Pathfinder for C&C?????????

daddystabz · Post by **daddystabz** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:04 am

My players are extremely interested in Pathfinder and we currently are playing in a test campaign online to give the system a spin. I am thinking they are going to want to play this as one of the games we play face-face weekly. However, the game is very rules-heavy and I am thinking of looking into converting it into C&C for the rules-light approach.

I am trying to find suggestions on how to approach all this. What ideas would you all have for converting classes, spells, feats, skills, etc. into the much more rules-light C&C system?

Thanks in advance!
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:57 am

Depends how crunchy you want your game.

I generally take a rules light approach when converting. If a C&C class/race can be used with only changing the descriptive text to give it a different flavor? I generally go that route.

For feats, I'd suggest converting only feats that enhance or improve a character's ability to do something, not feats that allow actions already workable under the SIEGE engine. Two Weapon Fighting is a good example of a feat that enhances. Power Attack is an example of an unnecessary feat under the SIEGE Engine.

Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Sat May 23, 2009 9:29 am

As far as hard conversion resources, there are conversion "guidelines" out there. I don't have a link handy, but I'm sure someone will come along with one shortly. It'll probably be a conversion from d20 to CnC, but that will work well enough for PF.
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daddystabz · Post by **daddystabz** » Sat May 23, 2009 10:53 am

P.S. I love your avatar pic, Lord Dynel. I am about to purchase the complete animated series soon.
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Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Sat May 23, 2009 5:25 pm

daddystabz wrote:
P.S. I love your avatar pic, Lord Dynel. I am about to purchase the complete animated series soon.

Thanks, daddy! Yep, love me some D&D cartoon. The boxed set is awesome, IMHO, with the little tidbits of information (make sure you look at the individual episodes, as there you will find some of those tidbits) and the Animated Series Guidebook is cool, too. Finally having "official" stats for Hank's bow (among others) was nice.
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CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Sat May 23, 2009 10:04 pm

Quote:
Hello, my name is Chris Rutkowsky and I did the conversion of the Mysterious Tower from d20 to Castles and Crusades, and wrote an original module for C&C for Goodman Games.

Joe forwarded me an email in which a person wanted a guideline for converting a certain module (Crypt of the Devil Litch) to C&C. I personally don't have this module, however I can give you guys a quick guideline that I used myself to make things for Mysterious Tower work for C&C.

The easiest thing to convert is the monsters. All you need to do is look up the same monster in the C&C Monsters and Treasure book! You can mark the pages in the module and your M&T book with color coded sticky notes so that you always know what page to turn to in a hurry and don't have to bother with making notes.

If the monster you want to convert is not in the Monsters and Treasure Book, I would consult an older edition of D&D-- my personal favorite being the Basic D&D Rules Cyclopedia. If you don't have it you can buy the pdf for 5 dollars at rpgnow.com or buy a used one on ebay.

The monsters presented in the RC are 90% compatable with C&C rules. The only thing that you would need to actively convert is armor class and saving throws. To convert D&DRC armor class to C&C, simply subtract the given AC from 19. Remember that subtracting a negative number is the same thing as addition. So a D&D monster listed as AC 5 would be AC 14 in C&C (19-5= 14). A monster with AC -3 would become AC 22 in C&C (19+3 =22). Saves are easier to convert. If the creature saves as a fighter, thief, dwarf, or halfling it is Physical prime. If it saves as an elf, cleric, or wizard it is mental prime. Use the creatures HD as the bonus to all rolls (including saves, attacks, etc). Simple, eh?

If using 1st or 2nd Edition AD&D as a resource, armor class is also easy to manage. Simply subtract the listed AC from 20. So an AC 5 creature would be AC 15 in C&C and an AC -3 character would be AC 23 in C&C. Saves convert the same as in basic D&D.

If you want to convert DIRECTLY from d20 system, use the same Hit Dice and die type as the creature already has, but get rid of the bonus hit points. So a creature listed as 5d10+15 HD in d20 would convert to 5d10 in C&C. You should also take away any bonuses to the damage dice listed. If the bonus listed is higher than the die, just make the attack use the die type, and double it. So a creature listed as doing d4+5 damage, change it to 2d4. If a creature had d6+3 dmg, just convert it to d6. These changes are because hit points and damage are harder to come by in C&C than they are in d20. If a creature's good saves are FORT or REF, it is Physical prime. If it is WILL the creature is mental prime. If they are all good saves, it is physical and mental prime.

