Last night (after a two week break) we had our 5th session of AS&SH. I feel like the system is really clicking for me, and two phase combat is feeling a lot more natural.

Prior to playing AS&SH the majority of my group had not played any "old school" games. A few of us had. Convincing them to switch from Pathfinder to AS&SH felt like a pretty big task but I've had some good feedback from it. One of my players said last night "I actually like how deadly it is". This is the week directly following the death of his prior character. The others have commented on various things they enjoy about it too - seemingly to overall satisfaction.

I feel like the illustrations and the assumed setting really enables a vibe that I've found hard to attain with other games. It's strange but the removal of demis makes a big difference in my opinion. There's more of an "aloneness" felt among humanity, rather than knowing they may have other racial allies. Again, mechanically the group has had to get their heads around the different conventions but they have picked it up quickly. I like how you can customise it so readily and add a tasteful level of granularity without bogging down the game in junk. To me it's a really good revision/innovation on AD&D, and it cleans up a lot of the system's ambiguities without detracting from its roots. The classes seem pretty balanced against each other thus far (you guys were right about the berserker!). It's a lot of the small rules that I find myself really enjoying - healing, armour's damage reduction etc.

So thanks Jeff! I'm glad you put this rule set together.