D&D 4E Warhammer fantasy 4E D&D - Proposed House Rules?
- Thread starter Emirikol
- Start date
Ydars
Explorer
I too reckon that the designers of 4E are big-time fans of WH; Monte certainly is; Ptolus alone has tons of elements from WH including Chaos, Ratmen, firearms mutants etc. I reckon the PoL setting defualt was inspired by the LoTR movies and the WH world whilst 1st level characters in 4E seem to me to be very like Exalted characters.
Before I start this post, let me first say that when I say Warhammer, I mean the Warhammer world of the roleplaying game, not the Wargame (which is actually VERY different and IMHO rubbish).
On the surface, D&D PoL settings and then WHFRP world seem similar, but there are some important distinctions; I have played 1st and 2nd edition WHFRP for many years and so am very familiar with the setting. I also really love the novels, and these are worth a look if you are thinking of running your game in this setting (look for Dan Abnett in particular).
I think some of the problems you will have using the WHFRP world with 4E could be worse than with 3.5E; I recently ran a D&D campaign, set in an Imperial Colony in Lustria (Warhammer South America) that was very hard to adapt to keep the WHFRP "feel" because;
a) D&D is HEROIC and Warhammer is NOT. It is gritty, it is nasty and the Heroes are all fallen. As long as you spell this out to your players at the beginning, things will be fine. Just make sure there are no GOOD character or evil ones. Extreme alignments in the WH world tend to de-rail the campaign quickly. Moral ambiguity is the watch-word in WH.
b) Magic will be a problem in a 4E Warhammer game; in the Warhammer world, magic is looked upon as corrupting and no one trusts ANYONE who wields it. If you start casting magic willy-nilly, you will soon be burnt by a paranoid mob led by a witch-finder, even if you have a writ from the Emperor to say its OK. How you square this with At-Will abilities for wizards is anyone's guess. I would suggest you set your campaign a long way from civilisation for much of the time so the players can cut loose with their spells.
There is also the corrupting influence of magic; in Warhammer, magic is like radiation. The more you use it, the more likely you are to become physically or mentally or spiritually corrupted no matter how well intentioned you are. How you model this in D&D without significantly underpowering the spell using classes is challenging. I made the PCs change bodies several times after their original ones were mutated. I mutated them all because they were all exposed when their friends, the wizards, cast spells. You can make it really creepy, with grave robbing etc. You basically have to make these effects apply to the whole party, and make them affect the story. Then it works. Think of a party of PCs inhabiting dead bodies (aka Frankenstein) who are trying to save the world but are hated and hunted by the very humans they seek to protect.
c) Warhammer will work fine for Heroic Tier, but high D&D levels don't work well in the civilised WH world. 4E will be better because of the flatter power curve, but there are still some powerful effects. The spells are simply too powerful and the setting is irrevocably changed by them. Having said this, if you have the campaign go into the wastes of Chaos at high level ( a place that is almost off-limits in WHFRP itself) then high level D&D characters could kick ass. I would suggest you mutate them all so they can't go back to the normal world or have something like the Storm of Chaos happen in the Old World so that there are champions of chaos running around and the PCs are the anoited of Sigmar or something.
Anyway, have fun. It can work if you think a little way ahead and agree with your players beforehand that magic is mutagenic etc, but that the story will move forward anyway and you aren't penalising them.
Before I start this post, let me first say that when I say Warhammer, I mean the Warhammer world of the roleplaying game, not the Wargame (which is actually VERY different and IMHO rubbish).
On the surface, D&D PoL settings and then WHFRP world seem similar, but there are some important distinctions; I have played 1st and 2nd edition WHFRP for many years and so am very familiar with the setting. I also really love the novels, and these are worth a look if you are thinking of running your game in this setting (look for Dan Abnett in particular).
I think some of the problems you will have using the WHFRP world with 4E could be worse than with 3.5E; I recently ran a D&D campaign, set in an Imperial Colony in Lustria (Warhammer South America) that was very hard to adapt to keep the WHFRP "feel" because;
a) D&D is HEROIC and Warhammer is NOT. It is gritty, it is nasty and the Heroes are all fallen. As long as you spell this out to your players at the beginning, things will be fine. Just make sure there are no GOOD character or evil ones. Extreme alignments in the WH world tend to de-rail the campaign quickly. Moral ambiguity is the watch-word in WH.
b) Magic will be a problem in a 4E Warhammer game; in the Warhammer world, magic is looked upon as corrupting and no one trusts ANYONE who wields it. If you start casting magic willy-nilly, you will soon be burnt by a paranoid mob led by a witch-finder, even if you have a writ from the Emperor to say its OK. How you square this with At-Will abilities for wizards is anyone's guess. I would suggest you set your campaign a long way from civilisation for much of the time so the players can cut loose with their spells.
