D10 Ravenloft - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

D10 Ravenloft

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
zombiegleemax
Jun 21, 2004 19:14:59 I posted this on White Wolf's Ravenloft Forum and decided to repost it here for the hell of it.

To make a long story short I much prefer White Wolf's D10 system-particularly Dark Ages and am looking to convert Ravenloft to that system. I own Dark Ages: Vampire, and have Dark Ages: Inquisitor in the mail, additionally I own about 10 Ravenloft products from both 2nd Ed. and 3rd.

The reason I wish to convert is the fact that I believe the storyteller system to be much more geared towards roleplaying and gothic horror than Ravenloft's current system which is geared almost exclusively towards hack-n-slash. And no matter how far Ravenloft tries to separate itself from a normal hack-n-slash D&D setting it faces certain hurtles.

Anyway, from what suggestions I've gathered thus far I've decided:

-I'm getting rid of the Vampire clans. Instead i'm converting them to the different types of Vampires found in Denizens of Darkness and the Ravenloft Core Rulebook. Generation will now represent age instead of distance from Caine. Since I don't plan on having PC's run Vampires like in DA: V I will probably create Vampires on a need to have basis rather than ironing out a specific creation system. Disciplines will be decided upon by the type of Vampire.

-Humans will likely be generated with Inquisitor rules (as far as attributes and abilities goes) and I will probably use the true faith system for Cleric/Crusader/Priest type characters. Other characters, including Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, etc will be generated solely by attribute and ability allotment. There will be no classes as this merely hinders roleplaying and defeats the purpose of the storyteller system.

-Magic. Magic will be handled solely by disciplines. I thought about using the Dark Ages Mage system but I do not own the book and do not have the money to purchase a book just to use a small part of the system out of it. Since Magic is often rare and my campaigns have averaged about a Mage every other game I will grant Magic abilities (one or two dots in a discipline) or a per character basis (perhaps depending on the characters background and how much effort he/she's put into the character and roleplaying). Perhaps Mages will need to discover the arcane arts and I will not let them start with it. Not sure. Either way "regular" Mages as perceived in D&D will possess Thaumaturgy paths or perhaps another discipline (I could see a Mage discovering the secrets of Celerity or Potence, etc.). Necromancers would be aptly handled with Mortis.

-Monsters will be generated using the DA: Vampire core book. Vampires as already mentioned will be generated as a Dark Age Vampire character (attribute/ability/Virtue-wise) but rather than picking a Clan they will have a template for the type of Vampire it is. Age will affect what Generation it is (default will be 12 for a newly made Vampire). Disciplines will be granted individually to fit the Vampire (I rarely use Vampires and If I do its not just a combat encounter or dungeon crawl "boss" it's a reoccuring character at the center of the meta-plot) but may have suggestions associated with its type. I am unsure whether to keep Ghouls as what they are in DA: V, or change their stats slightly to represent Zombies/Ghouls (of course no Vampire blood then).

Demons may be generated with the suggestions in the DA: Vampire book as well as Fae, Lupines, etc. If I do not use the Ghoul stats as Zombies then I will certainly need to make write-ups for several types of Walking dead. I may go with the types detailed already in D&D (Zombie/Ghoul/Skeleton) or make my own types as that would be interesting. I do have Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead and have not gotten too many chances to use that in the past when I ran 3e games...that could come in handy :D.

Anyway, sorry for the long long post but if you've stuck it out this far I thank you. Basically I'm looking for suggestions in the above mentioned fields and anything you could possibly think of that might need covered.

For those of you D&D players who are confused by this and have never had the pleasure of playing a white wolf game you are truly missing out. If you enjoy Gothic Horror moreso than Fantasy check out Dark Ages Vampire for a truly horrific setting and system. And if you still love the Ravenloft setting and history like me, port it like i'm attempting to do. Thanks for your time.
#2
zombiegleemax
Jun 21, 2004 21:34:43 I'm an avid vampire player turned Ravenloft fan...so when I have some time, got to go now...I think I'd be interested in this project.
#3
zombiegleemax
Jun 22, 2004 0:50:27 Personally I love the mages and I think you should keep them.

