D&D World used with Legend/RQ

[Chorpa]

I am currently using the Legend system but plan to upgrade to to RuneQuest 6 once my wallet allows it. I didn't plan on it since I thought the changes was so minor I saw no need for it. But finally got a chance to browse through a pdf copy of the game and I liked what I saw and will be nice to have everything gathered into one book. But it still applies mostly to my experiences with Legend until that happens.

But what brought me here was after I converted a Pathfinder adventure to Legend.

Made me think about converting Forgotten Realm for play with RQ/Legend rules that are far superior in my opinion and makes combat way more interesting. After all I still have a huge library of Forgotten Realms modules and fond memories of the adventures in that world that I wanna bring back but for use with a good rule system.

I found that once you nailed down all the small details and formed a consistent template converting characters was actually quite easy. I might post my final write up of the template that formed when converting my first adventure.

Either way thinking about converting I have narrowed it down to two paths. It is mostly concerning all the different monsters and races and would appreciate some opinions on the matter.

Option 1: Is to ignore the RQ/Legend monsters and races and just use the stats from existing monsters (mostly D&D 3rd Edition stuff) with minor changes to bring them into line with the current rules. For example instead of using the Legend elf I create a new one from the basic elf in D&D3,5 that represents the FR Moon Elf. In D&D the elf has the Ability Adjustments of +2 Dexterity &-2 Constitution and some other abilities but the most important one being Low-Light Vision. The average elf is 5' (152 cm) and weighs around 105-110 lb. (48-50 kg). Legend doesn't have a SIZ chart so I refer to my copy of BRP and find that that is an average of SIZ 8. I know a very similar table exists in RuneQuest 6 that can be used. So now we know that the stats should be about the same as humans except 3D6+2 in DEX, 2D6+2 in CON. I try to avoid using a negative modifier on attribute rolls so I just remove a dice and place a bonus to get the appropriate average. To get an average roll 8 on SIZ we pick 2D6+1 for that roll. Finally we browse through the Traits and Chaotic Features in Monsters of Legend and the only appropriate one we find is Night Sight to replace Low Light Vision so the Moon Elf gain that. The rest we just ignore and voila a finished Moon Elf for use with Legend.

Option 2: Here we just go through the Monsters of Legend book and replace the D&D equivalent monster we can find with the Legend ones.

Most of the creatures in Monsters of Legend do have a similar creature in Monster Manual/Forgotten Realms that it can replace. For the variants of the base races you just use the Legend base and modify it from there. For example the Legend elf stats replace the Moon Elf stats since that is the base elf stats for FR. For all other elven subraces we just take the differences between Moon Elf and the other race and apply it to the Legend elf in a similar way as in Option 1 above. For example a Sun Elf have +2 INT and -2 CON instead of the +2 DEX and -2 CON the Moon Elf have. No other differences are listed. To sum it up the CON modification are the same so that is not changed. But the Sun Elf should have -2 DEX and +2 INT compared to the base elf template. No other differences are listed. Using the Legend elf as Base Elf template we should apply the modifications for a final result of 3D6+4 DEX and 3D6+8 INT. Done!

I am leaning toward Option 2 in regarding the race and monster conversion. Example Hobgoblins are a larger variant of Goblins so I compare the differences in a similar way as the example in Option 2 to get the new monster. For all other monster I can just recreate it according to Option 1 since I have nothing to compare it too.

Some other details I have already figured out is that armors are generally lower in Legend than D&D but is easy. The highest unmagical armor in D&D is Plate Mail and gives an armor bonus of +8. The best armor in Legend give an AP of 6. That is an 6/8 simplified to 3/4 conversion ratio of armor bonus to AP. This can be used when converting natural armors to AP too.

Common Magic normally are not available as a Common Skill. But races with spell like get it as a Common Skill to replace the spell like abilities. The Gamemaster should decide what Common Magic spells the race get that best represent the old D&D spells.

Now we just have the Divine Magic left but I already have ideas how to do that too and create the Divine Cults to represent the portfolio for each religion.

This became a long rant with only some of the ideas I have in my head at the moment. But the biggest hurdle I have at the moment is deciding if I should go with Option 1 or Option 2 for most of the conversion and opinions on that or maybe new ideas I have forgotten about. Of course there will be changes making it slightly different from the Forgotten Realms according to the D&D 3rd Edition rules. But then again there where a lot of changes to Forgotten Realms between AD&D 2nd Edition to D&D 3rd Edition. I have chosen to ignore the 4th Edition changes to Forgotten Realms since the gap in time between 3rd and 4th edition was so great.

[nclarke]

Looks like you've done a good job on assessing the best way to make published D&D modules work with Legend.

I found that the best ones to convert were some of the older ones for 2e AD&D which had a decent plot with less complex stat blocks. The most difficulty I've had is in making Legend Sorcerers provide an adequate challenge without resorting to something like Classic Fantasy to provide spell lists. I tend to look at the NPC and decide a style for them and give them magic to suit. That's usually a combination of Common Magic and Sorcery but if I'm doing the conversion for a particular style of game I do a far more focussed conversion.

