Ghaaa! im at it again!

[Lakritsploppen]

Hi, all ihave an confession to make, i have bought the 4th ed... just out of curiosity, and i must say the basic promise in making a character, being a dm seems good. It seems much more streamlined until you start making a character- it took me hours!!! not in the consept it was easy, its all the writing & flipping the in the players handbook that really made me go nuts!!!!

I had my issuses with MRQ but when it came to make my first character it took me around 20 minutes. To write down the character in 4th it took me hours!!!

But now to the question if any of my players (next time we start playing an new campaign) whants to play an dragonborn or a thiefling- how would you stat those to?
And/ or are there any "short distant teleportation spell" that i can rip of...
We will probably play an "generic" fantastic fantasy world next time, and i let the players deside their consepts, and im sure an eladrin elf will appear, sooner or later.




,

 

[Utgardloki]

I wonder, if you are in the wrong forum, since this is the Runequest Forum. Are you intending to compare 4th Edition D&D to Runequest, which would probably result in a long thread, or do you want advice for running your 4th Edition game?

If it is the latter, you can get a lot of good advice on one of these forums: http://www.dragonavenue.com./ or http://okayyourturn.yuku.com/

You'll also find lots of arguments there over whether 4E is superior to 3E or the worst thing to happen to D&D in history. Here, you'll mainly find people claiming that any edition of D&D was a bad idea and 4th Edition does not make anything better.

If the former, then I'd have to say that 4th Edition D&D is a lot different from Runequest. Everything that the anti-D&D people here hate about 3rd Edition has been amplified in 4th Edition, and everything that the 4th Edition fans this is an improvement over 3rd is the opposite of how things are in Runequest.

Myself, I am a fan of both 3rd Edition and Runequest. I can see what they were trying to do in 4th Edition, but I think they botched their Game Design role. It looks good because it is new and shiney, but it is so inherently flawed that I don't think I would ever try to run a game in that system. My next game is going to be 3rd Edition, but one day, in MY life time, I plan to run a Runequest game.

Many of the 4th Edition fans are raving about how easy it is to create a character, especially compared to 3rd Edition. Reading the forums above, I think that if they dislike 3rd Edition that much, they'd probably HATE Runequest.

The difference is that in Runequest, you have no guidance in how to make your character; all you have is a bunch of skills and you have to decide how much to put in each skill. There are no classes to tell you what to do, and you have to decide your own destiny. It is really easy in Runequest to make a character who either so specialized he doesn't have much chance of surviving in the field, or else is so spread out that she can't really be effective at anything.

(On the other hand, since in Runequest, about the only thing you have is a list of skills, that makes things a little simpler than D&D were there are skills and feats and powers and classes.)

In 4th Edition, moreso than 3rd, you have classes to guide you as to what to do. This is both the number one reason for loving 4th Edition and the number one reason for hating it. To summarize much discussion on the other boards:

4th Edition is AWESOME! You just pick a class, and it gives you your list of powers, the skills you can take, and what tactics you can use. Every character has a decent chance in both combat and skill challenges No more feeling inadequate because my Dervish can't get through the Iron Golem's DR or my Wizard is out of spells.

I'm sure that the time it takes to make a character will go down once you get used to a game. At www.dragonavenue.com, they are talking about cards they've made which have the powers written on them, so instead of flipping through the book, the player can just look through the cards and pick out what he wants. (The cards are designed to be used in the game, but I can see that they'd be very handy in character creation, too.) The 4E fans say it is much easier to make high level characters, which should be helpful for the DM.

4th Edition SUCKS! Everything is dictated by your character class. Multiclassing has been gimped. You can now only take two classes at most, and you practically need a lawyer to do that! And each class is so much more rigid and flexible than before! You can't make a decent archer unless you're a Ranger, and if you are a Ranger, then you either HAVE to rely on bow and arrow, or else use two weapons. There is no flexibility. I am sticking with 3rd Edition.

And there you have it. If you love Runequest, you'll probably hate 4th Edition D&D. If you love 4th Edition D&D, you'll probably hate Runequest. I predict a lot of 3rd Edition players will probably switch to Runequest.

(I tried to get the guy at my local store to stock Runequest stuff, but I couldn't promise I'd buy the books because I actually have what I need already. I don't know what can be done to get the books into the stores, but I think if they get stocked, they'll probably sell.)