One thing about d+d is the class system...you're getting rid of levels and hit points and that is the most powerful thing about the d10 system.

I would work around the thamaturgy system for diciplines...make a "main" dicipline for each school of magic, conjuration, divination, transmutation, etc.

Then make paths that represent the different spells.

Since d+d spells get exponentially more powerful as you go up in level you'll have to tweak them but its all good since d10 dicipline powers get exponentially more powerful as well.

fighters/rangers/rogues should all get diciplines as well.

In fact everyone should get diciplines...

They should be the special abilities that set them apart as the different "classes"...face it vampire is a really good rp system but it still has classes in the form of clans...it still works. The thing that makes the fighter actually fun to play is the 3e feats, let them have diciplines.

In fact games like baldur's gate, dark alliance uses a dicipline like system, although its very basic and kind of crappy since its geared for ease of playing a video game. Each spell or special class feature is a dicipline that you put points into.

That way all the characters can have the same allotment of starting points and they just decide where it will go.

and you would still have a class divide only not officially b/c the magic would use things like the mental attributes to roll, and the physical diciplines would use the physical attributes instead

Monsters in a d10 world would be much more detailed and memorable than a d20 monster so working out all kinds of conversions isn't necessary...but I'd work out at least 10 varying types of monsters to get a feel for how the conversions would work.

from low power to high power, from simple to complex.

The other thing to think about is power levels...if you want the players to play a mortals game then thats fine and dandy...but with things like clerics and mages and just the way d+d is set up you'd want to have something else.

Handling diciplines over 5 would be tough. V:tm has a great way of limiting it...and V:da lets you get up to 6 early on but at a price...how would you convert the basically high level powers to suit your ends?

For the sake of consistency I would think that it would be important to have rules to have spells higher than say 5th level...in fact the dicipline system might correspond well to spell levels.

I'll give you an example

Main Dicipline:

Transmutation
(Of course each main school would have a main path that went along with it with optional sub paths so that a transmuter would have an edge over those that try to gain spells from multiple schools)
Paths:
Change Body
* Enlarge/Reduce Person
** Bull's Strength/Cat's Grace/Bear's Endurance
*** Gaseous Form (It makes sense, the 3rd power always sucks)
**** Polymorph
***** Baleful Polymorph

Also one of the great things about changing it to d10 would be that saving throws would just be resisted throws...And each spell/dicipline would have its own success ratings.

Of course not every spell needs to be represented...5 to 15 spells from each school would be enough for the low level spells.
#4
zombiegleemax
Jun 22, 2004 11:59:33 Humanity is the perfect replacement for powers checks. I hate the current system for powers checks...it just doesn't make sense.

Paladins would require a large amount of humanity to maintain their status.

There could be 'static' diciplines, ie feats as well...many diciplines in v:tm don't require blood points spent and it could be true in ravenloft d10...or there could be other requirements, like for the evasion ability, expend a willpower point to require the next dodge based action to get 3 successes over your dodge or it does no damage instead of half.

You could make up a system for mana points...or you could use the quintessence rules from mage...I have the mage book around here somewhere I can't quite remember what the rules are like.

Since clerics are supposed to get more spell selection than mages I would make all of their spells paths...that lets them buy the spells easier.

And give favoured ratings for "domain" diciplines, ie clan diciplines.
#5
zombiegleemax
Jun 22, 2004 14:09:07 Some interesting ideas but I really do not want to give everyone disciplines. I wish more to keep the power balance similiar to that of Vampire where Mortals will have a hell of a time defeating their Supernatural foes. I wish for it to be more roleplaying envolved and the game to flow like Dark Ages Vampire within the setting of Ravenloft.