Many modules have divine magic users/priests that fit a single stereotype so you can usually do a Priest of X evil religion and slap together a quick prayer book containing a set of spells for that cult and reuse that for every priest from the same cult.

Doing the ground work with the cult books/grimoires first to get the flavour right seems to be the best way of doing these conversion.

[USAFguy]

Great work! I'd love to see whatever you could send me (ahnen@hotmail.com). After I finish grad school this summer, I wanted to look at a Classic Fantasy conversion to Pathfinder (or to Shadow World). It would be interesting to see how you converted Legend/RQ6 to a Pathfinder setting.

[seneschal]

Option 2 is the way I'd go with critters and monsters. As you've noted, both fantasy games have a similar creature list, so why not use the Legend or BRP equivalents and save yourself a lot of work? A monster ported from D&D doesn't have to be exactly the same in your Legend game, it just has to carry off the same feel or fill the same role. Less time doing conversions means more time and energy for actually playing with your friends.

[Guest Vile Traveller]

I used to run a lot of old AD&D modules in Greyhawk with RQ2 rules. Giants and Slave Lords stand out in my memory, as well as a lot of one-offs. I used RQ2 creatures because I had Foes, the Big Book of Stat Blocks. As you say, once you have a system for conversion it's easy-peasy.

[Chorpa]

Option 2 is the way I'd go with critters and monsters. As you've noted, both fantasy games have a similar creature list, so why not use the Legend or BRP equivalents and save yourself a lot of work? A monster ported from D&D doesn't have to be exactly the same in your Legend game, it just has to carry off the same feel or fill the same role. Less time doing conversions means more time and energy for actually playing with your friends.

Yeah that was the idea. I rather go for preserving the flavor then exact conversations and so far for a couple of converted D&D/Pathfinder adventures this has suited me well and see no problems in doing the same for a whole world.

[Chorpa]

Looks like you've done a good job on assessing the best way to make published D&D modules work with Legend.

I found that the best ones to convert were some of the older ones for 2e AD&D which had a decent plot with less complex stat blocks. The most difficulty I've had is in making Legend Sorcerers provide an adequate challenge without resorting to something like Classic Fantasy to provide spell lists. I tend to look at the NPC and decide a style for them and give them magic to suit. That's usually a combination of Common Magic and Sorcery but if I'm doing the conversion for a particular style of game I do a far more focussed conversion.

Many modules have divine magic users/priests that fit a single stereotype so you can usually do a Priest of X evil religion and slap together a quick prayer book containing a set of spells for that cult and reuse that for every priest from the same cult.

Doing the ground work with the cult books/grimoires first to get the flavour right seems to be the best way of doing these conversion.

Yeah still have a lot of cover here. So far I have a simple system where I go through a characters D&D spells and then try to find similar ones in Legend. Was thinking about making a spell list for each domain and as in D&D once you choose a god to follow you get their two domains and their other Cult stuff like the available skills and such. The domains and favored weapons already give a good guide of what skills it should focus on. Of course some tweaking will be required but that is my plan for now. At least if I create the domains first the spells are settled for all the gods and I just have to create the rest of the details for each Cult but that I can do when needed and just write it down when I do. For Wizards and Sorcerers I will just consider them as the same as Legend Sorcery users and continue with just trying to find similar spells from Common and Sorcery spells to make up their spell lists with Legend. After all back in 2nd Edition only Mages and Specialized Mages was available in Forgotten Realms. ;-)

[soltakss]

Classic Fantasy is being ported to Legend, I believe. Once that has been published it should solve most of these issues.

[Chorpa]

I know and even though I think Classic Fantasy was a very well written product I just have had problems with the to old scool feel of it. My aim if I bring over Forgotten Realms is to bring and old school world over to a better system with less restrictions. That's one of the problems I have had with the spells in Classic Fantasy, they just felt like their D&D counterpart to rigid. It is probably something psychological that exists just in my head. But my use of CF have always been with Magic and Sorcery rules from BRP instead. Used the Sorcery rules to represent magic you got from another power (divine magic used by Clerics and Druids in D&D for example) and Magic system to represent the more straightforward magic used by Wizards and Sorcerers. Either way I do agree a lot of the stuff threedesix have planned for CF so who knows I might grab the stuff I like from it and use. But for now I am just trying to preserve as much as I can of the core in Legend and instead adapt Forgotten Realms to Legend than the other way around. That is basically what my two options above are. ;-)

[Warlock]

Hey Chorpa!

Nice post, thanks for sharing. I am running a Legend campaign in the World of Greyhawk and I am very interested to know how you are planning on creating the cults for the large pantheon? My campaign revolves around 4 rogues at the moment but there may be a requirement for a more standard fantasy party in the future.

The Greyhawk pantheon is also very large, especially when one includes the various demi human pantheons.

