Pregenerated Characters

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

Dragonhelm

Jul 30, 2004 21:56:13
I'm continuing this from the Empire trilogy thread, so as to not hijack it.

Originally posted by Baron the Curse
The only thing I am enjoying now is that at least the Dragonlance products coming out are actual useful supplements, not endless and pointless adventures with pre-made characters like in 2nd Edition.
#2

zombiegleemax

Jul 30, 2004 23:45:30
Id like to see them.....I think it would be something akin to a new version of Unsung Heroes. Id use it as a DL NPC repository. And that my friend is something I could get a lot of use from. Especially those pregens from the Battle Lines and Chaos War modules.
#3

baron_the_curse

Jul 31, 2004 8:51:28
Unsung Heroes, now that’s a supplement I remember fondly. To follow Dragonhelm’s train of thought, I’m not so much against pre-generated characters as oppose to pre-generated characters you have too use in an adventure. How many of you would actually have enjoyed KoD if it required to PCs to use characters from the WoS?

If time permits I think I’ll convert some of the Unsung Heroes characters using the 3.5 E-Tools (to save time). There where some very interesting characters in that supplement, and if you didn’t like anything about it at least it clarified psionics in Krynn.
#4

zombiegleemax

Jul 31, 2004 9:27:57
To those who like lots of NPCs and possible pre-generated characters, we have roughly sixty pages of such goodness in the War of the Lance sourcebook, and held several back for web enhancements!

Jamie Chambers
Sovereign Press, Inc.
#5

zombiegleemax

Jul 31, 2004 9:31:33
I´d be VERY interested! As Serena I´d probably use them as a welcome addition to my DL NPCs. So Dragonhelm why are you wasting your time here? Get workin! ;) The important thing for me in such a revision would be the less known characters. I´m sure the Heroes of the Lance will be featured in official products in the future.

Now that Serena mentioned the Chaos War and Battle Lines modules I was wondering. Are there any 3e stats out there for Sir Elstone Kinsaid - the Lord Knight of Palanthas? He was featured in the 2e Chaos Seeds and Palanthas (SAGA).

Ravenmantle

Edit: Damn Jamie! Why do you always have to be so fast? ;) I´m really looking forward to that product!
#6

Dragonhelm

Jul 31, 2004 11:39:13
Originally posted by Ravenmantle
So Dragonhelm why are you wasting your time here? Get workin! ;)

Lol! I have been, actually.

Check out our characters section on the Nexus.

Cam's got the heroes from the DLE modules covered, and I've done several from the DLQ series. Some of the DLQ heroes need some updating, as I did some prior to the DLCS.


The important thing for me in such a revision would be the less known characters.

Agreed. I'm basically trying to get the module characters, minus Heroes of the Lance and other characters that might be features in Sovereign Press' products. I'm doing some conversions from Unsung Heroes as well.

One thing I'm trying to do is to present some of the characters in a new light. For example, Alyssa Glanowin from Unsung Heroes seemed to be the perfect candidate for the healer class from the Miniatures Handbook. Likewise, Jilani from Knight's Sword seemed to be a good candidate for the sorcerer class. I'm also trying to present some of these characters to where they'd work in the modern era, ergo why Jilani is a sorcerer.

I also did an article on Jasper Fireforge prior to the Age of Mortals with cleric levels (ala Oak Lords and Tales of the Lance). Since stats for Jasper as a Citadel Mystic are already presented in Age of Mortals, I wanted to avoid any copyright issues and just present a quick guide for a quick reverse-engineered epiphany.


Now that Serena mentioned the Chaos War and Battle Lines modules I was wondering. Are there any 3e stats out there for Sir Elstone Kinsaid - the Lord Knight of Palanthas? He was featured in the 2e Chaos Seeds and Palanthas (SAGA).

To my knowledge, no.
#7

ferratus

Jul 31, 2004 11:40:19
Actually, the Forgotten Realms wizards board has NPC stats as their longest running thread. Quite an enjoyable read.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142994

Maybe we should do something like that here for our characters. Who wouldn't want to see stats for Tolandruth, an Anthology character, or Willim the Black? Or perhaps, if you don't like the official version, another perspective.
#8

Dragonhelm

Jul 31, 2004 11:46:02
Originally posted by ferratus
Actually, the Forgotten Realms wizards board has NPC stats as their longest running thread. Quite an enjoyable read.

