Will Ravenloft require a significant revision to make it work?

[Beregar]

Indeed it matter.The 4e wizard doesn not have any necro type spellz or raise dead type abilities.
.

*waves magic wand* Strahd is no longer a wizard with necromancy speciality
*waves magic wand again* Strahd is now wizard who multiclassed into necromancer class
*waves magic wand yet again* Remains of Tiefling and Dragonborn empires appear from the mists

Obviously I'm not a wizard, though, since 4E wizard are blasters, but have no fear, I adapted a new class called DM... err or wait, is that old class? Nevertheless, it gave me above mentioned cool powers. Yet, they are still weak compared to coveted role of game designer who, I hear, can make changes even without magic wands...

 

[Darrius Adler]

I would love to see Ravenloft rise again in 4e and I don't think there would be any problem converting it to 4e. (I plan to do it to some degree for some test runs in the new system) My biggest fear is that WotC will try to cram the lousy Taint rules into a new version of Ravenloft rather than anything that resembles the old Powers Checks/Fear/Horror/Madness.

 

[Spell]

i don't want to sound patronizing, but this idea that a setting must be significantly changed to accomodate the changes in an edition is poppycock.
it was poppycock when they killed all the assassins in FR to "smoothly" lead it into AD&D 2nd edition. it was poppycock when they changed the face of mystara to "smoothy" accomodate the shift from D&D to 2e. it is still poppycock today.

why do you NEED to have tieflings and dragonborns in raveloft? who cares that there's no magic schools anymore?

one thing is if you *want* to implement these changes in your campaign. but just because a new edition is coming out, it doesn't mean that some thug will show at your door to make sure that you play 4e "by the book".

one of the best things about role playing games is customizing your preferred ruleset to run your adventures smoothly!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

... My biggest fear is that WotC will try to cram the lousy Taint rules into a new version of Ravenloft rather than anything that resembles the old Powers Checks/Fear/Horror/Madness.

When the time comes, pop up in the House Rules forum and I would be glad to work with you on such a mechanic

 

[Henry]

Besides all that, Ravenloft is about as "points of light" as you can already get without making it Warhammer. Heck, the very land under your feet is ruled by some hideous creature so evil that he's bound to it and can't leave it.

In Ravenloft, there aren't points of light settlements: YOU are the "point of light."

 

[Klaus]

Besides all that, Ravenloft is about as "points of light" as you can already get without making it Warhammer. Heck, the very land under your feet is ruled by some hideous creature so evil that he's bound to it and can't leave it.

In Ravenloft, there aren't points of light settlements: YOU are the "point of light."

And that light can be really flickering.

Instead of adapting RL to accomodate 4e, I'd rather see 4e adapted to accomodate RL.

Actually, I'd like that for all settings.

 

[Green Knight]

IMO, not only can Ravenloft be easily converted to 4E, but from the sound of it, 4E will be much better suited to running a Ravenloft game then 3E ever was.

for instance, the books have made it clear that spells were memorized

That's not a big deal. The books have also gone into detail about Drow Infravision, and yet they switched out Infravision for Darkvision without any problem.

specialist schools of magic exist (Strahd's background contains extensive info on the necromancy school and how he got into it).

There'll be a Necromancer class. And Strahd's a case of how 4E will be good to Ravenloft. For instance, he's always been described as a powerful warrior. However, when he's statted out, he's just a 4th-Level Fighter. With retraining rules, one could have a Strahd who was a 16th-Level Fighter at the height of the war with the Tergs, but who then, through retraining, started to lose those Fighter levels in lieu of Necromancer levels.

In addition, Necromancers made for pretty poor Necromancers. Clerics did a better job of that then Specialist Wizards. With Necromancer becoming its own base class, it'll doubtless become MUCH better at what it's supposed to do. Namely animating and controlling undead.

There are no dragonborn or tieflings.

There are no Half-Orcs, either. This was easily solved by making them Calibans in Ravenloft. Same thing can be done, here. With Calibans being treated as either Dragonborn or Tieflings, mechanically speaking.

Paladins in ravenloft were only lawful good.

Elena Faithhold.

Besides, in 2E, only humans could be Paladins. There was no need to rewrite the setting to explain the existence of non-human Paladins when 3E came out. Likewise, there's no need to rewrite the setting to explain the existence of Paladins who aren't Lawful Good.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

IMO, not only can Ravenloft be easily converted to 4E, but from the sound of it, 4E will be much better suited to running a Ravenloft game then 3E ever was.

Amen.

If only that the rules for Second Wind will make it much easier for PCs to survive long enough to learn to run away.

 

[Insight]

I never understood why Ravenloft was converted to a setting. Maybe this is a topic for another thread.

In any event, every time there's a new rules version, there should probably be a slight to major revamp of the setting you're using. That would be true with a published setting or your own homebrew. I don't see why Ravenloft would be any different.

And don't worry about novels. You're in for major headaches if you try to get everything ever published in a novel to fit into your setting.

 

[Xethreau]

The Expedition to Castle Ravenloft book can be changed easy enough: All the encounter entries are listed separately from the main story entries, so one can simply note the enemies and the level of the PC's, flip open the 4e Monster Manual, and drop in the enemies as needed.

Strahd himself can be fixed easily enough. He is probably a (human, if that matters) vampire with levels in Warlock, and perhaps another class (if vampires don't have shapeshifting, perhaps Druid training?). His connections to the land shouldn't be to difficult to aducate; they would probably be direct translations, and a couple waves of the hand from the DM.

The zombie encounters will probably be a lot more effective in 4e, and I hope that the vampires, cultists, werewolves, and the rest are equally if not more dynamic in 4e.