Well, I bit and bought the PDF because why not.
Assorted thoughts:
A lot of this reads exactly like DoD16 with the stances etc.
It also reads exactly like DoD16 in that all the artwork is from that book. (though the artwork is also really cool)
It's really really aimed at dungeons and hex crawls. You can do other stuff but there's no support for it. Even the hex crawling is kind of underdone. Something as simple as food and supplies isn't covered at all that I saw.
The races are weeeeeeaaaaaak. A dwarf gets +1 to Physique and -1 to Charisma, stats generated on 2D10+10? Why even bother. And you can't even be a halfling.
One of the pieces of art shows a Varg hero...which you can't play in this game. Thanks.
On the upside making a character should take all of 3 minutes. I sort of like the idea of only 6 skills.
You can increase any of your "numbers" with xp, even movement speed and carry capacity. That's fun. Though I suspect buying as many actions as you can is the winning move.
The monster list is really underwhelming.
They repeat this weird thing from DoD16 where you are KO at 0 HP and die at -1. Why?
A lot of things are just really really vague. It reads fine if you have played a BRP game before but if you read it "with new eyes" it becomes really clear how much stuff is missing. How parrying actually works is left to be inferred ("You use your melee skill"), there's no indication that I could find on whether missile attacks can be parried, large monsters roll multiple damage dice but its never explained whether they are all eligible for open-ended damage rolls or not and you could go on.
Nothing that is outright broken or that an experienced GM couldn't solve but I paid 20 dollars to not write my own rules.
There's a lot of setting in here. I didn't read that yet so I have no idea if its good. The artwork in the setting chapter is completely at odds with the stuff in the rest of the rulebook, since it comes from the Ereb Altor box set they did for DoD16. Both styles are fine, but the pseudo-Warhammer vibe they use there is not as fun.
Also it still references Ereb Altor before explaining that you don't actually get to play in Ereb Altor. Sorry nerds, I guess.
So many random tables. I would rather do my taxes than be in a hex-crawl campaign but I'll admit this could be fun as a solo game or something to do with the kid.
The weak bestiary kinda undermines this though. One of the monster encounters is "1D5 goats". Are goats like super brutal in Calderox? Are these Norwegian satanist goats? Or am I missing the point of fantasy adventure?
Also am I missing it or is there literally no reaction roll? With as much emphasis on randomly generated stuff, it feels weird that monsters don't get a "currently doing / motivation" table as well to decide what they do.
Orcs and goblins all get 2 actions per turn. I'll need to test this, but I suspect that 4 adventurers meeting 5 goblins will stand a very good chance of getting trounced.
The GMing advice is 4 pages and could have been better spent on literally anything else. This is completely pointless as written.
I'm sorry to sound super negative, because I think there's a lot of stuff in here that has potential, but it feels very half-baked in a lot of ways. I do want to try running it at some points, but as it stands, I'm not sure there's a lot to recommend it over just playing DoD16 instead (which I liked a lot on first read).
I will try doing a bit of hex-crawling with the kid though and see how we get on. Maybe we'll be surprised. I'll report back.
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