Doing a conversion...
Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 1:48 pm
Howdy. New to C&C, but I've been around to a number of different sites including the old message boards, Dragonsfoot, Serleran's site, Grey Elf's site, and more. Spent a fair amount of time reading different things, and I've even got some ideas on some of the things I'm going to include. Having started off with the Basic set some 18 years ago, I'm pretty comfortable with houseruling things.
I do have a couple of questions though, for those that might have some better experience than I do with C&C. A bit of a background explanation is in order though.
Way back in the day, I was a big fan of the Palladium Fantasy game. They had a different approach to things, and it was nice to have an alternative to what everyone knew. Plenty of people like to say that the PFRPG (1st Ed) wasn't much more than K.S.'s houserules to AD&D. Whether it's true or not, it was something that popped up in my head as I was reading C&C and I figured, "Why the heck not? Sure, it won't be _exactly_ like playing it, but maybe that will be a good thing." And as a side note, this would be the Revised version of Palladium Fantasy, for any of those that know the difference. The 2nd Ed is a pretty different critter in a number of respects, and I wouldn't try to convert it.
So now, I'm here looking for a bit of guidance. I've already got ideas for converting the classes, Grey Elf has a Psionics system I'm looking at and there's a number of other bits I think I can use. The thing is though, I'm not looking for AD&D/D&D alternatives to the Palladium material. I'm looking to core out the Palladium system, and make the setting run the way I want. I'm not looking to complicate C&C, just add in a few rulebits to help give it that flavor I liked with rules that work the way I want.
So the first thing, is character generation. They used a system where different races rolled a different number of dice for certain attributes, to reflect their advantages/disadvantages. Humans were the default, with 3d6 for everything. So instead of Elves getting a +1 Dex, -1 Con, they would instead have 4d6 to roll for Dex and 2d6 for Con. So what I'm thinking of doing is to use that style of character creation, with an extra 1d6 drop the lowest die. Added to _all_ the characters, it shouldn't unbalance things. Especially since that means I'd be dropping the racial modifiers; an Elf getting 5d6 (drop the lowest one) and then adding a modifier to that seems a bit excessive.
Any thoughts on this?
Second thing is attribute scale. Does allowing people to have score exceed 18 "break" anything? I do realize again that such a thing wouldn't really work well within many D&D style worlds, but it's not a "flavor" question so much as it is a mechanical one.
Last bit is related to armor. Palladium did their ToHit roll and you had to roll over the armor's rating in order to actually apply damage to a person. Roll the rating or lower, and you'd damage the armor instead. I always liked that sort of mechanic, although I realize it does up bookeeping a bit. Any problems with doing a similar thing under C&C? I know there's also the variant rules off the d20 Hyperlinked SRD that talks about having armor be a Damage Reduction instead. While I can see how a Damage Reduction approach to armor could slow combat, if it were modified so that the amount of Damage reduced was instead applied to armor, that might counter-balance things a bit.
Thanks for any input, and thanks to the Trolls for making such a nifty game. All else fails, I can always run C&C straight up and just use the setting. Loses some flavor, but still a different enough setting than any of my group has played in.
I do have a couple of questions though, for those that might have some better experience than I do with C&C. A bit of a background explanation is in order though.
Way back in the day, I was a big fan of the Palladium Fantasy game. They had a different approach to things, and it was nice to have an alternative to what everyone knew. Plenty of people like to say that the PFRPG (1st Ed) wasn't much more than K.S.'s houserules to AD&D. Whether it's true or not, it was something that popped up in my head as I was reading C&C and I figured, "Why the heck not? Sure, it won't be _exactly_ like playing it, but maybe that will be a good thing." And as a side note, this would be the Revised version of Palladium Fantasy, for any of those that know the difference. The 2nd Ed is a pretty different critter in a number of respects, and I wouldn't try to convert it.
So now, I'm here looking for a bit of guidance. I've already got ideas for converting the classes, Grey Elf has a Psionics system I'm looking at and there's a number of other bits I think I can use. The thing is though, I'm not looking for AD&D/D&D alternatives to the Palladium material. I'm looking to core out the Palladium system, and make the setting run the way I want. I'm not looking to complicate C&C, just add in a few rulebits to help give it that flavor I liked with rules that work the way I want.
So the first thing, is character generation. They used a system where different races rolled a different number of dice for certain attributes, to reflect their advantages/disadvantages. Humans were the default, with 3d6 for everything. So instead of Elves getting a +1 Dex, -1 Con, they would instead have 4d6 to roll for Dex and 2d6 for Con. So what I'm thinking of doing is to use that style of character creation, with an extra 1d6 drop the lowest die. Added to _all_ the characters, it shouldn't unbalance things. Especially since that means I'd be dropping the racial modifiers; an Elf getting 5d6 (drop the lowest one) and then adding a modifier to that seems a bit excessive.
Any thoughts on this?
Second thing is attribute scale. Does allowing people to have score exceed 18 "break" anything? I do realize again that such a thing wouldn't really work well within many D&D style worlds, but it's not a "flavor" question so much as it is a mechanical one.
Last bit is related to armor. Palladium did their ToHit roll and you had to roll over the armor's rating in order to actually apply damage to a person. Roll the rating or lower, and you'd damage the armor instead. I always liked that sort of mechanic, although I realize it does up bookeeping a bit. Any problems with doing a similar thing under C&C? I know there's also the variant rules off the d20 Hyperlinked SRD that talks about having armor be a Damage Reduction instead. While I can see how a Damage Reduction approach to armor could slow combat, if it were modified so that the amount of Damage reduced was instead applied to armor, that might counter-balance things a bit.
Thanks for any input, and thanks to the Trolls for making such a nifty game. All else fails, I can always run C&C straight up and just use the setting. Loses some flavor, but still a different enough setting than any of my group has played in.