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Old 10-26-2022, 03:48 AM   #11
corwyn
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by restlessgriffin View Post
OK. I would use the Fire Giants from the Nordland Bestiary, Jötun, Fire Giant (Gaming Ballistic). I. don't a party would survive even one without Water and/or ice magic! I have no idea what 9th level would be for DFRPG. I'd say it will definitely matter how PCs are skilled., equipped, and prepared. Wizard would need lots of anti-fire, ice, and water magic. Scout would need enchanted bow and/or arrows -- especially fine and meteoric. Aim for eyes and maybe neck, mouth. As to thief, unless equipped with magic traps and enchanted weapons, I'm not sure they'd help a lot. Clerics would need to buff other characters. I'm not sure of warrior types could engage without lots of anti- fire gear. They'd needed to strike at legs, maybe targeting Achilles, knees, etc.
Why would a scout need magic bow/arrows? As with all big living things with no Nictating Membrane, Scout is your hero. Average of 7 or 8 damage straight to the brain is a major wound, almost auto stun, low chance of unconscious with one hit. I know the advice says attack spellcasters first, but Rocks to the scout is the best chance of survival for the giant - he's the only one that has a chance of one shotting him. Unless mind control/sleep gets through MR 5/will.
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Old 10-26-2022, 06:25 AM   #12
sjmdw45
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by restlessgriffin View Post
OK. I would use the Fire Giants from the Nordland Bestiary, Jötun, Fire Giant (Gaming Ballistic). I. don't a party would survive even one without Water and/or ice magic! I have no idea what 9th level would be for DFRPG. I'd say it will definitely matter how PCs are skilled., equipped, and prepared. Wizard would need lots of anti-fire, ice, and water magic. Scout would need enchanted bow and/or arrows -- especially fine and meteoric. Aim for eyes and maybe neck, mouth. As to thief, unless equipped with magic traps and enchanted weapons, I'm not sure they'd help a lot. Clerics would need to buff other characters. I'm not sure of warrior types could engage without lots of anti- fire gear. They'd needed to strike at legs, maybe targeting Achilles, knees, etc.

Maybe outdoors a Druid could cause a storm or blizzard.

GM also needs to make sure to provide some insight and use any PC expertise in areas like Hidden Lore, to clue the players in.
I was thinking of an adapted 5E fire giant, which is basically a Hill or Mountain Giant from Monsters 2 but with immunity to fire/burning damage. I'm AFB, don't have my Nordland Bestiary at the moment, so I'm basically in the position of someone who has failed a Physiology/Hidden Lore check and knows nothing about Fire Jotuns except the obvious.

Killing one should be straightforward, no ice magic required. Several options exist which can be used separately, or together for redundancy: (1) hit it in the eyes (it's a big target!) with an arrow or shuriken or a spear from a woomera; (2) cast Flight on a knight, barbarian, or swashbuckler and have them stab it in the eyes or cut off a leg; (3) have a martial artist or swashbuckler Kiai it to stun it while you kill it; (4) have a bard or wizard mind control it; (5) Death Vision or Stun to stun it; (6) Rapier Wit or Song of Humiliation from swashbuckler or bard to stun it as a free action; (7) swarm it with a bunch of summoned karkadanns, bears, or Phantoms from the druid or wizard; (8) use Dark Vision, Darkness, Great Haste, and maybe Shield or Missile Shield to buff one of your fighters into being able to go toe-to-toe with it (under a Bless).

There's a pretty good chance attacking the eyes will turn out to be futile (see above commentary on difficulty being mostly about monster vulnerabilities, not just numbers), so if I know nothing about the monster but I have a well-balanced party, I'm going to go for the eyes but have some backup plans already in motion in case it doesn't work. E.g. while the scout is Waiting to shoot it in the eyes as soon as it turns the corner (in my head the scenario is that I already spotted it through a wizard eye and now we're luring it into an ambush), the cleric is casting Resist Fire on the Swashbuckler, who is Waiting to Kiai twice, while two of my Complex Illusion decoys (with Initiative) are mirroring the Swashbuckler, and the druid is laying caltrops while the bard and I hold our Concussions ready to throw. (I'm assuming that for whatever reason kiting it to death with scout + Missile Shield + Flight isn't feasible, maybe because we're underground. Besides, I probably wouldn't have Missile Shield--it's not on my top 30 list of must-have spells.)

