Review of Demon'sLair

I picked up this game at Gen Con 99, after a bit of a demo by game designer Dan. Afterwards, it ended up in my Mom's closet for around 5 months. Bored one day while on break between semesters, I actually read through the rules and even played out some adventures with my friends when I returned to school. All I can say is that this game took over our AD&D campaign, which was running quite stale. Anyways, here's the details of what I like and don't...

1. Character Creation After the first character I made, CC became a breeze. Basically, you choose what kind of character you'd like to play (wizards or warriors, sages or thives) and pick your stats from the stat numbers allocated to that class (Stats: Strength, Agility, Endurance, Spirituality, Luck, Empathy, Charisma). Your stats can range from 1-20. Each class gets one 7, two 6's, three 5's, a 4, and a 3. From there, you choose your traits and drawbacks, which are things that your character might have that are an edge over others, like extra points to a stat, or die bonuses, or extra skill points. Your drawback could be a die penalty, loss of SPs, or a low stat max. After this, you get 20 points to distribute to your stats to round out your character (you get an extra 2 if you're a human).

The classes are some of the basics, such as archers, fighters, clerics, bards, etc. But, there are a few new ones, such as sages, who get some cleric and mage spells, but it's limited, and djorre'ls, who are warriors with limited thieving and spells. You can also start as a civilian, and when you work your way up to 15th level, you start at first level in the class of your choice, but with extra stuff (you didn't spend those levels adventuring for nothing!).

The part of this that I found neat was the profession idea. These resemble kits, but they're not for only one class. They add flavor to your character, sometimes also adding special benefits and hinderances. There's too much here to talk about, so that's all I'm gonna say.

Skills and battle skills are basically the same as in most games with skills and such. You buy battle skills to enhance your weapon attacks. There are also wrestling moves and martial arts available to you.

Aaaaanyways, The final stuff for this is your history and "5-point Code." While the history is self-explanatory, the 5-Point Code isn't. Basically, it's five rules of life that your character follows, and if you play them out well, it adds up to how much XP you get (from what I can tell, experience points are rewarded by how hard the adventure was, as opposed to how much guys were killed. It's based on role-playing...).

2. Combat Combat in Demon's Lair is probably the fastest system I've used. All characters have four dice to use, which are either a d8, d10, or d12. There's Combat Die, for attacking, Physical Defense Die, for defending, and Mental Defense Die, for attacking or defending mentally (psychically or magically). Anyways, attacker rolls CD, defender rolls PDD, add up your modifiers (mods are based on stats, weapon skills, and magic items), and the higher number wins. Each weapon has set damage, so no rolling for it. You take the damage, subtract the Protective Power of your armors, and the remainder is the actual damage you take (your Hit Points are based on your Endurance times 5, plus your endurance bonus per level).

3. Spellcasting I love the spellcasting system. One of my personal faves is the "magic tap" idea, where mages can do small stuff (ie. cantrips) which cost no MP (Magic points are your MP stat - Int. for mages, Spr. for clerics, and empathy for psychics - times 10, plus your bonus for that stat per level).

Anyways, Attack spells are fun. Basically, an attack spell has a base cost, and a base range and damage. The base damage is always 1. Then, you add MP to the spell for how much damage you'd like to do, ie. I want my Fireball to do 45 damage, so after the 7 points to cast it, I pump and extra 44 MP into the spell. I roll an MDD, the baddie I'm attacking rolls one, higher number succeeds. If I win, the spell does full damage, if I fail, the spell only does half damage.

Spells are classified by book. You start out with three books, and to get the rest, you have to find them, as they're in the shrines to the gods on the gameworld. After you find the book and copy it, you can cast any spell from the book as long as you're the minimum level that can cast said spell.

4. The "God" Guide This is what they named their GM's guide. I personally think that it was a bad move (For god's sake, GMs already have an ego the size of a dragon!!! ;-). But anyways, this book is a good read. The first chapter, which deals with problem players, making new stuff, and other basic GM pointers, is something I'd reccomend any GM of any system to read. The rest of the book is monster stats, making new magic items, and gameworld specs. If you GM this game, GET THIS BOOK.

5. The Game World While there's really nothing much in the player's book, the "Tome of Rules," there's tons of stuff in the God Guide. Besides the world maps, there's semi-detailed info on all the major towns and cities in the gameworld, called Terrania.

This is where the system was lacking, in my opinion, untill I visited their website (http://www.lasalion.com/). The site is filled with *FREE* info on the game world, including columns about the world written by the designers, tons of SCs, and other fun stuff.

The religons, which are in the Tome of Rules, are decent. They give a good description of all of the pantheon gods, and unlike other games, they offer more than just a pantheonic religion. There are actually four different religions on Terrania, so it's something I've got to get used to.

One of the best things about this system is that the game world isn't static. They offer new SCs regularily, there are new things going on, and they offer the chance for your character to attain fame and fortune in the game world (ie. you can send them things that you've done, and they'll put it up as if it happened, instead of only happening for just your campaign group; although they won't accept obviously munchkined characters or stuff that blatantly f--ks the gameworld or Scripted Characters).

Problems with the books Although I think that the system is great, the packaging is quite lacking. While the text is an easy read, the book is lacking in the picture department (Very few, actually), and the book is all in black & white. Otherwise, it's a great book. But, with a small press, sometimes ya gotta deal with that.

Overall, I reccomend this game, and if you have any questions, feel free to email me!

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)