 

[elgrin]

Following on from the comparison above, I'm GMing MRQ and going to be involved in DnD4 as a player.For me the whole difference between the systems is the class system. It is so defining, that compared to the cult/society afiiliations in RQ (of any ed.), it strangles the creative juices of the players. On the other hand, for a game where you don't have to consider why your character is here/what they are doing/why, then DnD is simple fun.

 

[Sinisalo]

The artwork and graphic design is beautiful. I buy Magic the Gathering and PathFinder *only* for the prettiness something Mongoose should consider. I may buy D&D just for those reasons and no I'll never ever play it. I'm not slagging off the design at Mongoose only saying D&D 4 is the nicest looking FRP book I've seen and the investment they made in graphics will pay off.

 

[Lakritsploppen]

Sorry if i did not explain the hole Situation..
I'm going to start a new campagin, and we (me) desided that it would be fantasy D&D type. And with the release coming up we read the preview stuff & my players have started to plan their characters for 4th ed style. I have already drawn up the "world" and the "story arc" for a point of light campaign.
So I have after buying the books to 4th. desided that i don't want to run an campagin with that system. Mostly because i think my players won't like it.
But i suspect that they will like the "fluff" (thiefling, dragonborn teleporting elves.)
So i'm going to change some of the stuff i wrote to function in MRQ, and i will try to port some "cool" things over from 4th...

*Eladrins "teleport" are probably be an rune spell, Eladrin characters got the "right rune" integrated.

*Got to stat theThieflings

*Dragonborn probably going to tweak dragonnewts or something

*Minion rules is probably easy to do if the minion looses all hp in one location then is it out. (no resil test)

Spells- well as all spells have changed so much... i will probably just do some "Magic schools" to suit the setting.

So my question was how would you do an Thiefling?
& is there an short range teleport runemagic spell?

phew.... hope that clear things up...

 

[Utgardloki]

I was going to post something about wondering how to port over those 4th Edition powers to MRQ. I'm sure something will occur to me.

My advice is to consider what is the "reality" of the campaign and figure out how MRQ best represents that.

For example, in converting Iron Kingdoms over to RuneQuest, I determined that all the arcane classes were actually drawing on the same power, so I ignored the "Sorcerer" defined in the Runequest Companion, and determined that Sorcerers are runecasters who do not have the Read Magic skill I invented for this conversion, Wizards are runecasters who have the Read Magic skill, Warbards are runecasters who master the Music rune, Gun Mages are runecasters who master the Gun Rune, and Arcane Mekanics master skills that enable them to work their magic into mechanisms with their Machinery rune.

But not everything has to be Runecasting. The Eladrin's fey step power could just be that, a power that they can use, not connected with any rune.

I might introduce runes Fey, Devil, and Star, and convert the Warlock powers to the associated rune. So Dire Radiance becomes a spell that can be cast with the Star Rune, Eyebite can be cast with the Fey rune, and Hellish Rebuke can be cast with the Devil rune. Of course, conversion needs to be done with care with regards to how the game system is different. Instead of doing 3d6 damage for instance, perhaps a the Dread Star spell does 1d6 damage to 1d3 randomly chosen areas.

 

[Utgardloki]

Sorry if i did not explain the hole Situation..
I'm going to start a new campagin, and we (me) desided that it would be fantasy D&D type. And with the release coming up we read the preview stuff & my players have started to plan their characters for 4th ed style. I have already drawn up the "world" and the "story arc" for a point of light campaign.
So I have after buying the books to 4th. desided that i don't want to run an campagin with that system. Mostly because i think my players won't like it.
But i suspect that they will like the "fluff" (thiefling, dragonborn teleporting elves.)
So i'm going to change some of the stuff i wrote to function in MRQ, and i will try to port some "cool" things over from 4th...

*Eladrins "teleport" are probably be an rune spell, Eladrin characters got the "right rune" integrated.

For Iron Kingdoms: Runequest I decided that Sorcerers start out with 1-4 runes that are not only integrated but that they can also access without having a runestone. For other runes mastered, they would have to find the appropriate runestone and master it, and keep a runestone with them in order to be able to cast their spells.