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142994

Maybe we should do something like that here for our characters. Who wouldn't want to see stats for Tolandruth, an Anthology character, or Willim the Black? Or perhaps, if you don't like the official version, another perspective.

That would be cool.

Also, feel free to submit any characters to the Nexus.
#9

zombiegleemax

Jul 31, 2004 13:44:34
Originally posted by Dragonhelm
Also, feel free to submit any characters to the Nexus.

Done that. It hasn´t come up yet though. But that might be a good thing since I´ve discovered post-submission that there are some flaws in my NPC´s stats.

As for Sir Kinsaid, it would seem that I´ll have to do his stats myself Are there any material on converting stats from SAGA to D&D?

Ravenmantle
#10

Dragonhelm

Jul 31, 2004 13:52:24
Originally posted by Ravenmantle
As for Sir Kinsaid, it would seem that I´ll have to do his stats myself Are there any material on converting stats from SAGA to D&D?

The 5th age boxed set gives some guidelines on how to convert from SAGA to AD&D. I think the key thing would be to simply convert the ability scores, then build from the ground up using the D&D rules. Read over the character entry, and see if there's anything to give some ideas on various rules to use.

Most of my character conversions have been from AD&D to D&D3e. I haven't tackled SAGA to 3e yet, as I'm not the most familiar with the SAGA rules. I may give it a shot sometime soon, though, just for yucks.
#11

zombiegleemax

Jul 31, 2004 13:56:31
Dragonhelm you just have an answer for everything don´t you? ;)

Yeah that might be a logical approach. I´m no expert on SAGA stuff either, so this might prove very interesting :D

Ravenmantle
#12

daedavias_dup

Aug 01, 2004 12:45:20
I have always thought that Raistlin displayed traits of a rogue, given his good slight of hand abilities. Not to mention, every now and then he fries a character in one spell out of nowhere (can anyone say sneak attack spell?). Given the description of the Timereaver spell, Raistline would have to be at least 37th level in wizard to jump from the Cataclysm to the Dwarfgate Wars, he should be well into the epic levels.

My personal build for him is Rogue 3/ Wizard 12/ WoHS 10/ Arcane Trickster 10/ Archmage 5 (at the height of his powers, of course). I do think this is a little high, so it may take some tweaking to get it right. I suppose I could remove the rogue levels and turn the trickster levels into wizard levels and make him just a Wiz 22/ WoHS 10/ Archmage 5, which shaves off three levels, but removes some of the flavor of him.

Edit: Just realized that if he took the Spell Power ability for all five Archmage levels, I could shave off five more levels of spellcaster, making him a Wiz 17/ WoHS 10/ Archmage 5, which is 32nd level, a much more workable version of him.
#13

ferratus

Aug 01, 2004 14:16:05
Raistlin doesn't need Rogue levels. He can simply take sleight of hand as a cross-class skill.

Besides none of the other abilities really match. When does he do a sneak attack for example?
#14

daedavias_dup

Aug 01, 2004 14:23:26
Originally posted by ferratus
Raistlin doesn't need Rogue levels. He can simply take sleight of hand as a cross-class skill.

Besides none of the other abilities really match. When does he do a sneak attack for example?

I would say whenever he jabbed someone in the ribs with the Dagger of Magius, but he could have just been lucky each time. I would say that the spell he blew Gnimish away with in War of the Twins might have been a sneak attack, but that is speculatory of course.

I suppose I could just go with the Wizard 12/ WoHS 10/ Archmage 5 build.
#15

zombiegleemax

Aug 01, 2004 14:31:26
There are several metamagic feats that can account for his seemingly roguish talents with magic. An example could be Quicken Spell, Still Spell or Silent Spell...and as ferratus mentioned his sleight of hand could be the result of a cross-class skill

Something I don´t quite understand is where you get the 40 levels from...? But that´s because of my less than enthusiastic approach to epic level in Dragonlance campaigns...

Ravenmantle
#16

daedavias_dup

Aug 01, 2004 14:37:31
Originally posted by Ravenmantle
There are several metamagic feats that can account for his seemingly roguish talents with magic. An example could be Quicken Spell, Still Spell or Silent Spell...and as ferratus mentioned his sleight of hand could be the result of a cross-class skill

Something I don´t quite understand is where you get the 40 levels from...? But that´s because of my less than enthusiastic approach to epic level in Dragonlance campaigns...