Ideally we also have Mystic Mist from the druid pre-placed, and inside of that a pre-cast Sanctuary from the cleric, so that if everything goes wrong we have a way to fall back and regroup.

Later on I'll check the books and see if this would work. The point I want to make here though is that taking on one giant just requires one of these tactics to match up well with its actual vulnerabilities, but taking on four of them requires ALL of them to work, roughly speaking.

Last edited by sjmdw45; 10-26-2022 at 06:40 AM.
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Old 10-26-2022, 06:53 AM   #13
sjmdw45
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by corwyn View Post
Why would a scout need magic bow/arrows? As with all big living things with no Nictating Membrane, Scout is your hero. Average of 7 or 8 damage straight to the brain is a major wound, almost auto stun, low chance of unconscious with one hit. I know the advice says attack spellcasters first, but Rocks to the scout is the best chance of survival for the giant - he's the only one that has a chance of one shotting him. Unless mind control/sleep gets through MR 5/will.
I just checked my Nordlond Bestiary, and it turns out that female Fire Jotnar are typically spellcasters, so it might be a good bet that Missile Shield is popular among them.

Yet another example of why scouts should carry and occasionally use meteoric iron bodkin arrows. (Ditto meteoric iron spiked shuriken for ninjas with Throwing Art.)

Last edited by sjmdw45; 10-26-2022 at 10:45 AM.
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Old 10-31-2022, 01:23 PM   #14
beaushinkle
 
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Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by restlessgriffin View Post
I have no idea what 9th level would be for DFRPG.
One of the main conversions I've seen is dripton's castle whiterock conversion, which has a conversion guide for both gold and DCs for dnd3.5e

Quote:
1 gp of treasure in the adventure equates to $1. You can either just say that
in your game $1 = 1 gp if you want the piles-o'-gold-everywhere D&D feel, or
convert the gold coins to silver or copper if you prefer to keep the DFRPG money
rules. (I started off with 1 gp -> $4, and that was way too much treasure.)

...

DC skill modifier
10 +2
15 0
20 -2
25 -4
30 -6
35 -8
40 -10
Branching off that, we can use other conversion guides to go from other versions to 3.5, and then to gurps. I found this one, which lists this formula:

Quote:
There is a formula for converting DCs from 3.5 to 5 that I like a lot, and it seems to be very accurate. It is: (3.5 DC - 10)/2 +10 = 5 DC (Round up). So if the 3.5 DC is 23, then you get 23 - 10 = 13/2 = 6.5 + 10 = 16.5 = 5th DC is 17.
So if you're converting the other way, the 3.5 DC would be the 5e DC * 2 - 10

Meanwhile, the same dripton whiterock conversion suggests that level 1 dnd characters are roughly ~125 point DFRPG delvers, and every dnd level is ~25 character points. This implies that a 9th level dnd character is about ~325 gurps points. 250 point DFRPG characters are like 6th level dnd characters.

So applying all of this, the lost mines of phandelver has the heroes make an early DC 12 perception check to spot a trap, and then if they triggered it, a DC 10 dex check to not get snared.

Converting that, a 5e DC 12 would be a 3.5 DC of 14, which is an unmodified Per check in gurps to see the trap. Avoiding it is a 5e DC 10, which is a 3.5 DC of 10, which is a DX+2 check in gurps.

Seems to all look good to me!

Last edited by beaushinkle; 10-31-2022 at 02:20 PM.
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Old 11-09-2022, 04:26 AM   #15
restlessgriffin
 
Join Date: Jul 2021
Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by beaushinkle View Post
One of the main conversions I've seen is dripton's castle whiterock conversion, which has a conversion guide for both gold and DCs for dnd3.5e
I'm only interested in D&D 5e and GURPS DFRPG.


