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Castlevania is a horror gothic dark fantasy adventure video game...so now with all the wealth of materials that came out believe you can give this video game a good run in your home games:
Dracula Castle is effectively a megadungeon, something akin to Maure Castle (you should check the adventure published in dungeon magazine 112), which could give you plenty of inspiration. Just have some rooms where your players can rest, make it more interesting by having some npcs that they can interact with and of course puzzles to solve.
Monsters in this franchise runs the gamut from any mythology, usually focusing on the horror elements (Horror adventures should give you plenty of ideas for that). It offers a great range of challenges.
Belmont/clans etc...vampire hunters, in general, you could make them with many classes from warpriest (to enjoy the improved whip), inquisitors or if you have access to it Vampire Hunter class from the Vampire Hunter D supplement.
So now iconic bosses:
Dracula is probably best depicted as a Mythic Vampire spellcaster would personally say a Psychic with abomination discipline and add the fighter creature template.
Death, aka the grim reaper, is best depicted as a Lesser Death (CR 16), not the grim reaper (CR 22), considering the power level of the game in general.
Legion: Just have fun with Necrocraft.
A lot of other bosses in the franchise include Medusa (use the Brazen medusa variant with some class levels)
Other kind includes: Doppelganger it's easy enough to make mirror version of your PCs to fight. Former vampire hunter brainwashed to work for the enemies is almost a trope on his own now for the franchise.
Just my opinion in general.
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You would also have to consider which era of the castle you were using. If going with SotN, which I'm guessing was the main idea, would you also include the upside-down aspect? Would you deal with the Order of Ecclessia stuff?
Artifacts could include the Vampire Killer, Crissaergrimm, the Alucard set, and the Axelord Armor.
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Upside Down could be interesting, while requiring a bit more work, it would enhance the experience.
Order of Ecclessia maybe not as much but could work well if you like the idea of exploring other dungeons beside Dracula castle.
As for artifacts and other magic items sets, yeah there are plenty of items in Castlevania to say the least and artifacts usually who would help in taking in some of the most powerful monsters. Potions are plenty, would recommend also to make workshops available within the castle to help with crafting since it was feature added later on in other castlevania games.
Could quite possibly run the castle as a mega dungeon from level 1 to 13-14.
Considering Death and Dracula would be the upper end of the Castle bosses, seems appropriate.
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Strahd with the mythic vampire template should work well to make Dracula.
Interesting proposition but would say that in general at least in the case of the vampire hunter class, giving some vampire like abilities can easily represent the vampire bloodline for the Belmont. But of course, not all groups have access to that supplement, alternative in pathfinder: Vampirism Corruption (Horror Adventures book)
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For a character that can feel like Shanoa, look at Mindblade Magus archetype from Occult Adventures. Manifests weapons temporarily, and has some magical aptitude.
I've still never managed to find a class or archetype that gives a satisfactory Belmont though.
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The Vampire Hunter class is really one of the best one for a Belmont. Yeah this supplement sadly only came out with Vampire Hunter D new graphic novel in a kickstarter but well in brief why is it so fitting:
It's a combination of Hunter, Inquisitor, Slayer and Paladin into one class.
It has up to 4th level casting from the Inquisitor spell list.
Full bab, 6+skills, and vampiric focuses (giving various abilities) + combat technique bonus feats improving your abilities to hunt monsters.
The class isn't OGL sadly, so can't explore or talk too much about it.
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I'd drawn ideas from inquisitor and warpriest in my attempts. The warpriest's scaling damage certainly makes the whip more attractive.
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what happens if i share the class for the rest of the ppl who doesnt own the material?
If it isn't covered by OGL, the post would most likely be deleted. The mods frown on posting copyrighted stuff.
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Damn!! i realy want you all to taste the class!!what happens if i share the class for the rest of the ppl who doesnt own the material?If it isn't covered by OGL, the post would most likely be deleted. The mods frown on posting copyrighted stuff.
You can describe some of what you like about the class, you just can't post systems and mechanical details.
"They get the ability to overcome undead DR and bonuses to identify and attack undead" is okay.
"At 3rd level they get a +1 bonus to any survival checks to track undead, know: religion checks to identify undead, and to attacks and damage vs undead, increasing by 1 every three levels afterward." is probably not.
