AD&D (1st Edition) Conversion - The Thread

[Rapier]

Working on GenCon conversions, yadda, yadda. 

 

SO I've gotten all the cleric spells converted. I've got all the descriptions done. Things are going pretty well and I am happily months ahead of schedule. However, I was pre-proofing the HD builds and I have a quandry, so I'm tossing it out to y'allz for feedback.

 

So obviously 1st Edition AD&D had it's issues. As much as we loved it, we also hated it. The concept of THAC0 never sat well (why does armour stop you from getting hit?) and the balance issues around race (elves can only go to level 10 because they are too flightly to progress beyond that level...errr what?), but one of the biggest problems we always had and hated was how magic was dealt with. I loved the concept of magic-users. But I very quickly stopped playing them because the system just hosed them so hard.

 

Memorising spells was ok as a concept, but the number of spells were so limited that you either blew your spells in the first 30 minutes of the game and sat around playing a boat anchor around the team's neck or you saved them for "that big boss" and never ended up casting half your spells. However it went, you were never good for magical weight. Your HP was so low and you had that 8 or 9 AC. You were limited to dagger, dart, and staff. If you were in dagger range you were dead. You had no armour and no hp. 1v1 with a kobold and you were cooling meat. Staff was a little better but one guy with an actual sword (and the chance that he could actually use it) left you as...cooling meat. So you were stuck in the back of the party hiding behind a rock tossing in darts. 1d2. WOOHOO! Same damage as a punch...except you can't hit anything because your THAC0 is so bad. As a package you were useless. You couldn't do anything in normal combat and your spells were so limited in number that you never had a chance to use them. Which brings me to the actual point of all of this:

One of the house rule changes we made was to throw out the casting time for spells. Casters were already so hampered with the number of spells that it seemed overly punitive to have a spell take an entire minute to cast when a combat segment (the rough equivalent of a phase) was 6s. An entire round of combat (10 segments) to cast a spell? If you used casting times there would be many times when you would begin casting but by the time your spell was ready to fire the target was already dead. Lets not even consider spells that required careful aiming (lightning bolt, stinking cloud, fireball, web) to avoid impacting your party or to maximise your effects. And take damage at any time and your spell was interrupted. So even if everything went your way and everyone stood in the exact spot you wanted them to, you still had to avoid damage for an entire minute (and remember you have an AC of 8 so Helen Keller could hit you).

 

One of the big reasons I wanted to convert this is because AD&D sucked as a system. But I wasn't sure how much to change things so I tried to convert the spells pretty much as directly as possible for a baseline. But it doesn't make sense to keep the aspects that made it suck (like casting time). So my conversion allows casters to cast as many spells as they want to (so pretty standard Fantasy Hero) and everything is powered by an Mana Pool END Reserve. The Mana Pool can only be refilled through Meditation (the analogue to memorising your spells every night). All spells cost Mana and I'm figuring that the average caster is going to have 75 - 100 mana in their pool. WIth an average of 3 END per spell we are talking about somewhere in the neightbourhood of 25 spells a day. Which would max (with half/full phase activation times) would be 12 turns @ SPD 2. That seems pretty reasonable. We all know combats for the night are going to take more than 12 turns so they would still have to husband spells (and I can lessen the armour/weapon restrictions so that they would actually have the option of engaging in combat to fill in the gaps). But this brings me back to Casting Time. Cause Light Wounds takes 30s to cast. It's built as a 1/2d6K, 10 AP. Should that REALLY take 2.5 turns to cast?

 

I'm thinking that normal effect combat spells (those roughly equivalent to weapon damage, 4 or less DCs) should be Full Phase (note, everyone is going to basically be SPD 2 with an occasional SPD 3). Large effect combat spells (either 5 - 7 DCs or particularly devious effects) should be Extra Phase (for SPD 2, extra Phase is a Full Turn, but keep them Extra Phase just in case we do get a SPD 3?). Huge effect combat spells (8+ DCs or disgustingly effective effects) should be Full Turn, but how do I make the distinction between Extra Phase and Full Turn for a SPD 2 guy? Do I instead go 3 Phases? For out of combat spells I'm perfectly happy with 1 minute casting, 5 minute casting times, etc since most of those are kind of ritualistic anyway.

