Highlander

[Corlon]

I'm thinking of making a template for highlanders which would work in pretty much any setting, and anyone who actually knows what their talking about can correct me on some of these things, but I think these are the basics for highlanders.

1. They are immortal unless their head gets chopped off. They still feel pain and can die, but they come back to life soon after and they never age.
2. They don't start out immortal and only become immortal by having a violent death, so dying of old age and stuff won't make them come back.
3. They have to/just do kill other highlanders and get their power.
4. When they kill another highlander they also get their memories (?)

Anything else about them that I'm missing?

The things I'm thinking about are:
1. How would stealing power work, what pluses would someone get.
2. What would the ECL be? (probably different for different settings, because in a place where swords are common it's fairly easy to kill them, but in modern times, who carries a sword around...besides them of course)
3. Would chopping off their heads have a special mechanic, or would you just have a vorpal weapon or coup de grace them and that counts as cutting off their head if they die.


Any thoughts or complaints on how I got these things horribly wrong?

 

[Axelos]

There were only two immortal highlanders, to my knowledge: Connor McLeod and Duncan McLeod. All the others were immortals. They were not from the highlands of Scotland. Gamers who are keen on immortal lore will call you on this.

The ECL or CR would depend on the power of the immortal. Duncan's little friend Richie (that was the guy's name, right?) would be significantly less powerful than the Kurgan (sp?). I guess you could start with a default I-just-died-and-learned-I-am-immortal power level, then build the big bads from there.

As for precisely how to model the relative power levels of the immortals, I am not the guy to tell you about that. I have watched the movies and a few episodes of the TV series, but I am by far no expert.

One important note, however: you must play the original Queen soundtrack whenever you are playing with immortals. Otherwise, it's just not Highlander.

 

[Crothian]

The big question is do you feel that being Immortal gives other abilities then being Immortal. Some people feel that Immortals get other bonuses like perhaps a boost to Dex or Con, while others do not. Also, you'll need to handle immortals that are old (1000+ years) verse the ones that had their first death yesterday. There is no right or wrong way to do this, it just depends on how you want it done. I'm a big Highlander fan and I've seen dozens of different RPG cponversions for them. Some were okay, some were not.

 

[Anubis]

Ah! My specialty! I love Highlander!

I regret that I have not built any immortal campaigns as of yet, but the reasoning is simple: most immortals who live past 150 will be epic characters without exception, and some of the most powerful immortals would likely be Level 1000+.

Anyway, I'll give my current thoughts about this, but I have to maintain that a D&D campaign and immortals just don't mix very well.

The big question is do you feel that being Immortal gives other abilities then being Immortal. Some people feel that Immortals get other bonuses like perhaps a boost to Dex or Con, while others do not. Also, you'll need to handle immortals that are old (1000+ years) verse the ones that had their first death yesterday. There is no right or wrong way to do this, it just depends on how you want it done. I'm a big Highlander fan and I've seen dozens of different RPG cponversions for them. Some were okay, some were not.

There has been much debate about this, and I recently changed my original thoughts on the matter. Indeed, it can be proven directly that newborn immortals immediately get a boost to Str, Dex, and Con. In the episode Reasonable Doubt, during the flashback showing Lucas Kagan's first death, his mentor directly states "now you'll be stronger, faster, and better than you could ever have been before" or something to that effect. I would do this with something small, though, like Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4. Nothing big.

There were only two immortal highlanders, to my knowledge: Connor McLeod and Duncan McLeod. All the others were immortals. They were not from the highlands of Scotland. Gamers who are keen on immortal lore will call you on this.

Yep. Damn Highlander: The Raven for putting such confusion into this! Amanda is not, was not, and will never be a Highlander, regardless of how many times the Highlander is in her!

Okay, I've had my lewd joke for the day . . .

The ECL or CR would depend on the power of the immortal. Duncan's little friend Richie (that was the guy's name, right?) would be significantly less powerful than the Kurgan (sp?). I guess you could start with a default I-just-died-and-learned-I-am-immortal power level, then build the big bads from there.

Something like that, yeah. The real power comes from the quickening.

