3e Dragonlance Materials

[Victim]

Does anyone have any thoughts regarding the conversions of DL? I'm playing a campaign using some of the rules, and some of things loooked pretty insane.

For example, I don't see how any mage could survive the Test when you cast all your spells, fight a friend, and then a CR 5 monster (at level 3).

Black robe wizards get level 9 spells at 13th level, or something similarly absurd.

Schools are restricted in odd ways based on alignment. For some reason, transmutation is evil. Enchantment is good. Blowing people up is Good or Evil, but not neutral?

I'm not sure if any thought went into balancing these changes, in addition to apparent inconsistencies (evil wizards without necro?).

Edit: It's amazing how many typos one makes when posting right before going to bed.

 

[jollyninja]

the second edition material is fairly easy to convert if you have it. the key is to remember that just because something was cool in the novels, does not mean that it will work in a roleplaying game. for example thousands of times in dragonlance it states that black robed wizards gain power faster then white robes, but end up less powerful. however this sort of thing is difficult to carry off as the misguided folks who came up with some of the rules you speak of have proven.

I will probably be using the chaos magic rules in a somewhat adapted form (no paths of chaos for example and no allignment restrictions) because i think it sort of fits the improvised feel of dragonlance magic as depicted by some of the better authors who have written about krynn. or the "magus" class i came up with. it's half wizard half sorceror, balanced out by the DL school restrictions as they existed in 2e.

 

[poilbrun]

The main problem I see in this DL conversion is that they tried to remain true to first edition DL, where all the things you said (black robes get level-9 spells very soon, scholl restrictions,...) were true. By the way, did they change the XP table for the various wizards? Black robes used to have a very fast progression at low levels, whereas White Robes gained levels very fast at high levels. Red Robes were of course right in the middle, and gained levels pretty quick from level 8 to 13 IIRC. And did they keep the max number of high-level mages? There could only be one level 13 Black Robe, one level 16 Red Robe and one level 18 WHite Robe in the whole world. And once you reached 18th level, you either had to stop your progression or leave Krynn...

I began DMing in DL, and since then, I've found that it was a lot easier to DM in world created for RPGs than roleplaying in world created for novels (even if the DL Trilogy was based on RPG adventures at first, but DL has since grown well beyond that, IMO) or movies, especially if both the DM and the players have read the novels. You either have to remain true to the world and your adventures become quite dull (for example, no high levels in DL) since you can't have eart-shaking events such as those described in the novels too often, or you forget the limits set by the novels, but then why would you want to play in a particular world? For example, I played MERP and I didn't like it at all. Our adventures could of course not be as epic in scale as the adventure described in the LotR (the only book by Tolkien I had read then), and thus, we ended up playing adventures like we would have in any other world, and the campaign soon lost all his interests to me (and all the other, more experienced, players too).

 

[A2Z]

You should check out the Dragonlance Nexus and check out some of the conversions they have around there. There's a pretty good prestige class for the Wizards of High Sorcery here.

 

[Victim]

I had been looking at stuff from that site. However, the stuff I had seen was much inferior (IMHO) to the items in your link.

Thanks. I'll make sure my DM sees this stuff.

Yes, they did keep the max level you could reach; reds and black were capped at level 16 because of the master, and you couldn't go past 18th level without defying the gods. It was funny, because the classes reached full spellcasting at 18 if not earlier, and so would defy the gods over a BONUS FEAT.