Ravenmantle

In order for Raistlin to use the Timereaver spell to jump forward in time from the Cataclysm (0PC) to the Dwarfgate Wars (39 AC), he would need to have a caster level of 1 per year he jumped forward, so he would need a 39. I am giving him a few years buffer because he had time to build his own army before participating.

Yeah, but to the sleight of hand skills, I think skill focus(sleight of hand) and lots of ranks would cover that.
#17

zombiegleemax

Aug 01, 2004 15:02:55
Yeah...the Timereaver spell. I must admit that I find the level vs. year thing quite troubling. And I intend to revise the spell so that it is still an extremely demanding spell to cast, but also so that it doesn´t require insanely epic level characters to perform the spell...just how I am to accomplish that I don´t know yet...I know that it doesn´t require a level 39 caster to travel 1 year through, but the implications of epic level play is there, and I just don´t like it! But this epic-level ranting doesn´t really belong here...sorry about that D-helm!

I checked out your healer character - Alyssa. I must say I really enjoyed seeing a different approach than the standard cleric of Mishakal. And the Healer class seems to have been made specifically with Mishakal in mind...though that´s probably not the case...it´s great that there are some who use material other than the obvious (PHB, DMG, MM, DLCS, AoM, BoK).

Ravenmantle
#18

Dragonhelm

Aug 01, 2004 18:02:55
Originally posted by Ravenmantle
But this epic-level ranting doesn´t really belong here...sorry about that D-helm!

Lol! No prob.

Wait until War of the Lance is out and discussions on Raistlin's stats begin in earnest!

I checked out your healer character - Alyssa. I must say I really enjoyed seeing a different approach than the standard cleric of Mishakal. And the Healer class seems to have been made specifically with Mishakal in mind...though that´s probably not the case...it´s great that there are some who use material other than the obvious (PHB, DMG, MM, DLCS, AoM, BoK).

Agreed. I think the archmage is like that as well. Originally seen in a Realms product, then the DMG, but the High Arcana abilities just scream "Wizards of High Sorcery!". :D

One thing I want to do with some of the Unsung Heroes characters is to use modern rules and ideas to breathe some new life in them. A cleric of Mishakal is a dime a dozen, but a healer is something special indeed. Alyssa had extra slots in healing in 2e, which translates nicely into the free skill focus (heal) feat for 3e.

I'll be tackling a few more of the Unsung Heroes characters once Towers of High Sorcery and War of the Lance are released. There's some character options in there that will help to breathe new life into a few of those characters.

On top of that, I'm going to work a bit on trying to add some adventure hooks and ideas to some of the characters. I'll be expanding on some of the histories as well.

I'm not going to make any promises on how many of them I'll get done, but I'll try to get as many as I can.
#19

zombiegleemax

Aug 01, 2004 18:43:53
I remember back in the early 90's there were Collectable Cards from TSR that had full conversions of characters on them. I got a booster pack once and got Sithel, the heir and future Speaker of the Stars from Elven Nations Trilogy (I believe he was a level something Fighter, level something bard or cleric; a standard Baaz Draconian; and a few others of interest in one booster pack I got.
#20

zombiegleemax

Aug 01, 2004 18:48:13
Well I wouldn´t mind pitching in, converting some of them Actually it´d be lots of fun! You hit the bullseye when you say "breathe new life into them". 3e really gives us the opportunity to make these characters very unique, with the dozens of PrCs, the many feats and so on and so forth. It will add tons of detail and adventure hooks to the characters.

Ravenmantle
#21

Dragonhelm

Aug 01, 2004 20:45:58
Originally posted by Ravenmantle
Well I wouldn´t mind pitching in, converting some of them Actually it´d be lots of fun!

The more the merrier, I say!


You hit the bullseye when you say "breathe new life into them". 3e really gives us the opportunity to make these characters very unique, with the dozens of PrCs, the many feats and so on and so forth. It will add tons of detail and adventure hooks to the characters.

Another thing I like doing is taking some of these characters, and showing how they can be used in multiple eras. Alyssa Glanowin, for example, can be used after the War of the Lance or the War of Souls. I also allowed the possibility of her training at the Citadel of Light.

So try to think not only about adventure hooks, but ways of allowing the characters to be used in multiple eras.