d20 with Warhammer flavor?

[Desdichado]

On a recent thread, someone commented that making the new Warhammer game be d20 would cause it to lose its distinctive flavor. Although that particular tangent didn't go anywhere, I did disagree, and I think that there's some interesting discussion that could be had around the idea.

Of course, it depends -- naturally -- on what you mean by flavor. If you mean there has to be a crit chart with an exploding entrails entry to have the Warhammer flavor, then d20 won't do it with anything currently in print that I know of (although it wouldn't be hard to whip up a crit chart for d20 to replace the current way critical hits work, I suppose).

To me, the flavor is more "high level" then that. I think the Warhammer flavor would be easy to capture, in terms of matching the feel of the Warhammer tabletop wargame, the "fluff" associated with the army books, the novels, etc. -- a more general match of the feel of the setting without necessarily the exact feel of the rules system for WHFRPG. And I don't necessarily mean replicating the exact Warhammer setting, rather, I mean for someone who wants to homebrew something up that has the same "flavor" as Warhammer, could that be done in d20?

So what do I think those elements of flavor are, and how would I bring them into a d20 game?

• Super-competent heroes -- whether you mean Gotrek who seems untouchable, or the many hero choices that the army lists have, characters seem to go against the grain of the otherwise quite grim setting, and shine brightly. d20 already accurately models this with the level system, IMO. High level characters are the equivalent of the many heroes of the Warhammer world. They'd be extremely few and far between, but we've already got D&D settings that operate on that paradigm, such as Kalamar for instance.
• Magic is a side-affect of the Chaos wastelands, and the "winds of magic" come from the north. In general, this means that casting spells is difficult and potentially dangerous for most, and the amount of spells one can cast is limited. There's lots of ways to model this, but I think using Incantations works pretty closely as a magic system of the same flavor. To get exactly the same flavor, with the different "colors" of mages would take some work to whip up, but again, I'm talking a little bit more generically.
• The forces of chaos are horrible, sanity-blasting influences. This one is way easy -- replace Chaos, and maybe some of the other horrors of the Warhammer world with Lovecraftian weirdos and there's generally a good fit. Ergo, it seems natural that using a Cthulhu-esque sanity system would go a long way towards replicating what exposure to Chaos, the Undead, etc. does to normal folks. For that matter, from the many, many monsters in publication, you can find pretty decent analogues for the specific entities of the Warhammer world, including most daemons, skaven, beastmen, etc. Besides, unless you're looking to specifically recreate the Warhammer setting, books like Armies of the Abyss for instance, already create a good fiendish cosmology on their own.
• A few other changes, like changing the massive damage threshold down to the Constitutions score, for instance, help give that grittier feel. Personally, I'd rejig a lot of the classes; maybe pick some up from Midnight and some other sources as well. Heck, let me be more specific -- I'd use the Barbarian, Fighter and Rogue from the base classes, the Defender and the Wildlander from Midnight, and maybe the Courier from Rokugan and a slightly modified (to fit a standard skill-list, mostly) Unfettered from Arcana Unearthed. That's already my "standard" classlist for a lower magic setting. Grim Tales, whenever it's published, might be even better though, as a more generic "d20 Modern as traditional fantasy" approach. I'd use armor as damage conversion, and the lower massive damage threshhold as well. I might toss in Action Points to encourage PCs to be a little more heroic.

Any other comments? Obviously, I'm not trying to specifically recreate Warhammer here, and what I've laid out wouldn't quite do it anyway, but using that suite of house rules, I think you could create a game that had a lot of the same feel and flavor as Warhammer.

 

[Thanee]

We have played a Warhammer FRPG campaign (The Enemy Within) in our first D&D3E campaign, it was even set into another campaign setting, the Warhammer world was just a distant land there.

Worked just fine, even tho some rather silly changes were made (like Skaven turned into Ogre Magi).

Now, if you would just pick up the whole Warhammer flavor and put it into a D20 rules frame, I'm pretty sure it would work just fine.

Unlike many other games, like Cthulhu, Deadlands or Shadowrun (all of these are or would be inferior to the original as a D20 version IMHO), where the system actively supports the flavor, Warhammer is not that much bound to those mechanics.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Psion]

This has come up on RPGnet a number of times, and gotten WHFRP fans all mad at me, but:

I think the WHFB and WHFRP flavors are entirely different.