 

But I'm concerned with the casting times for combat spells (and what about heals?). I've only done cleric spells so far and druids are next so the combat spells are fairly limited in number, so it isn't too onerous right now to make changes to casting times, but i definitely need to work this out before I get to magic-user spells.

 

So, heroes, what do you think? Small combat spells = Full Phase, large combat spells = 2 Phases, and huge combat spells = 3 Phases? Obviously I can make adjustments after play-testing but if I can get a little closer to the ideal before then it will make tweaking easier.

 

Check back often, since I'll be asking for lots of advice as I go through this!

 

-r

[Rapier]

Y'allz some lazy bitches. Won't even lend a thought. Harumph. I'm kidding, of course.

 

I'm using Time Limit for Duration effects (of course). So I frequently give spells say 10 Minutes for a duration base, but then they get a bonus for every levels of success on their Magic Skill roll (ie if you have a 14- Magic Skill and roll a 12 that is two levels of success since you are two under). I've been using +10s for the bonus. So in total the Duration (Time Limit) is 10 Minutes + 10s/Success. But that isn't very Speed Charty now, is it? Would I be better off breaking fractions of a minute into even Turns? 10 Minutes + 1 Turn/Success? That would make things a bit easier on the old Speed Chart. Obviously 10s is 10 segments and maybe that doesn't sync up with your Phases but that should still be ok I would think.

 

Just wondering what y'all were thinking. So someone say something because the crickets in this place are cumbersome.

 

EDIT: It might have been nice to have this thought before I finished all the Cleric and Druid spells, but what can you do? Editing is the easy part.

[Rapier]

Oh, and I decided that there is a SLIGHT distinction between 2 Phases and a Full Turn. I can get away with some of this because they are only SPD 2. Higher speeds might be a problem but I needn't worry about that.

 

2 Phases: Start casting on Segment 6, at your DEX on Segment 12 your spell fires.

1 Turn: Start casing on Segment 6, POST Segment 12 your spell fires.

 

So the difference is that in the second case, absolutely everyone gets the opportunity to interrupt your casting.

[Spence]

43 minutes ago, Rapier said:

Y'allz some lazy bitches. Won't even lend a thought. Harumph. I'm kidding, of course.

 

 

Just wondering what y'all were thinking. So someone say something because the crickets in this place are cumbersome.

 

I'm in the middle of defining magic for a homebrew so me little cells are fully tasked for now.  Not anything that is near to AD&D style.  But I have been reading

[Rapier]

11 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

I'm in the middle of defining magic for a homebrew so me little cells are fully tasked for now.  Not anything that is near to AD&D style.  But I have been reading

 

I had a Shower Thought (tm) last night that there is so much FH material out there that all conversions and such is nothing more than World Building. You don't need to convert or develop a longsword, just grab one off the shelf. You don't need to build an Ogre, just grab one off the shelf. All the time is spent (especially in FH) on designing how Magic Works. I'm really, actually, VERY happy with how I've built magic. I think it is consistent with the genre and with AD&D (more or less) but even better is that it falls in line very well with how Hero and Fantasy Hero in particular works. I'm honestly tickled pink that it is going so well. Eventually, I will want to write up a Primer on Magic for the players. I might start that as a break from converting. I'll def also be posting ALLLLLLLL of this mess when I'm done. If you want to bounce ideas around let me know. I'm hip deep in magic and have had MANY conversations with myself on the topic!

[Spence]

I'd be glad to bounce ideas about magic systems in general.  Not on this thread as you are talking an AD&D conversion and I don't want to derail. 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Rapier why go from minutes to seconds? What if you keep the base 10 min and each success adds +1 min?  I think that would be easier on the old brain.

