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Anonymouswizard
2009-10-26, 10:51 AM
Although admittedly I have only read the first 3 Rincewind books (waiting to borrow the first 3 death books) I'm wondering if it would be possible to convert diskworld into D&D 3.5.
From what I can gather the heroes are of the fighter class with a variety of strange feats, or possible a slightly similar class. The other thing that has caught my attention is the wizards: if nothing else, I want to get a spellcasting system out of the project (will need help with witch magic). Magic seems to change in form from The Colour of Magic, to The Light Fantastic, to Sourcery. The one thing that is consistant in the first two is the need to memorize spells, but how many could you memorize.
So, all Prachet fans, unite and PEACH!

Kris Strife
2009-10-26, 10:56 AM
Rincewind is of the Wizzard class. You have one of the eight great spells, but no control over it, Fast Movement and flurry of blows as a 20th level monk, but no bonuses to damage and a BAB of 0 at all levels. You also get the Run feat for free at first.

Can't tell you much more with out it needing spoilers.

Vadin
2009-10-26, 11:01 AM
Oh, boy. Discworld is a mighty undertaking indeed. One thing about magic on the Disc that you realize when you read more and more of the books is that...well...it isn't exactly real anymore. Magic used to be big and powerful, but then it sort of burned itself out and even the powerful wizards in the modern Disc can't really do much at all. Not even card tricks, usually.

SPOILER ALERT! It's about Rincewind.
For reals, man. You were warned.Having a personal god is Rincewind's secret. The goddess of luck, the Butterfly Lady, has Rincewind as her only pawn in the Big Board Game Of The Gods. She gets him into and out of many awful situations, eventually throwing him into the Dungeon Dimensions with only a brick in a sock to defends himself. I'm fairly certain he somehow managed to get out later, but I can't really remember right now. But yeah, personal goddess who is far more powerful than she should be according to the rules that the other gods play by. Of course, being the goddess of luck, I'm rather certain she doesn't play by the rules- cheating is the best luck of all.

Belief, though- that's where it's at. It's not about what the caster believes, oh no, it's about what the subject believes. But other times it's just the opposite. If they believe that they can stop time, and they really, really believe it, they can. Other times, if someone with an ax believes that it's a holy symbol and that holy symbols burn vampires, and they can believe that stronger than the vampire can believe holy symbols don't do that, then that vampire is about to catch on fire and should most definitely avoid aforementioned ax.

The magic of Discworld will be, at best, very difficult to put into 3.5 terms if you actually want it to happen regularly and be balanced.

Ashtagon
2009-10-26, 11:02 AM
Magic - It seems clear from Rincewind's accident that high-level spells take up more room in the brain than low-level spells. There doesn't seem to be any indication that spells are 'forgotten' on casting, like in RAW 3.5E magic.

How about...
* Each spell takes up a number of "memory spaces" equal to its spell level.
* A wizard has a number of memory spaces equal to his wizard level plus his Intelligence, minus ten.
* A wizard can choose to remove a spell from his memory as a free action at any time.
* Memorising a spell from a book requires ten minutes per spell level.
* You can cast any spell that is currently in your memory. You can also cast any spell that is written in a book that is open in front of you on the correct page, provided that you have memorised that spell at least once in the past.

* Wizards have X mana points. These are replenished with a full night's rest.
* A spell costs Y mana points to cast, regardless of whether being cast from memory or from an open book.

Blackfang108
2009-10-26, 11:05 AM
Magic - It seems clear from Rincewind's accident that high-level spells take up more room in the brain than low-level spells. There doesn't seem to be any indication that spells are 'forgotten' on casting, like in RAW 3.5E magic..

The problem is, even after he clears the spell, he still can't cast a cantrip to light his pipe.

Ashtagon
2009-10-26, 12:01 PM
The problem is, even after he clears the spell, he still can't cast a cantrip to light his pipe.

Well that's because he was never allowed near any spellbooks at all after that incident.

chiasaur11
2009-10-26, 12:14 PM
Well that's because he was never allowed near any spellbooks at all after that incident.

And also the fact he isn't a very good wizard. At all.

And Discworld magic can have plenty of kick. It's not very real, sure, but realative levels of reality on the Disc?

It's complicated.

PonceAlyosha
2009-10-26, 12:15 PM
Magic - It seems clear from Rincewind's accident that high-level spells take up more room in the brain than low-level spells. There doesn't seem to be any indication that spells are 'forgotten' on casting, like in RAW 3.5E magic.

How about...
* Each spell takes up a number of "memory spaces" equal to its spell level.
* A wizard has a number of memory spaces equal to his wizard level plus his Intelligence, minus ten.
* A wizard can choose to remove a spell from his memory as a free action at any time.
* Memorising a spell from a book requires ten minutes per spell level.
* You can cast any spell that is currently in your memory. You can also cast any spell that is written in a book that is open in front of you on the correct page, provided that you have memorised that spell at least once in the past.

* Wizards have X mana points. These are replenished with a full night's rest.
* A spell costs Y mana points to cast, regardless of whether being cast from memory or from an open book.

Actually, Wizards cast as Wizards. They go over it fairly exhaustively in the Last Continent, where none of them bother to prep anything besides Fireball. No change is necessary. Just include that a wizard must eat as many meals as he has spell levels.

