Dragonbane general thread

[Aldarc]

For those who’ve at least read Dragonbane, what content do you think is missing, if any? I don’t mean rules per se, just general stuff. Like more spells, monsters, professions, kin, etc. I know there’s the Expert book in the offing.

What about you? What’s high on your homebrew list?

I think that the amount of spells is fine for starting out, but I still want more spells and schools of magic.

When it comes to what I want or think is missing:

IMO, there should be more Heroic Abilities. Some of the existing HAs are a bit lackluster, and it would be nice to have additional ones that covered other skills, weapons, and situations. If home-brewing, I would focus on creating more HAs than Professions because you can more easily create new Professions around HAs. Some of the homebrewed HAs I have seen for homebrewed professions in some of the fan 3pp, including Dragonzine, seem a bit overly complex, verbose, and overengineered when compared to the other Professions and HAs in the core rules.

For me, Dragonbane feels closer to sword & sorcery than anything. It’s clearly low magic compared to some other games and combined with the lethality, yeah. Sword & sorcery.

Which, to me, means snakes. Lots more snakes. Some of the first stuff I’ll be homebrewing will be giant snakes, snake-men, and snake cults.

I am always down for snakefolk, though I will probably be homebrewing playable ones.

 

[overgeeked]

I think that the amount of spells is fine for starting out, but I still want more spells and schools of magic.

Absolutely. My fitrst thoughts are something like necromancy and demonology. But that suggests a dragonology school as well. And of course snakeology.

IMO, there should be more Heroic Abilities. Some of the existing HAs are a bit lackluster, and it would be nice to have additional ones that covered other skills, weapons, and situations. If home-brewing, I would focus on creating more HAs than Professions because you can more easily create new Professions around HAs.

My first thought on more professions is to look at the HAs and built from there. What professions could you make from existing ones, then expand out. WFRP is a good source for ideas, but the worlds are wildly different.

Some of the homebrewed HAs I have seen for homebrewed professions in some of the fan 3pp, including Dragonzine, seem a bit overly complex, verbose, and overengineered when compared to the other Professions and HAs in the core rules.

It’s typical of people coming from heavier systems to lighter ones.

I am always down for snakefolk, though I will probably be homebrewing playable ones.

Good thing kin are so easy to make.

I love how easy Dragonbane is all around. To make NPCs you just pick a couple of skills, a skill level, and give them some HP. Done. I’d made a generic Snake Cultist before I remembered there’s a cultist in the book. I was real close.

One more minor quibble I’ve come across is the NPC boss idea. Seems needlessly complex. I see no point giving them HAs, WP, and the full PC mechanical treatment. I mean Robust x4 to give them more HP? Just give them more HP. Or, better yet, just make them monsters.

 

[Wolfpack48]

For those who’ve at least read Dragonbane, what content do you think is missing, if any? I don’t mean rules per se, just general stuff. Like more spells, monsters, professions, kin, etc. I know there’s the Expert book in the offing.

For me, Dragonbane feels closer to sword & sorcery than anything. It’s clearly low magic compared to some other games and combined with the lethality, yeah. Sword & sorcery.

Which, to me, means snakes. Lots more snakes. Some of the first stuff I’ll be homebrewing will be giant snakes, snake-men, and snake cults.

What about you? What’s high on your homebrew list?

For me, I'm approaching Dragonbane as a D&D replacer. That is, I want to play D&D stuff (specifically older D&D stuff and OSR with folks who never got to play those modules) but use a simpler and more streamlined ruleset.

With that in mind, I'm looking forward most to the Spell Book for a more extensive repertoire of spells. I'd actually like to see some expansion on "cleric" style spells, more in healing. Illusion spells will be especially helpful. I wouldn't mind a high magic version option for the game, and a Magic Item book would be an instant buy, though I don't typically go for that stuff.

More professions and kin, of course -- gnomes, half-orcs, half-elves. Not as worried about tieflings and dragonborne, but I'm sure someone will use them. More playable NPC races are already appearing (Centaurs for example in Dragonzine 2), so I'm thinking well see more of this kind. I'd love to see Dragonbane versions of all D&D classes.

Anything that basically makes conversion of OSR stuff easy -- take my money.

 

[Aldarc]

Absolutely. My fitrst thoughts are something like necromancy and demonology. But that suggests a dragonology school as well. And of course snakeology.

From what I recall from when I hunted down info, DoD had these magic schools in the past.

• Alchemy
• Animism
• Demonology
• Elementalism
• Harmonism - it sounds like was basically bardic magic
• Illusionism
• Mentalism
• Necromancy
• Spiritism - not sure how it was different from Animism
• Staff - I believe that these are likely using magic for what would be monks in D&D. I believe Symbaroum also has staff magic for D&D-esque monks.
• Symbolism
• Voice Magic - again not sure how it was different from some other ones, possibly more focused on command words
• Witchcraft

I believe that I saw mention of Dragon and Battle magic elsewhere as well.

