An excellent resource for BASH. Besides having a smorgasbord of powers to choose from, it serves as a good springboard for making your own powers.

I've had H&I for a few years now, but I decided to hold off on posting a review until I'd had a chance to run it.

Having become increasingly disillusioned with the system for second edition 7th Sea, and wanting desperately to continue our 5 year+ campaign in that world, I made the suggestion that my group consider switching systems to H&I and use the same campaign elements as our old 7th Sea game. They were surprisingly receptive to this idea, so I set to work converting the essential elements (duelling styles, etc) to comply with the new rules.

During this process, I was struck by how easy it was to create new things for this system, almost as if it had been designed for that very purpose! The Sorcery may be a sticking point later, but as I don't have any sorcerers in the group (yet), I felt no immediate pressure to convert those rules.

Converting characters across was fast and logical, based as it was on what we'd learned from 5 years of continuous gameplay and our memory of the system. One player commented that the Career system was a godsend, as the skill list for 7th Sea, while serviceable, didn't allow for much flexibility in interpretation in their opinion. Being able to say 'Well, I'm a pirate, so I would know a thing or two about sailing' was a refreshing hand-wave that sped up the conversion process and later gameplay.

Once the characters were all converted across, we were set. We started the game on Sunday, and given that we were introducing a new player, I decided to keep it simple; A betrayal, a poisoning, a mutiny and a desperate battle on the deck of a stolen ship.

Within mere moments of beginning, our least experienced player (at TTRPGs; she's an expert roleplayer) noted how quickly she was picking up the new system. Knowing that you were always shooting for a 9+ really helped the group get a handle on how positive and negative modifiers worked, and they were slinging Fortune Points and witty mot-justes like Danny Kaye or Douglas Fairbanks in mere moments, the system taking a back-seat to the action until called upon, which to me is exactly the way it should be.

And then the combat started...

I wasn't sure what to expect from the combat system, knowing as I did that there was a lot to unpack in terms of strategy and maneuvers and so forth. However, it quickly became clear to me that these elements were, like so much else in this system, options to be used or ignored at the group's leisure. My group leapt in with both feet, excited to try new tactics and test the limits of their understanding of the rules and their characters. Our resident duellist was overjoyed at how cool and competent he felt using the different maneuvers, taking down pawns and eventually the main villain with breathtaking style. After a short while, it began to feel less like a game and more like watching our own swashbuckling action movie unfolding in our minds.

At the end of the session, we were all in agreement; moving our campaign across to H&I was something we should have done a long time ago. I will admit that a large part of my affection for 7th Sea stemmed from some very positive experiences with 1st edition, which were later repeated in 2nd with a new group, but I had to be honest and admit to myself that at least in the latter case, that was more about the players and their RP than the rules themselves. It took me a long time to realise that while I love the setting of that game, I despise the system. While I ordinarily enjoy narrative-based systems, the back-loading element wherein you already know how much you can or can't succeed at beforehand is a big turn-off, as it feels like it robs you of that all-important element of swashbuckling stories, suspense. in H&I, there's a legitimate feeling of stakes raising turn by turn, and this simple but effective mechanic left my players (and even me) breathless with anticipation.

H&I plays like a beautiful amalgamation of all the best elements of a narrative-based and rules-crunchy system. It works as well as it does because however many things you add or elements you incorporate, the basic mechanics remain the same: Roll 2d6, add bonuses, subtract penalties, beat 9. Simple, fast and open to a lot of player interpretation and creativity. My players were buzzing about how heroic and cool they felt at the end of the session, each recounting their favourite moments during the session with pride and joy. As a GM who runs games solely for this reason, it felt good to see my players this happy and excited for the next session, and reinforced what I'd already concluded to myself; This was to become my go-to system not only for swashbuckling fantasy, but for any other crazy ideas I may have later, assisted by the helpful suggestions in the Tome of Intriguing Options.