WHFB actually fits pretty well with most of D&D's playstyle assumptions. Hero characters are pretty potent and can usually lay waste to scores of lesser troops, and often form a significant portion of an armies cost.

WHFRP played in d20 would all be level 6 or less. With massive damage threshold rules (+ gory descriptions.)

If I really wanted to be finicky, I could say that the classes would only have 2 or 3 levels each, but there would be a lot of prestige classes.


When I want to gank something from WH, I usually use the codexes for WHFB as a reference. What WHFRP has to offer doesn't appeal to me with a few exceptions (frex, they had some nicely detailed random tables, and some neat flavored deities that could fit right into D&D if you just add some domains. )

 

[Thanee]

If I really wanted to be finicky, I could say that the classes would only have 2 or 3 levels each, but there would be a lot of prestige classes.

Heh.

Bye
Thanee

 

[LoneWolf23]

What I like about Warhammer Fantasy is that it's set in a Fantasy version of Early Renaissance-era Earth, one of the most interesting periods in History, where cultures and religions clashed, science and superstition co-existed and everybody seemed at war with someone else.

That's the feeling I'm trying to emulate with my own planned campaign world, only adding a more Exalted-like feeling of high-power cinematic action to it. Also planning on keeping regular D&D levels of magic, however.

 

[Peskara]

[*]Magic is a side-affect of the Chaos wastelands, and the "winds of magic" come from the north. In general, this means that casting spells is difficult and potentially dangerous for most, and the amount of spells one can cast is limited. There's lots of ways to model this, but I think using Incantations works pretty closely as a magic system of the same flavor. To get exactly the same flavor, with the different "colors" of mages would take some work to whip up, but again, I'm talking a little bit more generically.

When we were once considering running a D&D game set in the Old World of Warhammer (which we still might get around to one of these days), we decided the best way to simulate their wizards would be to start with the sorcerer class and give them a more limited spell list but one that also includes healing (and just not have the wizard class at all). That way you get a lot of spells per day, and can decide which ones to cast on the fly, which simulates what characters like Max Schreiber are capable of. The class would have to move away from the "innate talent for magic" idea and they would have to be book learned. It might also need alterations to the number of spells known (since there'd be no wizard class that they have to be balanced against and to simulate that they are now learning spells from books) and the skill list. You could also set up specialists by making customized spell lists for the different colleges of magic. Maybe the different colleges would have quicker (lower level) access to spells that fall under their specialty and the lists might include spells unique to each college.

The cleric class might need some alteration. Certainly priests of Sigmar or Ulrik would be more like paladins (more warrior, less priest). Not sure about priests of gods like Morr. Warhammer Quest would be a good place to start figuring out what sorts of character types would make good PC classes.

Slayers could probably be simulated with the barbarian class with an altered skill list.

We like the Old World and think it would make a cool RPG setting, but we're not into the grimness and grittiness of WHFRP. I had a brief hope that the new WHFRP would be something more like a cross between Warhammer Quest and Warhammer Fantasy Battle in flavor, but it's not to be.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

You really should be on my payroll, JD. This is a timely discussion, since Grim Tales is on its way to retailers as we speak.

So what do I think those elements of flavor are, and how would I bring them into a d20 game?

1. Super-competent heroes -- whether you mean Gotrek who seems untouchable, or the many hero choices that the army lists have, characters seem to go against the grain of the otherwise quite grim setting, and shine brightly. d20 already accurately models this with the level system, IMO. High level characters are the equivalent of the many heroes of the Warhammer world. They'd be extremely few and far between, but we've already got D&D settings that operate on that paradigm, such as Kalamar for instance.

Grim Tales uses the d20 Modern classes, and adds Talent trees derived from the class abilities of D&D. It's my opinion that, pound for pound, a high level Modern hero is more powerful than a D&D hero (with the possible exception of spellcasters, but we'll get to that in the next point). The reason for this is customization. A customizable character can make an "optimal build"-- ie, What would a rogue look like if you could keep sneak attack but swap out uncanny dodge and evasion for more offense?

2. In general, this means that casting spells is difficult and potentially dangerous for most, and the amount of spells one can cast is limited.

Grim Tales approaches this two ways.

First, and most vital, all spell knowledge is vested in the GM. The PCs must find and learn spells-- there are no freebies. Generally speaking, you'll find a tome with a spell or three, and after some study, you'll pick up the talents necessary to cast spells. There's no "spellcaster" class that gains new spells with each level. If the GM wants to turn off the spigot of spell knowledge, he just does it. Similarly, he can craft entire adventures around the pursuit of such ancient tomes.

