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Legend is the brainchild of Rule of Cool Gaming, available for free in beta form. As of March 2012, it consists of the 179 page core book as well as about 60 pages worth of supplements, updates, and adventures. This review is based on the rulebook itself as well as approximately 25 hours of playtesting.
Legend is derived from the D&D 3.5 Open Game License, but brings enough inventive new mechanics to the table that it's able to stand on its own. Most of the familiar numbers are here - Armor Class, Base Attack, the classic ability scores - but that's where most of the similarities end. Legend has completely reinvented class and level progression from the ground up, and the result is one of the most intuitive, straightforward, and downright fun RPGs out there.
Legend's philosophy is simple: time is valuable, and it's better to spend it playing and having fun than looking up rules and crunching numbers. Everything about the system is streamlined while remaining just as customizable as D&D if not more so.
Tracks
Legend's defining feature is its total reimagining of the class system. Each class is represented by three or more tracks, with seven abilities each. Unlike systems that force you to pick and choose, however, Legend gives you every ability from each of your tracks. On top of that, multiclassing has never been easier - simply substitute one of your base class's tracks for the track of your choice from another class. For example, if you want to play as a monk whose studies have taught him to master fire, simply swap out one of the three monk tracks for the fire elementalist track and you're good to go. On top of all that, you have the option to take a racial track. These offer you the opportunity to play as everything from a dragon to a robot, and come with their own set of track abilities.
As if that wasn't enough, you have the option to increase your versatility even further by means of either full or late buy in. Late buy in means that your character has joined a guild and gains the opportunity to swap out a second track for one offered by the guild. For example, a barbarian who joins an army during the course of a campaign might swap out their Path of Rage track in favor of the discipline and training of a Knight. Full buy in is something entirely different. Rather than giving up a track, characters sacrifice much of their ability to use magic items in favor of more power. This makes playing characters such as a paladin who's taken a vow of poverty much more feasible than it might be in any other system.
The end result of all this is that it's easily possible to create a full-fledged character in ten minutes or less without sacrificing any customization in the process.
No More Grinding
As a generally story-focused player, I personally loathe level grinding. Yes, it's nice to see all that effort pay off, but it's not worth dealing with a bunch of munchkins who kill everything in sight on the off chance that they'll get some extra XP. Legend deals with the problem of XP rewards by removing them entirely - you level up when the DM says so, period. I find that removing the incentive to kill everything in sight encourages players to think of solutions to problems that don't involve mindless slaughter - in other words, it encourages them to actually role play.
Items get a similar treatment - money management has been banished along with XP, and while there's nothing stopping players from finding and owning enough magic items to fill a castle, to the amount they can carry and use is limited by a very specific progression. The idea here is that items can only be wielded by characters strong enough to use them properly. The predictable rate of item access means that players will spend less time hunting for that +5 sword of orc slaying or giant chest of gold and more time doing what their characters would do and interacting with the world.
Balance
The other thing that sets Legend head and shoulders above the competition is its commitment to game balance. It's nigh impossible to create a game-breaking build, and you pretty much have to be trying in order to make a character ineffective.
The really notable thing, though, is the realization as you look through the rules that no matter what you do, you will be able to make it work. Every time you level up, you feel like you've gotten stronger in more ways than just some increased numbers. You unlock a new track ability at every level and a new feat every 3 levels, and each and every one of them lets you do something cool and new. You don't have to sacrifice anything - there's always something new and powerful right at your fingertips.
GMs will be quite pleased with how Legend handles encounter balance. Character level is the sole measure of power in the system, and encounter level is easy to calculate. A party of 5 level 2 characters, for instance, would have an encounter level of 7 - two plus one for each additional party member. You could throw this group at 4 level 3 enemies and expect a fairly even fight. However, once you start getting into high powered bosses, the balance starts to go a bit off. This is where the Legendary options kick in. The Legendary subtype grants bonuses to characters that also substantially increase their encounter level. So rather than throwing that party of level 2 characters against a level 7 boss and waiting for the inevitable TPK, you can hit them with a more manageable level 4 boss with a legendary ability. This still allows for a difficult fight, but it prevents the situation from becoming a massacre and instead gives your players the opportunity to triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds.
On the Making of Monsters
Remember how I mentioned the extreme ease of character creation a few paragraphs back? That applies even more so to monster generation. As of this writing Legend doesn't have a monster guide, so it's up to the GM to put things together. Monsters are built using the same rules as PCs, usually using full buy in and without the class limitation. Creating a monster is as simple as picking four tracks, selecting the appropriate level, assigning ability scores, and filling in the rest of the numbers according to the appropriate math. Need to change the monster's level? Stop its ability progression at the appropriate point, redo the numbers, and you're done. I can't think of a way that the process could be any simpler.
Summary
Overall, Legend is one of the most streamlined systems I've seen. There's nothing wasteful here, in game or out of it. You can't waste a level on a bad ability because there are no bad abilities, and it's difficult to waste time monkeying with the rules and sweating over every little detail because everything is so incredibly easy to put together. The fact that they managed this while still allowing for such a deep degree of customization is nothing short of astonishing. It's a free book, so you have no excuse not to give it a look.
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