As for precisely how to model the relative power levels of the immortals, I am not the guy to tell you about that. I have watched the movies and a few episodes of the TV series, but I am by far no expert.

It's not easy. It's very difficult to account for "rust" in D&D, but it plays a huge part in many parts of Highlander (such as when Methos tries to fight Kalas after not fighting for 200 years). It AIN'T like riding a bicycle, that's for sure. That would likely be handled by giving a character 1 negative level per decade of not fighting regularly.

One important note, however: you must play the original Queen soundtrack whenever you are playing with immortals. Otherwise, it's just not Highlander.

You can find "A Kind Of Magic" at most music stores, including Wal-Mart.

I'm thinking of making a template for highlanders which would work in pretty much any setting, and anyone who actually knows what their talking about can correct me on some of these things, but I think these are the basics for highlanders.

Okay, time to get down to business.

1. They are immortal unless their head gets chopped off. They still feel pain and can die, but they come back to life soon after and they never age.

This is correct.

2. They don't start out immortal and only become immortal by having a violent death, so dying of old age and stuff won't make them come back.

This is only partly correct, and is a problem caused by Highlander: The Raven, although there is still to this day some confusion about these things.

Immortals are born immortal, plain and simple. You either have it or you don't. This is proven by the fact that immortals can sense others that are not immortal yet. (The first time this is stated outright is in Rite Of Passage when Duncan explains to Michelle Webster that "he knew all along that this day would eventually come", although astute viewers will notice that Duncan also sensed Richie as well in The Gathering and viewers were led astray by the arrivals of Slan and Connor MacLeod. In addition, Kurgan sensed Connor MacLeod when they first met on the battlefield.) I do believe, however, that the head can't be taken before the "first death", which is when the latent immortality is activated.

This is where confusion sets in. Highlander: The Raven stated it when Amanda told Nick about his own immortality, and that is where confusion started. Unfortunately, this made some people believe that another immortal can possibly make someone immortal, which is not true. Amanda's first death, however, was to the black plague, so obviously a violent death isn't necessary, just any death other than "natural causes". If that happens, the immortality never sets in fully.

3. They have to/just do kill other highlanders and get their power.
4. When they kill another highlander they also get their memories (?)

In Joe Dawson's words, "Constantly facing other immortals in combat to the death, the winner takes his enemy's head, and with it, his power. Power means all physical and mental attributes, along with an ounce of their personality as well. (Something Wicked shows us what happens when a good immortal takes too many evil immortal heads.)

Mechanically speaking, this is why D&D and immortals don't mix. You see, the only way to simulate taking someone's power is to transfer all levels. In other words, if a Level 20 immortal kills a Level 10 immortal, the victorious immortal is now Level 30. An alternative to this, however, is to transfer all feats with the winner having skill ranks and ability scores equal to whoever had the better ranks and scores to begin with, and then give all of the loser's XP to the winner along with the standard XP award. (This would only curtail rampant level-gaining slightly, though.)

Any which way, it's tough.

Anything else about them that I'm missing?

Yeah, the rules of the immortals. Some of these are honor rules that only the Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil immortals would break, whereas others are set in stone and can't be violated.

Honor Rules:

1. Battles must be one-on-one duels. No ganging up on people. Even most evil immortals follow this.
2. No interference. Most will follow this, but some (such as Xavier St. Cloud) will ignore this to gain an advantage.

Strict Rules:

1. You must never kill another immortal on holy ground. Doing so will most likely cause a cataclysmic reactions within a hundred miles and will also destroy the victorious immortal outright. (I believe Methos is the one to finally reveal what happens, although it could have been the Watchers.)
2. Duncan implies often that immortals can't kill ANYONE on holy ground, but I think sparing mortals on holy ground is an honor thing and not a strict rule. Only other immortals are truly safe.

The things I'm thinking about are:
1. How would stealing power work, what pluses would someone get.

I explained this one above. Basically if the winner has 3 ranks of Search and the loser had 5 ranks, the winner should now have 5 ranks. If the winner had Int 14 and the winner had Int 30, the winner now has Int 30. If the winner started with 200,000 XP and the loser had 50,000, the winner would have 250,000 plus ay XP gained from the encounter.

