Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: Heroes of Prime

Heroes of Prime is a role playing game supplement written and published by M.C. Planck. The supplement is one of several supplements for the author’s World of Prime that provide rules for a system based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

The supplement is available as a 47-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover, one the Open Game License, one the Contents and one an ad.

The Source of Rank explains that D&D from its beginning had the mysterious thing called experience, which was a true source of power. The World of Prime approach is to embrace that. A sidebar explains that the essence of the system is in the first couple of pages. Tael is the stuff of souls and adults yield it when they die. Tael can be bound in a ritual, and different rituals develop different abilities – classes – and powers are accrued at discrete amounts of bound souls – ranks. In other words, killing an enemy gives you part of their soul which can then be used to increase your own power. Tael is physical and can be sold. There are details on what primitive classes, monsters and animals require to advance, with a table of ranks, and tael can be used as a spell component.

Titles has a table with titles for the different classes at the different ranks.

Classes cover the classes found in the World of Prime. There are differences from the standard; the full details of a class are in the SRD with only the changes listed here. One difference each class has is the advancement ritual needed to increase rank. A point-buy system is used for stats, with three groups of three. Commoners are said to use Soldiers from Merchants of Prime.

The classes follow. Commoner is simply a lack of any other class. Primitive classes are the original and weakest; these are adepts, aristocrats, experts and warriors. Wild classes are more self-sufficient but not as effective as later classes. These are barbarian, bard, druid, ranger and sorcerer. The Civilized classes are the most powerful and these are cleric (there’s a reference here to Gods of Prime), fighter, paladin, rogue and wizard (wizards cast spells through binding demons). Hit Points explains how these work, which is pretty similar to normal, and Prestige Classes are briefly mentioned. Apprentice Ranks are substeps on the way to a full rank and provide benefits.

Races lists the various races that can produce adventurers. There are more humanoid races here than are normally seen.

Religion explains how religion works in the World of Prime and the philosophies of Dark and Light. There is a colour-based alignment system, with eight colours. Three are Dark and three are Light; the remaining two covers magic and the natural world. The philosophy of each colour is then explained. Each affiliation has its own language and the gods are divided into two categories, Elder and Young. There are six Elder gods, one for each affiliation, who have existed since the beginning. The young gods are mortals who have reached the 21st level, which makes them demi-gods and grants them a religion that can tithe tael to their god.

Each of the six Elder gods are then described. Each god has a primary deity and then aspects that manifest, each with different domains. A sermon is given for each god, and there’s a strong Norse influence in the gods.

Skills explains that the approach has been simplified and some skills have been merged and others changed. There are craft skills and a reference to Lords of Prime.

Feats have also had some modified and Base Attack Bonus is no longer used, given that characters are generally of lower level. Merchants of Prime and Generals of Prime are mentioned here.

Languages covers the various languages.

Spells covers those that have been modified to fit the setting.

Combat Rules covers how these have been changed, which includes a possibility of permanent injury if characters drop below 0 hp. These would need a powerful healing spell to fix, if permanent.

Heroes of Prime in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been very useful. The Contents covers the major sections and some of the minor sections and is hyperlinked. Navigations is poor. The text maintains a two-column format and a few minor errors were noticed. There are a few pieces of colour stock art, primarily used to illustrate the gods. Presentation is okay.

This is a sort-of core rulebook for a D&D variant. Sort-of, because there are references to some of the other World of Prime books and, most importantly, it’s not possible to play without the D&D 3.5 SRD, something that doesn’t appear to be explicitly pointed out. Only changes from the SRD are covered, so the SRD is needed for the missing information. This is basically D&D with a few twists tied to the campaign setting. Having experience be an actual, physical thing that can be collected and which can then be traded for money or used in a ritual to increase rank is an interesting twist, although a preliminary look at the different rituals for the different classes gives an impression that these are not always balanced when it comes to how easy they are to perform. If true, some classes will advance more easily than others. Heroes of Prime can be downloaded for free by clicking here.