more Stat Blocks for my Pathfinder/Ravenloft campaign

[Zilfer]

Yeah I recently bought a box full of almost all of them. I'm slowly going through them along with another series that I'm sad to be getting to the end of.... Malazan Books of the Fallen. Anyways yeah, I don't remember him painting, mostly just carving. He also helped garden in Strahd's castle so yes he would garden to make things beautiful. He also danced and sang.

He is very much for the beauty and joy in life even though ever time he's usually done with the deed he feels just how hollow his existence is. I don't know, I kinda felt the author was going that direction but left it up to the reader how or what really happened. Or maybe they didn't know how to end it one way or another or knew they wanted to end it just that way. xD But using the Morninglord's sign, and then being willing to sacrifice himself to destroy a great evil, i'd like to think selflessness is rewarded as well as great evil. xD

(again maybe a little to optimistic for Ravenloft but your supposed to have those brief reprieves of joy right? So not all hope is lost? No doubt I think that would give Jander a reason to continue on, could possibly his vampirism be cured?!?!? and secondly he doesn't want to become a Crimson Fog. xD)

Again thanks for the right up, i'm still on the fence whether I want to convert my Ravenloft into Pathfinder or keep it 3.5.... I just don't want to have to convert PrC's and NPC's and the like. Maybe laziness on my part. xD

[Nemesio]

Yah my players have all read those books. Sadly I haven't read them and many other contemporary fantasy literature tales.

Some day perhaps....I try to catch up with everybody.

[Zilfer]

Well in your current state.... you have all the time in the world..... Haha...hahaha.....AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

[Nemesio]

No crap. But I'd rather waste my time this way

Great Azalin laugh btw!

[Ryan Naylor]

Aaargh! I leave you alone for a week and you fill 2 pages of posts!

On Elena: I think it's important for thematic reasons she starts off as a paladin, and then falls. I'd be reasonably happy if that is what makes her into an inquisitor (or whatever happens because of her Powers checks).

Have you looked at the Inquisitions (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-cl ... quisitions)? Zeal might be a good choice for her. Fire is the best of Belenus' domains though - burn the heretic!

On Jander: You are correct, in that Jander spends a long time restoring the mural in Castle Ravenloft. That's the painting you're thinking of. He can also carve (quite well), play the flute (quite well) and dance.

Given how much he hates magic, he must either not think of his ranger abilities as spells, have an archetype that stops him from having spells, or be a Fighter/Ranger combo that stops him from being of high enough ranger levels.

His primary focus is his sword, not his bow. That is his weapon of specialisation (or equivalent).

We don't actually know if he can walk in sunlight or not. We do know he thinks he can't. So he could be a standard vampire/2e nosferatu, or a 3e nosferatu.

I have a build somewhere. I'll see if I can find it.

More to come.

[The Giamarga]

Zilfer you raise an interesting question about converting from 3.5 to PF. Should one convert the RL prestige classes and feats or use the existing PF rules to reimagine/rebuild. A middle ground seems to be the best choice with some RL material converted. This is why I eagerly await Ryan disclosing more of his PF rules...

But staying with 3.5 has its benefits too. There's lots of material and most netbooks are still staying 3.5 even though many of the authors do play PF in their campaigns or at least on the boards now.

[The Giamarga]

Ryan, does Jander hate magic or arcane magic? He is a Lathander worshipper so maybe he makes allowances for divine magic.

It's a question of how prevalent you want magic abilities to be in PF RL. Is Alanik a rog10 or a rog/sleepless detective with several spelllike abilities? In Mangrum's design manifest he advised to embrace the system's fantasy/magic.

[Ryan Naylor]

This is something I disagree with Mangrum on.

My take would be to make divine magic as subtle as possible. The distinction I make is between the mystical and the magical: invisible to the game world but providing bonuses etc vs overtly magical. Arcane magic tends to be magical; low level divine magic tends to be mystical, so you could fool yourself into thinking that it was luck or fate or whatever rather than magic.

So you could argue that the spell like abilities of detectives, ninja, monks etc are due to skill, rather than actual magic, in which case it would be fine to have Alanik Ray "casting spells."

As for Jander, although he says he hates magic, he is quite clearly tolerant of Sasha and divine magic, so I presume he actually means arcane magic.

[Zilfer]

I had not thought of the different between arcane and divine magic! I didn't catch that he mostly dispised one over another. I'll have to remember that when I get back to our Ravenloft game. Should be interesting because there is a Half-Vistani Sorcerer in the group from Zarovan.