[Rapier]

20 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Rapier why go from minutes to seconds? What if you keep the base 10 min and each success adds +1 min?  I think that would be easier on the old brain.

 

You are right. I'm so deep into this I don't always say what I mean!  

 

I tend towards 10 Mins + 1 Min/Success or 20 Mins + 2 Mins/Success. But I also have the 1 Min + 10s/Success and 2 Mins + 20s/Success. It was the latter two that I was particularly referring to. I think when I decided to write this I was working on a long duration spell and it just got stuck in my brain. 

 

1 Min = 5 Turns, even though I'm using the "Minutes" unit Hero doesn't actually have a Time Chart option for 10s but dealing with time all our lives 10s seems more of a natural step than the odd-sounding 12s. I was about to say I try and avoid mixing units but I already am, so what difference if I say 1 Min + 12 Sec or 1 Min + 1 Turn.

 

I should really go back and change those 10s and 20s to 1 Turn and 2 Turns, respectively, shouldn't I?

 

 

[mallet]

Why not just use the Time Chart from the rules? 

 

Make the base duration 5min, then for every 2 points the magic user makes their roll by move up the chart one position. So 5min becomes 20min  (if they make their roll by 2 or more) become 1 hour (if they make their roll by 4 or more) becomes 6 hours (if they make their roll by 6 or more) become 1 day (if they make their roll by 8 or more), etc...

 

Unless you are expecting the characters to have a super high magic skill (18- or more), then go up by every 3 successes. 

 

The benefit from this is that it is then consistent with other duration rules in the system. 

 

I think there might also be different time charts listed as options in the Advanced Players Guides. 

[Rapier]

I considered just moving up and down the Time Chart, but the problem is that with Hero some effects are very low point totals. Ideally, all the <10 AP spells would be first level and <20AP would be second, etc. This way the higher level spells would have a correspondingly higher modifier on the Magic Skill roll. But I'm working with a predefined spell list and how they are grouped into levels. Because of this mish-mosh I've got some pretty large effect spells that are very low cost. But if you want to cast the big spells you need a pretty high Magic Skill (a couple of the spells I've already done are -8 and one is -15). It would be pretty easy to end up with a Light Spell that is going to operate for a month or even a season which entirely makes the Continual Light spell pointless.

 

I totally agree that if I was designing a system from the ground up I would be either moving up and down the time chart or matching like and like (20 minutes + 20 minutes per success). I'm already kind of fudging a lot of the casting times and durations, because they are frequently 1 round + 1 round/level or something. I'm lucky that since I'm running a one off I don't need to worry about characters advancing. I don't care how they increase the power of Magic Missile because I'm running a contiguous adventure that is going to take place over a month or so. They aren't going to have time to train, learn new spells, or spend XP so I can just build the spells for their level and not care about the levelling aspect. My conversion isn't a perfect system conversion, just a snap shot conversion for this range of character levels. I'm assuming all characters are level 10 and building the spells at that level.

 

I have thought a bit about doing a system conversion and was thinking that I would probably go with a spell progression Magic Missile I - 3 missiles, Magic Missile II - five missiles, Magic Missile III - 7 missiles, etc. That way you could increase the power of your spells without actually dealing with the "levels." I've also thought of how someone would qualify for casting Second Level Spells. Since there aren't experience levels. I was thinking that either a Perk, Skill, or Talent that costs 3 or 5 points. If you spend the effort and XP to purchase the "3rd Level Spells" perk you can now pick spells from the 3rd Level list. Access to those spells would be tightly controlled by the Mage's Guild or something along those lines. Or maybe I actually go through and reorganise the spells so that the <10 AP spells are all level 1.

 

I did take a brief gander through APG I and II and didn't necessarily see anything that was Time Charty, but I didn't look very hard.

 

Thanks for your input! I appreciate the thoughts! Keep them coming! I don't want to dissuade you or think I am not hearing you. I TOTALLY am but I'm making compromises to try and keep things as close to AD&D 1st Edition (to avoid the culture shock) while introducing Hero. I'm REALLY hoping (possibly naively) that after this game some of the players are like "WOW MAN! This Hero shit is AWESOME!"