For your game, perhaps Eladrin are already attuned to the Fey rune and don't need to have a physical representation. Or perhaps there is a physical representation present in the eladrins' bones, which an unscrupulous NPC could take advantage of by killing the Eladrin and using her bone.

*Got to stat theThieflings

That should be pretty basic, unless you have a special idea of how you think Tieflings should be. For fire resistance, I'd just ignore the "+ one-half your level" part because Runequest does not have levels and damage does not go up. Perhaps Tiefling characters can increase their resistance by spending hero points, a number of hero points equal to their current resistance increases it by +1. So a tiefling could get fire resistance 6 by spending 5 hero points, 7 by spending 11 points, 8 by spending 18 points, etc. Infernal Wrath can add 1/5 the tiefling's Power score to damage done in the attack, once every six hours.

*Dragonborn probably going to tweak dragonnewts or something

Or you could just convert the Dragonborn over, giving them the ability score and skill adjustments, abilities converted over, etc.

There should be a size chart on the MRQ wiki which allowed you to figure average sizes for a given race. Then just pick a number of dice and modifier to hit near that average.

*Minion rules is probably easy to do if the minion looses all hp in one location then is it out. (no resil test)

Spells- well as all spells have changed so much... i will probably just do some "Magic schools" to suit the setting.

So my question was how would you do an Thiefling?
& is there an short range teleport runemagic spell?

phew.... hope that clear things up...

I'm not sure if it is a good idea to try to run a D&D game in Runquest unless you have a definite setting to convert over, such as Forgotten Realms or Iron Kingdoms. My advice is to run a Runequest game, and port over any D&D ideas that you find intriguing.

So instead of trying to figure out how to port the entire PHB to Runequest which, IMHO would be pointless, only port over the things you really like.

To further aid in sanity, I've evolved a concept of "translate on demand". In other words, rather than try to figure out how to translate every D&D race into Runequest, just translate what you need when you need it. You don't need rules for Eladrin until a PC or NPC Eladrin is needed, unless you want a PC bible that they can use to create their characters with minimum interaction.

Hope this helps.

 

[Lakritsploppen]

Well, i'm was going to run an -Dungeons & Dragons world (light)= over the top actions a la indiana jones, no logic, or wery little logic -lets face it an hollywood action movie. The adventures was going to in the beginning being joined by the players explaining what have happened to them during the last 6 years.

-so now im planning to
1. Do an dark age world (AD 450-900) (no plate mail or very little of it!)
2. Listen to what my players want to play, or would like to be in an "cool/ fantastic" world.
3. remove as much monsters as possible, just keep the classical ones (the ones i have minis to represent at least)...
4. I really don't need to play an d&d game, it will be an MRQ game with some D&D elements in it (purly window dressing)

Thieflings-

normal humans- gains horns (1d6 head butt), tail 1m long.
And will have the Fire rune integrated... (can use its runic powers, others may be tempted to kill and collect it (50% it exists)

Eladrins-

As elves- but 1-2 pts. more size. Now i am looking thru my MRQ. collection after some short range teleport can't seem to find one.. does anyone know about sometihing similar?

Dragonborn-

Probably going to take the dragon newt scout & warrior- lower/ raise their stats.
Give them dragon breath rune spell- and then ready to go..

Check the different gods in 4th make my own cult out of those i would think are worh it..

Rq fluff- make different magic orders.. with "themes" on their spells..
..

 

[Deleriad]

Converting to RQ is both easy and impossible.

If what you want to do is basically run RQ with a few of the races converted over from D&D 4 then that's basically pretty simple.

For example, this is how I would do Eladrin off the top of my head.
1. teleport - this is a trait. It's an encounter power therefore it will cost them Magic Points to use.
2. Meditative Trance. Another trait that allows them to need less sleep.
3. Stats - they're more Intelligent and Dexterous than human norm. They're also magically apt.

Putting it together.
STR 3D6
CON 3D6
DEX 2D6+6
SIZ 2D6+6
INT 2D6+8
POW 2D6+6
CHA 3D6
Move: 4m
Traits: Fey Step, Meditate, Night Sight, Willpower,

Fey Step. As a combat action, the character can spend 1 Magic Point to teleport up to its move rating in metres. It can only teleport to a place it can see. Performing this action does not trigger Free Attacks. As it is quite draining to the character, it must wait until at least 5 minutes have passed before it can do it again.