In closing, then, I have finally found my holy grail for swashbuckling fantasy. Honor & Intrigue is as much a love-letter to the genre it emulates as it is a fast and fun game system set in that genre. If swinging from a chandelier, stealing a kiss from a lady on a balcony and dropping to the ground brandishing your sword with a fearless laugh as you stare down a nefarious villain sounds like your jam, this book isn't just useful, it's essential.

I've been adventuring with the BASH! Ultimate Edition (BASH UE) since 2016, and it's become my go-to cape-wearing, dice-rolling delight.

BASH UE strikes that sweet spot between comprehensive and rules-light. It's like slipping into your favorite superhero costume—comfortable and ready for action. Whether you're a brooding vigilante or a cosmic sorcerer, character creation is smooth.

The real magic? BASH UE isn't just about American-style capes. It's a great passport to any comic-influenced setting. Naruto's chakra? Check. Gotham's rooftops à la Batman? Double-check. I've run campaigns in both worlds, and BASH UE adapted gracefully.

DON'T HESITATE ON THIS ONE, a must have for any comprehensive GM.

Fantastic expansion that opens up so many new avenues of play worth every cent without question. Really excited about future expansions!

I just received my hard cover Honor + Intrigue Core Rulebook -- well worth the wait!!!

The Bad: The only negative thing I'll say about Honor + Intrigue is the hard cover book has lightweight paper, as opposed to a premium paper option. This is made known in the product description, so I don't feel ripped off. I appreciate the publisher's honesty. Very "Honor"able of them to disclose the paperweight quality. i just believe this game system to be such a High-Quality ruleset it deserves a high-quality print option.

Regardless of the paperweight, however, the interior design is great. And if you just want the PDF's, the content and layout are top-notich.

The Good: The Rules are simple and very "rules lite". Roll a 9+ on 2d6 for pretty much everything. There are no "skills" so you are freed up to try whatever you can imagine as opposed to what's on your character sheet.

The Amazing: There is some "crunch" to the rules, but in all the right places- particularly sword combat. This system's combat maneuvers make duels feel intense and dramatic. It's not just I swing/roll for damage, you swing/roll for damage, rinse / repeat-- the combatants have tactical maneuvering choices and the tide of the battle can swing as one dueler gains advantage over another through superior swordplay and footwork. It is Epic!

Have you ever met someone for the first time, but you feel like you've known them your whole life -- and you become instant best friends? I had that same feeling when I stumbled upon Honor + Intrigue. It's my new favorite RPG.

If you love swashbuckling action, treacherous political intrigue and eldritch horror, you should check out Honor + Intrigue. You won't be disappointed.

The Honor + Intrigue Core Book has a fantastic magic system for powerful black magic, with corrupted mages in league with demonic Patrons. Reminds of Elric. "Aid me, Ariorch!"

However, if you are looking for a more heroic version of Honor + Intrigue's magic system for your game's swashbukling PCs, Intriguing Options #4 Spells and Spell Casters is FANTASTIC!

It still has the 3 tiers of Spell Power levels- but heros are encouraged to learn "spells" as opposed to being to manipulate reality however they like.

It is a nice balance of ease of use for players to use spell casting characters, but not too powerful that magic wielders will overpower their martial swashbuckling companions.

Lots of fun magic items and ideas for adding more fantastic elements to your Honor + Intrigue adventures.

I just discovered Honor + Intrigue a couple of weeks ago and absoutely LOVE IT! I'm the type of GM that prefers sandbox-style campaigns-- the random story generators in this supplement are great resource to generate creative ideas on the fly for swashbuckling action and intrigue.

Big fan of the Gambit minor action!

I also like the alternate/optional rule suggestions. I haven't tried them out yet, but the "Defend thyself" option of letting players roll to defend attacks against them sounds like another great way to keep players engaged in combat by allowing them to roll more dice.

Great resources to spark creative inspiration and additional rules and options to allow less or more "crunch" to your games, depending on your preferred play style.

Bash! Ultimate Edition is not the Superhéro RPG of choice in my gaming group it's Supers RED but still I've bought BASH UE a few years ago and I was curious enough about this Awesome Powers Omnibus to buy it. I was not disapointed :) .

A lot of stuff in there: mainly all the powers from the various Awesome Powers series but to my surprise, also a few erratas and rule corrections.

