Dungeons & Dragons Tactics Review

A bit of a belated review of the D&D Tactics comes from WorthPlaying, saying it’s good if it’s to your tastes, but it really is “designed for a particular variety of person”. They give it a 7.1.

The true appeal behind Dungeons & Dragons Tactics lies in its accuracy. If you play Dungeons & Dragons with any regularity, you will find a nearly excruciating level of detail here. All of the core classes from Barbarian to Wizard have been included, as well as the Psychic Warrior and Psion. Alignments can change based on a character’s actions, and leveling up is true to the system.

The truly eye-raising attributes of the game remain unseen until you’re actually in the thick of battle, though. Sure, you get to create your characters from scratch (you can use a pre-made party for a quick start, but anyone who’s actually interested in Dungeons & Dragons won’t even give that feature a second look), designing them from the top down much as you would design a character in the tabletop game itself, but it’s the level of detail in combat that’s truly stunning.

What’s that? A locked treasure chest? Better get your rogue over there. Hopefully, you gave her enough ranks in Open Locks. And she has a move-equivalent action left. And she has a good Hide skill to avoid detection from that bugbear over there, and she has a decent armor class bonus in case she doesn’t. Then she’ll need to make a skill check, and then, if she has a move-equivalent action left, she can loot the treasure chest, which may well increase her total load enough to reduce her movement capacity on subsequent turns. Did your mage memorize his spells, and your cleric pray for hers, before battle? Should your cleric trade in a spell for a Cleric Cure, or maybe cast something from a scroll? Perhaps your warrior should take a five-foot step to keep from provoking an attack of opportunity so that he can make room for your second warrior to flank your opponent?

Spotted on RPGDot.