For my next pathfinder campaign I was thinking about taking some of the mechanics from the Castle Ravenloft board game and tweaking them so they work in within pathfinder.
The mechanic I'd be most excited to use is the monster cards/tactics. I gm a big group, usually 7+, so having the random encounters/henchmen basically run themselves would help me from getting burnt out gming long drawn out battles.
In the board game there's no gm so all of the monsters are player controlled. Each monster has a card that has all of it's statistics and a set of if then tactics and is given to a player to be used after the players hero turn. One of the bigger problems I can foresee with this is that movement in the board game is defined by tile or being adjacent to the hero. So with players being in control of monster movement that would raise some questions regarding attacks of opportunity.
There's also some other stuff I wouldn't mind being added like some of the random tile based exploration and encounter cards.
If anyone has done any work on this or has any ideas on this already I'd love to hear about it.
|
Hey there!
I actually ran a custom battle interactive in my store last night as a post-Halloween treat for our players. Here's the outline (the very short version):
Count Strahd von Zarovich has put a plan into place to escape from the Demiplane of Dread. A Vistani seer has corralled the PCs and informed them of this plan, and also told the PCs about rumors of certain long-standing rituals that give Strahd a significant chunk of his strength (you know, because players never ask WHY the NPC knows something).
Table 1 used the Castle Ravenloft game along with the Curse of Undeath (Dungeon Command) expansion.
Table 2 used the Wrath of Ashardalon game along with the Blood of Gruumsh (Dungeon Command) expansion.
Table 3 used the Legend of Drizzt game along with the Sting of Lolth (Dungeon Command) expansion.
Each table would enter their zone and find that the rooms were blacked out by the mist. Bright light (typically in a 20' radius thanks to common spells/ effects) and bodily presence (10' radius, thanks to life energy) would 'dispel' the mist on the next tile and would trigger the placement of a new tile - along with a new creature or two. The event itself ran into other goodies and neat things, but I'll just break down the core concept here.
I chose not to use the Encounter cards, as they took far too much "page-flipping" for a timed event but in a less time-sensitive format here is what I've used in the past:
Determine table APL.
Use HeroLab - fact-checked, of course - to create a new portfolio with level-appropriate monster challenges. If a card is 1xp, then the creature should be APL - 1 in HL; 2xp: APL; 3xp: APL + 1; 4x: APL + 3. YMMV, of course. Keeping the creatures in 'portfolio' format keeps the information easy to access for other DMs in your area, and very easy to modify/ update/ reuse. You can print directly, or save as a text/ HTML file for future editing (Word, like many other editors, can write/edit in HTML mode).
Level up traps and hazards (Encounter Cards) as appropriate for your table; this, I've found, is the longest and most frustrating portion of the conversion process.
Draw cards for monsters just like normal, and flip Encounter Cards for all the black triangles just like normal.
I've found that letting the players flip the monster and Encounter Cards really keeps them "in the moment", and I can just flip through my bundle of paperwork behind the DM screen. Once you find a rhythm for this process it's actually really cool.
If you're anywhere near central Michigan drop me a line, I'd be happy to give you a running demo. :)
|
|
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand yes, I wanted to address your core concern as well:
Direct conversion of the Adventure System games!
I've done this as well, as it can lead to a pretty interesting "DM-less" game system. Very good for those beer-and-pretzels games!
Use the same "Find the APL, level up creatures in your favorite editor" system as described above.
When you read the card, movement says to basically "move the monster adjacent to the nearest Hero". You can very easily substitute in "The monster walks to the nearest Hero"; this would allow for opportunity attacks as per normal.
The biggest hurdle with this type of setup is really just the conversion time that goes into the front end. You're looking at converting 16-20 monsters to be APL-appropriate, and a large number of distinct encounters as well. If you're scrapping the Encounter cards, this is largely mitigated but the Encounter cards are also a huge part of the Castle Ravenloft boardgame experience.
It's a lot of work and my players seemed to enjoy the standard conversion I tried a couple years back, but as a GM I really didn't care for the final product all that much - a GM should be involved, man!
Just my opinion.
Thanks for the feedback. It makes me a bit more confident in my efforts hearing of an example that can work. Wish I could see it in person but alas I reside in the pacific northwest.
Quick question, for your more complicated enemies like casters do you trust your players to make good tactical decisions for them or have a tactics list like the vanilla game?
I decided to start by converting the first adventure of the Rise of the Runelords. My efforts seem to ave shifted to making more of a board game than a system to aid in gming.
I'll start by explaining what I've done with the monsters. The first thing I did was to turn saves into a static defense so the person attacking/casting is always the person rolling. The rest of it is just kind of boiling creatures down to their basics. I'll post a few examples of what I've done so far.
HP 9 Fort 13, Reflex 12, Will 9
CMD 12
Tactics
If goblin warrior is within 1 tile of a hero it moves adjacent to the closest hero and attacks with shortsword.
If goblin warrior is within 2 tiles of a hero it attacks closest hero with shortbow.
Otherwise goblin warrior moves 1 tile towards closest hero.
Attack to Hit Effect
Shortsword +2 vs Ac 1d4 Damage
Shortbow +4 vs AC 1d4 Damage
HP 9 Fort 11, Reflex 16, Will 13
CMD 12
When Goblin warchanter comes into play Search the encounter Deck for goblin song and put it into play. Shuffle the encounter deck afterwards.
Tactics
If goblin warchanter is at or below 4 HP raise it’s hp by 1d8. (This action Provokes)
If goblin warchanter is adjacent to a hero it attacks with it’s dogslicer.
If goblin Warchanter is within 1 tile of a hero it moves adjacent to closest hero and attacks with whip.
If goblin Warchanter is within 2 tiles of a hero it attacks the closest hero with daze and moves 1 tile closer.
Otherwise goblin warchanter moves 2 tiles closer to closest hero.
Attack to hit Effect
Trip -2 vs cmd Prone
Dogslicer +1 vs ac 1d4 damage
Daze +1 vs will Daze
I have the pathfinder card game (one of the reasons I'm converting rotrl) so I'm gonna use those cards to draw from for monsters and have matching stat blocks ready to hand out to players.
I want each battle to feel unique so I was thinking of having custom deck lists of monsters, encounters ect.. for every battle/dungeon. But I agree encounters seem to be the hardest part of the conversion process. since I'm throwing out the Xp mechanics of the board game I need to give a way to mitigate some of the more dangerous encounter cards.I have been toying with the idea of having skill checks on the bottom of all of the encounter cards and if you make your check you don't take the full effect. That raises the question of scaling. Should the damage/DC raise with the Pcs level or just create new encounter cards for higher levels.
That's where I'm at right now. I'll post a few more monster of my monster conversions once i get them typed up.