1) Because of the malevalent influence of the demiplane you get only 1/2 of your normal healing surges
2) While in a sinkhole of evil undead get a bonus of +1 Attack and +1 to all defenses per rank.
3) Darklords can change 2 encounter powers into at will powers and 2 daily powers to encounter powers
Player's Guide
DM's Guide
Monster Manual
other then that, a very bold and good attempt in brining back ravenloft to 4th edition.
the only thing i disagree with is the fluff conserning races, (dwarves, gnomes, warforged especially)
other then that, a very bold and good attempt in brining back ravenloft to 4th edition.
I agree with you about the races. I would get rid of mist navigation in the mistwalker class. I like the Vistani doing things others can't. I would get rid of the fortune telling ritual for the same reason. The escape ritual should be more difficult. Make it lvl 26, make the component cost 50,000 GP mention that dark lords can't use it and with a low roll it doesn't work and it costs you 2 con permenentlly. I like everything in the DMG, particularly curses. In the MM scarecrows should be evil On the whole I think it is very good.
on player races. it felt to me that a total race writeup was grudge given, and written with contempt.
drow as the caliban version of regular elves?
specifically with warforged not having a lamordian tie in was equivilant to the sound of a ball being dropped. it would have even worked with their whole drums of war theme.
dwarves as a race dying out is against what 3.0+5 mentioned as dwarves making a slight comeback even venturing into lamordia and dwarves living in the mountains of barovia. dwarves were always fatalistic but after reading thier fluff i wanted to give them a mercy kill myself.
i didn't like the visual of gnomes being perpetually old, or a race of mad folk. come to think of it i also didn't like halfings becoming somewhat blissfully retarded. it seemed to me they wanted kender badly and gave us a elf/eladrin cut of both gnomes and halfings to give us kender.
some of the other aspects of the races were very good, those those i should mention just that those were not to my tastes.
p.s. just had the thought and wondering if they were going to update these rules any time soon, with the mm2 + other books out and some other switches this might turn out to be ravenlofts best time.
I agree with you about the races.
The core races were written up extensively in a series of articles in the Quoth the Raven netbooks. Like much fan-fluff it's strictly a matter of personal taste and a suggestion for how to view demihumans.
The 4e descriptions were written to be descriptive and concise and not long essays.
I would get rid of mist navigation in the mistwalker class. I like the Vistani doing things others can't.
Mistways (and mist navigation) were in the 3e Ravenloft books. It'd hardly be a good update if it ignored those rules for people who liked them (and the ability to have semi-reliable trade).
Similarly, I'm not a fan of the Magic Rating rules from the 3e Ravenloft Player's Handbook but I updated them anyway.
I would get rid of the fortune telling ritual for the same reason.
Mostly added for half-Vistani race. And to fill the role of atmospheric divination lacking in the PHB divination rituals.
The escape ritual should be more difficult. Make it lvl 26, make the component cost 50,000 GP mention that dark lords can't use it and with a low roll it doesn't work and it costs you 2 con permenentlly.
There is no real rules for ability damage or drain in 4e (and the fact it cannot be used by darklords should be self-evident but probably should have be added).
I went with the low level due to my personal belief Ravenloft isn't suitable for epic games. By definition in the PHB the epic tier includes planar travel, easy travel across continents, and adventures with global implications. The epic tier is where PCs fight gods, demon princes, and do three impossible things before breakfast and Milliways. Not the best fit for Ravenloft.
I wanted to let DMs allow their players to leave if they wanted to continue the game once they reached a level where they could handily defeat most darklords. Strahd is a L20 (according to Open Grave) and defeatable by PCs at level 18 or 19. A L22 ritual is far enough after that to make its usage seem impressive. It's an easy out allowing the DM to move the game elsewhere if they so choose. If not they can just deny PCs access to the ritual.
But, like most rules it's subject to DM fiat and customization.
on player races. it felt to me that a total race writeup was grudge given, and written with contempt.
Yes and no.
I felt I had to include as many races as possible but didn't feel every race was appropriate. But I also know many DMs feel any demi-humans are innappropriate and prefer a human-only Ravenloft. I personally prefer a faerie tale feel more than fantasy to the 'Loft and wanted to add a sense of gloom and darkness to most races. Humans have a crappy time in the Mists, why should dwarves have a sunny existance? ;)
That said, some races still got excluded (dragonborn). If I were to update for the PHB2 (and 3) I'd probably ignore goliaths as well (or label them a caliban variant).
drow as the caliban version of regular elves?
It wasn't initially my idea but I liked it and ran with it. I'd also have duegar be dwarven calibans rather than dwarven tieflings.
[rant]
I dislike the "exactly the same but eeeevil" races whose only purpose is to be a dark version of a heroic race. It makes the default overly good and suggests the silly and possibly racist concept that an entire people can be inherently evil. I just find it comedically unrealistic that an entire culture can be Evil (with a capital "E"); they're not misunderstood or just have opposing views, they're just evil.
And it lends itself a little too readily to the lone heroes who oppose their people and set themselves apart.
[/rant]
Drow as caliban means they can be used without failing power checks for their inherent culture and drops the Drizz't baggage.
specifically with warforged not having a lamordian tie in was equivilant to the sound of a ball being dropped. it would have even worked with their whole drums of war theme.
I wanted to avoid having a race tied to a specific land, so that ALL of race X had to come from land Y. I felt that the warforged/Lamordian possibility was strong enough not to require stating.
i didn't like the visual of gnomes being perpetually old, or a race of mad folk.