[Rapier]

Blink spell text (apologies for making you read this schlock. Man, this is some bad writing. Not only is this confusing and unclear but the diction is dreadful).

Quote

By means of this spell, the magic-user causes his or her material form to "blink" out and back to this plane once again in random period and direction during the duration of each minute the spell is in effect. (Cf. ADVANCED DUNGEONS 8 DRAGONS, MONSTER MANUAL, Blink Dog.) The segment of the round that the spell caster "blinks out" is determined by random roll with 2d4, and during this same segment he or she will appear again 2' distant from his or her previous position. (Direction is determined by roll of d8: 1 = right ahead, 2 = right, 3 = right behind, 4 = behind, 5 = left behind, 6 = left, 7 = left ahead, 8 = ahead.) If some object is already occupying the space where the spell caster is indicated as "blinking" into, his or her form is displaced in a direction away from original (round starting) position for any distance necessary to appear in empty space, but never in excess of an additional 10'. If that extra distance still dictates the magic-user and another solid object are to occupy the same space, the spell caster is then trapped on the ethereal plane. During and after the blink segment of a round, the spell caster can be attacked only by opponents able to strike both locations at once, eg a breath weapon, fireball, and similar wide area attack forms. Those not so able can only strike the magic-user if they managed to attack prior to the "blink" segment. The spell caster is only 75% likely to be able to perform any acts other than physical attack with a hand-held stabbing or striking weapon during the course of this spell. That is, use of any spell, device, or item might not be accomplished or accomplished in an incorrect manner or in the wrong direction. Your referee will determine success/failure and the results thereof according to the particular action being performed.

 

So the intent is that when you cast this you are going to be rando teleporting about the battlefield for a bit. It discusses a bit about how to determine in which direction you will go and on what initiative etc. I can handle all of that, it's not that much of a problem. However, just from a playability standpoint, is this a little ridiculous? Instead of dealing with all this rando teleporting maybe we just say +4 DCV? What do you think? Keep the rando TPs or just buy DCV levels? I mean, the net effect of the spell is that it is going to be difficult to target/hit the mage. That sounds like DCV and the rest is just SFX. Thoughts?

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

2 hours ago, Rapier said:

Blink spell text (apologies for making you read this schlock. Man, this is some bad writing. Not only is this confusing and unclear but the diction is dreadful).

 

So the intent is that when you cast this you are going to be rando teleporting about the battlefield for a bit. It discusses a bit about how to determine in which direction you will go and on what initiative etc. I can handle all of that, it's not that much of a problem. However, just from a playability standpoint, is this a little ridiculous? Instead of dealing with all this rando teleporting maybe we just say +4 DCV? What do you think? Keep the rando TPs or just buy DCV levels? I mean, the net effect of the spell is that it is going to be difficult to target/hit the mage. That sounds like DCV and the rest is just SFX. Thoughts?

How about: Teleport 4m, activation roll, trigger, NCC results only, Side Effect (can happen during own attacks), Side Effect (teleporting into walls is bad OK?). 

Whenever the wizard is attacked, he has a chance to be teleporting right now sorry bye!   If this takes him to safety, great!  If this drops him back in danger, oops!  If this happens when he's doing an important thing, whoops! 

[Doc Democracy]

11 hours ago, Rapier said:

Blink spell text (apologies for making you read this schlock. Man, this is some bad writing. Not only is this confusing and unclear but the diction is dreadful).

 

So the intent is that when you cast this you are going to be rando teleporting about the battlefield for a bit. It discusses a bit about how to determine in which direction you will go and on what initiative etc. I can handle all of that, it's not that much of a problem. However, just from a playability standpoint, is this a little ridiculous? Instead of dealing with all this rando teleporting maybe we just say +4 DCV? What do you think? Keep the rando TPs or just buy DCV levels? I mean, the net effect of the spell is that it is going to be difficult to target/hit the mage. That sounds like DCV and the rest is just SFX. Thoughts?