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So, I feel like Legion/Granfaloon would be an Abberation that creates undead, instead. Also, don't forget the lasers.
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For a Belmont, I would try a fighter with AWT for scaling whip damage, adding more skills and armed bravery.
I think it might actually depend on which Belmont you were going with, and whether or not we are counting anything from the Lords of Shadow era. Trevor, Leon, and Julius being fighters works. Simon might be more towards a Barbarian, Richter could arguably be a Magus. Not sure where I sit with Leon and Gabriel (mostly because I didn't play Lament, and my only exposure to Gabriel was the train wreck that was LoS 2.)
If we get into the subcharacters, Sypha is an Arcanist, Grant is some sort of Rogue with Knife Master. Hector (Curse of Darkness) is some sort of Summoner multiclass thing. I skipped most of the handhelds, so I'm not sure where to go with everyone from them.
Damn!! i realy want you all to taste the class!!what happens if i share the class for the rest of the ppl who doesnt own the material?If it isn't covered by OGL, the post would most likely be deleted. The mods frown on posting copyrighted stuff.You can describe some of what you like about the class, you just can't post systems and mechanical details.
"They get the ability to overcome undead DR and bonuses to identify and attack undead" is okay.
"At 3rd level they get a +1 bonus to any survival checks to track undead, know: religion checks to identify undead, and to attacks and damage vs undead, increasing by 1 every three levels afterward." is probably not.
I'd imagine you should be okay with putting in just the mechanics in your own words (not necessarily a copy/(creepy)pasta), if nothing else.
Class: (always the sparkly ones...)
Fully BAB, D8 hit dice (not seen since 3.5s' Ranger class)
4th level Spontaneous Casting
Scaling choosable powers and some specific feats that may scale too
P.S. the supplement definitely does have an OGL license declaration though (page 30), the I.P. elements aren't open though...
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For a Belmont, I would try a fighter with AWT for scaling whip damage, adding more skills and armed bravery.
My problem with pure fighter is that subweapons other than the dagger, axe, or boomerang are obviously magical. Unless there's some non-magical way to turn holy water into fire, or stop time.
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To be fair the holy water thing is just a graphical representation of the acidic burning it causes to undead
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I would probably say that the mundane subweapons would largely be unchanged. The holy water can just be an alchemical thing. The time stop would probably be a little more of something you would have to pump some mojo into, same with the lightning from SotN. The holy stone would be something that would probably grant some of the ricochet feats.
If you wanted to get into the item crash, I would probably add that as an archetype for the Vampire Hunter.
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I just wanna say that this thread has inspired me to run a game like this at the club I run for my high school
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I'm currently in the process of designing a pathfinder friendly version of castlevania's castle maps of anyone wants me to share them when I'm done
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K, I should be done in a reasonable amount of time, I can't work super often because of work (both an actual job and some stuff for school) so it'll be a bit but hopefully not to long
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Looking back on my earlier post of class placement amongst the Belmonts, I think Richter might be best suited as a Bloodrager, with Item Crash being something tied to his bloodrage.
Which leaves Magus open for Alucard, depending on which way you want to play him.
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Hey guys, if you're at all interested, I actually wrote a book regarding all the mundane items, subweapons, and other iconic gear that Simon Belmont used in the original NES Castlevania and Famicom Vampire Killer. You can check it out here on DriveThruRPG.
If the book does well, we'll be looking at doing additional books.
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As for the class that was mentioned that's not OGL, I was rather shocked to see it had d8 HD. Even less happy that it won't be PFS legal. I love it though. Should have had d10 HD though. I asked Wes why he designed it the way he did, but never got a response.
It was way easier to design the Belmonts in 3.5. Not gonna lie. My favourite archetypes were the kensai fighter (exotic weapon proficiency and +1 atk/dmg with weapon at 1st level) and hunter of fiends paladin. They worked great together. Then there was the lasher PrC which was specifically a whip specialist who would latch onto things and swing Indiana Jones style, and the sworn slayer that took out very specific creatures due to an oath they took.
The Spell Compendium had various cleric spells that worked well with anyone mimicking Richter Belmont's item crash ability.
It's still a dream of mine to play through a Ravenloft scenario with a Belmont build. That'd be so satisfying. Unfortunately, 99% of the time I'm the GM so it will likely never happen.