While giving every class discplines surely would work and could very well be balanced and effective I do not think I am going to do that. It just seems like its separating the PC's into classes and I want to keep the system class free. And while yes Vampire clans do kind of separate the Vampires themselves into classes it is not distinct classes as they can learn other discplines if taught (or just by spending points if your storyteller is lenient).

The magic idea is a good one although that will prove a lot of work, which is not exactly a problem, but balancing issues could be hard to tackle. After some thought I think i'm going to just download Dark Ages: Mage when I get my computer set up at my new house (on my brothers now) and copy the magic system over into the word document i'll be gathering all the conversions in. Yes yes I know, I'm anti-piracy and own over 200 CD's and don't download music or anything but I feel I've given Whitewolf much of my money and if I bought the Mage book I'd only use a small part of it and be paying for a lot of the setting which I don't want. Besides if I didn't download it I wouldn't buy it anyway.

From what i've heard the DA: Mage system is rather free flowing and leaves room to create your own spells, only giving you a power base to how strong of spells you can create. This free-form type system would be perfect and sounds like it puts D&D's pick specific spells system to shame.

One other problem i've already encountered, I've been reading through the old Nightmare Lands boxed set (I plan on using this in my Ravenloft campaign i'll be running sometime in the future) and was trying to think how I'd convert D&D's penalties to stats. For instance a -2 or a -4 to Strength should translate to what in White Wolf terms? I was possibly thinking that White Wolf stats were 1/5th the score of D&D stats but this doesn't work out very well. For instance a 2-3 is average in D10 while a 10-11 is average in D&D. Now times 2 by 5 and you get 10...which works...unfortunately times 3 by 5 and you get 15...which is a decent stat for an adventurer. Hmmmm.
#6
zombiegleemax
Jun 22, 2004 19:39:45 depends on what you consider roleplaying. I consider v:tm to be heavy rp and it has diciplines...nothing wrong there. If you want to play a mortals game where everyone can't really do anything special at all I think you're looking at the wrong system. MofRD or Call of Cthulu (sp) might be better up your alley.

Vampire Dark Ages gives significantly more powers to the pcs than V:tm does. I don't really know what you're getting at.
#7
zombiegleemax
Jun 22, 2004 19:46:07 oh and as far as +/- work a -2 would be -1 in d10, -4 would be -2...

Remember that -2 doesn't always have the same effect...if you need a 17 on a 20 and you get -2 to that then suddenly it halves your chance of success. If you need a 10 on a 20 and you get -2 then it only lessens your chance of success by 1/5th.

And in d10 you get to pair an attribute with an ability and then roll a number of dice. The DC if you will of the roll significantly effects how many successes you are going to get...not really how many dice you throw. Requiring a 9 means that each die you throw has a 1/5 chance of success...requiring a 6 which is the standard difficulty means that each die has a 1/2 chance of success. Thats why there are hardly any difficulties of 10, b/c that halves the chance of success again...

And remember that you need to get 3 successes for a full success. So it takes 3 in an attribute and 3 in an ability to get a full success on an average difficulty.
#8
zombiegleemax
Jun 22, 2004 20:07:53 I forget the d10 term for difficulty so I'll just call it DR

Conversions...

DC 10 = DR 4...this is an easy task, you can take 10 on it or easily roll a 4. You need 4.3 dice to succeed.
DC 15 = DR 6...dc 15 is the standard difficult task in d+d, 6 is the standard difficulty rating. You need 6 dice to succeed
DC 20 = DR 8. You need 10 dice to succeed.
DC 25 = DR 9. You need 15 dice to succeed.
DC 30 = DR 10
DC 35 = DR 11 (a 10 followed by a 6)
etc

Remember that in D+D you either succeed or you fail, in d10 there are varying degrees of success.

In D+D a slightly above average score with a full 4 ranks in a skill lets you succeed on a regular basis against DC 15, same in vampire, 3 and 3 lets you succeed on a DR 6.

If you are going to apply a -2 penalty in D+D you are effectively increasing the DC by 2...so a DC 17 lessens to succeed 40% of the time...5 dice on a DC 6 yields 2.5 successes. -4 on a DC 15 means you succeed 30% of the time, 4 dice on DC 6 yields 2 successes.

