to playing it in the near future. My gaming group plans on running a campaign this fall and already, players have been talking about characters they are interested in trying out.
Compared to a lot of D100 systems I’ve played (Palladium, Delta Green, Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy to name a few), I found a lot that I liked. The method of figuring out critical successes and failures seemed more user friendly. The Action Point (AP) system for combat actions was a nice touch. The damage track (especially with the ability to “explode” Fury dice for damage, seems to be a different, but interesting (in a good way) of dealing with character injury and death instead of traditional wound or hit point methods. I love Profession tier-style systems (like in the Iron Kingdoms and Warhammer Fantasy RPGs) The Profession (class) system in Zweihander appears to be a good change from Warhammer Fantasy, where I believe there is less room to min-max the system.
I also found this book to be a joy to read. I enjoyed seeing in the art or reading in the text hints and jabs at gaming, sci-fi, comic and geek culture. The cost of the Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition book in the Trappings section was hilarious.
While I’ll save a more thorough look at the ruleset for after I read the core rulebook (since I don’t know what extra it includes on the Gamemaster side of things), there were some rules that I wasn’t too sure about, either because they seemed vague or not properly defined or because they appeared to be excessive. Two examples are the explanations of modifiers to combat/skill checks. There were examples of various modifiers for varying circumstances. Some were including in various tables and others were listed in the skill descriptions. There was talk of modifiers for hitting/defending against someone with a bigger/smaller weapon (using a dirk to block a sword), but these were not outlined very clearly. Of course, this could be left to GM arbitration (which it should be), but as a player it would have been nice to have some understanding what my character’s chances of success or failure might be in a given situation.
Which leads to my second concern- slowing down the game. These excessive modifiers add more time to the game (figuring out what modifier, if any applies). Again I realize that GM’s can implement what rules they want, but I always found having a limited set of universal modifiers for common situations (partial or half cover modifiers to hit a target, for example) to work better for games than more extensive life-simulation-type modifiers, for game speed (but of course, to each their own). Also, of concern is the Damage Threshold system. While I like the concept, I worry that characters can get into some outrageous levels of wound immunity when the standard damage roll is just a D6 with a modifier. Of course, there is the potential to “explode” Fury dice which gives me the impression that combat could easily be a lengthy frustration in hurting nothing to a quick explosion of death off a series of exploding dice. I'm also not too sure about the Peril mechanic. I understand what its trying to do, but worry how its implementation will just be another thing to track and slow down the game.
Overall, I was impressed with Zweihander and am looking forward to playing it in the near future. My gaming group plans on running a campaign this fall and already, players have been talking about characters they are interested in trying out.
Displaying 1 of 1 review