Game of Thrones or Black Company description?

[ecliptic]

Hrmph right. It would still make it completely impossible for a level 1 to kill a level 20.

 

[Starman]

Maybe it's just because I've seen so many varieties that made the changes not to the characters, but to the setting behind it, that I find myself going for the books that are easiest for me to use as if or in a d20 campaign.

I think that the main priority when designing a game for a liscenced setting needs to be capturing the feel and flavor of that setting. Presumably that is why most people are going to buy the setting. They were fans of the movie/book/whatever and want to capture that in their game.

Now, people are going to disagree on what needs to be done to do so. However, it seems that you want these liscenced settings to be useable as generic sourcebooks for your D&D game. By definition that's not going to work. They are liscenced settings, not generic ones. I think that there are enough generic books out there that complaining about a liscenced setting not being compatible with your game is an empty whine.

As for the complaint that they shouldn't put the d20 logo on the book, I don't understand that, either. You're educated enough about d20 to know that not every book with the d20 logo on it is not going to be 100% compatible. If you're not sure about a particular book, you can ask here on the boards. The d20 logo is there so the average, uneducated consumer knows that the book uses the basics of the d20 system. It's there for sales. It's easier with that than trying to show compatiblity without using the d20 logo as OGL games must.

Starman

 

[Krieg]

Hrmph right. It would still make it completely impossible for a level 1 to kill a level 20.

Let's not resort to hyperbole. Very difficult? Yes. Impossible? No.

 

[ecliptic]

Oh so how do you expect a 1st level fighter to hit a massive damage threshold of a 20th level fighter? 20 + Con. At minimum that would be a 28 MDT. A fighter with an 18 Strength and a Greatsword can deal out 4d6 +12 on a crit, thats 36 damage maximum.

So possible sure, if the 20th level fighter is controlled by an absolute retard.
Any 20th level fighter that could have actually made it there is not going to have an 8 Con. Give a fighter an 18 Con and all of a sudden the 1st level fighter has no chance.

I don't know about you but I don't call a 2 in 20 chance combined with the odds of actually rolling enough damage, anywhere near grim and gritty.

 

[BryonD]

Another feature that must be mention is that in Martin's world it is very dangerous for even experienced warriors to enter battle. There's one scene that sticks out in my mind as an example of something D&D can't do.

Jaime Lannister, mentioned above, is easily one of the fiercest and most deadly swordsmen in Westeros. In one scene, he enters a battlescarred village, and when he opens the door to the inn a peasant boy points a crossbow at him. Jaime stops and puts his hands up, but then warns the kid that he'd better kill him with the first shot, because he wouldn't get a second.

I don't have a problem with the rules being massively changed. I look forward to it, actually.

In Black Company, if you are flat-footed in the surprise round your MDT is 1 point and if you fail the save the damage goes directly to your CON.

The kids got a real chance to do serious damage with his first shot, but he won't get a second.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Hrmph right. It would still make it completely impossible for a level 1 to kill a level 20.

In Black Company, if you suffer an ambush and are hit (and due to the non-magical setting, there's no bracers, rings, or magical armor), you have to make a save or be effected as if you'd past your Massive Damage Threshold. This is modeled after how Croaker, a normal person for the most part, managed to take down a near demi-god due to surprise and some other goods.

I don't think you've read the Black Company RPG or any of the reviews on it that detail the leathality of combat.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Now, people are going to disagree on what needs to be done to do so. However, it seems that you want these liscenced settings to be useable as generic sourcebooks for your D&D game. By definition that's not going to work. They are liscenced settings, not generic ones. I think that there are enough generic books out there that complaining about a liscenced setting not being compatible with your game is an empty whine.

Starman

I'll agree that it's an 'empty whine' if you will. These days, I get more use out of books that I can use with any D&D game as opposed to just with that specific thing. At this point, Game of Thrones will probably only be run as a one off or something and none of my existing D&D/d20 material will be directly compatible with it without a lot of work.

Now I don't mind kitbashing. I'm running Slavelords of Cydonia, which is a Grim Tales based adventure, with players whose characters are built using Black Company. There is about... oh a minute's worth of work on NPC's that I have to change and that's it.

Is it wrong to want your d20 material to be useable with other d20 material?

 

[Berandor]

You can pretty much drop the characters from Black Company into any other setting though.

From what I've seen of Game of Thrones though, that doesn't appear to be the case.

Care to elaborate on that? I only know the one preview, and I'm not sure where you see what you say you're seeing. If you could tell me where aGoT fails d20 - so far, I'm not seeing your point.

 

[Berandor]

I took another look at the preview, and while I was a little hesitant about the noble education part, I think you are most aggravated by the hit point issue.

To me, it looks as if the Noble gets 1d4 hit points per level, only the book uses the option (from the DMG) of giving slightly below average hit points without rolling. On first level, they get full hit points (4 from 1d4), plus 4 hit points extra, maybe to make them a little more resilient. Truth be told, if wizards would get 8 hit points at first level (as well as rogues, bards, etc.), I wouldn't be too concerned.

Anyway, the hit points seem to follow a linear system (namely 2 hp per level). I'm not sure whether the book will have a line saying "If you want, you can roll hit points, where 2=1d4, 3=1d6, 4=1d8," and so forth). I'm not sure I need one.

For example, a noble 3 will have 12 hit points, a noble 16 will have 38. A wizard 3 will have 6-12 (average 9), a wizard 16 19-64 (avg 41). Frankly, I don't see your problem here.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, the Game of Thrones noble, without the GM winging the hit points, isn't going to be able to stand with even a regular NPC aristocraft for example, unlike say a Black Company Noble, who can pretty much hang with any social crowd.

Based on that previews, it looks good. It just doesn't look like it'll be easy to use with standard D&D material.