Meditate. The character can enter a trance that allows it to gain the equivalent of a good night's sleep in just 4 hours. While in a trance, the character remains aware of its surroundings and can emerge from the trance as a free action. Breaking the trance this way means the character does not gain any partial benefits from the trance.

Willpower: The character has a +20% bonus to resist any magic that attempts to dominate it mentally or alter its emotions.

Eladrin cultural background.
Languages: common +50, elven +50

Basic Skill bonuses
Athletics +10, Acrobatics +10, Dodge +10, Lore (Plant) +5, Persistence +5

Pick 2 at +15:
1H Sword, 2H Sword, Rapier, Spear, Staff, Bow

Advanced skills
Lore (Regional)

Pick: 2 from
Artistic Expression, Craft, Dance, Lore, Play Instrument

 

[Lakritsploppen]

Thx!!! asome i really like it, going to try to do The tiefling now:

Tiefling

Str 3d6
Con 3d6
Dex 3d6
int 2d6+8
Siz 2d6+6
pow 3d6
cha 3d6+2
move 4m
traits:
*Blood hunt +5% vs. enemys that are redused to 1hp in bodybart.
*Fire resistance 1/2 damage from fire.
*Infernal wrath for 1mp can attack enemy that has hat you with +5%to hit and do +1d3 extra damage. only usable once in combat (5 min rest between)

Tail 1m. long (extra hit location, hp as arms) got horns may headbutt for 1d4 damage.

is it to much or ??

 

[Deleriad]

I would do something similar for Tieflings. I wouldn't give them a headbutt attack because it seems a little off-flavour for them. Instead I would give them 1 AP of natural armour in the head. I would use the First stage Dragonewt table for hit locations except I would give similar HPs to the tail as to arms. Note that the tail will be a massive weak spot for a Tiefling PC because you're not going to find armour for it meaning it will draw precise attacks from enemies.

Tiefling:
traits Night vision, Fire resistance, Bloodhunt, Infernal Wrath

Fire resistance: creature only takes 1/2 normal damage from Fire (round up) whether magical or mundane.

Bloodhunt: Creature gets +10% to all attacks against any foe suffering a serious or major injury.

Infernal Wrath. Triggered Free reaction. When an enemy causes damage to you, you may spend 1 Magic Point to channel your fury towards that enemy. Until the end of the next Combat Round, you gain +5% to all attack rolls targeting that enemy and you do an extra 1 point of damage in each successful attack. If your POW+CHA is 30 or more, double these effects (+10% to hit and +2 damage.) This effect is very draining and cannot be used again until the creature has rested for at least 5 minutes.

Stats
STR 3D6
CON 3D6
DEX 3D6
SIZ 2D6+6
INT 2D6+8
POW 3D6
CHA 2D6+8

Move: 4m

D20 Hit Location
1-2 Tail
3-5 Right Leg
6-8 Left Leg
9-11 Abdomen
12 Chest
13-15 Right Arm
16-18 Left Arm
19-20 Head

Cultural background.
Languages: common +50, one other +50.

Basic Skill bonuses
Influence +15 Resilience +10 Stealth +15
Pick 1 at +10:
Persistence, Riding, Sleight
Pick 2 at +10
1H Axe, 1H Sword, Bow, Crossbow, Dagger, Polearm, Shield, Spear, Staff, Unarmed

Advance Skills
Lore (Region),
Pick two:
Courtesy, Oratory, Runecasting (Fire)*, Sorcery (Spell)**, Streetwise,

*Character has integrated the Fire rune. The character still only takes half damage from fire (not 1/4) as the effects do not stack.

** Pick one from: Animate Fire, Damage Resistance, Enhance (Cha), Form/Set (Fire),

 

[Deleriad]

While I'm at it, I guess I would do Dragonborn as follows
Dragonborn
STR 3D6+2
CON 3D6
DEX 3D6
SIZ 3D6+6
INT 2D6+6
POW 3D6
CHA 2D6+6
MOV 4m

Traits: lack fine manipulation, Dragon Breath
Lack Fine Manipulation. Dragonborn have claw-like talons that render fine manipulation tasks such as picking locks, repairing complex machines and performing first aid more difficult. Such tasks have a -20% modifier.
Dragon Breath (DEX+POW). The character can spend 1 MP to breathe acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison at a target. The effect has a range equal to the creature’s POW. With this spell, the caster spits a stream of fire at his target. It can be used as both a melee and a ranged attack. If the effect is not dodged or parried with a shield, it inflicts 1D8 points of damage that counts as both magical and its type of damage. The caster must rest at least 5 minutes in order to recharge between uses. Note that the skill represents the creature’s ability to hit with the effect, not the ability to actual summon up the effect.

