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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Inconsequenti-AL" data-source="post: 2644785" data-attributes="member: 6584">I think one problem is that levels do not have the same kind of power scaling that a skill based system has. In DnD, a higher level PC is better at everything than a lower level one - whereas a skill based game allows you to excel in one area but not others:e.g. In ars magica, your 150 year old magus is incredibly powerful, but without their magic, the average grog soldier could beat the average mage to death in no time? In DnD a high level wizard is going to have a high BAB and a lot of hit points... easily capable of slaying low level fighters.Although that isn't always going to be true in AM... one mage in our last campaign was a master swordsman and wore full chain armour most of the time. Not exactly a pushover.I think it's very hard to recreate that kind of feeling in a level based game.Some changes that might get it a little closer to the AM feel:Consider advancing character level and caster level separately... 3rd level mage, 7th caster level - probably feels about right for a starting mage?  Perhaps keep the levels equal, but only allowing wizards to make saving throws vs magic. Or apply a very sizable penalty for non magicians to save.Perhaps allow a range of base class choices for the mages character levels, to reflect different career focuses.Another problem is comparing the DnD magic system to the AM one. Both are powerful in different ways and using them makes for different types of gaming. DnD definitely having more in the way of information gathering/plot solving stuff. Might be best to trim the DnD list and then add some more AM themed spells instead. IIRC, Arcana Unearthed had a magic system a little closer in feel to the AM one.Anyway, this focuses on trying to recreate AM with DnD. Which I think is difficult. However, nothing to stop you lifting the bits that work easily and just use them. Without trying to recreate the whole game.I've been thinking lifting troupe play into DnD for a mind flayer 'mages' and thrall 'grogs' mini campaign. (An idea lifted straight off these boards. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />) Just trying to work out how to handle the non adventuring PCs.</blockquote>

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