Will Ravenloft require a significant revision to make it work?

[Irda Ranger]

The problem with using the Astral Sea (as I understand it) is that it is home to godly "domains." No god, no domain. So, unless the Mists are now a god, it doesn't work with the new cosmology.

Also, the Astral Domains are supposed to be really different from the Prime Material, while Ravenloft is almost exactly the same, but a dark reflection. If the Feywild is a feral reflection of the real world, and Shadowfell is a lifeless reflection, then Ravenloft is the evil reflection.

 

[IanB]

I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense for calibans to be growing wings and breathing fire, though, which I believe we know already is what dragonborn will be able to do.

 

[Green Knight]

The problem with using the Astral Sea (as I understand it) is that it is home to godly "domains." No god, no domain. So, unless the Mists are now a god, it doesn't work with the new cosmology.

I think you're forgetting the Dark Powers, here.

Also, the Astral Domains are supposed to be really different from the Prime Material, while Ravenloft is almost exactly the same, but a dark reflection. If the Feywild is a feral reflection of the real world, and Shadowfell is a lifeless reflection, then Ravenloft is the evil reflection.

I'm guessing they can appear in any way the creator wants them to appear. So if the Dark Powers want them to look like a mismatch of different prime material worlds, then they could do just that.

 

[Darrius Adler]

And yeah, some good rules for firearms would be nice. Starting with not making them Exotic Weapon Proficiencies. If they're available in a setting, then they should be Simple, Martial at best. They also need something to make them comparable to bows. Iterative attacks are out, sure, but there'll still be ways of getting more then one attack in a round, which bows can take advantage of, but which firearms can't. Bows can also benefit from a high Strength. So firearms need something to make up for those two deficiencies. Maybe Feats which allow one to do a greater amount of damage with each shot, to represent improved accuracy with the firearm? Another idea would be to make Firearms roll against an opponents Reflex Save, rather than his AC, to represent Firearms being able to punch through armor. Just a couple of thoughts, there, with the caveat that I don't know much about rennaissance firearms (Did they punch through full plate? Who knows. I'm just throwing out ideas on how to balance them with bows).

For 3e is made them a ranged touch attack if firing within the first range increment. They are able to punch through armor at decently close range. They are still exotic weapons due to how expensive they are. Would be rare for too many to be proficient outside the nobility.

 

[Rechan]

Warlocks making pacts with the Mists/Dark Powers sounds about right.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I think you're forgetting the Dark Powers, here.

You could go that way. As a matter of feel though I prefer it be unclear as to whether the Dark Powers are gods or not.

 

[Green Knight]

You could go that way. As a matter of feel though I prefer it be unclear as to whether the Dark Powers are gods or not.

The Dark Powers don't necessarily have to be gods. They just have to be beings powerful enough to create and maintain Ravenloft. Whether they meet the definition of a "god" or not is immaterial.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Warlocks making pacts with the Mists/Dark Powers sounds about right.

I don't know; one of the things that the 'Second Golden Age' (later 2E/early 3E) material played up was that the Dark Powers were inscrutable and purely reactive--they never tempt or make offers, they only inflict their gifts and curses after the fact. Strahd may be history's only exception to this, and even that's uncertain, since it's not clear that the entity he made his pact with is the same as the Dark Powers. (On a side note, designer William W. Connors appears to be of the opinion that it was one of the Dark Powers--but it got kicked out of their circle for intervening with Strahd, and wound up becoming the Red Death of Gothic Earth. This is not canon, though.)

I'm with Irda Ranger, myself; make it a parallel to the Material Plane, even to the point of allowing limited access to the Feywild and Shadowfell. Darkon would work beautifully as a domain where the borders between Ravenloft and the Shadowfell are particularly thin, and one could even make Necropolis useful by making it the Shadowfell reflection of the great city of Il Aluk instead of a negative-energy-bombed version of same.

However, I'm also thinking that this may all be moot based on the hints about the Ravenloft: Dominion novels, and that we may see the Dread Realms repurposed as a setting for a 2nd Edition d20 Modern that includes a lot of d20 Past. I would have no problem with that.

 

[TerraDave]

That sounds like a really poor idea. RL is much more than some kind of afterlife "shadow of the real world" plane. It is vibrant, alive, and evil.

Now hold on a second.

Lets think of the original Ravenloft module. Here, a small part of the world basically was ported into "shadow". In the Domains of Dread, it was a similar idea, but on a much larger scale. Do something really bad...well there you (and maybe your land) go.

To make it more Ravenloftesque...these "domains" could be interconnected, and take on a life of their own...they wouldn't have to be static shadow representations. But they could still trace their origin to some tragic part of the "normal" world.

 

[TerraDave]

I will add, that Ravenloft=Shadowfell works best for doing something like the first module: going in for a while and then coming out.

To set a long-term campaign(s) there, it probably should becomes its own world, maybe even with its own dark Faery and own Shadow Realm.