So there you go.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Jun 21, 2004 19:14:59	I posted this on White Wolf's Ravenloft Forum and decided to repost it here for the hell of it. To make a long story short I much prefer White Wolf's D10 system-particularly Dark Ages and am looking to convert Ravenloft to that system. I own Dark Ages: Vampire, and have Dark Ages: Inquisitor in the mail, additionally I own about 10 Ravenloft products from both 2nd Ed. and 3rd. The reason I wish to convert is the fact that I believe the storyteller system to be much more geared towards roleplaying and gothic horror than Ravenloft's current system which is geared almost exclusively towards hack-n-slash. And no matter how far Ravenloft tries to separate itself from a normal hack-n-slash D&D setting it faces certain hurtles. Anyway, from what suggestions I've gathered thus far I've decided: -I'm getting rid of the Vampire clans. Instead i'm converting them to the different types of Vampires found in Denizens of Darkness and the Ravenloft Core Rulebook. Generation will now represent age instead of distance from Caine. Since I don't plan on having PC's run Vampires like in DA: V I will probably create Vampires on a need to have basis rather than ironing out a specific creation system. Disciplines will be decided upon by the type of Vampire. -Humans will likely be generated with Inquisitor rules (as far as attributes and abilities goes) and I will probably use the true faith system for Cleric/Crusader/Priest type characters. Other characters, including Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, etc will be generated solely by attribute and ability allotment. There will be no classes as this merely hinders roleplaying and defeats the purpose of the storyteller system. -Magic. Magic will be handled solely by disciplines. I thought about using the Dark Ages Mage system but I do not own the book and do not have the money to purchase a book just to use a small part of the system out of it. Since Magic is often rare and my campaigns have averaged about a Mage every other game I will grant Magic abilities (one or two dots in a discipline) or a per character basis (perhaps depending on the characters background and how much effort he/she's put into the character and roleplaying). Perhaps Mages will need to discover the arcane arts and I will not let them start with it. Not sure. Either way "regular" Mages as perceived in D&D will possess Thaumaturgy paths or perhaps another discipline (I could see a Mage discovering the secrets of Celerity or Potence, etc.). Necromancers would be aptly handled with Mortis. -Monsters will be generated using the DA: Vampire core book. Vampires as already mentioned will be generated as a Dark Age Vampire character (attribute/ability/Virtue-wise) but rather than picking a Clan they will have a template for the type of Vampire it is. Age will affect what Generation it is (default will be 12 for a newly made Vampire). Disciplines will be granted individually to fit the Vampire (I rarely use Vampires and If I do its not just a combat encounter or dungeon crawl "boss" it's a reoccuring character at the center of the meta-plot) but may have suggestions associated with its type. I am unsure whether to keep Ghouls as what they are in DA: V, or change their stats slightly to represent Zombies/Ghouls (of course no Vampire blood then). Demons may be generated with the suggestions in the DA: Vampire book as well as Fae, Lupines, etc. If I do not use the Ghoul stats as Zombies then I will certainly need to make write-ups for several types of Walking dead. I may go with the types detailed already in D&D (Zombie/Ghoul/Skeleton) or make my own types as that would be interesting. I do have Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead and have not gotten too many chances to use that in the past when I ran 3e games...that could come in handy :D. Anyway, sorry for the long long post but if you've stuck it out this far I thank you. Basically I'm looking for suggestions in the above mentioned fields and anything you could possibly think of that might need covered. For those of you D&D players who are confused by this and have never had the pleasure of playing a white wolf game you are truly missing out. If you enjoy Gothic Horror moreso than Fantasy check out Dark Ages Vampire for a truly horrific setting and system. And if you still love the Ravenloft setting and history like me, port it like i'm attempting to do. Thanks for your time.
#2 zombiegleemax Jun 21, 2004 21:34:43	I'm an avid vampire player turned Ravenloft fan...so when I have some time, got to go now...I think I'd be interested in this project.