Second, spellcasting in Grim Tales is extremely dangerous. True enough, anyone can cast spells, but unless you are a magical adept, you suffer Constitution damage for casting spells-- and as an adept, this is only "improved" to Strength damage. It's a taxing affair, definitely not something that will happen on a whim. Buffing up before combat or healing up afterwards won't be a common sight. Blasting your enemies to smithereens with a powerful spell at the dramatically appropriate moment-- and subsequently slumping to the floor in a weakened state-- more accurately describes the role of spellcasting in Grim Tales.

However, a magical adept can potentially suffer no "spell burn" at all from spellcasting. (It's unlikely, but possible.) In this respect there's no limit to the number of spells you can cast per day. If you know fireball, you've taken the magical adept feat, you have a reasonable Int, and you roll lucky, you could sling fireballs one after another.

It's unlikely, but possible-- and to me, leaving the door open to that possibility, makes it worth it to chase spellcasting ability. The spellcasting hero will have days where casting a spell sucks, and he feels an idiot for dabbling in sorcery; and he'll have days when the party will be hoisting him onto their shoulders.

One last design note-- it was important to me to keep the spell statblocks intact, and not to add any additional rules to the spells themselves. The cost for casting a spell is built into the spell levels; I saw no need to add specific "costs" to a handful of spells and burden the GM with the task of converting the rest of his d20 material to this format. If you have a spell, no matter the d20 source, you can use it.

3. The forces of chaos are horrible, sanity-blasting influences. This one is way easy -- replace Chaos, and maybe some of the other horrors of the Warhammer world with Lovecraftian weirdos and there's generally a good fit. Ergo, it seems natural that using a Cthulhu-esque sanity system would go a long way towards replicating what exposure to Chaos, the Undead, etc. does to normal folks. For that matter, from the many, many monsters in publication, you can find pretty decent analogues for the specific entities of the Warhammer world, including most daemons, skaven, beastmen, etc. Besides, unless you're looking to specifically recreate the Warhammer setting, books like Armies of the Abyss for instance, already create a good fiendish cosmology on their own.

I couldn't find anything in that paragraph to snip!

Grim Tales has a Horror and Insanity system that is designed to work within the framework of d20. To me, as a designer, I felt it was important NOT to add a Sanity score and NOT to add any kind of extra Horror mechanic on a case-by-case basis to the monsters-- the rationale being exactly the same as for spells. I wanted GMs to be able to use monsters from any source.

The specific "horrific-ness" of various creatures is tied to their Type (Aberration, Undead, etc.), to their EL, and to their Charisma score. The Horror rules account for variations in campaign, such as (for example) a post-apocalyptic game where "mutants" (ie, aberrations) are not as horrifying as they would be in a "modern" game.

Grim Tales has rules for various kinds of Insanity (based on current diagnostic practices). Pretty much any kind of Insanity that was in any way applicable to a game setting was given game mechanics. As I said before, there is no Sanity score; a Horrific encounter either drives you insane on the spot, or it doesn't; but there are varying degrees of Insanity (short and long term in duration, and mild, moderate, and severe in effect). Of course, once you're a little bit insane, further Horrific encounters tend to make things worse.

To be clear, the most likely effect of a Horror check is that you'll be shaken, frightened, or panicked, and even that is assuming you fail the Horror check. The consequence of a catastrophically bad Horror check is some kind of Insanity, and there are some bad ones; but then again, there are couple of good ones (eg, "a healthy case of paranoia").

Grim Tales also features a slew of new chtulhoid creatures as villains-- plus an entire chapter on Creature Creation if you want to make your own.

4. A few other changes, like changing the massive damage threshold down to the Constitutions score, for instance, help give that grittier feel.

Grim Tales has that. You can tweak the MDT depending on how gritty you want it:

1) Everybody has a threshold of 10. That's pretty grim. The only upside to this approach is that troll in the alley has a MDT 10, too.

2) Threshold = CON. This is probably the best option.

3) Threshold = CON + Armor + Natural Armor. I like this option a lot, too. Gives armored characters, and large creatures (which come with increases in natural armor as a function of size) a fighting chance.

