Running a Dragon Age Game With C&C

[GoOrange]

I've finally started playing through Dragon Age: Origins and am loving it. I like a lot of the basic setting tropes (like the Chantry and the Templars, politics reminiscent of game of thrones) and would like to run a Dragon Age game. The rules for the Green Ronin are a bit lackluster in places and it seemed to be an easy fit to use my favorite game, Castles and Crusades.

On cursory glance, it doesn't seem that very many tweaks or house rules would be needed to do this. Specific things like becoming a Grey Warden are easily covered with roleplaying rather than actual game mechanics. Most of the basic races, classes and specializations are covered in C&C already.

About the only thing I could think of right off the bat that would be needed are rules for blood magic and the taint.

Anyone else done this or have any suggestions?

[Breakdaddy]

I've never tried a C&C conversion myself, but I must say that I LOVED Dragon Age:Origins. I'm still sad at what they did to my beloved franchise with DA2.

[GoOrange]

Another problem that I thought of is that the campaign setting doesn't distinguish holy and arcane magic, which could be a problem. Anyone houseruled around this with their own setting?

[Breakdaddy]

It's looking like you might be the first on these boards to try this. I would start with trying the spell point system from the CKG and consolidating some of the spells from the arcane and divine lists into a master list.

[finarvyn]

I bought the Dragon Age game a while back and was impressed with the setting and graphics, but never actually ran the game. With C&C rules, it could be that much better!

Good luck in your conversion, and keep us posted!

[Lord Crimson]

GoOrange - there's a Dragon Age RPG already out there, if you're just looking to play something already adapted to the setting.

They just released the second boxed set for it a month or so back, IIRC.

Wasn't sure if you knew or not.

[finarvyn]

Anyone do more with this? Dragon Age seems like a fun setting, but given a choice I'd rather use C&C rules than the ones in the boxed set...

[Sir Ironside]

GoOrange - there's a Dragon Age RPG already out there, if you're just looking to play something already.

This is an introductory rpg not full-on rules set. It is broken-up into four boxed sets.

[Lord Dynel]

Last I heard, Ironside, it's going to be three box sets, not four. But I don't know if that's still the case or not. That's neither here nor there, though.

I think that, in the setting, there are no "clerics," per se, just mages. Mages have access to healing and such. If I recall, there are four main different types of magic - Entropy, Creation, Primal, and Spirit. I think it would be cool to try to stick to this basis, and break up all the spell lists in C&C adn reorganize them into one spell list, and the spells belonging to one of the four schools (not counting Blood Magic, of course)

So with that in mind, wouldn't religious mages just be the "clerics" of the world? That's not to say that you can't have honest-to-goodness clerics running around, but I actually think it would be a bit more interesting to see a Dragon Age C&C game that would stick closer to the lore/game and use the three class (Warrior, Rogue, and Mage) base with some specialization. That's just my opinion, though - if you're going to do Dragon Age, where priests and holy folk aren't "clerics" as we know them and Mages play such a big role in the world, I'd much rather change C&C to fit that instead of just thowing the DA lore over top the C&C rules.

Just my two cents.

[Sir Ironside]

Last I heard, Ironside, it's going to be three box sets, not four. But I don't know if that's still the case or not.

Click the link and all will be revealed.

That's neither here nor there, though.

Agreed, no reason to derail this thread.

[Lord Dynel]

Last I heard, Ironside, it's going to be three box sets, not four. But I don't know if that's still the case or not.

Click the link and all will be revealed.

I knew I read it somewhere.

That's neither here nor there, though.

Agreed, no reason to derail this thread.

Yep, I should be done with the derailment.

[cuchulainkevin]

I've been toying with converting some of the monsters and classes. The DA system is a liitle wonky because it is not trult % based, but it has some characteristics of it.

Theoretically, in game abilities could go up to 100, but it seems the "epic" abilities require scores of about 40-45.

reducing that by half and then dividing by 1/4 might scale to C&C

the equipment would require some work as there are modifiers to the base armors (light, medium, heavy) that are based on material, ie dragon skin light armor is stronger than studded leather light armor.

I done some conversion of the armors that Ill post later as its on my other computer. Then again, the simplest method would be to hand wave that away and assign magical bonuses to the armor class rules of C&C.

Id stay away from the Green Ronin game, frankly its crap. I really like True 20, but the DA RpG seems like a bastardization that serves no real purpose. Im also not a fan of pricing an introductory set of the rules at $30. I was able to get a half price copy at the Borders closing, and I was still not convinces I got my monies worth.

A better idea for conversion ideas would be the stradegy walkthrough of Origins and Awakening. they have equipment, class, and creature information in there that would pretty easily lend itself to conversion. For the character abilities, Im betting most could be covered by looking at the D20 Srd of feats and finding the closest approximation.

Another good resource would be the Dragon Age wiki, if you can stand the popups. I Javascript disable before I go there myself.

[cuchulainkevin]

wow, some nice Ipad typos in there

[cuchulainkevin]

The conversion notes I had made for ability scores:

Dragon Age ability. C&C
max. 100. 30. Godlike
40. 20. Heroic
20. 15. Exceptional
10. 10. Average
5. 5. Poor

[mordrene]

I like the dragon age game. its simple and fun to play.

for converting to cnc, just use the setting. no need to complicate things. for mages, use a mana system. for monsters, just change names of classics in the MT. if someone wants to play a templar, play a paladin. if someone wants to play a bow using rogue/hunter, sounds like a ranger to me. use the cnc rules to your advantage and keep it simple.