One objection I'm expecting to face when I convert my players to Castles & Crusades is the loss of their beloved prestige class abilities.
For the player, the jump into a 3.x edition offered the benefit of complex characters. Core class characters can be specialized as an "archer," "fast fighter," "power fighter," etc., with these character concepts actually enshrined in the rules. Your character concept could change the numbers on the dice - a powerful reinforcement for roleplaying.
There is no question that C&C dials back this aspect of the game in the interest of the game's pacing and cinematic feel. However, it isn't at all a foregone conclusion that players - especially the ones highly familiar with 3.x rules - will perceive the benefit to be gained. After all, they're trading off something about their CHARACTERS for something that affects the more abstract concept of the game's pace. They love their characters, almost by definition. I'm expecting comments like, "screw pacing - Galanor is a shadowdancer by nature. It is his very soul. He shall never be a mere skulker in shadows, for he owns the shadows and is the master of them, able to step from one to the other..." Etcetera.
How do we permit individualization of characters within the less-complex and more archetypal setting of C&C?
There is an elegant solution to this matter. One must remember that C&C's game mechanism is more robust than that of D&D. By robust, I mean that the various components of the rules (magic items, the SIEGE engine, the experience system, the class abilities, etc) aren't as intricately tied to each other as they are in the latest two versions of D&D. Unlike 3.x, a CK can grant an ability to a character out of nowhere, without fear that it will cause a domino effect which brings the whole system suddenly out of whack.
I won't spend too much time explaining this, but it mainly stems from the experience system. Since the experience gained for killing a monster isn't dependent on the party's level, if the player is "too powerful" for his level, the only effect in C&C is that he will kill monsters more quickly and advance in level more quickly than anticipated. In 3.x, such a thing would then throw off the effective "CR" and "EL" of future monsters, which would grant the character higher gold and treasure, which can easily be spent under the 3.x default system to geometrically increase the speed of his level progression, maintaining the problem with each new level.
In C&C, because the experience system is linear, the system doesn't suffer if a character is more or less powerful than the system expects. As long as one character doesn't outshine the others, you can simply grant them one or more of the abilities they want to keep. I'd dial them back quite a bit - not because of the game system, but so that it's easier for you to be sure that the characters are getting roughly equal abilities. This is just easier if the abilities are weaker.
So, for example, our shadowdancer will become a rogue with the ability to step through shadow at a distance of 50 ft, once per day.
You can use this same trick to enliven a roleplaying trait that wasn't originally in the rules. Our sorcere based his character loosely on "Zoolander." He makes an expression with each spell when he casts. This had no effect in D&D, but to balance the prestige class abilities of the other characters, I've given him the chance (1 in 20) to do extra damage on his spell whan he gets the expression "perfect."
This sort of individualization is much freer form than in D&D, but the freeness of form allows for much more interesting and character-specific abilities than D&D - such as the "perfect expression."
Enjoy your game!
For the player, the jump into a 3.x edition offered the benefit of complex characters. Core class characters can be specialized as an "archer," "fast fighter," "power fighter," etc., with these character concepts actually enshrined in the rules. Your character concept could change the numbers on the dice - a powerful reinforcement for roleplaying.
There is no question that C&C dials back this aspect of the game in the interest of the game's pacing and cinematic feel. However, it isn't at all a foregone conclusion that players - especially the ones highly familiar with 3.x rules - will perceive the benefit to be gained. After all, they're trading off something about their CHARACTERS for something that affects the more abstract concept of the game's pace. They love their characters, almost by definition. I'm expecting comments like, "screw pacing - Galanor is a shadowdancer by nature. It is his very soul. He shall never be a mere skulker in shadows, for he owns the shadows and is the master of them, able to step from one to the other..." Etcetera.
How do we permit individualization of characters within the less-complex and more archetypal setting of C&C?
There is an elegant solution to this matter. One must remember that C&C's game mechanism is more robust than that of D&D. By robust, I mean that the various components of the rules (magic items, the SIEGE engine, the experience system, the class abilities, etc) aren't as intricately tied to each other as they are in the latest two versions of D&D. Unlike 3.x, a CK can grant an ability to a character out of nowhere, without fear that it will cause a domino effect which brings the whole system suddenly out of whack.
I won't spend too much time explaining this, but it mainly stems from the experience system. Since the experience gained for killing a monster isn't dependent on the party's level, if the player is "too powerful" for his level, the only effect in C&C is that he will kill monsters more quickly and advance in level more quickly than anticipated. In 3.x, such a thing would then throw off the effective "CR" and "EL" of future monsters, which would grant the character higher gold and treasure, which can easily be spent under the 3.x default system to geometrically increase the speed of his level progression, maintaining the problem with each new level.
In C&C, because the experience system is linear, the system doesn't suffer if a character is more or less powerful than the system expects. As long as one character doesn't outshine the others, you can simply grant them one or more of the abilities they want to keep. I'd dial them back quite a bit - not because of the game system, but so that it's easier for you to be sure that the characters are getting roughly equal abilities. This is just easier if the abilities are weaker.
So, for example, our shadowdancer will become a rogue with the ability to step through shadow at a distance of 50 ft, once per day.
You can use this same trick to enliven a roleplaying trait that wasn't originally in the rules. Our sorcere based his character loosely on "Zoolander." He makes an expression with each spell when he casts. This had no effect in D&D, but to balance the prestige class abilities of the other characters, I've given him the chance (1 in 20) to do extra damage on his spell whan he gets the expression "perfect."
This sort of individualization is much freer form than in D&D, but the freeness of form allows for much more interesting and character-specific abilities than D&D - such as the "perfect expression."
Enjoy your game!
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