Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft - A Grognard Finally Reads It (Review)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8874516" data-attributes="member: 6915329"><p>As a fellow long-time Ravenloft DM...</p><p></p><p></p><p>"Strive to become" undead, probably not. May end up as, quite possibly. Have an unpleasant background that turned the PC into a vampire, also quite possible. I have a player who started out as a half-elf, a hexblade whose sword wanted him to consume blood. When VGR came out, I asked the player if they wanted to switch to dhampir, and they thought about it for a while and then said sure.</p><p></p><p>You can already have a vampire hunter ranger--be a ranger whose preferred monster type is undead, and stock up on stakes. Anything cooler would probably require called shots, which D&D as a whole doesn't use. And 5e cleric archetypes are all based around divine domains, not jobs within the church, so an exorcist was never going to be possible.</p><p></p><p>The Dark Powers checks were fairly arbitrary and rare. The PC commit bloody murder dozens of times and the dice don't care, but this one time the PC steals an apple and <em>that's </em>what gets the DP's attention, because the DM rolled a 3 or less on a d100? Nah. It's actually more appropriate <em>and </em>more fun for the DM to decide when the DPs take notice, or to work it out with the player. I'm doing that now--I've even discussed with the player what they might turn into, if they keep playing their character in an evil-ish way. Curses from the Dark Powers are a powerful roleplaying tool if they aren't left to random chance.</p><p></p><p>And what do you mean, no rules for corruption? That's what those Dark Gifts are for!</p><p></p><p>It's taramind, not tamarind; as far as I can tell, taramind isn't even a real world--or at least google translate isn't giving me anything from either Hindi or Punjabi, nor am I finding anything that suggests it's an actual name. I admit I didn't look too hard, though. And anyway, I live in a state that is named after a person, in a county that is named after a person (who had never actually <em>been </em>in the area), in an unincorporated area that is named after a tree, so even if it <em>were </em>Tamarind Falls, well, tamarind is a tree. There's plenty of precedent. Quite frankly, <em>most </em>place names are pretty dull. India itself merely means "land of the Indus river" or words to that effect.</p><p></p><p>You're also ignoring the more evocative names of Lake of the Lost and Forest of the Still--and "The Silent Sitar" is also quite evocative, since sitars are musical instruments, and this suggests an unnatural quiet that prevents music being played.</p><p></p><p></p><p>OK, let's look at stats.</p><p></p><p>Nightmare Queen... do you mean Tsien Chiang? Well, I suppose just being a mage is a bit of a let down considering she was a 20th-level wizard who could turn into a treant. I'll give you that one.</p><p></p><p>Hazlik was only 12th level in 2e, and 14th level in 3e. In 2e, he could detect it when people in Hazlan could cast spells, but that ability was curtailed in DoD and gone complete in 3x. Being an archmage able to cast 9th-level spells with constant surveillance over the <em>entire </em>domain, not just the spellcasting part of it, due to his magic eyes in 5e--that's a major upgrade!</p><p></p><p>Viktra Mordenheim is only a spy, but in 2e, Vic<em>tor</em> was a 0th-level human. AC 10, THAC0 20, one attack (by weapon), no special attacks, his only special defense is that he would regenerate from any wound as long as Adam was still alive. He was buffed a lot in 3x in terms of his BAB because he was a 15th-level expert, but he still had the same number of hit points and no special abilities or attacks. At least Viktra can use her knowledge of anatomy to deliver sneak attacks.</p><p></p><p>And finally, Ankhtepot. He was a greater mummy in 2e. His stats were identical to those of a 500-year old greater mummy from the Ravenloft MC entry. And greater mummies had no real interesting abilities outside of spells and mummy rot unless you used the salient abilities from <em>Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead... </em>which he wasn't given. So as a 5e mummy lord, he's literally more powerful and more interesting than in 2e.</p><p></p><p>So... what exactly is the problem with the darklords again? Just make Chiang able to turn into a treant and bam!, you're done.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Faolyn, post: 8874516, member: 6915329"] As a fellow long-time Ravenloft DM... "Strive to become" undead, probably not. May end up as, quite possibly. Have an unpleasant background that turned the PC into a vampire, also quite possible. I have a player who started out as a half-elf, a hexblade whose sword wanted him to consume blood. When VGR came out, I asked the player if they wanted to switch to dhampir, and they thought about it for a while and then said sure. You can already have a vampire hunter ranger--be a ranger whose preferred monster type is undead, and stock up on stakes. Anything cooler would probably require called shots, which D&D as a whole doesn't use. And 5e cleric archetypes are all based around divine domains, not jobs within the church, so an exorcist was never going to be possible. The Dark Powers checks were fairly arbitrary and rare. The PC commit bloody murder dozens of times and the dice don't care, but this one time the PC steals an apple and [I]that's [/I]what gets the DP's attention, because the DM rolled a 3 or less on a d100? Nah. It's actually more appropriate [I]and [/I]more fun for the DM to decide when the DPs take notice, or to work it out with the player. I'm doing that now--I've even discussed with the player what they might turn into, if they keep playing their character in an evil-ish way. Curses from the Dark Powers are a powerful roleplaying tool if they aren't left to random chance. And what do you mean, no rules for corruption? That's what those Dark Gifts are for! It's taramind, not tamarind; as far as I can tell, taramind isn't even a real world--or at least google translate isn't giving me anything from either Hindi or Punjabi, nor am I finding anything that suggests it's an actual name. I admit I didn't look too hard, though. And anyway, I live in a state that is named after a person, in a county that is named after a person (who had never actually [I]been [/I]in the area), in an unincorporated area that is named after a tree, so even if it [I]were [/I]Tamarind Falls, well, tamarind is a tree. There's plenty of precedent. Quite frankly, [I]most [/I]place names are pretty dull. India itself merely means "land of the Indus river" or words to that effect. You're also ignoring the more evocative names of Lake of the Lost and Forest of the Still--and "The Silent Sitar" is also quite evocative, since sitars are musical instruments, and this suggests an unnatural quiet that prevents music being played. OK, let's look at stats. Nightmare Queen... do you mean Tsien Chiang? Well, I suppose just being a mage is a bit of a let down considering she was a 20th-level wizard who could turn into a treant. I'll give you that one. Hazlik was only 12th level in 2e, and 14th level in 3e. In 2e, he could detect it when people in Hazlan could cast spells, but that ability was curtailed in DoD and gone complete in 3x. Being an archmage able to cast 9th-level spells with constant surveillance over the [I]entire [/I]domain, not just the spellcasting part of it, due to his magic eyes in 5e--that's a major upgrade! Viktra Mordenheim is only a spy, but in 2e, Vic[I]tor[/I] was a 0th-level human. AC 10, THAC0 20, one attack (by weapon), no special attacks, his only special defense is that he would regenerate from any wound as long as Adam was still alive. He was buffed a lot in 3x in terms of his BAB because he was a 15th-level expert, but he still had the same number of hit points and no special abilities or attacks. At least Viktra can use her knowledge of anatomy to deliver sneak attacks. And finally, Ankhtepot. He was a greater mummy in 2e. His stats were identical to those of a 500-year old greater mummy from the Ravenloft MC entry. And greater mummies had no real interesting abilities outside of spells and mummy rot unless you used the salient abilities from [I]Van Richten's Guide to the Ancient Dead... [/I]which he wasn't given. So as a 5e mummy lord, he's literally more powerful and more interesting than in 2e. So... what exactly is the problem with the darklords again? Just make Chiang able to turn into a treant and bam!, you're done. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft - A Grognard Finally Reads It (Review)
Top