As for actual dungeons, do the Subbasements of Ankh-Morpork, and have fun with Dwarvish Mine Sign. [See Thud!]

chiasaur11
2009-10-26, 01:14 PM
Actually, Wizards cast as Wizards. They go over it fairly exhaustively in the Last Continent, where none of them bother to prep anything besides Fireball. No change is necessary. Just include that a wizard must eat as many meals as he has spell levels.

As for actual dungeons, do the Subbasements of Ankh-Morpork, and have fun with Dwarvish Mine Sign. [See Thud!]

Ridcully and Ponder Stibbons seem solid enough counter examples.

Wizards don't need to eat tons upon tons of meals, they just prefer that option.

Anonymouswizard
2009-10-27, 04:48 AM
So, now we have a couple idea's for WIZZARDS, how about an epic magic system/epic prestigue class (requires at least 25th level, probally 30th) for the sourcerer.
(Sort of) Sourcery Spoiler alert!
I say epic prestige class due to the shear amout of power Coin has. The sourcerer prestigue class most likely requires many levels of wizard, and replaces their spell slots with a mana system. It most likely requires more than 10 levels to be balanced with the progression, and ends up with hundreds of mana points a day and various ways to avoid damage (including complete magic imunity most likely).

Weimann
2009-10-27, 07:04 AM
I'd like to second Vadin here. The point of Wizards in the Discworld series is explicitly to NOT cast any spells of greater power, since things just get very complicated then. Instead, belief, selfesteem archetypes is what it's at, taken to the logical extreme in Granny Weatherwax. There you got some POWER.

I don't think D&D can easily be made to accomodate a Discworld setting. At least not without major rule revisions.

Stadge
2009-10-27, 07:09 AM
I'm unable to help with any of the difficulties regarding magic I'm afraid, but I just thought I'd let it be known that I could certainly see a Watch-centric game being very fun to play.

But then again, you'd run the risk of only encountering a small amount of what Discworld has to offer.

Aaaaand, I've just realised that the OP will not have really had any dealings with the Watch yet. Ah well, my apologies.

Guyr Adamantine
2009-10-27, 07:27 AM
SPOILER ALERT! It's about Rincewind.

Eric Thursley summons him out of the Dungeon Dimensions by mistake at the start of Eric, instead of an actual demon. A quiproquo follows, naturally.

The games rules need to encourage players (and DMs) to follow the Laws of Narrative Causality. Many a Discworld characters are Genre Savvy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy), especially witches, and even more Granny Weatherwax.

Witches are telepaths/seers, mixed with great social skills and transmutation. Godmothers get the full transmutation spell set.

Vadin
2009-10-27, 07:35 AM
I don't think D&D can easily be made to accomodate a Discworld setting. At least not without major rule revisions.

There is a pretty decent (from what I hear) GURPS adaptation of Discworld.

Anonymouswizard
2009-10-28, 01:49 AM
I'd like to second Vadin here. The point of Wizards in the Discworld series is explicitly to NOT cast any spells of greater power, since things just get very complicated then. Instead, belief, selfesteem archetypes is what it's at, taken to the logical extreme in Granny Weatherwax. There you got some POWER.

So, what if we do one of the mana systems running around. I've seen one where wizards have to prepare spells using their mana/spell points. If we limit the amount of mana they get we can start to pull them back to the power level of tier 3 and 4 classes, as well as letting them memorize only low level spells without suffering ill effects.

Also, a cookie to the first one to make a set of tables for high levels of background magic.

Ashtagon
2009-10-28, 03:32 AM
Just as a point of interest, GURPS has a discworld book out, and teh fundamental nature of magic in that rulebook is essentially unchanged from GURPS core rules.

Weimann
2009-10-28, 04:19 AM
So, what if we do one of the mana systems running around. I've seen one where wizards have to prepare spells using their mana/spell points. If we limit the amount of mana they get we can start to pull them back to the power level of tier 3 and 4 classes, as well as letting them memorize only low level spells without suffering ill effects.I don't think I will be very helpful in this discussion, since I
1) am very uncertain about the D&D rules, and
2) just see no connection whatsoever between Discworld and D&D wizards. When I read the Discworld books, I see wizards as a kind of nobility (in a way), who sits around eating and doing nothing at all, and in olden times killed each other for the priviledge of doing so (often by notably unmagical means). Magic is always discussed in a by-the-way kind of way, never detailed upon, and when it is, it's always to the extent "don't use it". It's very much a primal force, that we poor humans had best left be.

That said, if you wnt to, go for it :P Good luck!

Anonymouswizard
2009-10-28, 04:48 PM
What about if we created a Diskworld setting for a simplier game first, such as savage worlds, and used that setting to make a version for D&D. For example:

In savage worlds, we get rid of the arcane background edge and instead replace it with two professional edges: the witch and the wizard. Each requires a certain dice in spellcasting, and each lets you cast spells as a variation on the core rules. For example, from what I've gathered, wizards will need to spend power points to memorize spells, which are then locked in their head until casting. When a wizard casts a spell he imediately loses acess to one copy of that memorized spell, thereby having a similar appoarch to D&D wizards. Someone else will have to do witches. This could be translated to D&D with a few feats and prestige class, allowing players to keep the flavour of wizards as an upper class.
This will allow us to keep the spells wizards have access to at low levels, due to their few power points. For a belief system each character has a number of belief points spread across a number of beliefs (so lets say, 100 points spread between as many beliefs as they want). If a character can influence someones beliefs so enough of their points are in that belief, that may become reality. With the holy symbol vs vampire encounter, whoever has more belief points in the respective belief makes theirs reality. This system is easily translated to D&D due to the fact it is all new.