Converting original D&D and Mystara monsters

The Glen · Dec 6, 2017

I converted all 300+ of the Mystara monsters a while ago. These are the PDFs

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1afvzzslx45nvxz/AABv-fjdYOT2taxWiYvj9_jIa?dl=0

Cleon · Dec 7, 2017

The Glen said:
I converted all 300+ of the Mystara monsters a while ago. These are the PDFs

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1afvzzslx45nvxz/AABv-fjdYOT2taxWiYvj9_jIa?dl=0

Those conversions look very good.

Unfortunately, the Creature Catalog is for 3.5 edition conversions and they all appear to be 5E monsters.

Have you posted them n D&D 5th Edition News, Rules, Homebrews, and House Rules?

Cleon · Dec 7, 2017

freyar said:
The caprine can use a given resonance ability (as listed in the Resonance Abilities Table below) as soon as its resonance score is high enough to qualify for it. Most resonance abilities do not interfere with a caprine's accumulation of resonance notes, so a caprine can use a resonance ability and then continue increasing its resonance score in order to access higher-ranking abilities. The sole exception is the sound of death ability, which prevents any further use of resonance until the caprine resets its resonance score.

A resonance ability may only be used one time after it begins accumulating resonance notes. The resonance score persists until the caprine decides to accumulate a new day's resonance score. This resets the caprine's resonance score to zero, causing it to lose any unused abilities from its previous resonance score but allowing each resonance ability to be used once more.

That looks fine to me, except I'd change "any further use of resonance" to "any further use of resonance abilities".

Shall I update the Resonance Working Draft with it?

freyar said:
We might have to revise this again; I'm not clear if sound of death prevents more accumulation, use of resonance abilities, or both.

My reading is it prevents further use of resonance abilities.

There's no point in preventing accumulation since Sound of Death is the highest level power, so a caprine would not gain any additional powers no matter how high its resonance score goes once it has hit the 100+ requirement for Sound of Death.

Although shouldn't it be 101+? The previous rank of resonance abilities is 71-100 and none of the other ranks overlap (1-5, 6-10, 11-20, 21-40, 41-70, 71-100).

freyar · Jan 7, 2018

Please go ahead and update the working draft.

That all makes sense on Sound of Death. Might as well update with that, too.

Shall we work on the striking a resonance next? Cavorting seems like the simplest; it requires no check, just (uninterrupted) frolic for 1 hour to generate 1d6(?) notes. Do the note dice still seem about right?

Cleon · Jan 14, 2018

freyar said:
Please go ahead and update the working draft.

Will do.

freyar said:
That all makes sense on Sound of Death. Might as well update with that, too.

Updating the Resonance Working Draft.

freyar said:
Shall we work on the striking a resonance next? Cavorting seems like the simplest; it requires no check, just (uninterrupted) frolic for 1 hour to generate 1d6(?) notes. Do the note dice still seem about right?

I'm OK with it.

It means a caprine can always access ferocity and morale by cavorting and has a 1-in-6 chance of accessing damper and taunt but can't access any more powerful resonance abilities without putting some "effort" into it.

That feels like it was deliberate in the original text, so might as well stick to it.

I wondered whether we may want to modify the resonance table numbers a bit to modify what levels an caprine typically can access the powers.

At the moment, I'd guesstimate the level access would typically be something like:

Resonance Abilities Table

Score	Typically Accessed By
1-5	normal monster (HD 3, Cha/Con 12, Resonance Cap 27)
6-10	normal monster
11-20	normal monster
21-40	normal monster
41-70	3rd level (HD 6, Cha/Con 15, Resonance Cap 45)
71-100	8th level (HD 11, Cha/Con 17, Resonance Cap 72)
101+	14th level (HD 17, Cha/Con 18, Resonance Cap 103)

The above feels about right to me. The 14 class levels an caprine needs to access sound of death is about the class level sorcerers can use spells like finger of death and circle of death.

The table assumes the classed caprines use the non-elite array with an 13 in either Constitution or Charisma, but it doesn't make any difference if they use the standard array with 10 or 11 or the elite array with a range of 15 to 8. A difference of +2 or +2 to the maximum resonance doesn't take it over any thresholds.

If guess if they're NPCs with the non-elite array who put their 8 and 9 in Charisma and Constitution and don't apply any stat increases to those ability scores they might get resonance ability access a level later, but I doubt many caprines would follow that career path.

freyar · Jan 17, 2018

Yes, this looks reasonable (translating "ovinaur" to "caprine"

).

Then let's go with something like
Cavorting: one hour of uninterrupted frolic provides a caprine with 1d6 resonance notes. No check is required.

Cleon · Jan 19, 2018

freyar said:
Yes, this looks reasonable (translating "ovinaur" to "caprine" ).

Then let's go with something like
Cavorting: one hour of uninterrupted frolic provides a caprine with 1d6 resonance notes. No check is required.

The original version required the frolicking to be "amid meadows and forests" so I was thinking we'd keep some environmental requirement.

How about…

The caprine spends an uninterrupted hour gamboling outdoors through places filled with living plants, such as a forest, meadow or blooming desert. This earns 1d6 resonance notes.

freyar · Feb 3, 2018

Works for me!

Next one: In the original, dancing requires making a check; the amount exceeding some unspecified DC determines the number of partners who join in, which determines the number of points. It takes 10 minutes, if I remember what a turn is properly. So... maybe a Perform (dance) check, and the number of notes is the result minus X (maybe X=10 or something). No taking 20, no negative notes from a check <X. What do you think?

Cleon · Feb 4, 2018

freyar said:
Works for me!

Updating the Resonance Working Draft.

freyar said:
Next one: In the original, dancing requires making a check; the amount exceeding some unspecified DC determines the number of partners who join in, which determines the number of points. It takes 10 minutes, if I remember what a turn is properly. So... maybe a Perform (dance) check, and the number of notes is the result minus X (maybe X=10 or something). No taking 20, no negative notes from a check <X. What do you think?

If I remember how the ability checks in question work, You needed to roll your ability's stat or less on 1d20 and got a single success level if the roll match the stat, and an extra +1 level for each point under your stat you rolled.

i.e. it was "success level equals ability score plus 1 minus 1d20".

It's the same spread as Pendragon's "If 1d20 roll equals stat or less, success level = roll, otherwise failure" except way more fiddly to work out!

Actually, I'm wondering whether to allow some Dex-based skill as well as Perform since the original ability was Dexterity-based.

I could see how Tumble, for example, could be used to cavort.