Gnomes are a hard race. They're a weird combination of dwarves and elves, with little that's unique to them except for pointy hats, conversations with badgers, and a propensity for hanging around gardens.
Mad gnomes drifts into the more unique Dragonlance tinker gnome territory (and Warcraft gnomes). I also tried to tie in gnome folklore as holders of secrets and hidden lore.
come to think of it i also didn't like halfings becoming somewhat blissfully retarded. it seemed to me they wanted kender badly and gave us a elf/eladrin cut of both gnomes and halfings to give us kender.
I didn't so much want kender as want to accommodate people who wanted 1-2e hobbits, kender, and/or 3-4e kenderesque halflings.
The aforementioned Races of the Mists articles in Quoth the Raven do a much better job (IMHO) of describing each of the races than the 2-3 paragraphs of crammed description. But that's to be expected.
p.s. just had the thought and wondering if they were going to update these rules any time soon, with the mm2 + other books out and some other switches this might turn out to be ravenlofts best time.
I've been slowly noting where I need to make changes due to playtesting and observation of changes in 4e, but I've been debating if I should update the actual documents (version 1.5) or just release an Update document.
And I've also been torn on if I should just update and release an expansion for feats (ala the X Power books and their race-based class feats) or update the pamphlets with revisions AND new content.
first off, thanks for replying.
i can't do the quote boxes so please bear with me. im glad you took what i said as constructive feed back. though looking back i may have been gruff. please forgive me.
i can't speak for livingwill but i'd love to throw in some explanations and not just likes and dislikes. perhaps even a bit of my own personal view.
i was thinking dragonborn could have a nice space right in sithicus seeing as how dragonlance was its illigitimate mother. and dragonlance has a history with silly scaled men. goliaths could perhaps find a home with franstik markov ( i know i butchered that name) in his little island of dr moroeu.
drizzt baggage out of the way in regards to drow becoming calibans is a strong and well though out argument.;) but they can have a place in ravenloft in the shadow rift and keening. even in third edition when they turned the banshee into an elf offshoot and had drow teach her the lessons of lolth.
as far as thier whole culture being evil, im in agreement, its a lame idea, but i see the drow of ravenloft akin to the humans in falcovnia. perhaps not all of them are evil, but who has time to split hairs then there charging down your throat in the thousands?
as far as the gnomes go, i think we divide there i like the 4th visual version of the new gnome face as significantly more fae. not a fan of either the warcraft or dragonlance tinker gnome in any way. ( i was the one playing horde singling out gnomes in pvp exclusivly.) but thats specifically personal opinion. and i can't find fault for that except to say that if i were to run the game i would split it down the center with fluff and write the gnomes living with humans are the tinker gnomes and the ones living away from the humans are fae-ish. and as they urbanize they seem old and mad because they lose connection with the feywilde. not a bad comprimise?
dwarves and halflings again fall into the realm of agree to disagree fluff. i would have been curious to not see dwarves decline again. perhaps even steal the tinker manner from the gnomes to a more agressive and powerful matrail flavor and less dorky?
on warforged, i understand and accept the reasoning about it. but it would have been nice to at least mention even one work of it.
all the input i put in is advice, and is in no way to be taken as anything else but a different point of view. i don't know if you did see it but i liked everything else. what i found witty personally is teiflings, and genasi reverting to a more subtle visual.
also i would love to throw in some art your way if your intrested. im about to give fraternity of sshadows more images soon and already have some art there. you can check it out. lol:D
I've been slowly noting where I need to make changes due to playtesting and observation of changes in 4e, but I've been debating if I should update the actual documents (version 1.5) or just release an Update document.
And I've also been torn on if I should just update and release an expansion for feats (ala the X Power books and their race-based class feats) or update the pamphlets with revisions AND new content.
Update with revisions and new content. The books are not too large yet to need a second book, and you are not trying to suck money our of our pockets, so no need to make book 2, etc.
I would prefer to have it all in one place. One DMG, one PH, one MM, etc.
Just so you know, my wife decided (after 25 years of playing D&D as a player) that she wanted to be a DM. We moved to 4th edition and she loves it, and she also loves Ravenloft. She only wants to DM Ravenloft.
Imagine our horror to find there is not a 4e sourcebook. Finding your books is a godsend, so thank you VERY much!
I noticed that there are none of the new classes from PHB2 in the Jester's player's pamplet. I'm curious on how you all would implement this. If I recall, there are indeed some societies that are "barbaric", such as the people who roam the dreamlands, not to mention the caliban growing up apart from society.
Since none of the classes have been changed from PH I would do the same thing with PHBII and just use them as described.
The new, updated rules with PHB2 content are almost done.
cant wait to see what you got coming at us jester =] rules side you got everything preety well done. im still very impressed with what i read and playtested a few with several buddies, it works quite well.
im still stubborn upon some open minded rulings on races and mentioned as much in another thread but its your baby, and im grateful for the work you put in.
thanks jester
Been a while since I checked-out these boards. In case you haven't seen, the revised versions (with updated Paragon Paths, feats, and PHB2 fluff) have been added:
Keep up the good work, you are the man!
My DM still clings to several 3.5 conventions (namely that adventurers are supposed to be bad at their job), and as a group we're still trying to come up with a way to make Horror checks make sense. I'll check out the books you posted, Jester. Hopefully they'll have something for us!
I'm in the process of re-writing the above campaign for a new group of players and hopefully Jester's rules will help me when I decide to pull their characters into Ravenloft for the first time.
Ravenloft will not be Ravenloft in 4th Edition.
Too early to tell, especially since all we know is that "it will be a self-contained game with a physical element". Not alot to go on.