 

Depends on how much you want the mechanic to impact the narrative. 

 

If if you just add to DCV then you are simply replicating a shield spell for everything but SFX.  In play, blink was often the random element we used, it was frustrating for both attacker and defender.  It doesn’t matter unless someone hits.  If the spell user hits they blink and miss on an 8- roll, if the opponent hits they miss on a 10- roll.

[Duke Bushido]

On December 30, 2018 at 1:28 PM, Spence said:

 

I'm in the middle of defining magic for a homebrew so me little cells are fully tasked for now.  Not anything that is near to AD&D style.  But I have been reading

 

Well I haven't been reading.  This is mostly because it says "D&D" in the title, which I thought was a polite way of saying "if D&D irritates the Hell out of you, stay away from this thread.  (which, by the way, I thought was very courteous of you).

 

Then I noticed Doc posted over here, and I have found that if it interests him, it tends to interest me as well.

 

I don't have a lot of thoughts for you, save one, and that one goes to your questions of time vs "cure light wounds."

 

Shorten it if you want to, but I wouldn't shorten it too terribly much.

 

Once upon a time, I would never have been concerned about dropping the casting time to a phase or two, but then I read Bolos "thread of many problems" with his current campaign.  It's not secret I'm a crusty old fossil, and most of my games are built without too much thought about what influence video games might have upon the way my players think.  After all, there's no real similarity between committing genocide on kobolds and Pong or Lunar Lander; right?

 

It seems modern video games (gonna level with you: I like a lot  of video games, but typically I like head-to-head combat "Fatal Fury" and "Street Fighter" type stuff) you can "insta-heal" pretty much whenever you want.  You can just start pumping yourself or your party with fresh life every time they get a shaving burn, for Pete's sake, and modern players want to emulate _that_.  Fortunately, I have never had this problem: most of my games consist of other old farts, and my one youth group consists of kids who seem to prefer sports-oriented games.

 

Having read Bolo's thread was something of an eye-opener for me, and if you haven't read it, I suggest you at least skim through the parts related to all the troubles that "Spamming the healing" has caused him.

 

Entirely because of what I learned there, I don't know that I would reduce the casting time on healing spells _at all_, but even if I did, I would certainly make sure that the casting time was long enough to ensure it was something the caster would rather do out-of-combat, if only for the safety of himself and his patient.  You know: something to ensure that if he did it during combat, he would spend at least a Phase or two pre-occupied and wide open to an attack.  Either another party member would have to cover him or he would have to remove himself to full cover---  you know: make it a small tactical gamble.

 

It's your game and your conversion and I encourage you to do it as you see fit, but a true conversion does its best to maintain as much of the feel of the source material as possible.

 

 

I hope you enjoy your new project as much as I'm enjoying my own.  Have fun with it!

 

 

Duke

 

 

[bluesguy]

I am interested in seeing how this turns out.  I would never use it because I created my own campaign world and magic to go with it using Hero.

[Rapier]

Just now, bluesguy said:

I am interested in seeing how this turns out.  I would never use it because I created my own campaign world and magic to go with it using Hero.

 

This is getting more than a bit of influence from my old Fantasy campaign. I've pulled some of the spell effects for D&D spells into that campaign but the hit and miss power of the spells is too burdensome. You've got 2nd level spells that are hella powerful and 7th level spells that are moronically stupid and I doubt anyone in the history of D&D has ever cast them. Some of the spells are pulled directly from pop culture (I'm lookin at you Sticks to Snakes), but if I wanted to continue to use any of this it would be to almost entirely scrap about 1/2 - 2/3 of the spells and fill the gaps with stuff that is actually useful.

 

You could also go with more of a ritualistic build with some of the spells. Instead of having Detect Charm and Detect Invisible and Detect Evil and Detect Magic and Detect Backstabbing Halfling you just build a basic Detect spell and let them use something interesting and appropriate as a focus. Detect Invis? Flour. Detect Evil? Some hairs from a man's goatee. Detect Halfling? Foot hair. etc. One spell and you've replaced 5 or 6 spells with one. Nice and streamlined. Same with Charm, twist up some voodoo doll thingy so it doesn't matter if its a person, monster, weasel, etc.