And Giamarga (heh i'm starting to memorize vistani words!), indeed that is the delima I face because do I allow a wide scope of choosing from both 3.5 and Pathfinder and try to make a mesh that would work for pathfinder? Or stick with the original system? I mean I wouldn't mind converting all the players over to pathfinder I'm finding I like the system quite a bit with my current session going on. Using it to introduce another player to DnD seems like an awesome thing thus far. Been smooth sailing.

I may have missed but how would you stat Dr Van Richten or George or the Twins. (some of my favorite NPC's that I've held off using because I'm afraid to over use them but I really should wake up to the fact they are there to use in the first place! xD I've already used George though... the group called him "Van Helsing" after I described him walking into a bar full of vampires. Ah that was a fun fight.)

[Ryan Naylor]

On Elena:

Having had a closer look at the Inquisitor build, I think it's very good. The spell selection particularly looks exactly like I imagine she should have. The breastplate (rather than full plate) jars a little (because I'm still in ex-paladin land), but it's the best you can do with what an Inquisitor gives you.

Incidentally, if you're spending feats on bastard sword, you're cheating yourself if you don't then use a shield. That's the only advantage I can see to taking the feat; otherwise, you might as well not take the feat and use it 2 handed.

For the paladin build, for aura of justice, you should specify that she grants a smite "evil" ability, not smite evil. Or you might want to replace smite evil with the cavalier's challenge ability to streamline things a bit.

On Maligno:

Repairable is a bit convoluted, and wooden body is unclear. Have a look at the golem spell immunity abilities for a potentially slightly clearer way of presenting the information.

For pull strings, I think we're getting too far away from the concept of the ability - the paralytic nails aspect. It's not obvious what's happening from your description in the way that the random limb being struck thing was. It's definitely a tricky ability to get right though.

On Diamabel:

I'd make fewer changes (stat wise) between Day and Night forms for the sake of readibility. Then roll them into one stat block, with differences between the forms in parentheses. The skills, for example, could be completely consistent between forms with no loss of character (perhaps with the exception of an Intimidate bonus in night form).

The differences as I see them are that the Day form can self-heal, whereas the Night form has rotting aura, rotting touch, unholy grace, and undead strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps (for the sake of balance), Diamabel is a monstrous humanoid with undead immunities in both forms, but gains rotting touch/aura/grace/undead weaknesses at night? That way they'd be close to equivalent CRs.

I understand why you've made Night worse at flying, but it may be unnecessary. I don't understand why Night speaks Abyssal and Day speaks Akiri, or why Spiritburner does different damage between forms.

Alanik Ray looks good to me. I imagined Sedgewick as slightly higher in level, but that's fine. "Low Mordentish" is not a language, it's a dialect of Mordentish, and everyone who can speak Mordentish can speak both dialects.

On Ivan Dragonov:

Instead of lycanthrope as a favoured enemy, it should be shapechanger.

Otherwise, I can't see anything obviously wrong. You might want to specify what his trigger is.

On Jander:

He can't do energy drain. He's got black thumb instead, but even before entering Ravenloft, he couldn't energy drain.

Why hypnotic vapour and lightbringer?

And there's a typo where you call Jander Ivan in favoured enemy.

[Nemesio]

Incidentally, if you're spending feats on bastard sword, you're cheating yourself if you don't then use a shield. That's the only advantage I can see to taking the feat; otherwise, you might as well not take the feat and use it 2 handed.

Actually I was picturing her wielding her sword in one hand and holding the reigns of her mount in the other. That way she could cut people down with her bastard sword as she rides by with Ride-By Attack.

Why hypnotic vapour and lightbringer?

I thought lightbringer might better represent Jander being a "gold elf" and I thought hypnotic vapor could represent the superiority of his vampiric abilities over Strahd's, due to his greater age.

I'm not particularly attached to either.....but they weren't arbitrary decisions.

On Maligno:

Repairable is a bit convoluted, and wooden body is unclear. Have a look at the golem spell immunity abilities for a potentially slightly clearer way of presenting the information.

For pull strings, I think we're getting too far away from the concept of the ability - the paralytic nails aspect. It's not obvious what's happening from your description in the way that the random limb being struck thing was. It's definitely a tricky ability to get right though.

I don't mind making more changes with Maligno. I'm just as nuts as anybody else when it comes to wanting to stay true to my beloved Ravenloft characters, which I realize were developed by others, and were just fine the way they were in previous edtions. Curse the whole business of changing editions every 5-15 years or whatever!