Quote:
Meanwhile, the same dripton whiterock conversion suggests that level 1 dnd characters are roughly ~125 point DFRPG delvers, and every dnd level is ~25 character points. This implies that a 9th level dnd character is about ~325 gurps points. 250 point DFRPG characters are like 6th level dnd characters.
Ok, 125 seems a bit high for first level, but probably works well since a lot of encounters in the introcadventures are a bit too tough for 1st level. Power jumps for D&D 5e seem a bit more than 25pts to me. But I'm not super concerned on matching pts to levels. To some extent it won't map that well on combat effectiveness. One thing I've noticed is spells/abilities in DFRPG in general aren't as good on Area of Effect (AoE) and impacting multiple targets as D&D 5e.

Quote:
So applying all of this, the lost mines of phandelver has the heroes make an early DC 12 perception check to spot a trap, and then if they triggered it, a DC 10 dex check to not get snared.

Converting that, a 5e DC 12 would be a 3.5 DC of 14, which is an unmodified Per check in gurps to see the trap. Avoiding it is a 5e DC 10, which is a 3.5 DC of 10, which is a DX+2 check in gurps.
Thanks. I'm probably gonna go with replace with closest DFRPG equivalent and just use GURPS capabilities/rules. Snare trap, pit trap - check DFRPG books.
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Old 11-10-2022, 11:50 AM   #16
mehrkat
 
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Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

I use DnD adventures for inspiration and puzzles and such but you have to be willing to take into account that gurps characters often have more random abilities that mess with things. that and shrink the combatants often.
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Old 11-13-2022, 10:26 AM   #17
beaushinkle
 
Join Date: Jan 2022
Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by restlessgriffin View Post
I'm only interested in D&D 5e and GURPS DFRPG..
Sorry if it wasn't clear enough in the post. The math there is for 5e. We're converting 5e to 3.5, and then to DFRPG. There are tons of 3.5 <=> 5e conversions because the community is huge, and so converting back and forth between those two systems is easy. We also have a solid conversion between 3.5 and DFRPG.

This means that 3.5 is now the sort of "universal language". If we find a 3.5 module, great, we can convert it directly. If we find a 5e module, we convert it into 3.5 and then into gurps.

If you want to make a 5e to gurps table directly, it would look like this:

Code:
| DC  | Mod | DC  | Mod |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 10  | +2  | 18  | -4  |
| 11  | +1  | 19  | -5  |
| 12  | 0   | 20  | -6  |
| 13  | 0   | 21  | -7  |
| 14  | -1  | 22  | -8  |
| 15  | -2  | 23  | -8  |
| 16  | -3  | 24  | -9  |
| 17  | -4  | 25  | -10 |

Last edited by beaushinkle; 11-13-2022 at 10:29 AM.
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Old 12-03-2022, 06:12 PM   #18
restlessgriffin
 
Join Date: Jul 2021
Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by corwyn View Post
I'll be running "March of the Phantom Brigade", a 4e adventure, for 62 pt delvers using Delvers to grow in the near future. I am finding that it's a bit easier converting at that level.
Some how I doubt 62 pt GURPS characters match well even with 1st level 5e. The stats alone would tend to push the 62 point level. The magic i think is more powerful for D&D 5e if not as flexible as DFRPG.
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Old 12-03-2022, 06:29 PM   #19
Anthony
 
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Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by restlessgriffin View Post
Some how I doubt 62 pt GURPS characters match well even with 1st level 5e. The stats alone would tend to push the 62 point level.
Bear in mind that a +2 to a stat in 5e is only +5%. Based on actual mechanical benefits, I'd convert D&D stats as 8+stat/4, so typical level 1s have a single stat at 12 and everything else 10-11.
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Old 12-05-2022, 02:43 PM   #20
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Default Re: DFRPG running D&D 5e starting adventures

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Bear in mind that a +2 to a stat in 5e is only +5%. Based on actual mechanical benefits, I'd convert D&D stats as 8+stat/4, so typical level 1s have a single stat at 12 and everything else 10-11.
Yeah, but that checks out. If they’re IQ12, ST11, DX10, HT11, that.s [40] already. If they’re a thief or something, with IQ11 ST110 DX12 HT11 that’s [70], and you’re in Disad debt already.
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