 

If someone wanted this wouldn't be a bad point to start working to build their own world. If nothing else it might help them design spells and avoid some of this crap I'm going through!

[Rapier]

50 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Having read Bolo's thread was something of an eye-opener for me, and if you haven't read it, I suggest you at least skim through the parts related to all the troubles that "Spamming the healing" has caused him.

 

Entirely because of what I learned there, I don't know that I would reduce the casting time on healing spells _at all_, but even if I did, I would certainly make sure that the casting time was long enough to ensure it was something the caster would rather do out-of-combat, if only for the safety of himself and his patient.  You know: something to ensure that if he did it during combat, he would spend at least a Phase or two pre-occupied and wide open to an attack.  Either another party member would have to cover him or he would have to remove himself to full cover---  you know: make it a small tactical gamble.

 

 

I'll head over there in a bit and check it out. One of the problems I've had in my regular SuperHero game is healing. Healing is always a fine edge. Too little and combats are too nasty and everyone spends the entire time unconscious or bleeding to death. Too much and it's all Action Movie where one guy walks through fire from half a dozen M2s without any repercussions. 

 

Right now I've got all the Heal spells taking 2 Phases. I'm hoping that might slow down the healing some. Since it's a Con Game I'm hesitant to do wound tracking and all like I should. I think just using Simplified Healing and allowing wounds to be healed multiple times is the way to go. If it was my campaign and I had experienced Hero players I might do Wound Tracking.

 

Having gone through all this conversion and actually read parts of the Player's Handbook for the first time in almost 25 years, I'm almost tempted to run a straight book version AD&D campaign to see how it would be. I suspect it wouldn't be fun.

[Rapier]

6 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Depends on how much you want the mechanic to impact the narrative. 

 

If if you just add to DCV then you are simply replicating a shield spell for everything but SFX.  In play, blink was often the random element we used, it was frustrating for both attacker and defender.  It doesn’t matter unless someone hits.  If the spell user hits they blink and miss on an 8- roll, if the opponent hits they miss on a 10- roll.

 

I hadn't thought of that. I just did Shield (+1 DCV and 7 DEF - font facing only, converted straight from the description). I'm not sure I ever had a character with Blink. I'm also kind of confusing the AD&D spell Blink with the stereotypical SuperHero power Blink where he just bounces around in and out of phase in his hex. 

 

I guess my entire question boils down to "is this a good sfx or is this just crappy D&D schlock?" When I started I was like 'this is stupid' but after reading y'allz posts I think I'm going to keep it as is. I mean it could be really fun and it should def be interesting. I imagine that the mage won't let the duration actually run it's distance. It's a good effect in combat (especially as a D&D mage when you have NO armour and NO HP) to having you avoid being hit. I am beginning to wonder if maybe spellcasters weren't as hosed as we thought they were. A Blink spell would be a pretty good defense, not that you could still do much of any damage with that crappy THAC0, but at least you wouldn't need to worry as much about getting pounded on.

[Rapier]

Quote

The segment of the round that the spell caster "blinks out" is determined by random roll with 2d4, and during this same segment he or she will appear again 2' distant from his or her previous position. 

 

Bold is mine. One of the real problems with the text of the Player's Handbook (and spells in particular) is that they appear to be written by a few different people because the diction, verbiage, punctuation, etc seems to change drastically from spell to spell. One of my frustrations is the seemingly random switch between units of measure. They frequently use inches (") to refer to map inches. Then they will talk about a Detect being stopped by 1" of metal or 2" of wood. Obviously, they are talking about real inches there, but it makes reading this stuff very difficult and slow to read through and convert.