This book is a little gem if you are a Bash GM so don't hesitate to buy it, it will improve your games options a lot!

For the last few days, I have soloed my way through All Hallow’s Eve from BAM! Basic Action Magazine #1 (25 pages, free at DriveThruRPG). The system that I used to play it was Bash! Basic Action Super Heroes (Original Edition). I used SoloCutz (same place) as the solo engine. I did use the six characters that are included in the RPG rules.

So, the first scene was investigation (crime scene). The second scene was combat. Things really got interesting with the third scene. The P.C.s were up against a litch-lord. My White Witch cast a magical duel arena spell. The litch cast wizard tower. The end result – both teams ended up in the White Mausoleum. The White Witch was still with Baby Face, but all of the other characters were on their own. This could have ended badly if they ran into the lich too soon. They did have a chance to explore 21 rooms full of challenges, tests, and a combat. They did find the lich’s weakness (a coin from a sorority house). They used it to incapacitate the lich, they tossed him through the black portal, they found the exit, and arrived back to their home city. The final scene is where the sorority girls find their lives getting back to normal after the coin disappeared from the necklace around the sorority president’s neck. The White Witch took the most damage, so she is ready for some R&R to recover from her wounds.

Give this exciting game a try!

For the last few days, I have soloed my way through All Hallow’s Eve from BAM! Basic Action Magazine #1. The system that I used to play it was Bash! Basic Action Super Heroes (Original Edition). I used SoloCutz (DriveThruRPG) as the solo engine. I did use the six characters that are included in the RPG rules.

So, the first scene was investigation (crime scene). The second scene was combat. Things really got interesting with the third scene. The P.C.s were up against a litch-lord. My White Witch cast a magical duel arena spell. The litch cast wizard tower. The end result – both teams ended up in the White Mausoleum. The White Witch was still with Baby Face, but all of the other characters were on their own. This could have ended badly if they ran into the lich too soon. They did have a chance to explore 21 rooms full of challenges, tests, and a combat. They did find the lich’s weakness (a coin from a sorority house). They used it to incapacitate the lich, they tossed him through the black portal, they found the exit, and arrived back to their home city. The final scene is where the sorority girls find their lives getting back to normal after the coin disappeared from the necklace around the sorority president’s neck. The White Witch took the most damage, so she is ready for some R&R to recover from her wounds.

Give this exciting adventure a try!

Probably one of the best swashbuckler rpg there is, definitely the best I've seen.

Honor + Intrigue takes the core engine of Barbarians of Lemuria and adds stuff on top of it that makes it even better, while keeping the game simple and fast to learn. Combat has a bit more meat to it, adding maneuvers and dueling styles that add a lot of fun and make different characters actually feel different in play. The strong guy uses brute force, the charismatic guy makes flashy moves, and the smart guy brings a gun to a swordfight.

The game is well balanced, with every trait being useful in combat. One problem I had with Barbarians of Lemuria was that every character had to have at least one or two points in agility if you want to make them a decent fighter; Honor + Intrigue doesn't do that. Instead, every character can contribute to the fight.

There are some fun ways the system enforces the swashbuckling tropes: one is the use of Stunts to take out multiple pawns (the nameless mooks), which has the player come up with a way to take out a group of people by using the attribute they want. For example, you could pull a carpet from under a group of guards to sweep them off their feet and knock them out, or shoot that chandelier above them that seems to always be there whenever there's a big fight.

Also, using Advantage is a fun way to replicate combat where neither side hits the other, but one yields ground until they're at their opponent's mercy. Think of Dread Pirate Roberts against Inigo Montoya: nobody is actually hurt during the whole fight, but the victor is clear.

One more and I stop: I liked that the list of Boons and Flaws is more than just "You get a bonus dice at doing that thing, you get a penalty dice at the other thing" but some are more narrative bonuses/hindrances, like being part of a Dueling School or having an Incompetent Servant, and they give you a little bonus whenever they give you big problems.