Languages: Common +50, Draconic +50
Basic Skill Bonuses:
Athletics +10, Resilience +15, Lore (World) +5
Pick 1 at +10
Crossbow, Dagger, Throwing, Unarmed
Pick 2 at +15
1H Axe, 1H Hammer, 1H Sword, 2H Axe, 2H Hammer, 2H Sword, Dagger, Shield
Advanced Skill Bonuses
Lore (regional), Dragon Breath, Survival

 

[Magistus]

Hey Deleriad, do you mind if I take these posts and put them on the MRQ Wiki?

 

[Deleriad]

Hey Deleriad, do you mind if I take these posts and put them on the MRQ Wiki?

Sure.

 

[Magistus]

Sure.

I will get them up later, but thank you.

 

[Deleriad]

Continuing on the theme, you probably also want to slightly modify some of the existing RQ PC races to keep them balanced.

Dwarves can stay as they are in RQ except for an additional new trait:
Stand your ground: Dwarves use their STR to determine whether they have been knocked back, not their SIZ. (Short, hairy legs and a low centre of gravity.)

Elves. RQ elf stats are way out of line and don't really represent D&D sub-Tolkeinesque elves. I would stat them as:
STR 3D6, CON 3D6, DEX 2D6+8, SIZ 2D6+5, INT 2D6+6, POW 2D6+8, CHA 3D6
Move 5m
I wouldn't give them access to the Glorantha-specific Elven longbow.
Other traits:
Group awareness trait could transfer over as life sense.
Wild step: they can move at full speed in slightly adverse terrain, -25% in moderate and -50% in greatly adverse terrain
Elven accuracy: The character can spend 1 Magic Point to channel their focus while making a Precise Attack. When they do so, the usual modifier of -40% is reduced to just -20%. This ability cannot be used again until the character has had at least 5 minutes to rest and recover their focus.

 

[Lakritsploppen]

Deleriad!! Awsome!!! this is looking better & better....
Txs, txs

Dungeons & Dragons Rune Quest edition!!!
On the cover of the players handbook an female mage with wonderbra & a Duck warrior!!



Deleriad, when it comes to monster how did you do it for your Iron kingdoms conversion?

Probably going to use broos as gnolls
orcs,& goblins normal
Bugbears = dark trolls
Kobolds trollkin?

 

[Magistus]

So Deleriad, how would you go about doing a Half-Elf?

 

[Deleriad]

It wasn't me who did the Iron Kingdoms conversions so I can't say anything about that. As for half elves, they're a bit of an odd case in that they seem to have been made to be almost as flexible as humans with a few extras. I would deal with that by simply giving them more skills than normal during character creation.

So: a half-elf character can either use the half-elf cultural background or any non-primitive human cultural background. If using a human cultural background, a half-elf character gets an extra +30 free skill points to spend during character generation.

Half-Elf
STR 3D6
CON 2D6+6
DEX 2D6+6
SIZ 2D6+5
INT 2D6+6
POW 2D6+6
CHA 2D6+8
Move 4m
Traits: Night sight
Languages: Common +50, Elven +50, one other +30

Half-Elf Cultural Background
Basic Skill bonuses
Athletics +10, Influence +10, Resilience +10

Pick 2 at +10:
Acrobatics, Lore (Plant), Lore (World), Perception, Sing, Stealth, Throwing

Pick 2 at +15:
1H Sword, 2H Sword, Bow, Dagger, Sling, Spear, Staff

Advanced Skills
Oratory, Lore (Regional) (90)
Pick any 3 advanced skills.

 

[Deleriad]

This does then lead to the question, what about humans? I would say, following the D&D flavour that:
Humans
As per RQ except:
You can add +2 to any one characteristic or add +1 to two different characteristics during character generation.
You get +20 additional free skill points to spend during character generation.
When making experience rolls to improve skills you can add your INT characteristic to your roll.

This should make humans the best generalists in the game.