 

I actually read through the description three times and just now noticed the distance. Two feet is < 1m. A hex is a 1m radius (2m diameter). So this Blink, while doing it's rando teleport thing, only moves them <1m which is still within the hex. I was planning on doing a NCC (Effects Only) 4m Teleport. Even though the text seems to back up my initial idea of doing just +DCV, I'm really kind of digging the thought of the mage blipping about the battlefield uncontrollably. For now, I think I'm going to go full on Rando Teleport. I mean, I can always change it later and it's not like it would take long to build a +4 DCV spell.

 

You guys are really helping. Sometimes there are considerations I hadn't thought about (and some of this is pretty boring conversions). Thanks!!

[Rapier]

Quote

By means of this spell, the magic-user causes his or her material form to "blink" out and back to this plane once again in random period and direction during the duration of each minute the spell is in effect. The segment of the round that the spell caster "blinks out" is determined by random roll with 2d4, and during this same segment he or she will appear again 2' distant from his or her previous position. 

 

 

We are going to get sick of Blink.

 

Ok, so this text is crap and confusing. Bold for emphasis. Just so we are clear: 1 Segment = 6s, 1 Round = 1 Minute = 10 Segments,  1 Turn = 10 Mins = 10 Rounds = 100 Segments. If I'm reading this correctly, the mage ONLY blinks once per minute (round) and the segment they blink is 2d4 (which is 2-8 and there are 10 segments in a round, so shouldn't it be 1d10?). I'm trying to keep the original flair/flavour/intent.

 

---Note: below is entirely using Hero time not D&D time---

 

I'm thinking that since no one acts on Segment 1, instead they Blink every Turn. Roll 2d6 to determine which segment they Blink. They are SPD 2 (maybe an occasional 3) which means chances are this Blink version is going to be useless. They blink on Segment 4, no one acts until 6. They might be out of melee range but that's about it. It's basically just uncontrolled movement and won't necessarily help them vs an arrow. Spells aren't aimed until they trigger/finish casting so it's not like this Blink would let him avoid a Fireball. I'm thinking this version doesn't really do anything worthwhile.

 

So now I think I'm back to what GnomeBody suggested, doing an NCC, Rando Trigger when attacked (or do I make things INTERESTING but saying any melee action...so attacking also? would that trigger before or after the attack and if before why would anyone build a spell that would negate your attack?). If the 9- (? maybe 11-?) trigger roll activates they get a rando teleport in a 1d6 direction for 1/2d6 hexes. I really don't want to go higher than an 11-, but is a 50/50 chance too high or is that just perfect for a spell effect?

 

1)

Blink: Teleportation 6m, Safe Blind Teleport (+1/4), Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger requires a Full Phase to reset; When Attacked or After Attacking (11-); +1/4), Time Limit (10 Minutes, +1 Minute per Success; +1 1/4) (16 Active Points); No Conscious Control (Only Effects cannot be controlled; -1), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4), Extra Time (Full Phase, Only to Activate, -1/4), Requires A Roll (Magic Skill, -1; -1/4), No Noncombat Movement (-1/4)

 

It costs 2 Mana/END and 5 Real, which is pretty normal for the spells. I'm also tinkering with the thought of having the Blink change facing to the direction traveled. So if you Blinked right you would be facing right.

 

[Spence]

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Well I haven't been reading.  This is mostly because it says "D&D" in the title, which I thought was a polite way of saying "if D&D irritates the Hell out of you, stay away from this thread.  (which, by the way, I thought was very courteous of you).

 

Then I noticed Doc posted over here, and I have found that if it interests him, it tends to interest me as well.

 

I don't have a lot of thoughts for you, save one, and that one goes to your questions of time vs "cure light wounds."

 

Shorten it if you want to, but I wouldn't shorten it too terribly much.

 

Once upon a time, I would never have been concerned about dropping the casting time to a phase or two, but then I read Bolos "thread of many problems" with his current campaign.  It's not secret I'm a crusty old fossil, and most of my games are built without too much thought about what influence video games might have upon the way my players think.  After all, there's no real similarity between committing genocide on kobolds and Pong or Lunar Lander; right?

