Converting D&D Paladins?!

[prophet118]

ok... i know we have had some discussions on divine magic.. but thats not really my concern.. im in the process of trying to convert my D&D amalgamation over to TROS... because it closer to what i wanted...

i can figure out basically how id need to get the druid converted (he wants to keep his shapeshifting ability), and i have the cleric easily figured.... but how exactly would you convert a paladin?

yeh i know... basicvally a holy knight... well this guy wants to keep all of his abilities (Divine Grace (charisma bonus to saving throws [could be a luck SA]), Lay on Hands (a healing ability [possibly growth and conquer vageries?]), Divine Health (immunities to all magical diseases [uhh... ])..Smite Evil (spiff little extra damage, only useable a certain amount of times a day [i was thinking Drive... maybe], and then of course the Paladin's Special Mount... i could play off the familiars thing for that i suppose...

anybody got some ideas to help me?

[Brian Leybourne]

Well, for me, the really cool thing about Spiritual Attributes is how widely they can be applied.

Remember a while back when we had that really cool discussion on Magic Items having SA's? How about when we discussed the Force as an SA? Well, how about (some of) the Paladin's abilities are actually based on special SA's.

So, when he signs up, he gets the special ability to Lay on Hands (for example). This is a special SA, not one of his 5. Every time he pleases his god, the SA goes up. Every time he displeases his god, it goes down. When he "lays on hands" he gets to roll as many dice as he currently has in that "SA" and each success heals one pain level of a wound. Or of all wounds. Or whatever. You could even just trigger this off his Faith SA - he gets to roll his entire Faith SA as a healing die pool, etc.

Same concept for many of the paladins other abilities. Every point he currently has in his Faith SA (/his Smite Evil SA) is an extra die per combat round he can use when fighting certain opponents, etc.

And so on. I have not thought through it that much, this is all off the top of my head, but that's the direction I would be heading in.

Brian.

[prophet118]

it is alot closer than making him be part sorceror.. lol...

basically im trying for more realistic combat, and a better magic system (the whole reason i bought the game)

but these guys are soo in love with D20 (i like the system), that they typically refuse to play anything else..

so i spent a long while trying to bend the 3rd ed system into something closer to TROS... unfortunately, ive tweaked it so much, that it tends to lose its realistic edge...

i started using vitality points, and wounds, straight from Star Wars D20... so that basically your vitality represented your fatigue..each point of vitality damage was taken away from your pool, and when you had none, you took wounds (to respresent not being able to get out of the way)..

i ended up confusing one of the players, because im used to saying "he hit".... under this system, you didnt really hit til you got wounds... his arguement "that really only makes armor useful when you get hit then"...........i had to steady myself, so that i didnt laugh in front of them too badly...


anyways, back to the point.... i think tying it in on his faith SA would be a nice addition... would you suggest what would amount to secondary SA's for each ability, or would you just have it on faith?

[Brian Leybourne]

Depends on how much of a catch-all you want a single SA to be. If you map everything to Faith, then he's either shit-hot at all his abilities or terrible at them all depending on what level his Faith is at at the time (of course, this doesn't necessarily sound wrong, but players might not like it.) Also, it begs players to min-max by always leaving their Faith at 5 and just never spending it down).

On the other hand, nobody wants to have to track 17 different SA's either. Something in the middle perhaps; Give him 3 paladin-related SA's and map the abilities to them so some can be high while others are low, etc. Map them to different aspects of his faith so they don't all go up or down at the same time. If you want to really have fun (and hell, this is the way TROS should really be played anyway, IMO) put them in conflict. His "always do what the church wants" and his "compassion for the needy" will butt heads real nice when the church asks him to clear out all the poor people sponging off the goodwill of the church in the alleryway at the back, etc.

Brian.

[prophet118]

quite true... alright, i'll take some time to think about the SA's... i think i do like the part where is goes up and down based on the gods approval... i definately will use that, to some degree at least

[Judd]

What if he could spend his Faith SA, say a certain number for each ability and spend them for his Paladin abilities.  Might work.

Good luck

[prophet118]

well, the idea is to not make him have to pay for them with his faith... kinda gives the wrong impression


heres what i had in mind

Divine Grace - covers healing, and gives extra dice to protect against diseases
Divine Justice - covers smite evil, plus the obvious turn undead.. in this since it would solely be dice either added to an attacks damage, or (in the case of turning), it would function in a sense like the banishment vagery.

im trying to put together a 3rd one...

[prophet118]

those two (plus a 3rd one i am working on, which may go unneeded) will function in a way like derived stats...

in that each one would be eqaul to half of the characters faith SA... they would ebb and flow based on the character himself... do something good for the deity, maybe he'll get a point on divine grace.... do something bad, maybe he'll lose a point..


sound good Brian?

see the game consists of a Priestess, a Paladin, a Druid, a Wizard, and a Fighter/Ranger

the last 3 would be fairly easy to convert over.. the two more religious ones needed something, to represent god granted abilities... and i think these derived SA's would work great

[Brian Leybourne]

Looking good so far, mate. Three sounds like a good numner to me, though. WHat was your idea for the third SA?

Brian.

[prophet118]

im not sure... everything really seems to be covered... as far as paladins go...

smiting, turning, healing, divine health (immunities)

the only one ya cant really do is the old divine grace, which was "charisma bonus to all saves"

the only thing not really covered, is the special mount... and i could just let the paladin have familiars sorcery gift..


i had thought about "Miracle".... basically something awesome, not covered under the others... water to wine kind of things...

[Lxndr]

Why not have the third one just be "Faith"?  It seems roughly analagous to divine grace and whatnot - when he BELIEVES in something, he gets the bonuses.  Thus a "faith bonus" comes into play in certain "saves."

I do like "Divine Miracles" as your third, though, if you go that route.

How will these go up or down, though?  Will they be analagous to the Faith SA in some way?

[prophet118]

as it was described to me (its from a friend of mine)

basically if the miracle would help spread the beleif of the god, then it might happen

that does seem a bit... much for me, more of a roleplaying thing, than something that needs to be statted out

i thik i may just stick with the two i currently have

i just cant come up with anything for a 3rd, even though it would seem like there should be


the next topic on this...

How to Represent the shapeshifting abilities of a Druid

---

i had thought perhaps Growth, Summoning, Sculpture, and probably conquer (previous examples with growth seem like it might require it, so that you can trick yourself into thinking it doesnt hurt like hell)

thoughts?

[Brian Leybourne]

Why bother with all that guff? Just give him some animal forms and tell him he can change into them and it takes 6 exchanges less the number of successes he rolls on whatever SA is appropriate. Hows that? There are plenty in OBAM's chapter 2, and it's easy to make more as you need/want them.

How do you represent the fact that as he gets more powerful a D&D Druid can shift into bigger and better forms when TROS doesn't have levels?

(This just came to me and I don't know why it never occurred to me before, because it's brilliant, if I do say so myself)

Base it off Insight. What better gauge of how "experienced" a character is? At insight level X he can do such-and-such, but at insight level Y he can do this-and-that. And so on.

Brian.

[prophet118]

hey, works for me, sounds like a good plan as well... so thats everything i do beleive... other than getting the wizard familiar with the new casting system... lol

and usually not being able to cast a spell every turn... heh (unless of course the CTN is low)

[prophet118]

i havent gotten a chance to look at, or look through OBAM, will it be helpful for a game thats coming from a D&D perspective?