There is also the corrupting influence of magic; in Warhammer, magic is like radiation. The more you use it, the more likely you are to become physically or mentally or spiritually corrupted no matter how well intentioned you are. How you model this in D&D without significantly underpowering the spell using classes is challenging. I made the PCs change bodies several times after their original ones were mutated. I mutated them all because they were all exposed when their friends, the wizards, cast spells. You can make it really creepy, with grave robbing etc. You basically have to make these effects apply to the whole party, and make them affect the story. Then it works. Think of a party of PCs inhabiting dead bodies (aka Frankenstein) who are trying to save the world but are hated and hunted by the very humans they seek to protect.
c) Warhammer will work fine for Heroic Tier, but high D&D levels don't work well in the civilised WH world. 4E will be better because of the flatter power curve, but there are still some powerful effects. The spells are simply too powerful and the setting is irrevocably changed by them. Having said this, if you have the campaign go into the wastes of Chaos at high level ( a place that is almost off-limits in WHFRP itself) then high level D&D characters could kick ass. I would suggest you mutate them all so they can't go back to the normal world or have something like the Storm of Chaos happen in the Old World so that there are champions of chaos running around and the PCs are the anoited of Sigmar or something.
Anyway, have fun. It can work if you think a little way ahead and agree with your players beforehand that magic is mutagenic etc, but that the story will move forward anyway and you aren't penalising them.
Vikingkingq
Adventurer
Yes and no. Good and Evil isn't necessarily the same thing as Heroic. Here, I like to take the Ancient Greek heroes as examples: Achilles, Hercules, Odysseus, Ajax, etc. Incredibly powerful, superior beings, but not inherently good. Basically ordinary human beings increased in scope, with higher stakes to boot.Ydars said:
To give Warhammer examples, take a look at a lot of the special characters: Archaon, Valten, Tyrion and Teclis, Malekith, Gotrek and Felix, etc. These are people whose scope and stakes are much much higher, but they're really hard to classify in terms of Good and Evil. Archaon believes that he's destroying a corrupt order of things and doing the will of the gods; Teclis is an elitist who thinks about humans as children and is willing to countenance a lot of destruction if it fits the Big Picture; Malekith thinks he really is the rightful Phoenix King, and so on and so forth. Even the Lixardmen are good examples of this: superly powerful, in that they can move the Winds of Magic, cause massive tectonic shifts, and alter the course of history, but they're so dedicated to the Plan of the Old Ones that they're willing to destroy anyone who gets in the way of that.
Magic is mutagenic yes, but not as extreme as you put it. For example, the Colleges of Magic don't turn everyone in Altdorf into Mutants, but they probably raise the incidence rates a fair bit. People don't become mutants just because they use magic weapons. Stuff like Warpstone and Warpdust on the other hand are a higher degree of radioactivity, so to speak, and produce mutancy and whatnot on a common basis.
What I would do is to emphasize the mental side of magic's corruption. Have the Bright Wizard become increasingly violently tempered, a pyromaniac, etc.; have Gold Wizards become materialistic and emotionally dead. For other pc's, how about throwing in some mental disorders due to exposure to magic, or have them start "hearing" the voices of Chaos calling to them, and so on.
High level could work, you'd just be moving up from ordinary soldier to Grandmaster of the White Wolves, or whatnot, or from a Gold Wizard to Patriarch of the Colleges. Likewise, events like the Storm of Chaos are good to give the "stakes" a boost for high-level characters.
Vikingkingq
Adventurer
Emirikol said:
Magic - replace the D&D Schools with the Warhammer ones, and add the rule about rolling 1s.
I would also add that I prefer the Ulric's Fury method of crits than a simple max, because it's so much damn fun.
Emirikol
Adventurer
Vikingkingq said:
A chart then for my house rulebook:
D&D Name.....Warhammer World Name/Term
Eladrin..............Asur (High or new world elves)
Elf...................Asrai (aka Wood Elves who stayed in the Old World)
Drow.................Druchii (look like regular elves, but more pale and gaunt)
Tiefling.........Chaos-spawn (NPC or magically disguised only)
Dragonborn....Lizardman (still makes the natives restless)
ELF INFO: http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Elf
jh
Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
You know.
Dragonborn = Saurus.
Halfling = Skink.
Could that work?
Dragonborn = Saurus.
Halfling = Skink.
Could that work?