The biggest flaw I can think of for Honor + Intrigue is the art. The oil paintings are fine, but the original art is a bit ugly (as you can see in the cover art). It didn't detract from my enjoyement of the game, but then I don't personally care much for the art in general.

Overall, completely recommended, whether you want a campaign with Musketeers, Pirates, 17th century occult hunters or more.

After the thorough diappointment that was 7th Seas Second Edition, I went searching for a set of rules that would give me and others the swashbuckling fun we wanted. We thought about homebrewed DnD5e but it wasn't exactly the kind of environment for that in the game's resume. I read a few Reddit threads mentioning using Honor + Intrigue's system in 7th Sea's world and decided to peek at it.

The system itself is pretty simplistic at first but broadens out. Unlike most systems where you're working from a broad list of stats and narrowing it down to skills, you're doing the inverse where stats are narrow but the skills are broad. The career system basically takes traditional rules and says they're more like guidelines really. Instead of a hard and fast skill system, you have a career where you can make an argument to the GM that your character would know how to do some basic smithing because you were a farm boy and sometimes farmboys have to know how to make and shoe a horse. If you successfully argue your position you can then use the career points to add towards the roll. If you don't have a crafting career at all though, you're likely not going to be able to justify your character being able to make a blackpowder rifle out of no where.

The GM is encouraged to work with the players in the rules which is a nice additive. I can say without a doubt there will be rule lawyers who fight this method but it will be an uphill battle for them.

The combat seems clunky at first, and the initiative system I feel could be handled better with just a traditional roll order, but ultimately I'm fine with it as is and just use RAW methods.

The 2d6 system keeps the flow simple and math light. Two base stats + 2d6 to equal 9 or more. Its that simple. Combat is two relevant stats versus 9 as well. If the enemy has a defense stat of 1, then that just gets added to the base 'versus' and it becomes 10 you have to beat. Most everything is like this.

Where I find things get interesting is the Advantage system where you can win a battle without either side ever drawing blood. The moments where the good guy manages to keep the enemy pushed back and back until they're on their butt with a sword at their throat? You can recreate that easily here and can give plenty of GM narrative opportunities and give players plenty of space to role play.

Some of the wording in the book gets a little confusing and it took me a few read-throughs to fully understand combat but once I did it was easy enough to explain to my players.

One spark of criticsm that I'm not sure is really criticsm is that I wish there was more content. I'm hoping for either an expansion or Honor + Intrigue 2 of sorts where it has a more fleshed out fantastical element, where there are magical pieces that could be suited. As it stands the book leaves a lot of that up to GM imagination. Its easy enough to have a Pirates of the Caribbean style epic but beyond that you're wandering into waters not yet charted. Even if its just another expansion, please give us more.

Ultimately its a great pick up and play game with lots of pirating fun to be had. Solid foundation with unique mechanics in the Advantage system. If the Dueling styles interest you, definitely check out the add-on Duelist's Guide where they go more in depth with each style and give more of a draw to them. Full package runs you about 24 dollars which for a good pirate feel, its done well at that price.

Simply the best swashbuckling RPG you'll ever play. One of the best RPGs I've ever played at all, let alone in genre. Highly recommend.

Hello,

This review is based on reading only. I have not yet played the game.

Bash does not seems to be a complicated RPG. The basic book contains all what is needed to play and run the game : character creation with small and not overwhelming budget, easy rules to play (if you know multiplications), a lot of powers to choose, good advice for the game master, a setting chapter who describes 10 of the most used comics settings and how to implement them in play and a lot of already made heroes and villains for all power levels covered by the game.

It is a game I could run somehow in the future. My only small gripes are : Hit Points, I don’t think Hit Points is a good thing in a superhero RPG and the tactical aspect of the game which, I think is playable without a battlegrid but seems to requires one anyway.

I love using this supplement. Whether I need a character on-the-fly or I have an idea for one, I can easily find the class's basic description and quickly flesh him/her out. And the idea of the "Classic Combo" suggestions is a good way to recreate characters from other media. There are even a couple of classes I hadn't considered before! This is a great modular add-on for the fun BASH: Fantasy or BASH: Legends of Steel games.