There are some that schools that excite me from this list and some that leave me feeling "meh... why did you include these schools but not some more (at least for me) obvious choices?" So I will be curious what Free League decides to include from the past for nostalgia sake (or "that makes total sense if you played DoD!") or what may be newly created for the sake of appealing to a wider audience.

It’s typical of people coming from geavier systems to lighter ones.

I wish some of these people would stop overengineering Heroic Abilities that bolt on new subsystems. I think that there should be ways to create simple HAs for a Priest or Astrologer, for example, that don't involve creating a full page subsystem for a single HA.

For a priest it could be just as simple as, (1) "Activate this ability to get a boon on your Myths & Legends roll when recalling information about your religion. Or alternatively, (2) "activate this ability to get a boon on your Persuasion roll when interacting with a devout NPC of your faith." Based on some HAs, it could even be (3) "Activate this ability and you automatically pass a Myths & Legends roll about lore regarding your faith and its religious practices."

OR

If you want a blessing mechanic, then just re-flavor the Musician heroic ability and connect it with the Myths & Legends skill and brandishing holy symbols instead of playing instruments. What would a priest's blessing or curse do differently than what the Musician heroic ability does?

Good thing kin are so easy to make.

I love how easy Dragonbane is all around. To make NPCs you just pick a couple of skills, a skill level, and give them some HP. Done. I’d made a generic Snake Cultist before I remembered there’s a cultist in the book. I was real close.

One more minor quibble I’ve come across is the NPC boss idea. Seems needlessly complex. I see no point giving them HAs, WP, and the full PC mechanical treatment. I mean Robust x4 to give them more HP? Just give them more HP. Or, better yet, just make them monsters.

Agreed.

 

[Bill Zebub]

For me, I'm approaching Dragonbane as a D&D replacer. That is, I want to play D&D stuff (specifically older D&D stuff and OSR with folks who never got to play those modules) but use a simpler and more streamlined ruleset.

With that in mind, I'm looking forward most to the Spell Book for a more extensive repertoire of spells. I'd actually like to see some expansion on "cleric" style spells, more in healing. Illusion spells will be especially helpful. I wouldn't mind a high magic version option for the game, and a Magic Item book would be an instant buy, though I don't typically go for that stuff.

More professions and kin, of course -- gnomes, half-orcs, half-elves. Not as worried about tieflings and dragonborne, but I'm sure someone will use them. More playable NPC races are already appearing (Centaurs for example in Dragonbane 2), so I'm thinking well see more of this kind. I'd love to see Dragonbane versions of all D&D classes.

Anything that basically makes conversion of OSR stuff easy -- take my money.

It's funny....I'm both eager to see the Magic book, and I can't think of anything specific that I wish the current system had.

 

[overgeeked]

For me, I'm approaching Dragonbane as a D&D replacer. That is, I want to play D&D stuff (specifically older D&D stuff and OSR with folks who never got to play those modules) but use a simpler and more streamlined ruleset.

Yeah, that's absolutely the draw for me. Simpler more streamlined fantasy RPG. I do like that it's a subtly different genre than D&D's high fantasy though. Not sure I'd want to add too much of that in.

Magic Item book would be an instant buy, though I don't typically go for that stuff.

I've been thinking about that one in particular. I think I'm going to go with weird, one-off magic items rather than your typical D&D-style magic items. I want to keep the low magic and high lethality of Dragonbane intact. So things like +1 swords and bags of holding are not things I'd want to add. But I definitely like having weird, found magic items. And something like a monster harvesting option. That's always fun.

More professions and kin, of course -- gnomes, half-orcs, half-elves. Not as worried about tieflings and dragonborne, but I'm sure someone will use them. More playable NPC races are already appearing (Centaurs for example in Dragonbane 2), so I'm thinking well see more of this kind. I'd love to see Dragonbane versions of all D&D classes.

Of the 5E classes, what's missing? Artificer, barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, wizard, and warlock. The artificer is sort of coming with the Magic book and alchemy. Barbarian is a mallard fighter. Bard and cleric is already there. Cleric is an animist. Same with druid, really. Fighter, yep. Monk is basically a mentalist...or a Jedi without the lightsaber, really. The knight is the paladin without magic. Ranger is the hunter. Rogue is the properly named thief. And sorcerer, wizard, and warlock are basically just mechanically overly complex mages.

Anything that basically makes conversion of OSR stuff easy -- take my money.

Other than an easy conversion of monsters, you don't need much. If there's an equivalent in Dragonbane already you're set. For example, you could run Keep on the Borderlands right now. I think all the monsters in that already exist in Dragonbane. It would be a wildly different experience. Slightly more survivable than back-in-the-day, but only just. That actually sounds fun now that I think about it.

I did come across this:

Spoiler

“OD&D to Dragonbane Conversion.

Armor Value=9-AC. AC 8 – leather (1) AC 7 – studded (2) AC 5 – chain (4) AC 3 – plate (6) etc.

Hit Points:

For under 2 HD, use 10 HP base, +/- 1 = +/- 2. Eg HD ½=5 hp, HD 1-1= 8 hp, HD 1=10 hp, HD 1+1=12 hp.

