B/X Essentials: Advanced Characters

Druid and mindflayer, by Erol Otus
As I've mentioned before, an Advanced Characters book for the B/X Essentials line is in the works. The draft text is finished now, and proofreaders are doing their magic.

I thought it would be worth giving a bit more info as to what exactly is in this book, as it's perhaps a bit different to what people might be expecting. Here's the table of contents:

Foreword.Character Creation.Advanced Character Classes:AcrobatAssassinBarbarianBardDruidIllusionistKnightPaladinRangerAdvanced Demihuman Classes:DrowDuergarGnomeHalf-ElfHalf-OrcSvirfneblinCharacter Races (Optional Rule):DrowDuergarDwarfElfGnomeHalf-ElfHalflingHalf-OrcHumanSvirfneblinSub-Races (Optional Rule):DwarfElfGnomeHalflingAdvanced Equipment:ArmourPoisonWeaponsSome interesting points to note:The assumption of the book is that the new classes in the Advanced Character Classes section (e.g. druids, knights, rangers, etc) are humans.The classes in the Advanced Demihuman Classes seciton are race-classes in the classic B/X style. I'm really pleased with the way these have turned out, and think they'll add a lot of fun to games which use them.There are optional rules for choosing race and class separately, for groups who prefer this, but this approach is explicitly an optional rule. It is not the assumed default of the new material, and was not the primary design goal.I've not included a monk class. I have that earmarked for a future mythic Asian themed book.A lot of previous supplements along similar lines (adding AD&D material to B/X) have been published by others, so I wanted to put my own spin on this. Here's what makes this different to, say, the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion:The new classes are much closer to B/X than they are to AD&D. I think previous adaptations have erred more on the side of cloning AD&D material, whereas my renditions are heavily adapted to B/X.The power levels of B/X have been carefully maintained. The maximum level is 14. The new classes are carefully balanced against the standard B/X classes. No d12 Hit Dice for the barbarian. No always-on protection from evil for the paladin.The result is a set of new options for B/X games, rather than a way to play AD&D with the B/X core rules. These are two different things.I've included adaptations of both the core AD&D races/classes and those from Unearthed Arcana. The UA material is more rarely addressed in AD&D / B/X supplements, so I thought it worthy of including. The human classes (acrobat, barbarian, knight) are heavily adapted from the overpowered messes in UA. The demihumans (drow, duergar, svirfneblin) are presented as race-classes (possibly the first time race-classes for these have ever been published?).More news as things develop! I'm in no hurry to publish this book, though. I want to give the new material a proper play test before going ahead.