#3 zombiegleemax Jun 22, 2004 0:50:27	Personally I love the mages and I think you should keep them. One thing about d+d is the class system...you're getting rid of levels and hit points and that is the most powerful thing about the d10 system. I would work around the thamaturgy system for diciplines...make a "main" dicipline for each school of magic, conjuration, divination, transmutation, etc. Then make paths that represent the different spells. Since d+d spells get exponentially more powerful as you go up in level you'll have to tweak them but its all good since d10 dicipline powers get exponentially more powerful as well. fighters/rangers/rogues should all get diciplines as well. In fact everyone should get diciplines... They should be the special abilities that set them apart as the different "classes"...face it vampire is a really good rp system but it still has classes in the form of clans...it still works. The thing that makes the fighter actually fun to play is the 3e feats, let them have diciplines. In fact games like baldur's gate, dark alliance uses a dicipline like system, although its very basic and kind of crappy since its geared for ease of playing a video game. Each spell or special class feature is a dicipline that you put points into. That way all the characters can have the same allotment of starting points and they just decide where it will go. and you would still have a class divide only not officially b/c the magic would use things like the mental attributes to roll, and the physical diciplines would use the physical attributes instead Monsters in a d10 world would be much more detailed and memorable than a d20 monster so working out all kinds of conversions isn't necessary...but I'd work out at least 10 varying types of monsters to get a feel for how the conversions would work. from low power to high power, from simple to complex. The other thing to think about is power levels...if you want the players to play a mortals game then thats fine and dandy...but with things like clerics and mages and just the way d+d is set up you'd want to have something else. Handling diciplines over 5 would be tough. V:tm has a great way of limiting it...and V:da lets you get up to 6 early on but at a price...how would you convert the basically high level powers to suit your ends? For the sake of consistency I would think that it would be important to have rules to have spells higher than say 5th level...in fact the dicipline system might correspond well to spell levels. I'll give you an example Main Dicipline: Transmutation (Of course each main school would have a main path that went along with it with optional sub paths so that a transmuter would have an edge over those that try to gain spells from multiple schools) Paths: Change Body * Enlarge/Reduce Person Bull's Strength/Cat's Grace/Bear's Endurance * Gaseous Form (It makes sense, the 3rd power always sucks) ** Polymorph *** Baleful Polymorph Also one of the great things about changing it to d10 would be that saving throws would just be resisted throws...And each spell/dicipline would have its own success ratings. Of course not every spell needs to be represented...5 to 15 spells from each school would be enough for the low level spells.
#4 zombiegleemax Jun 22, 2004 11:59:33	Humanity is the perfect replacement for powers checks. I hate the current system for powers checks...it just doesn't make sense. Paladins would require a large amount of humanity to maintain their status. There could be 'static' diciplines, ie feats as well...many diciplines in v:tm don't require blood points spent and it could be true in ravenloft d10...or there could be other requirements, like for the evasion ability, expend a willpower point to require the next dodge based action to get 3 successes over your dodge or it does no damage instead of half. You could make up a system for mana points...or you could use the quintessence rules from mage...I have the mage book around here somewhere I can't quite remember what the rules are like. Since clerics are supposed to get more spell selection than mages I would make all of their spells paths...that lets them buy the spells easier. And give favoured ratings for "domain" diciplines, ie clan diciplines.