Converting Saves

Older editions of D&D had 5 saving throws. C&C has 6 and they are just about the same, except the C&C saves are directly linked to stats. The old D&D saves were as follows and converts to C&C as presented below:

Paralysis-- Str

Breath Weapon (and area of affect spells like fireball)-- Dex

Poison, Death-- Con

Wands, Staves, Wands (and Illusions)-- INT

Spells (except illusions and area of affect spells like fireball and charm or sleep spells)-- WIS

Enchantment spells (sleep, charm, etc) and fear= CHA

Converting d20 saves is a little trickier and involves a judgement call by the CK converting it. You just have to use some logic as to which converts to what.

FORT-- STR or CON (depending on the effect)

REF-- DEX

WILL--INT, WIS, or CHA (Depending on the source of the spell/effect, CK's call)

Converting DCs to Challenge Levels.

I use a simple formula for this. I assume that DC 15 is the average DC of a check in d20. In C&C, the average difficulty of a task is CL 0. So every 1 the DC is higher than 15 in D20, the CL is 1 higher. So a DC 19 check would convert to a CL 4 check. For every 1 the DC is lower than 15 in D&D, the CL is -1. So a DC 12 check would be CL -3 in C&C. The CL of course is added to the base of 12/18 depending on if the character is prime in the required stat.

Converting Skill Checks

Simply make the skill check into an attribute check for the skill that is normally tied to that attribute. You may want to give certain classes a bonus in this, or even restrict who can try based on class. For instance a Search check would simply convert to an INT check, which anybody can do, but a Survival check to track somebody should be limited to rangers or maybe druids (with a penalty as it is not a class ability for them).

Converting damage from traps--

If the trap is related to a spell, look up the C&C equivilent and adjust the effect accordingly.

If the damage is related to a weapon, look up that weapons damage in C&C and convert it.

If damage is listed as a die with a damage bonus exceeding the die types, add another die to the damage instead. If it has a damage bonus less than the die type, get rid of the bonus damage.

So if a trap is listed as doing 5d6+7 damage, convert it to 6d6 damage for C&C. If it does 5d6+4 damage, it just does 5d6.

Well, that is all that comes to mind for now. Let me know if you think of any other questions about conversion.

I have a pdf by Jason Vey but this pretty much captures the essence.

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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Sat May 23, 2009 11:21 pm

Pretty easy to do IMO... shouldn't be too much issue if you follow the spirit of C&C when doing the conversions...

M
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daddystabz · Post by **daddystabz** » Sun May 24, 2009 12:02 am

I have that same d20 conversion guide for C&C also but I am a bit more concerned with how to translate the classes with all their feats (see fighter) and everything else.
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun May 24, 2009 12:14 am

Me, I'd use the C&C equivalents.

A C&C Fighter is a d20 fighter for C&C.

Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Sun May 24, 2009 12:51 am

DangerDwarf wrote:
Me, I'd use the C&C equivalents.

A C&C Fighter is a d20 fighter for C&C.

I disagree, good dwarf. A d20 fighter is on a much higher power level. But yeah, I would just use the C&C equivalents and not owrry about things too much.
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun May 24, 2009 12:53 am

Lord Dynel wrote:
A d20 fighter is on a much higher power level.

And so is d20.

Therefor the C&C fighter is the equivalent in C&C.

Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Sun May 24, 2009 12:56 am

DangerDwarf wrote:
And so is d20.

Therefor the C&C fighter is the equivalent in C&C.

Yes, considering you lower the overall power level of the game going from d20 to C&C and therefore the power of the fighter is lowered from d20 to C&C as well.

The way you worded it in your post didn't make sense to me...I thought it sounded like a blanket comparsion.
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun May 24, 2009 12:59 am

I'm prolly getting sloppy in my posting. Its been a long work week and still got a day to go.

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Sun May 24, 2009 1:02 am

Also, if you want to include d20 feats and skills and convert the classes (which C&C already has equivalents of), I'd just say play Pathfinder and just knock some of the bloat out of it. It'd prolly be less work.

Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Sun May 24, 2009 1:08 am

DangerDwarf wrote:
Also, if you want to include d20 feats and skills and convert the classes (which C&C already has equivalents of), I'd just say play Pathfinder and just knock some of the bloat out of it. It'd prolly be less work.

Agreed.
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
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CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Sun May 24, 2009 2:48 am

daddystabz wrote:
I have that same d20 conversion guide for C&C also but I am a bit more concerned with how to translate the classes with all their feats (see fighter) and everything else.

Treebore had a saying (and I'm just paraphrasing here) ; "The list of feats are just a guide for what your character can do".

My impression of what he meant is that you can use the feats to give you ideas for what your characters may attempt without getting hemmed in by limiting yourself to just those few feats on your sheet.

Power Attack is a good example. Just tell your CK you are going to swing extra hard with this rounds attacks. Many feats center on mechanical details and will not translate into a C&C game. Any feat dealing with AoOs, extra attacks and their modifiers, or using a move action to make an attack, etc. This covers a wide swath of d20 territory. It is simply extranneous.

So now that we have dropped quite a few feats simply due to the lack of necessity for them anymore, so too we may drop a classes dependance on feats to make them stand out. In a game system where AoOs are not used (for example), you dont need to expand a class ability to increase their potential in that area. Simply put, without the need we need no feats.

A Pathfinder or D&D fighter will still have advantages over other classes post-conversion in their specialty. Especially since single attack rounds are the rule (with a few notable exceptions). This makes high hit die classes a lot more powerful then those used to d20 would at first think.

I just read an interesting article in Crusader concerning the addition of secondary skills. (Crusader #18) Basically you rolled a d4 and determined how many you recieved. You could do this with d20 style feats as well. Count up the number of feats each class gets. Group up classes that have values closest to each other (by this I mean # of feats). Assign a die to each various grouping. Roll the die on creation and determine how many extra feats a character gets.

Or Use a pass/fail die check at each level up. The classes that had the most feats in Pathfinder will have higher chances of success. With each success a player may select another feat/power/advantage.
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Lord Dynel · Post by **Lord Dynel** » Sun May 24, 2009 11:17 am

That's pretty good advice, Charlie. Ironically I had a long discussion with my players last night about C&C and d20. One guy was waiting for me to bring up feats and using them as a guideline for things to do in C&C (and this is the same guy that originally had "issues" in switching from d20 to C&C).

His rebuttal was, "If I'm going to look to the 3.5 PHB to give me an idea what I want to do in C&C, I'd rather just play d20." I tried to explain to him that a) you can do "similar" things to feats in C&C without committing to one feat and 2) they're guidelines, they're not feat selections for C&C. But I think he was waiting for me to make that comparison again, so he could use that statement.
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Sun May 24, 2009 12:08 pm

Lord Dynel wrote:
But I think he was waiting for me to make that comparison again, so he could use that statement.

And who can argue with that kind of logic? I mean, why bother with reading national geographic when you can just go to the amazon.
There is a reason the d20 system was made to reflect a four encounter per day set-up. With all the extra bloat that comes with their combat system that is all your going to get accomplished in an evenings' worth of gaming.

Next time your friend wants to say something like that just say "okay". And when he gets his phb3.5 out you whoop out your AD&D2 player options book and go "whoops, we're going to need a system that can incorporate both here, huh?"
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anglefish · Post by **anglefish** » Sun May 24, 2009 4:15 pm

Lord Dynel wrote:
That's pretty good advice, Charlie. Ironically I had a long discussion with my players last night about C&C and d20. One guy was waiting for me to bring up feats and using them as a guideline for things to do in C&C (and this is the same guy that originally had "issues" in switching from d20 to C&C).

Ah. but there was also a 3.5 book that had "skill tricks" or something like that. Essentially another way to spend more skill points and feat slots to do cool things. If you happen to have that book, you can put that on the table too and say, "You can look through this book, too. The cool thing is that all of this is available to everyone at the table and no one has to give up feat slots or skill points to do it. It also all runs of the same mechanic."

