D&D (UGH!)

[hybris]

with the possible exception of the Metamorph

Agreed.

 

Hm. One could make a point for the Druid filling this role, at least in a limited way (i.e., animal shapes from level 5 on and elemental shapes from level 16 on, plus some spells).

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by hybris

Agreed.

 

Hm. One could make a point for the Druid filling this role, at least in a limited way (i.e., animal shapes from level 5 on and elemental shapes from level 16 on, plus some spells).

Exactly, but none of the other base classes have this capability. The difference between an Archetype and a Meta-Archetype is that the Meta-Archetype spans categories, whereas Archetypes are categories.

 

Technically the Monk has some Metamorphic capabilities if you broaden the definition sufficiently, in as much as they undergo physical changes as they progress, but thats really borderline.

[Killer Shrike]

Also, forgot to mention this before, but Im home now and glanced over some of my notes on the subject, and one of my little points to myself that I wrote down was to look into handling Hit Points at least partially as Combat Luck in HEROs.

 

3e hit points are as much 'managing to not get seriously injured' as they are 'absorb actual damage'. The text is very clear on this in the PHB. Combat Luck is perhaps the best/most straight forward built-in way to do this in the HERO System. It does have the corrolary of stacking with real armor and contributing to "TANK WARS", but I was thinking that if I rebuilt Combat Luck from the ground up and included Ablative in the work up to indicate a limited ability to keep avoiding damage and called it something like "Toughness", it would dovetail nicely.

[Melchior777]

First of all, thank you all for your valuable information. Including Tesuji, even if your tone was a bit pretentious. Special thanks to Killer Shrike for the comprehensive response. So here it is, the first night after our first game with the new rule conversions. Verdict by the players... 4 loved it, 1 hated it. The one that didn't like it stated the reason was that there wasn't any combat. My response was that the group had decided initially that this would be a political game. Hence, little combat. Since he's playing a "tank" (Read as cleric of a warrior god.) I understand this. I have left it open for him to make a new character at any time.

 

The toolkitting conversions that I did from Hero worked great. It made the NPC's very realistic and provided a lot of history and personal depth on their part. This is one of the primary features of the "Game of Thrones" that I'm trying to capture. I feel that is a major feature in Mr. Martin's books, the level of detail and number of characters. Currently, I'm sitting at just under sixty fully fleshed out NPC's with stats, histories, and a timeline to cover all of their activities so the players have plenty to get involved in. Don't take this to mean that the timeline is set. Having the players mess it up is part of the plan. I found that the best way to make up for the lack of social skills in D&D was to use the knowledge skills in the Oriental adventures book as a basis instead of over using Diplomacy, sense motive, etc. Toolkitting also provided a much easier way to create the players homes, castles, forts, weapons, etc. As this game is a continuation of the previous Lord of the Rings campaign, many of the players had used their money to buy such things.

 

My players are already beginning to see the advantages to Hero. Although, we are still split down the middle on Hero vs. D&D, they admit that the materials I've produced for them using Hero are much more realistic. I've taken the approach of allowing the players to get as specific or as general as they want with their characters. There are, of course, the limits of the game world itself, i.e. the Middle Earth. But beyond that, if they want to tell me each specific type of armor they are wearing and where all of their weapons are for quick access, they can. Even better, I have rules that actually give them some advantage or at least some kind of effect for such detail.

 

As for disadvantages, I haven't built that into the character creation simply for the fact that all the characters already existed. Besides, I've heard both sides of the arguement about disads. One side says that you shouldn't reward players for taking disads, since it encourages taking to many unrealistic disads to maximize the number of points. I've had long experience with this while GMing Gurps and any White Wolf game. On the other hand, rewarding players for creating characters with more of a personality is a good thing. Either way, the GM has to look over the character write up to make sure things are square.

