[3.5] Borderlands Meets D&D

[Deth Muncher]

Okay d00dz. This is a post that I've started to write here about five times over the past year, then stopped myself. But it's happening right now. RIGHT. NOW. Buckle your pants, because I'm doing something so stupid it's smart: I'm adapting the Borderlands videogame series to an adventure for D&D. Well, sort of, anyway. More specifically, I'm trying to make a distinctly Borderlands-flavored adventure that still fits within most normal bounds of D&D 3.5. I'm going to be keeping with tech levels roughly equivalent to the Eberron setting for parts of it, but for the most part it's just gonna be good ol' fashioned Greyhawk partytime, with some Sandstorm thrown in since the BL franchise is nothing if not desert-filled. I do want to give a couple of heads-ups here before I get into the meat of the post, and the purpose of coming here to ask for help on this.

-No, I'm not doing this in d20 Modern, nor am I using gunpowder weapons. You'll see why in a bit.
-This is not intended to be a direct port of the game series into D&D. There are many mechanics and ideas that simply do not translate to D&D.

So, what I need help with is looking for stuff that I can tweak into being Borderlands-appropriate. This comes down a lot to monsters/enemies in general (What kinds of constructs work best as Hyperion robots? How can I emulate the different flavors of Psycho? What can I bash together to make a Skag? and so on), but also with regards to weapons. Weapons and loot are, of course, a major part of both D&D and Borderlands, but Borderlands loot is a lot more disposable than that of D&D. Given that there can't be extradimensional vending machines littered about to hock loot in, it doesn't really make sense to have loads of high powered loot laying around. And just how does one do BL-style weapons, anyway? My thoughts are as follows:
-Equate each flavor of BL gun to a type of Crossbow.
-Have certain crossbows with Weapon Crystals (from the Magic Item Compendium) attached to emulate certain effects - elemental damage, bonus damage to constructs, and so on.
-Have higher level crossbows have actual enchantments on them (i.e. Explosive) to confer more damage, or allow major customization via Weapon Crystal swapping (so one might be able to have an Explosive Flaming Burst Heavy Crossbow, for example).
-Give everyone proficiency with all kinds of crossbows right off the bat.

I WAS tempted to involve the actual laser weaponry from the DMG, but perhaps I'll have that as "Eridian" technology and handle it like the first game did - infinite, but limited, ammo. (As in, you never have to buy ammo, but you'll only have a few shots before you need to let the gun recharge for a few rounds.)

Oh, and a final note on enemies: The Monster of Legend template from MM2 works perfectly to confer the various flavors of "B.A." (not sure if the filter would let me post that, anyone who's played knows what I mean though) template to bad guys, thanks to the fact that it allows stat buffs, elemental effects, and so on.

The big things I need help on are figuring out what kinds of things work well as enemies: The basic enemies from both games are your various flavors of human enemies, be they Psycho, Nomad, some other bandit, or heavily armored elite troops from the Crimson Lance or Hyperion ranks; rakks (maybe the Rakkhive as a boss battle? :smalleek: ) and skags; various kinds of robot (Borderlands 2 delved much more heavily into those), and then some of the weirder enemies (things like Threshers, stuff like that).

I would welcome any and all advice into the matter. Please and thanks!

[Sith_Happens]

Portable Holes solve your loot-carrying problems.

[Gildedragon]

Eridian Tech: Wands or eternal wands? They go pew pew pew pretty good.

Halfling barbarian scaling up to Half troll barbarian for the psychos.

Skags: juvenile dragons for their breath weapons? or half-dragon creatures, dog, wolf, dire wolf, bear, dire bear

Rahk... not sure. Don't do flying enemies that often in D&D... cloakers?

[Slipperychicken]

Well, the story is pretty much a DnD campaign. Bunch of guys (and girls) go out to the wasteland to find and loot an old tomb rumored to be full of treasure, and adventuring ensues. Not exactly a stretch as far as plot goes.



Skags: juvenile dragons for their breath weapons? or half-dragon creatures, dog, wolf, dire wolf, bear, dire bear


I played the first Borderlands, and I don't recall Skags ever getting breath weapons...

[Gildedragon]

Its been a while since I played borderlands. Don't they generally spit? Or am I thinking of something else?

[Deth Muncher]

Basic Skags just melee, but there are Barf Skags (pretty sure they're in both?) which have what amounts to a breath weapon, and the elemental variants (i.e. the "B.A." Fire/Corrosive/Shock Skags) get breath attacks as well as being immune to their element.

Also, I like the idea of scaling through the different races to be different kinds of Psycho too. Halflings/Goblins for the smaller-type, Humans and Half-Orcs for the regular flavor (maybe a few Elvish Ranger types?), then Orcs and Half-Orc Half-Trolls for the bigger ones.

[GodGoblin]

This sounds cool, when you said Eberron tech level and robots, my first thought was Warforged. They come in all different flavours too, got the small scout, the normal, the centaur like charger and the larger ones with choppy blades (Whos name I cant remember) for some crazy killer robot boss fight action.

[Deth Muncher]

This sounds cool, when you said Eberron tech level and robots, my first thought was Warforged. They come in all different flavours too, got the small scout, the normal, the centaur like charger and the larger ones with choppy blades (Whos name I cant remember) for some crazy killer robot boss fight action.

Warforged Titan, I believe. And yes, they're quite lovely.