 

It seems modern video games (gonna level with you: I like a lot  of video games, but typically I like head-to-head combat "Fatal Fury" and "Street Fighter" type stuff) you can "insta-heal" pretty much whenever you want.  You can just start pumping yourself or your party with fresh life every time they get a shaving burn, for Pete's sake, and modern players want to emulate _that_.  Fortunately, I have never had this problem: most of my games consist of other old farts, and my one youth group consists of kids who seem to prefer sports-oriented games.

 

Having read Bolo's thread was something of an eye-opener for me, and if you haven't read it, I suggest you at least skim through the parts related to all the troubles that "Spamming the healing" has caused him.

 

Entirely because of what I learned there, I don't know that I would reduce the casting time on healing spells _at all_, but even if I did, I would certainly make sure that the casting time was long enough to ensure it was something the caster would rather do out-of-combat, if only for the safety of himself and his patient.  You know: something to ensure that if he did it during combat, he would spend at least a Phase or two pre-occupied and wide open to an attack.  Either another party member would have to cover him or he would have to remove himself to full cover---  you know: make it a small tactical gamble.

 

It's your game and your conversion and I encourage you to do it as you see fit, but a true conversion does its best to maintain as much of the feel of the source material as possible.

 

 

I hope you enjoy your new project as much as I'm enjoying my own.  Have fun with it!

 

 

Duke

 

 

 

I think this should be aimed at Rapier, since this is actually his thread.  My post was in response to his mentioning a lack of response in post #2.  I have been reading, but don't really have anything to contribute at this time. 

[Duke Bushido]

It was.

 

However, I played on your "I have been reading" to blend in my own 'this is why I didn't reply' intro.

 

That's all.

 

 

Duke

 

[Spence]

12 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

It was.

 

However, I played on your "I have been reading" to blend in my own 'this is why I didn't reply' intro.

 

That's all.

 

 

Duke

 

 

Ah....   Well I do admit I am BBS challenged

[Duke Bushido]

It's all good, my friend!
 

[Rapier]

UGH! I was under the impression that an AD&D inch (") represented 6 feet. So I've been converting everything (range, etc) as being 2m per ". But when I was doing Fireball the calculations weren't adding up. So I got out the Dungeon Master's Guide. Ye Olde DMG tells me that 1) AD&D uses square maps instead of hex maps (which I knew), 2) each square on the map is 1" and represents a square that is 10 feet x 10 feet.

 

So all of my distance conversion are quite a bit off. I've already completed Cleric and Druid spells and I'm halfway through Level 3 Mage spells (out of 9). So now what?

 

1) Stop converting and go back to the beginning and tweak the distances.

2) Go back and fix the mage spells and use the correct distance conversion from here on out (intending to go back and fix the rest later).

3) Go with the faulty conversion as a permanent solution and change from 1" = 10' to 1" = 6'. 

 

2 and 3 are where I am leaning simply because while I have been enjoying the conversions, I've really been focusing on it a lot and it's starting to get a bit cumbersome and I'm not getting as much done as I would like. I'm worried about losing my momentum and I've found that the conversion are more even when I don't take large breaks. I'm afraid of losing the quality or falling to procrastination.

 

BUT the real question is about scale. I get that AD&D used those 10'x10' inches because when you are swinging a spear or riding on a horse you need that kind of space. That's a carryover from war gaming. A number of spells have 32m or 40m ranges on them. That's 16/20 hexes. That's a pretty large range for most combats, but inferior to bow range (which is really the only type of long range attack available to non-casters). SO...what do you think? Is magic a close range kind of deal? Is a 40m (20 hex) range on a Fireball with an 8m Radius AoE sufficient? By curtailing some of these distances the threat of filling two rooms with Fireball and cooking half the party is going to be pretty minor. 

 

I'm afraid that I'm going to have to go and redo all the distance conversions. PLEASE let me know what you think, and I'll sleep on this. Maybe I'll take a look through the converted spell descriptions in the morning and see what kind of effort I'm talking about.