2. What would the ECL be? (probably different for different settings, because in a place where swords are common it's fairly easy to kill them, but in modern times, who carries a sword around...besides them of course)

No only the power of the immortal would matter. First you have to determine what an immortal gets to begin with. I would suggest Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, fast healing 10, and electricity immunity. Also, nack wounds do not heal. (Duncan sliced Kalas's throat open and it never healed, destroying his vocal chords and leaving a helluva nasty scar.) Some would argue that they have disease and poison immunity as well along with regeneration, but this is clearly false. First off, limbs don't grow back. (Duncan cut off Xavier St. Cloud's hand and it was gone for good.) Second, several immortals have fallen prey to poison (mostly sedatives; Xavier St. Cloud used to gas immortals before beheading them, and Amanda was once caught by getting stuck in the neck with a good sedative). Third, although there is a point where Duncan says "immortal's don't get sick", he contradicts this later when he catches a cold. If anything, an immortal just can't die from a disease; as soon as it kills him, the disease is gone, and the immortals comes back to life as normal.

Oh, and I think the ECL would be CR +1 per head.

3. Would chopping off their heads have a special mechanic, or would you just have a vorpal weapon or coup de grace them and that counts as cutting off their head if they die.

There are two ways to handle this. The first and easier, but less Highlander-like way, is to have battles take place normally, and once the immortal is below 0, the winner can flat-out take the head without interference or even a coup de grace attempt.

The other way is to have a new mechanic for immortal duels using opposed attack rolls. This would be more true to the series, of course. Anyway, with this, on the strike that would put the immortal below 0, that is when they are "disabled" and like crouching or whatever as most immortals do. If an immortal somehow get's an instant-kill hit as per the DMG variant (roll 20, then 20 again, and then confirm), then it's an instant beheading in the middle of combat.

Any thoughts or complaints on how I got these things horribly wrong?

This is a good starting point. I was planning on having all the Greyhawk deities become immortal and fight until only one remains, and having them fight like immortals, but with deific powers involved, it's a whole new ball game. (Why use swords at all when you can divine blast another into oblivion and then just lop off the head?)

Anyway, hope this input was useful.

 

[Crothian]

Personally, I'd tone it down. I think at most immortals would get a Con bonus as trhey are resistant to many things like poison and disease. The quickening I would tone down a lot because it really never showed that knowledge was passed on. I might go as far as giving a bonus skill point or two, but what is suggested above I find to much. Now, obviously neither is right I just perfer a lowered power versions.

 

[Corlon]

ack, helpful if a bit confusing.

I'd say to stop all the poison immunity, disease immunity, fast healing, and everything like that, just say that when they die they come back to life with full hit points. Extreme wounds (such as the cutting off of limbs, digits, slittting of throats, etc. do not affect the highlander except for...obvious reasons, and cannot grow back.)

and I'd say to stop highlanders from being very very overly powerful, whenever they kill another highlander, they just get ability score increases equal to the other highlanders abilities -10 (and divided by 2 if you really don't want extremely powerful people). And the rest of their "power" is given via experience points based on their level.

And the way to give immortals with 1000+ years old special powers would be to give them lots and lots of levels depending on active they've been.

And I guess screw the ECL because it'd be tough to figure it out and mixing immortal PCs and nonimmortal PCs would be kind of strange.

 

[Lela]

I'd keep the Fast Healing. That's always been pritty clear in the show. Tone it down to 3 or 5 though, to keep in tune with the beheading scenes.

I'd just have them get some extra experience for killing an imortal. ECL should take care of the fact that most normal threats aren't really a threat for them but I'd keep an eye on it just in case. Perhaps this should just be story stuff (stop that guy before he kills the mortal you love kinda thing). Mostly when time matters.

On that note, remember that (in the series), when they die it takes them a little time to "Wake" back up. I'd say it's at least a minute but someone who knows the show better than I should give that number. And they usually feel like crap afterwords. In most of the movies they never actually die. They just hurt like hell.

Also, when they take the quickening I think it kills them. I might be wrong though. But they are certainly below 0 HP. In that episode with the small imortal boy (trained by Amanda a thousand years before) had pinned Duncun with a falling statue (I think), Amanda couldn't interviene but she could cut his head off after he took the Quickening.

