Shadowdark or Worlds w/o numbers?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes, I think I will. I think the only ‘missing’ class that might come up would be some kind of monk, which have some Greyhawk history. What would you recommend for monk, if someone is dying to play one?

There are oodles of new classes available for Shadowdark on DriveThruRPG. I haven't had anyone express a desire to play one in my home games, so I haven't really looked at them, though.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I haven't worked much with Shadowdark, but a quick glance at the stats suggests you'd be pretty safe using standard TSR-era D&D monsters, with the standard few changes like flip AC to ascending, etc. Does that not work?

It does, but a lot of people want all the ability scores, etc., which can matter in Shadowdark and aren't provided in TSR D&D. TSR monsters are also more likely to just be a lump of hit points, with no special abilities, while most Shadowdark monsters have one interesting mechanical thing about them (more at higher levels).

 

[overgeeked]

It does, but a lot of people want all the ability scores, etc., which can matter in Shadowdark and aren't provided in TSR D&D. TSR monsters are also more likely to just be a lump of hit points, with no special abilities, while most Shadowdark monsters have one interesting mechanical thing about them (more at higher levels).

Yeah. “Make monsters interesting” is something we’ve always done. So that’s not an issue. Do monster ability scores/bonuses really come up that often? And is it something you’d have a hard time improvising?

 

[timbannock]

Yeah. “Make monsters interesting” is something we’ve always done. So that’s not an issue. Do monster ability scores/bonuses really come up that often? And is it something you’d have a hard time improvising?

There's less "saving throws" in SD overall, but they aren't completely gone, so about modifiers do matter for a bunch of spells and occasionally magic item effects. They also matter when improvising actions, which is very, very common IME.

 

[R_J_K75]

ShadowDark...All Day

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, even though it's not 5E, when there's a contested roll, it's nice -- but no, not required -- to have the ability scores available.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The part of monster conversion that takes the most work is converting spells & magical abilities. Takes some thought to get both balance and flavor right.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The part of monster conversion that takes the most work is converting spells & magical abilities. Takes some thought to get both balance and flavor right.

Especially when the D&D monster has 40,000 abilities and you need to figure out which actually matter.

For instance, I have always been a big believer that NPCs don't need all their non-combat abilities spelled out, for instance; sure, that lich* can cast any spell he wants out of combat when he has time to consult his bound-in-human-flesh tomes, etc. He's almost certainly not casting floating disc in combat, so it doesn't need to be in his converted stat block.

* Yes, I know there's a Shadowdark default lich. Just an example, although I've already created a variant lich for my home game to model a specific character.