Could you give me a quick outline of what you would do to reconstruct Maligno's special abilities? I struggled with him for two days. I was actually pretty proud of my adaption. I thought changing rules for individual paralyzed limbs [which is next too impossible without DM arbitrating, as rules for playing "amputee" characters are rarely included in RPGs]. I like the idea of using negative conditions to represent the carrionettes' ability to take over a person's body with subsequent attacks with their needles and magic threads. I don't quite like rolling an additional d4 to determine the conditions because it does just complicates things more. I guess I'm stuck on this one man. Any way of meeting in the middle on this one?

For the paladin build, for aura of justice, you should specify that she grants a smite "evil" ability, not smite evil. Or you might want to replace smite evil with the cavalier's challenge ability to streamline things a bit.

On Diamabel:

I'd make fewer changes (stat wise) between Day and Night forms for the sake of readibility. Then roll them into one stat block, with differences between the forms in parentheses. The skills, for example, could be completely consistent between forms with no loss of character (perhaps with the exception of an Intimidate bonus in night form).

The differences as I see them are that the Day form can self-heal, whereas the Night form has rotting aura, rotting touch, unholy grace, and undead strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps (for the sake of balance), Diamabel is a monstrous humanoid with undead immunities in both forms, but gains rotting touch/aura/grace/undead weaknesses at night? That way they'd be close to equivalent CRs.

I understand why you've made Night worse at flying, but it may be unnecessary. I don't understand why Night speaks Abyssal and Day speaks Akiri, or why Spiritburner does different damage between forms.

Alanik Ray looks good to me. I imagined Sedgewick as slightly higher in level, but that's fine. "Low Mordentish" is not a language, it's a dialect of Mordentish, and everyone who can speak Mordentish can speak both dialects.

On Ivan Dragonov:

Instead of lycanthrope as a favoured enemy, it should be shapechanger.

Otherwise, I can't see anything obviously wrong. You might want to specify what his trigger is.

On Jander:

He can't do energy drain. He's got black thumb instead, but even before entering Ravenloft, he couldn't energy drain.

And there's a typo where you call Jander Ivan in favoured enemy.

I think the rest of your edits are quite good. Thank you. I actually return to my files to edit these stats constantly, so I really appreciate an extra set of eyes checking my work/play.

[Nemesio]

Ryan, so I edited everybody except for Maligno. I'm too pooped to tackle that one tonight. Besides I'm looking forward to anything more you may have to say on the topic of the carrionette needles.

[The Giamarga]

Zilfer, the Weathermays (and i believe Van Richten too) are statted quite well for PF in one of the latest QtR netbooks iirc.

I also very much liked their 3e stats, official for the Weathermays, and unofficial Exp5/Rog5/True Scholar5 for Van Richten in QtR#2. Of course I always tinker with some details but I think only George got changed significantly in my jumbled notes...

[The Giamarga]

This is something I disagree with Mangrum on.

My take would be to make divine magic as subtle as possible. The distinction I make is between the mystical and the magical: invisible to the game world but providing bonuses etc vs overtly magical. Arcane magic tends to be magical; low level divine magic tends to be mystical, so you could fool yourself into thinking that it was luck or fate or whatever rather than magic.

So you could argue that the spell like abilities of detectives, ninja, monks etc are due to skill, rather than actual magic, in which case it would be fine to have Alanik Ray "casting spells."

As for Jander, although he says he hates magic, he is quite clearly tolerant of Sasha and divine magic, so I presume he actually means arcane magic.

I'm not even sure that this contradicts Mangrum, I'd rather see it as enhancing/detailing the fluff of it. Essentially it allows/encourages you to use more magic from the D&D/PF system in RL.

[Nemesio]

And Giamarga (heh i'm starting to memorize vistani words!), indeed that is the delima I face because do I allow a wide scope of choosing from both 3.5 and Pathfinder and try to make a mesh that would work for pathfinder? Or stick with the original system? I mean I wouldn't mind converting all the players over to pathfinder I'm finding I like the system quite a bit with my current session going on. Using it to introduce another player to DnD seems like an awesome thing thus far. Been smooth sailing.

The great thing about being the DM is that if you say meshing 3.5 and Pathfinder is ok, then it is. Rules and blocks of statistics are simply guidelines in my opinion. During play I will change an NPCs statistics in an instant if I feel the need. No NPC should be unbeatable, nor should they be completely helpless. In general, as long as my players were challenged they were happy.

Speaking of the players. That is were mixing editions gets tricky. I've found that PC classes are not always equal in any of the editions, even more so when mixing them, but with some adjustments to classes and prestige classes that are obviously underpowered it can be done.

In short PCs need to be carefully balanced with each other to prevent grumpy players, and NPCs can always be fudged and the players will be none the wiser.