 

Follow ups will continue, if you are interested. I still say, D&D is a good combat system. The feats, skills, and spell lists create an easy framework to play in. Problems lie in the scaling from one character class to the next. There are certain classes that are just plain superior to other classes of the same level. Can you do the same thing with Hero? Yes, certainly. You can create a combat god with 150 pts. that could wipe the floor with 300 pt. characters that were not so combat inclined. By "balance" I wasn't implying that this couldn't be done. It can be done with ANY system. Instead the point system for Hero provides a SCALE by which you can measure everything, and I'm not just talking about combat. Bases of a certain point total have a certain scale by which you could measure other bases to them. Similarly characters can be compared by the point totals. A quick look at the sheet can tell you if the character was made using effective techniques. If you have two characters that are of the same point totals, they may have different focuses, different areas where they are better or worse, but they are on the same scale. This is what I was looking for, an effective method of measure. This, with experience, will provide a means of translating ideas into a comparable scale to game with. Ok, end of that. No more, I promise.

 

Anyway, the group had fun, that's what's most important. Well, most of the group.

 

BTW- Tesuji, if you would like to know the full character creation guide lines that I made for this campaign, including available races, spells, languages, skills, character classes, prestige classes, history specifics, etc., please send me you e-mail address and I will be happy to mail it to you. I didn't think it was appropriate to post all five pages of text just for you.

[hybris]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Exactly, but none of the other base classes have this capability. The difference between an Archetype and a Meta-Archetype is that the Meta-Archetype spans categories, whereas Archetypes are categories.

*nods* You're right, of course; I was just kicking around ideas, is all...

[grymlocke]

try this....

 

Play one more session of D&D...

 

At the end of wich, collect the character sheets for "administrative maintenance" and before the next session...CONVERT the characters.

 

when the players arrive to continue....

 

just a thought....

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

bumping this back to the top for my own nefarious reasons (Mwa ha ha)

[CrosshairCollie]

Actually, you *can* do something pretty close to a Metamorph in D&D3. There's a Shifter Prestige Class (predominantly for Druids) that lets them eventually turn into stuff like undead or elementals or plants ... very whacked out, but fun.

 

I've done conversions before, both to and from D'n'D 2/3 and Hero 4/FH; the main thing is to get the character to feel right rather than hassing details, as has been said before. The main thing is that the D'n'D characters need to HAVE a personality. I award XP for good RP in my D'n'D games, sometimes more there than there is for fighting. I'm quirky like that. If you play a flat, no-personality sword-swinger, well, no RP award for you. Somewhat carrot-and-stick-ish, but sometimes that's what it takes. We usually spend more time on RP and puzzle-solving and interaction than we do on beating down evil stuff anyway.

 

I would recommend, if you do the 'collect and convert' deal, to make sure you take some time to discuss why you converted this thing into that, and be prepared to make some adjustments for the player's vision of the character. It has to be a cooperative venture.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie

Actually, you *can* do something pretty close to a Metamorph in D&D3. There's a Shifter Prestige Class (predominantly for Druids) that lets them eventually turn into stuff like undead or elementals or plants ... very whacked out, but fun.

 

I didnt mean that there are no metamorph types in D&D; as I mentioned above I was discussing the basic Champions archetypes as meta-archetypes in D&D/High Fantasy. To be a meta-archetype, a concept has to span more than 1 category of characters. As Druids are the only base class with metamorphic abilities (aside from a very nominal 'transformation' by high level monks into an outsider), Metamorph isnt really a meta-archetype prevalent in D&D. Its only found in one category. The Druid could be classified as a Metamorph-Mystic, of course, but aside from a strained "Metamorph" added to the Monks' Martial Artist-Mystic or perhaps a very specialized Arcanist using Tranmutation spells to affect himself (Metamorph-Mystic) you cant really apply Metamorph freely outside of the Druid class when looking at the PHB.

 

However, it occured to me after I wrote the original post that if you include the Psionics Handbook for consideration, the Psychic Warrior and Psionicist can be tailored into nominally Metamorphic types as well, so at that point all of the Champions archetypes translate fully into High Fantasy/D&D meta-archetypes.