As a last note, from what I've seen, all immortals are orphens and no one ever knew their parents. Sometimes they are left on a doorstep or sometimes they are just found in a car or something. But their parentage is never kwown. I've always thought of this as as fitting in with the "We are the Princes of the Universe" line in the theam song.

In fact, I've always thought of the song as fitting the show better than most others I've heard. It always gets my blood pumping too.

[Edit: And thanks for giving me yet another DVD collection I want to get. Better get back to that job hunting thing I guess.]

 

[Khaalis]

You really should go look at some of the Highlander D20 sources that are already out there. Why re-invent the wheel?

For example:
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/frodie69/myhomepage/Highlander3rd.doc

 

[Wolf72]

check out the Birthright setting for some more ideas on the idea of killing your empowered foe and getting their power ...

they weren't immortals, but you could use the system of gaining/losing power (blood lines and abilities in Birthright)

 

[Anubis]

I'd keep the Fast Healing. That's always been pritty clear in the show. Tone it down to 3 or 5 though, to keep in tune with the beheading scenes.

That might be a good idea.

I'd just have them get some extra experience for killing an imortal. ECL should take care of the fact that most normal threats aren't really a threat for them but I'd keep an eye on it just in case. Perhaps this should just be story stuff (stop that guy before he kills the mortal you love kinda thing). Mostly when time matters.

Well no . . . It's obvious that the power gain is more significant than that. In Methos, neither Duncan nor Methos seem to be able to defeat Kalas, but Methos makes it fairly obvious that if Duncan took Methos's head, he'd be able to win pretty easily, just as Kalas could defeat Duncan easily if he took Methos's head first.

On that note, remember that (in the series), when they die it takes them a little time to "Wake" back up. I'd say it's at least a minute but someone who knows the show better than I should give that number. And they usually feel like crap afterwords. In most of the movies they never actually die. They just hurt like hell.

They never die and they never need to wake up. In actuality, it's more like they are "fatigued" for a certain period of time, so that's the mechanic I'd use. They ARE vulnerable for about half a minute right after the Quickening, though, and easily killed at that time.

Also, when they take the quickening I think it kills them. I might be wrong though. But they are certainly below 0 HP. In that episode with the small imortal boy (trained by Amanda a thousand years before) had pinned Duncun with a falling statue (I think), Amanda couldn't interviene but she could cut his head off after he took the Quickening.

Not below 0 by any means. In fact, after Kalas killed Fitzcairn, he still had enough energy to back Duncan off before jumping in the river to get away.

As a last note, from what I've seen, all immortals are orphens and no one ever knew their parents. Sometimes they are left on a doorstep or sometimes they are just found in a car or something. But their parentage is never kwown. I've always thought of this as as fitting in with the "We are the Princes of the Universe" line in the theam song.

This is something any Highlander fan can tell you isn't true. AFAIK, only Amanda and Richie were orphans (of the main cast). There are several episodes dealing with Duncan's lineage and parents, though, and Connor was actually shown as being cast out in stocks by his father. Also, Michelle had an argument with her parents before driving over a cliff for her first death, and then she watched her oown funeral that her parents gave her.

Immortals can't HAVE children, but they certainly do have parents. Only in Highlander 2 is this not the case, and as anyone doing this should know, NONE of the movies should be put into consideration in true Highlander knowledge. None of the movies have any continuity (Connor becomes the last one in 1-3 in fact), 2 doesn't have anything to do with Highlander, and 4 simply screws up everything done in the series by a) putting Connor in the Sanctuary before he would have met Duncan on the series and b) having Duncan get married when throughout the series they made it clear that Duncan was "cursed" to never marry and had in fact never married through the end of the series as he stated many times.

In fact, I've always thought of the song as fitting the show better than most others I've heard. It always gets my blood pumping too.

[Edit: And thanks for giving me yet another DVD collection I want to get. Better get back to that job hunting thing I guess.]

You have plenty of time, as the Highlander DVDs only go up to Season 2 currently. All 6 are out on video, though, but I wouldn't waste money with that.