Any advice is highly appreciated!

[Chorpa]

Well have been quite busy lately so haven't gotten to much work done. Also have recently made the transition to RQ6 which I will use from now on but not much changes since Legend and RQ are highly compatible. Really divided on how I should tackle all the gods and their followers. For best result I think would be to create each Divine Cult/Theist Cult from scratch with the description from Forgotten Realms as an base. Would take a lot of work though so it would probably be best done on the fly. Basically when you need the stats of one cult you create it and write it down for future use. My other option was to create a spell list for each domain and once you pick a god to follow you get your domains but that still leaves the skills for each cult to be created so I have expanded the idea to instead create a cult for each domain instead and when picking a god you get to choose which cult to focus on. For example Lathander have the domains of Good, Nobility, Protection, Renewal, Strength, Sun to choose from. Sun God already exist in RQ6 so that could be used for someone who have picked sun domain. Strength domain obviously would mostly deal with spells and skills that focus on strength and so on. So as you can see there are plenty of options I have to choose from when designing the cults. I will probably go for the first option and just create each Cult for a god on a need basis. Doesn't take to long to whip up the details and most of the fluff already exist in the Forgotten Realms book or Faiths and Pantheons book so most of the work is already done either way it is just basically what skills and spells the cult will give access to.

Since I recently got RQ I found that in that book there are already plenty of generic cults that could be used as basis for several of the Forgotten Realm gods. So that should make things a lot easier. A list below is just after a quick browse of the cults from RQ6 and what Forgotten Realms got I first thought was suitable. It still leaves plenty of gods left but at least it is a start. With some tweaking I am sure more gods could be squeezed in.

Air God = Akadi

Storm God = Talos

Crafter God = Gond

Death God = Kelemvor, Velsharoon

Earth God = Grumbar

Fertility Goddess = Chauntea

Healing God = Ilmater

Hunter God = Malar

Knowledge God = Oghma

Sea/Water God = Istishia, Umberlee

Sun/Fire God = Kossuth

Trading God = Waukeen

Trickster God = Beshaba, Cyric and Mask

War God = Tempus

[wbcreighton]

Hey Chorpa!

Nice post, thanks for sharing. I am running a Legend campaign in the World of Greyhawk and I am very interested to know how you are planning on creating the cults for the large pantheon? My campaign revolves around 4 rogues at the moment but there may be a requirement for a more standard fantasy party in the future.

The Greyhawk pantheon is also very large, especially when one includes the various demi human pantheons.

Any advice is highly appreciated!

You might want to look here:

rqgods

[wbcreighton]

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Edited March 13, 2013 by wbcreighton
double post

[frogspawner]

You might want to look here:

rqgods

Now that stuff is really interesting, and looks very well-done.

But... it forces me to the realization that just using the standard RQ spells in Greyhawk makes it not seem like Greyhawk anymore.

To my mind, that setting requires D&D-like spells. So Classic Fantasy is probably the best way to go.

Another, separate, suggestion that might help cope with the large number of different gods is to set up cleric sects that are generic, not tied to particular gods. Then gods can be assigned to the most appropriate. That means you only have to define the spells etc for about a dozen sects, not a hundred gods! (Sadly, that isn't very 'Greyhawk-y', either...)

[Warlock]

Thanks wbcreighton, what an awesome site.

TalMeta is a name I am familiar with from Canonfire. He has done a lot of really good stuff here!

[auyl]

To each their own. If you want to convert FR to Legend/RQ then that's your choice. I personally prefer to keep the worlds separate. The work done so far is impressive however. I'll admit that much.

[Chorpa]

To each their own. If you want to convert FR to Legend/RQ then that's your choice. I personally prefer to keep the worlds separate. The work done so far is impressive however. I'll admit that much.

Well I don't consider Legend or RuneQuest to be worlds but instead just rules systems you can use for any world you like. Obviously RQ have Glorantha closely related to it but they are not dependent of each other. I have shelved the idea of running the campaign in FR and instead play in an old homebrew world nicknamed Arcania. But the idea is still there and I will tinker on it when I have the spare time.

[DamonJynx]

Hi,

I think what you're doing is great and very similar to how I do it (when necessary). NPC's in basic terms, i.e. sans magic, are not overly difficult at all to convert over. For Monsters, I think option 2 is definitely the way to go.

Don't know if you're aware of it, but Dan True has done an excellent Eberron conversion that may give you some ideas. Check out the link in his signature on the Mongoose Legend forums.

I like your take on the cults; I agree it's probably best to base the cults on domains and then assign them to the Gods as appropriate. This also has the benefit of being more 'universal' for other D&D/PF pantheons, not just those in the FR.

re Monsters, I prefer to port over the 4E critter if there isn't something suitable in Legend/RQ6 as the stat blocks and special abilities are heaps easier to convert. You just make a 'special ability' a trait and viola! Job done.

Edited April 21, 2013 by DamonJynx