#5 zombiegleemax Jun 22, 2004 14:09:07	Some interesting ideas but I really do not want to give everyone disciplines. I wish more to keep the power balance similiar to that of Vampire where Mortals will have a hell of a time defeating their Supernatural foes. I wish for it to be more roleplaying envolved and the game to flow like Dark Ages Vampire within the setting of Ravenloft. While giving every class discplines surely would work and could very well be balanced and effective I do not think I am going to do that. It just seems like its separating the PC's into classes and I want to keep the system class free. And while yes Vampire clans do kind of separate the Vampires themselves into classes it is not distinct classes as they can learn other discplines if taught (or just by spending points if your storyteller is lenient). The magic idea is a good one although that will prove a lot of work, which is not exactly a problem, but balancing issues could be hard to tackle. After some thought I think i'm going to just download Dark Ages: Mage when I get my computer set up at my new house (on my brothers now) and copy the magic system over into the word document i'll be gathering all the conversions in. Yes yes I know, I'm anti-piracy and own over 200 CD's and don't download music or anything but I feel I've given Whitewolf much of my money and if I bought the Mage book I'd only use a small part of it and be paying for a lot of the setting which I don't want. Besides if I didn't download it I wouldn't buy it anyway. From what i've heard the DA: Mage system is rather free flowing and leaves room to create your own spells, only giving you a power base to how strong of spells you can create. This free-form type system would be perfect and sounds like it puts D&D's pick specific spells system to shame. One other problem i've already encountered, I've been reading through the old Nightmare Lands boxed set (I plan on using this in my Ravenloft campaign i'll be running sometime in the future) and was trying to think how I'd convert D&D's penalties to stats. For instance a -2 or a -4 to Strength should translate to what in White Wolf terms? I was possibly thinking that White Wolf stats were 1/5th the score of D&D stats but this doesn't work out very well. For instance a 2-3 is average in D10 while a 10-11 is average in D&D. Now times 2 by 5 and you get 10...which works...unfortunately times 3 by 5 and you get 15...which is a decent stat for an adventurer. Hmmmm.
#6 zombiegleemax Jun 22, 2004 19:39:45	depends on what you consider roleplaying. I consider v:tm to be heavy rp and it has diciplines...nothing wrong there. If you want to play a mortals game where everyone can't really do anything special at all I think you're looking at the wrong system. MofRD or Call of Cthulu (sp) might be better up your alley. Vampire Dark Ages gives significantly more powers to the pcs than V:tm does. I don't really know what you're getting at.
#7 zombiegleemax Jun 22, 2004 19:46:07	oh and as far as +/- work a -2 would be -1 in d10, -4 would be -2... Remember that -2 doesn't always have the same effect...if you need a 17 on a 20 and you get -2 to that then suddenly it halves your chance of success. If you need a 10 on a 20 and you get -2 then it only lessens your chance of success by 1/5th. And in d10 you get to pair an attribute with an ability and then roll a number of dice. The DC if you will of the roll significantly effects how many successes you are going to get...not really how many dice you throw. Requiring a 9 means that each die you throw has a 1/5 chance of success...requiring a 6 which is the standard difficulty means that each die has a 1/2 chance of success. Thats why there are hardly any difficulties of 10, b/c that halves the chance of success again... And remember that you need to get 3 successes for a full success. So it takes 3 in an attribute and 3 in an ability to get a full success on an average difficulty.
#8 zombiegleemax Jun 22, 2004 20:07:53	I forget the d10 term for difficulty so I'll just call it DR Conversions... DC 10 = DR 4...this is an easy task, you can take 10 on it or easily roll a 4. You need 4.3 dice to succeed. DC 15 = DR 6...dc 15 is the standard difficult task in d+d, 6 is the standard difficulty rating. You need 6 dice to succeed DC 20 = DR 8. You need 10 dice to succeed. DC 25 = DR 9. You need 15 dice to succeed. DC 30 = DR 10 DC 35 = DR 11 (a 10 followed by a 6) etc Remember that in D+D you either succeed or you fail, in d10 there are varying degrees of success. In D+D a slightly above average score with a full 4 ranks in a skill lets you succeed on a regular basis against DC 15, same in vampire, 3 and 3 lets you succeed on a DR 6. If you are going to apply a -2 penalty in D+D you are effectively increasing the DC by 2...so a DC 17 lessens to succeed 40% of the time...5 dice on a DC 6 yields 2.5 successes. -4 on a DC 15 means you succeed 30% of the time, 4 dice on DC 6 yields 2 successes. So there you go.