d20 Modern/Vampyre Conversion

[Runesong42]

Hey all,
I am running a Buffy style d20 campaign and I've come up with idea of using the Vampire:the Masquerade (VtM) descriptions of various vampire types/clans for flavour. The question on my mind is, "How do I d20 these stats/abilities?" My main villain is Cyric (who took the name of the "actual" dark God from Forgotten Realms), who I wish to make a Tremere (vampire user of magick). As well, I'd like to differentiate the "true" vampires (full status vampires that don't go *poof* when they're popped) from the more mongerel breeds (or half-breeds, that do *poof*). Each half-breed will still be part of a clan, and share certain clan powers. I'm looking for the most time-effective way to do this, as I feel that the campign in and of itself probably won't last very long, but I'd still like to keep the idea and record it while it's fresh in my mind. Would PrC'ing the clan types be most effective (making one effectively a more powerful vampire), or making a different racial template for each be better? And ideas would be gravy.

 

[LoneWolf23]

For lower-level "grunt" type Vampires, you could use the Monster Manual's Vampire Spawn, with the "Emancipated Spawn" prestige class from Savage Species.

Although tweaking the Vampire Template for various abilities might be best, depending on the "flavor" of each Clan you're making.

In any case, I recommend Savage Species, which seems well-made for such a concept.

 

[malladin]

Our product, UniversalFX would be ideal for converting the disciplines into D20M.

What's more, it's free!!

download it from here

 

[suburbaknght]

I recommend purchasing the Ravenloft Campaign Setting (and if you can afford it, the Ravenloft monster manual, Denizens of Darkness, which has six new types of vampires in it). Not only does it have rules for how vampires increase in power as they age, but it stats out special abilities (and weaknesses) vampires acquire. Nor is the treatment limited to vampires; liches, ghosts, fiends, hags, golems, and gypsies (I can't recall their Ravenloft name) all get similar descriptions.

 

[Zef]

What about just using the special abilities in feat style, with multilevels of each feat, with a max of say four, but boggy TM vamps only using the first level. You could use the levels as they are in the vampire book.

 

[malladin]

This is touching one areas we are intending to cover with our New Horizons: Torment product, a generic urban gothic horror setting, although this is very much inthe pipelineat the moment.

UniversalFX (see my above post) covers some (general) ideas for powers and certainly gives you enough tools to convert the V:tM powers over to D20 (We've actually already got our equivalent of Fortitude, Potence and the Thaumaturgy Flame path in there). We've also got systems for power points (read blood pool) and special recovery powers (read drinking blood).

As a big fan of white-wolf in general, and having run many large successful vampire games (tabletop and live) I would suggest that existing D20 rules for vampires probably won't be quite right to capture the essential flavour of V:tM, which IMO comes from the way the system is geared to following your character's decline into evil as the power of the beast takes control (that's why it's 'the game of personal horror').

One system we have been playing around with in play test sessions is the inclusion of a 7th Base class, the Tormented Hero, which tracks your character's decline. The class a little bit more powerful than the basic ones, but comes with graual drawbacks as the character begins to lose themselves to the beast. The mre levels in the class the more powerful the character is but the less control they have over their 'beast' or equivalnt. This class can then provide the character with bonus feats and skill points to help develop your powers instead of your normal skills. Normal charactrs can still dvelop their powers, but they will need to spend their character feats and develop the power skills as cross-class skills instead, so the Tormented Hero class becomes a fast route to power (this description may make more sense if you read UniversalFX). You would probably need some system to 'force' people to take levels in Tormented Hero if they built up their angst, but we've not got that far with the system yet.

Anyway, thats about where were at (apart from a wodge load of nasty monsters we've been working on to populate our own horror world) so there might be something worth using...

cheerio,

Ben, Malladin's Gate Pres

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Starting Occupations would work fine for the different bloodlines, or something between SO and template. Each "Bloodline" would give you access to the clan disciplines (whether you implement them as skills, feats, or fx abilities), and give you some skills that are important for that clan as class skills. Then do the usual stuff - bonus feats, reputation and wealth bonuses - and give them the clan weakness (Toreador would use a will save, Call of Cthulu will give you info on d20 Insanity rules, which will come handy for Malkavians).

You could also make them races, and combine that with starting occupation. That would enable you to make more stuff, like ability adjustments: give them a +2 in a stat that would be their primary attribute section in Vampire, and a -2 in their third section, or even give them the choice of 2 every time:

Example: Toreador (in VtM: Social, Mental, Physical): +2 on either CHA or DEX (which makes you more graceful), -2 on either STR or CON (If you don't do away with CON for Vampires: I think in that situation CON would be quite OK for the characters)

Also give them something like fast healing - depending on their CON score or bonus or something (at least 1, I'd say).

Action Points could be replaced by Blood and Will points.

Backgrounds would fit into Starting Occupations (maybe there would be several per player, which have to be chosen at start).

Generations would make good templates (especially the stuff you cannot usually achieve).

You could invent Advantages and Disadvantages as Templates giving ECL (positive or negative), but you have to end up with ECL +/- 0, so Advantages, Disadvantages, and other Templates have to equal out (alternately, you can set up a certain ECL they can have. If they don't take all of it, they start at higher level, like the human Ftr 3 starting at the same time as the drow Ftr1).

 

[Runesong42]

Our product, UniversalFX would be ideal for converting the disciplines into D20M.

What's more, it's free!!

download it from here

I've downloaded your product and am giving it a scan as I speak. From the first few pages, I'm getting the impression that this is going to be highly useful for just about any 'generic' campaign as well as my specialized one. Being a GURPS vet (and still finding it hard for players to enjoy it), being able to tweak whatever rules for whatever reason is very important. While d20 is kind of familiar, there's a lot of new stuff I have yet to try and experiment with (we only have a few players, and only two campaigns on the go) and hopefully this set of rules can help me with that experimentation. Thank you!

 

[malladin]

Runesong, glad you liked UniversalFX. My basic design criteria was to develop a system of FX powers that could be easily tweaked and would allow GMs to create their own FX systems. I wanted to mave away from the standard D&D 'Spells per day' atitude as I don't believe that that works brillinatly for Modern campaigns - well, it can work for some, but the magic system can seriously affect the feel of the game, so an alternative system seems a good idea as it provides you with options when you build your game world. I too am and old GURPS veteran, as well as a white-wolf (vampire and trinity mainly) vet, so I believe I have an understanding about how different systems can be used to evoke certain moodsin a game, hence I did UniversalFX so that there's more choice...