Personally, I'd rejig a lot of the classes

I felt the best approach here was the d20 Modern classes. Of course, since GT is fully d20 compatible, you can use classes or prestige classes from other sources (did I mention GT has NO prestige classes?) if you want to. The downside to taking a class from outside the GT core classes is some loss of flexibility-- obviously in the case of feats and talents, but also with respect to GT's very flexible skill system.

I'd use armor as damage conversion

Well, there's one upside to GT being delayed for a while. I was able to get this variant from UA into the book. I called it,

Variant: Fewer Dead Heroes

I might toss in Action Points to encourage PCs to be a little more heroic.

As it's based on d20 Modern, Grim Tales has Action Points, of course. You can use them for everything d20 Modern suggests, plus a couple of Spycraft options (critical hits and critical successes with skills), plus a couple of others to make things a little easier in a low magic environment (healing after combat, and the ability to "Strike True" against monsters with DR).

Grim Tales, whenever it's published, might be even better though, as a more generic "d20 Modern as traditional fantasy" approach.

WHFRP was, in fact, one of the specific inspirations for Grim Tales. I wanted to capture the feel of the game. I think GT does a pretty good job with the rules; capturing the feel of the setting is up to the GM.

Did I mention that Grim Tales is on its way to stores now?


Wulf

 

[Psion]

2) Threshold = CON. This is probably the best option.

Speaking from experience with d20 Modern, I think that makes high con too much of a boon, and low con too much of an inconvenience.

My personal house rule: 10 + con bonus.

3) Threshold = CON + Armor + Natural Armor. I like this option a lot, too. Gives armored characters, and large creatures (which come with increases in natural armor as a function of size) a fighting chance.

Oooh. Change that to 10+con bonus+natural armor+armor, and it sounds like a nifty house rule.

Did I mention that Grim Tales is on its way to stores now?

You still go through Osseum, right?

 

[orangefruitbat]

How I would do it

This is how I would do it:

*4 base classes (ala Unearthed Arcana) - Rogue, Warrior, Ranger, Scholar - each has 10 levels.

Rogue - generic class from UA

Warrior - generic class from UA

Ranger - generic class from UA

Scholar - generic class - doesn't get magic unless it hwas the correct occupation (wizard apprentice, etc)

*starting HP = CON. Con doesn't boost HP when you level. Additional HP as they level:
Rogue - 1 hp/level
Warrior- 2 hp/level
Ranger 1 hp/level
Scholar - 1 hp/ every 2nd level

*quicker feat and stat improvement progression (ie, a new feat every even level, rather than every third level and a stat boost every 3rd level) - this is to give players something new to play with as they level. However, levelling would be slower than standard DnD.

*choose an occupation at first level - this provides bonus feats, skill pts, and starting equipment. You can switch professions whenever (some may have pre-reqs), but since you can spend skill pts and feats more freely, switching occupations is tied to roleplaying considerations, and not an improvement mechanism.

*prestige classes are typically 3 levels. A few (like mercenary captain) are 5, and the full spell-casters (wizard, etc) are 10

*use a spell pt system with standard DnD spells (be honest, they're not that different). Use D20 Modern psionic rules to calculate spell pts (it's not DnD, so powers are more subdued). Create spell lists for different types of magic (clerical, wizard, demonologist, etc).

*use WFRP equipment list and prices (but DnD stats for them).

*Armor absorbs damage. Criticals only multiply weapon damage die - not stat bonuses, power attacks, magic bonuses etc (to keep survivability posssible). If you roll a critical when backing up a critical, you threaten again and can increase the multiplier by one. Continue until you don't critical any more. Use the parrying rules from Unearthed Arcana (or possibly Conan).

*add fate points

*whenever reduced to negative HP, roll on the crits table from WFRP (spread the range out so that -1 covers -1 to -2 hp, to expand the table to -12 HP).

We have played a Warhammer FRPG campaign (The Enemy Within) in our first D&D3E campaign, it was even set into another campaign setting, the Warhammer world was just a distant land there.

Worked just fine, even tho some rather silly changes were made (like Skaven turned into Ogre Magi).

Now, if you would just pick up the whole Warhammer flavor and put it into a D20 rules frame, I'm pretty sure it would work just fine.

Unlike many other games, like Cthulhu, Deadlands or Shadowrun (all of these are or would be inferior to the original as a D20 version IMHO), where the system actively supports the flavor, Warhammer is not that much bound to those mechanics.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

You still go through Osseum, right?

Yep. I'm sure you'll get a review copy.