Quote:
His rebuttal was, "If I'm going to look to the 3.5 PHB to give me an idea what I want to do in C&C, I'd rather just play d20." I tried to explain to him that a) you can do "similar" things to feats in C&C without committing to one feat and 2) they're guidelines, they're not feat selections for C&C. But I think he was waiting for me to make that comparison again, so he could use that statement.

Yes, because getting to choose what you want from round to round off a list is worse than getting only 8 things off the list. There's a reason the 3.X sorcerer has a smaller spell list than the wizard.

Sounds like your player is out of his comfort zone for three usual reasons:

* The usual "guarantee" that 3.x game gives players. "You can always do X,Y and Z and the GM can't say "no" unless it's a very compelling reason."

* No need to think out side of the box on your tactics when your character is specialized.

* But I got all of these d20 book laying around that I spent money on. None of them are "good" anymore if I'm playing d20.

(Remind me to tell you the story sometime where a GM put the next game world up for a vote and I said, "I hope you like Forgotten Realms." The next session, guys were brining in books that were older than my son.)

The most logical answer a player gave me for why he perfered d20 over CnC was that "After our session, I can still play the game at home with d20 by fiddiling wth my character build."

When I mentioned he could do character diaries or talk with other players about party's plans throughout the week, he said it wasn't his style.

On that note, I told him it wasn't my style to change up my adventure at the last minute because players keep changing their PC builds every week.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sun May 24, 2009 4:28 pm

CharlieRock wrote:
Treebore had a saying (and I'm just paraphrasing here) ; "The list of feats are just a guide for what your character can do".

My impression of what he meant is that you can use the feats to give you ideas for what your characters may attempt without getting hemmed in by limiting yourself to just those few feats on your sheet.

Power Attack is a good example. Just tell your CK you are going to swing extra hard with this rounds attacks. Many feats center on mechanical details and will not translate into a C&C game. Any feat dealing with AoOs, extra attacks and their modifiers, or using a move action to make an attack, etc. This covers a wide swath of d20 territory. It is simply extranneous.

So now that we have dropped quite a few feats simply due to the lack of necessity for them anymore, so too we may drop a classes dependance on feats to make them stand out. In a game system where AoOs are not used (for example), you dont need to expand a class ability to increase their potential in that area. Simply put, without the need we need no feats.

A Pathfinder or D&D fighter will still have advantages over other classes post-conversion in their specialty. Especially since single attack rounds are the rule (with a few notable exceptions). This makes high hit die classes a lot more powerful then those used to d20 would at first think.

I just read an interesting article in Crusader concerning the addition of secondary skills. (Crusader #18) Basically you rolled a d4 and determined how many you recieved. You could do this with d20 style feats as well. Count up the number of feats each class gets. Group up classes that have values closest to each other (by this I mean # of feats). Assign a die to each various grouping. Roll the die on creation and determine how many extra feats a character gets.

Or Use a pass/fail die check at each level up. The classes that had the most feats in Pathfinder will have higher chances of success. With each success a player may select another feat/power/advantage.

There are a couple of things I do with "feat like actions" to differentiate the various areas of expertise.

First, and probably foremost, I have them use their BtH when the action is combat related, instead of straight level like normal. I do this to allow the fighter to shine more, because believe it or not that +1 does make a difference when enough rolls are made, when I also allowed the fighter to add his adds from specialization the +2 made a difference even more often.

My other benefits are that I do not have to worry about establishing pre requisites for feats like they do in 3E and 4E. Having to make a dice roll to succeed at getting the modifier goes a long ways towards balancing things in and of itself. Plus the few times a truly powerful feat gets used I simply increase the CL to make success a little bit more unlikely, or a lot more unlikely if that is what I think I need to do.

Spell casters. With use of the BtH instead of levels for combat related actions I also get the effect that spell casters SUCK!!!! in relation to fighter types for such actions. However, with spell casters doing spell related actions I allow them to use their level so they will be essentially just as good at what they do as fighters are at doing what they do. So spell casters can turn Fireballs into Iceballs with relative ease equal to how a fighter can try and sacrifice his ease of hitting in order to do more damage on a successful hit (Power Attack, for you 3E grognards).

LD, as for your "look at the list of 3E feats" player, to him I would say, "I only suggest people look at the list of 3E feats when their imagination fails first. When their imagination is up to speed, they will no longer need to refer to the feat lists to get inspiration."
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