Dragonlance with GURPS

[lord17c]

Hi all,

Wondering if anyone could give any advice on doing dragonlance with gurps. I know D&D has it, but afew in my group prefer gurps.

Thanks,

Future GM

[The Wrathchild]

We've just had a thread about it:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...ht=dragonlance

[beholdsa]

Hi,

I've spent the last couple months converting most of the Dragonlance setting to GURPS. At this point I've got everything converted, except Mysticism and Primal Sorcery (both introduced in the Age of Mortals).

My conversion document is a good 30 pages long and I was debating about putting it online as a PDF (pending double-checking to make sure it abides by S. J. Games' fair use and WotC's fair use policies.)

Anyway, If you would like me to email you a copy of the entire conversion, PM me your email and I'll send you a copy.

[Anubis]

hi ther i know this was a long time ago but .do you still have your conversions

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anubis

hi ther i know this was a long time ago but .do you still have your conversions

Considering beholdsa's post regarding this was made 11 years ago I doubt it.

GURPS Repository has some information on "GURPS Dragonlance" so that may help you.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by maximara

Considering beholdsa's post regarding this was made 11 years ago I doubt it.

GURPS Repository has some information on "GURPS Dragonlance" so that may help you.

It strikes me as odd that all of the elven templates have Dark Vision and Night Vision 3. Is this an accidental holdover from d20 (where IIRC darkvision has a maximum range, while low-light vision doesn't, so I could see a race who has both), or is it meant to be something where elves ignore up to -3 in darkness penalties to color vision, in addition to taking no darkness penalties to non-color vision?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Varyon

It strikes me as odd that all of the elven templates have Dark Vision and Night Vision 3. Is this an accidental holdover from d20 (where IIRC darkvision has a maximum range, while low-light vision doesn't, so I could see a race who has both), or is it meant to be something where elves ignore up to -3 in darkness penalties to color vision, in addition to taking no darkness penalties to non-color vision?

I looked online for a description of their vision so I could better answer this and this is what I found:

"Elvensight: Kagonesti elves have low-light vision and can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. They retain the ability to distinguish color and detail under the circumstances. Elvensight also includes darkvision up to 30 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight."

I think whoever did the conversions simply latched on "darkvision" as being the same as the GURPS advantage Dark Vision and but they are totally different.

Elvensight is specifically the ability to “detect the warm red aura cast by all living beings but visible only to the elves.”

GURPS Dark Vision: "You can see in absolute darkness using some means other than light, radar, or sonar."

That "warm red aura" sounds very much like inferred which falls under Infravision in GURPS:

"Infravision does not let you distinguish colors, and only allows you to judge the general size and shape of heat-emitting objects, including living beings (for instance, you might have trouble telling two people of the same size apart)."

I going over there and fix that.

Edit I have been updating the GURPS wiki and have been adding races that appear in the 4e books and elves is one of them.

[Dragondog]

What elven sight does is one thing in the novels and another in D&D 3.5. In D&D it has nothing to do with "warm red aura."

Dark Vision and Darkvision both have the same effect. You can see in total darkness and what you see is black and white.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by maximara

"Elvensight: Kagonesti elves have low-light vision and can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. They retain the ability to distinguish color and detail under the circumstances. Elvensight also includes darkvision up to 30 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight."

I forgot that low-light vision included color, so it looks like my second thought was the case (although it should arguably be Night Vision 2, since +2 to vision is x2 to visual range). I'd be tempted to only have the Color Vision Enhancement of Dark Vision apply to 30% (or 20%, if Night Vision 2 is a better match for low-light vision) of the cost of Dark Vision, for a net +6% (or +4%), which works out to [27] (or [26]) total for the trait.

Originally Posted by maximara

I think whoever did the conversions simply latched on "darkvision" as being the same as the GURPS advantage Dark Vision and but they are totally different.

As Dragondog notes, GURPS Dark Vision and DnD Darkvision are pretty much the same thing, it's just that the latter has a maximum range (d20 in general is, as I remember it, more about maximum ranges on things than on mounting penalties). From what you've quoted, it seems like Dragonlance might have something other than Dark Vision (from either game system), perhaps something more akin to Detect (Life).

EDIT: Unless that "warm red aura" reflects off of objects to allow elves to see them, in which case they have Dark Vision with some weird Limitation that it somehow treats living things as light sources.

[a humble lich]

Some of the confusion is that Dragonlance covers 5 editions of D&D and books which do not faithfully replicate the rules of any edition. Dragonlance originally came out at modules for 1st edition, where (if I remember correctly) there was no "Low light Vision" or "Darkvision." Instead elves had "Infravision" which I'd believe could be described as seeing a "warm red aura."

If I were to convert Dragonlance, I'd worry less about trying to convert the details of D&D to GURPS. Rather I'd try to convert the general feeling and tone, in particular looking at the novels. In particular, I think the GURPS magic system is a better fit in many ways than the D&D system---there were several references in the novels of mages using fatigue or hp to power magic.