For 2 HD+ use 7 hp per HD plus any static bonus, ie HD 2=14 hp, HD 2+2=18 hp, HD 3=20 hp, HD 3+1=21 hp, HD 4+1=30 hp, etc.

Damage is usually about double, likewise, but single target damage should not exceed 4 dice.

Hit Dice to Typical Skill 0.5 8; 1-1 10; 1 12; 1+1 13; 2 13; 3 14; 4-5 15; 6-7 16; 8-9 17; 10+ 18.

Examples:

Giant Rat (Animal) Movement 12 HP 5 Attack: Bite (skill level 8, damage D6), Awareness 12, Evade 10, Sneaking.

Kobold (NPC) Movement: 8 Damage Bonus: - Typical Armor: -, often have small shields HP 5 Skills: Awareness 10 Spear 8 Sword 8 Sneaking 13 Typical Weapons: Short Spear D10, Short Sword D10.”

Not sure you'd really need it with how easy it is to make NPCs and monsters.

 

[overgeeked]

From what I recall from when I hunted down info, DoD had these magic schools in the past.

• Alchemy
• Animism
• Demonology
• Elementalism
• Harmonism - it sounds like was basically bardic magic
• Illusionism
• Mentalism
• Necromancy
• Spiritism - not sure how it was different from Animism
• Staff - I believe that these are likely using magic for what would be monks in D&D. I believe Symbaroum also has staff magic for D&D-esque monks.
• Symbolism
• Voice Magic - again not sure how it was different from some other ones, possibly more focused on command words
• Witchcraft

I believe that I saw mention of Dragon and Battle magic elsewhere as well.

There are some that schools that excite me from this list and some that leave me feeling "meh... why did you include these schools but not some more (at least for me) obvious choices?" So I will be curious what Free League decides to include from the past for nostalgia sake (or "that makes total sense if you played DoD!") or what may be newly created for the sake of appealing to a wider audience.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what they do. There's about 40 years of back catalog to mine. Not sure what they'll use or what they'll make fresh. I would be interested in a setting book bringing some of the only-in-Swedish stuff forward.

I wish some of these people would stop overengineering Heroic Abilities that bolt on new subsystems. I think that there should be ways to create simple HAs for a Priest or Astrologer, for example, that don't involve creating a full page subsystem for a single HA.

For a priest it could be just as simple as, (1) "Activate this ability to get a boon on your Myths & Legends roll when recalling information about your religion. Or alternatively, (2) "activate this ability to get a boon on your Persuasion roll when interacting with a devout NPC of your faith." Based on some HAs, it could even be (3) "Activate this ability and you automatically pass a Myths & Legends roll about lore regarding your faith and its religious practices."

OR

If you want a blessing mechanic, then just re-flavor the Musician heroic ability and connect it with the Myths & Legends skill and brandishing holy symbols instead of playing instruments. What would a priest's blessing or curse do differently than what the Musician heroic ability does?

Exactly. Maybe I'm weird but I start by picking apart the system and go from there. I want to pull apart the monster design and put it back together so I can make monsters that fit the game, or at least don't stand out as obviously hack jobs. Same with the rest. Kin, professions, heroic abilities, spells, etc. I haven't done that with player-side mechanics yet, but the referee side is dead simple. At first glance, the PC-side isn't much more complicated.

 

[Aldarc]

Of the 5E classes, what's missing? Artificer, barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, wizard, and warlock. The artificer is sort of coming with the Magic book and alchemy. Barbarian is a mallard fighter. Bard and cleric is already there. Cleric is an animist. Same with druid, really. Fighter, yep. Monk is basically a mentalist...or a Jedi without the lightsaber, really. The knight is the paladin without magic. Ranger is the hunter. Rogue is the properly named thief. And sorcerer, wizard, and warlock are basically just mechanically overly complex mages.

Agreed, though I would add that a Barbarian could be a profession that gets the Berserker HA at the start. A monk could likewise get their choice of Iron Fist or Iron Grip HA as part of their profession if you want to be non-magical.

You could even have a Warlord by having a profession that starts with Battle Cry.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Of the 5E classes, what's missing? Artificer, barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, wizard, and warlock.

In my mind, Dragonbane "profession" is so different in meaning from D&D "class" that I just don't make the comparison. It's really more like D&D "background". It's just a starting point.

So rather than ask what classes are missing, I would ask:

• What interesting Heroic Abilities would make the game richer?
• For each new Heroic Ability, what's the argument for creating a new Profession based on it, versus just letting players pick it as they develop?

 

[Bill Zebub]

To take the Warlock example, what would be required to replicate that concept in Dragonbane?

Maybe...

• A new school of magic
• A single, flavorful Heroic Ability, but it would need to be useful/cool/flavorful even if the player didn't want to choose that school of magic, or even be able to use magic.

EDIT:
Maybe "Patron". Somebody you can ask for favors, but who might demand things of you in return. Player could flavor that as a warlock-style patron, or simply as a noble, powerful wizard, crime-lord, etc. (I'm not sure what the actual mechanic benefit would be; just brainstorming.)

And then a related Profession, with this HA, might be "Minion".