Old School D&D to GURPS Dungeon Fantasy conversion questions

[b-dog]

After rereading the Dungeon Masters Guide I have found a few interesting ideas.

The first deals with treating lycanthropy.

In D&D damage over 50% of hit points will give a chance of lycanthropy. In GURPS this would just be treated as Dominance but I think that the damage that confers this disease would include both claw and bite. The GURPS way is better IMO.

In the Dungeon Masters Guide it says that if a person so attacked and infected by the lycanthrope eats belladonna within one hour on the event the person has a 25% chance of being cured. Maybe in GURPS Magic Resistance would help with the roll with the roll being something like a HT-5 chance of being cured? Who knows.

If the person bitten by a lycanthrope is unable to eat belladonna within an hour then he/she must be treated by a 12th level cleric using a Cure Disease spell. In GURPS I would think that a cleric must have Power Investiture of at least 6 to perform a Cure Disease spell and have it be effective. What do you think?

If the person bitten is unable to find a cleric to perform the Cure Disease within three days then the character must be given a Remove Curse spell while the person is in lycanthrope form. In GURPS the Cleric must have Power Investiture 6 and also have Remove Curse and also most likely a means of restraining the lycanthrope. Should there be some modifier to the Remove Curse spell? Most likely the penalty should increase the longer the disease has been manifested.

If this fails to remove the curse of lycanthropy, then the person can opt to go to a monastery or abbey to treat the disease. There the clerics will give the lycanthrope holy/unholy water laced with a goodly amount of wolfsbane and belladonna prepared by the spiritual methods of the particualr religion. The potation must be consumed twice per day from a silver chalice. This will take a month and be quite costly. I really don't know how much something like this should cost in GURPS though. Any ideas?

[b-dog]

Another interesting part of the Dungeon Masters Guide is when it deals with things like turning undead.

One thing of note is that when there is a mixed group of undead such as in the example given of 1 vampire, 3 ghasts and 8 ghouls; the undead with the highest will is the one able to resist the clerical turning for the entire group. I would think that could be extended in GURPS for something like a necromancer with undead he has created, maybe the necromancer would be able to take the turning head on instead of a cleric turning his lesser minions.

Evil clerics don't necessarily turn undead, the force them into neutrality in old school D&D. There should be some way for this to happen in GURPS DF too. Also, the evil cleric has the ability to force undead into service if he/she is successful. Is there any way to do this in GURPS? The duration is limited in old school though.

Then there is counter-affecting which is when two clerics of opposing alignments turn each others turning affects until one wins. Say an evil cleric sends his ghouls to attack a good cleric then the good vleric turns them. Well in old school the evil cleric can attempt to overrule the turning and resend the ghouls to attack. So basically it is a contest of faith between two opposing clerics.

The last thing that struck me as interesting was about Evil Areas. This makes it more difficult to turn undead in them. In GURPS this would be a Sanctity level and this translates directly. But some things I didn't think about were about how an evil area would affect the control of truly evil creatures. In Evil Areas it states that demons and devils are more difficult to control. I guess this would mean that spell like Pentagram would be less effective against evil creatures in these areas. Maybe it would only affect divine magic and not mana magic but it does seem a little counterintuitive yet it adds a lot of interest. Maybe the evil cleric in an unholy high sanctity area has a lot less control of his demonic subjects in those areas. It seems fair because the evil cleric would have an easier time using Summon Demon because the connection to the nether realms is stronger but at the same time using Pentagram to control demons would be less effective because evil is very strong in this area and the evil cleric must work with the demons not merely control them.

Finally, it clearly states that a cleric can turn a paladin. In GURPS Dungeon Fantasy there is no mention of any of this. Does anyone have any idea how to incorporate this feature into the Holy Warrior template? Thanks.

[kmunoz]

You can create a custom Turn Paladin ability:

*Turn Paladins (Clerical): Affliction 1 (Will; Accessibility, only paladins; Area Effect, 16 yards; Disadvantage, Dread: Turning cleric; Emanation; Vision-Based; Will-Based)

You could add Takes Recharge or Limited Use to make it less frequently used. I put the Vision-Based in there so that the cleric has to be in sight of the paladin. The Area Effect radius is arbitrary, it could be anything.

To make it more generic, perhaps Turn God's Enemies with Accessibility, only cleric's god's enemies.

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

You can create a custom Turn Paladin ability:

*Turn Paladins (Clerical): Affliction 1 (Will; Accessibility, only paladins; Area Effect, 16 yards; Disadvantage, Dread: Turning cleric; Emanation; Vision-Based; Will-Based)

You could add Takes Recharge or Limited Use to make it less frequently used. I put the Vision-Based in there so that the cleric has to be in sight of the paladin. The Area Effect radius is arbitrary, it could be anything.

To make it more generic, perhaps Turn God's Enemies with Accessibility, only cleric's god's enemies.

How would you make it so that it can only be used one time per battle? Once there is a failure in a battle the turning power can no longer be used. There can still be counter affecting turning but once a cleric fails his/her roll the hw/she can no longer use the turning power.

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by b-dog

How would you make it so that it can only be used one time per battle? Once there is a failure in a battle the turning power can no longer be used. There can still be counter affecting turning but once a cleric fails his/her roll the hw/she can no longer use the turning power.

If you give it a Takes Recharge that's over a minute long, that will be considerably longer than any battle. Although that would prevent counter-turning if the cleric has already used it once. I think, however, that you could adapt Takes Recharge and make it something like Only Once Per Target (which would probably be a kind of Accessibility limitation) for the same modifier cost.

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

*Turn Paladins (Clerical): Affliction 1 (Will; Accessibility, only paladins; Area Effect, 16 yards; Disadvantage, Dread: Turning cleric; Emanation; Vision-Based; Will-Based)

I wrote this up incorrectly, it should be:

*Turn Paladins (Clerical): Affliction 1 (Will; Accessibility, only paladins; Area Effect, 16 yards; Disadvantage, Dread: Turning cleric; Emanation; Resistible, Will; Vision-Based)

"Will-Based" implies the Based On modifier, which isn't what I meant.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

Disadvantage, Dread: Turning cleric

Presumably the evil priest already has True Faith (Turning), so wouldn't you just have to afflict Feature: Supernatural Creature of Good?

Although if this is possible in your setting anyway isn't it simplest just to include that feature in the Holy Warrior template in the first place?

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Presumably the evil priest already has True Faith (Turning), so wouldn't you just have to afflict Feature: Supernatural Creature of Good?

Makes sense. Although it does reveal the kludginess of the process, having to afflict a target with a feature that can then be affected by the advantage. :) As you say, adding it to the holy warrior template is a better idea.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by kmunoz

As you say, adding it to the holy warrior template is a better idea.

It which case then the one turning per Holy Warrior or whatever, could be a result of that feature's interaction with True Faith, and therefore there's no weirdness with Limited Use or anything required.