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So the other day I discovered the Monsters & Magic rpg, a non d20 OSR game.

It's like a mod for a computer game, it has levels and all the classes from monk to illusionist, attributes, races, hit points, vancian casting, etc, but it replaces the d20 system with the effect engine system.

The Effect Engine system, which is what really interests me about this product, allows for narrative changing results from the dice rolls.

Complaints I've seen often enough about dnd is that combat gets repetitive and that martials just aren't as versatile as casters.

With the effect engine, each point of success over the resistance roll or static difficulty challenge can be spent. For points of damage, and/or spent to give your opponent a penalty or give yourself an advantage.

Instead of a fighter swinging his sword at a goblin to do damage until one of them is dead, the fighter might cut the goblin's forehead to hamper his vision with the blood, or damage the goblin's wrist so he drops the club or has trouble swinging it, or maybe spend it to give himself the high ground in the fight, or cause the goblin's blood to shower the fighter to make him more intimidating.

Which to me, sounds like it might be a viable cure for the issue of martials lack of versatility and combat repetitiveness.

So has anyone checked it out?

And is there any reason why the Effect Engine couldn't be used to mod another d20 game? OSR is of less interest to me than later editions of dnd, so is there any reason why I couldn't say mod a Pathfinder game with the Effect Engine?

Well I've been waiting for some commentary about this one.

Anyone feel up to giving a little review?

I have to say I'm particularly intrigued by the spell hybrid feats and the ritualist and professor classes.

I was browsing open gaming store and found a series of books of classes, Of Stranger Bonds by Alessandro Passera, culminating in a compendium that collects the entire series. Couldn't find it anywhere else, which might be part of the problem I'm having.

50 classes total, 49 classes based on being monsters, and the Pledged, who seem to be "get power by agreement with outside powers," in this case the Strangers, class with 6 archetypes, plus orders that they can join ala cavaliers, and a "summoner variant."

So I quite like monster classes and this has stuff from Zombie to Phoenix, and the Pledged sound more fleshed out than most 3PP material.

But the devil is in the details, the concept is awesome, but there are no previews, no reviews, and fifty bucks is a bit much for me to just buy it and hope I like it, even when that comes out to a dollar a class.

So has anyone perused any of the books and be willing to give an assessment? I'm willing to assume that any of the books are indicative of the other eight books in the series when it comes to utility and quality.

I recently purchased the pdf, and really like the concept of a superbeing class that is designed to equal the other classes, but I think it would need some additions to work in Pathfinder.

So has anyone used it in a Pathfinder?