[GodGoblin]

Thats the one! im thinking could be a Hyperion heavy lifting robot retrofitted to be a serious military threat. Think the Power Lifter from Alien meets the Killer Kans from 40k

[Deth Muncher]

I figured out an easy adaptation for Skags: Use Dog, Wolf and Dire Wolf stats as Pup/Regular/Alpha versions, giving +1/+2/+3 DR/- due to their chitinous outsides, give the second and third level variations an extra 5ft reach for tongue attacks, and give the third level ones some sort of barf attack (probably some sort of 20ft range, DC15 or be Sickened for one round kind of deal). Then, apply Monster of Legend as needed.

Rakks, I'm thinking using the Eagle stats, and the Giant Eagle stats for the BA Rakks. Maybe give them Flyby Attack.

[Brains]

I think krenshars would work very well for skags, with their faces opening up and all.
For rakk hive you might want to consider a Mivilorn from the MMIII. They are huge, similar body shape and have a lot of HP.

[Deth Muncher]

I think krenshars would work very well for skags, with their faces opening up and all.
For rakk hive you might want to consider a Mivilorn from the MMIII. They are huge, similar body shape and have a lot of HP.

Oh yeaaaaah I forgot about Milvorn. They've always seemed a little too silly to use normally.

[Kuulvheysoon]

For the "flavours" of Psycho, try the Lost from Magic of Incarnum.

[ericgrau]

It's heavily related to D&D already, so I'd just use D&D, add guns, job done. To be specific use all the regular classes, races, magic and other mechanics. Get rid of the weapons and create a new set of guns. Include range increments, damage and handedness. Pistol 1 handed, open to TWF on top of rapid shot, rifle two handed, etc. Change the armors into combat suits & vests. Most magical enchantments still apply.

I've had a DM do this a couple times and it works out pretty well. He has also refluffed magic as mutant powers, with only minor related differences. Only spontaneous casting, minor restrictions on certain powers, etc. He also redid wands and staffs as energy pistols and rifles which any class could use with effectively a UTD (use technological device) check. It was Pathfinder so everyone could pick it up as a class skill with a talent. You may wish to give it to most classes.

As always I suggest steering 10 million miles away from complete system rewrites for anyone who doesn't have a paid professional design team and a year for testing. It always turns out bad.

[Devronq]

I home brewed a cross bow to be similar to the conference call shotgun from borderlands 2 (very iconic) dunno if you interested but here it is,

Social party crossbow+5- 228,000gp Cl.20th
-Heavy repeating crossbow, black and red stripes wit sharp features whole bow appears sleek and metal. Repeating crossbow+5, keen, wounding
Social party Crossbow, this ability allows a repeating crossbow to fire additional shots that appear horizontal from the path of the initial shot. The amount of secondary shots is equal to the square of the amount of shots fired at once. You may as a standard attack chose to fire any amount of the crossbows remaining ammo at once. The secondary shots use the same attack roll as the attack roll they are spawned from and can attack any target within 60ft of any point of the path of the bolt. You chose which targets the bolts attack and don’t attack but you may not attack the same target more times than you fired bursts in that round.
1 bolt fires 1 secondary bolt 3 bolts fires 9 secondary bolts 5 bolts fires 25 secondary bolts
2 bolts fires 4 secondary bolts 4 bolts fires 16 secondary bolts
For example you have +20hit and 3 shots left in your crossbow clip and you chose to fire all 3 of them at once using a standard action. The first bolt has +20hit and fires 3 secondary bolts at +20 hit. The second bolt has +15hit and fires 3 secondary bolts at +15 hit. The third bolt has +10hit and fires 3 secondary bolts at +10 hit. The initial three shots are all fired at the same target but the secondary shots can fire at any amount of targets at any point in the initial bolts path but may not attack the same target with more than three bolts in the same round.

[Deth Muncher]

I home brewed a cross bow to be similar to the conference call shotgun from borderlands 2 (very iconic) dunno if you interested but here it is,

Social party crossbow+5- 228,000gp Cl.20th
-Heavy repeating crossbow, black and red stripes wit sharp features whole bow appears sleek and metal. Repeating crossbow+5, keen, wounding
Social party Crossbow, this ability allows a repeating crossbow to fire additional shots that appear horizontal from the path of the initial shot. The amount of secondary shots is equal to the square of the amount of shots fired at once. You may as a standard attack chose to fire any amount of the crossbows remaining ammo at once. The secondary shots use the same attack roll as the attack roll they are spawned from and can attack any target within 60ft of any point of the path of the bolt. You chose which targets the bolts attack and don’t attack but you may not attack the same target more times than you fired bursts in that round.
1 bolt fires 1 secondary bolt 3 bolts fires 9 secondary bolts 5 bolts fires 25 secondary bolts
2 bolts fires 4 secondary bolts 4 bolts fires 16 secondary bolts
For example you have +20hit and 3 shots left in your crossbow clip and you chose to fire all 3 of them at once using a standard action. The first bolt has +20hit and fires 3 secondary bolts at +20 hit. The second bolt has +15hit and fires 3 secondary bolts at +15 hit. The third bolt has +10hit and fires 3 secondary bolts at +10 hit. The initial three shots are all fired at the same target but the secondary shots can fire at any amount of targets at any point in the initial bolts path but may not attack the same target with more than three bolts in the same round.

Oof. That thing is nasty. I will totally use this as boss loot, if they get close enough to deserving it. (I'm thinking that might be a "drops off the boss right before the final boss" kind of loot.)

[Devronq]

Oof. That thing is nasty. I will totally use this as boss loot, if they get close enough to deserving it. (I'm thinking that might be a "drops off the boss right before the final boss" kind of loot.)

Glad you like it :)

[Deth Muncher]

Actually, on the subject of highpowered weaponry, so I'm thinking I need to make a random weapon chart of things that are appropriate. Does anyone have any suggestions on the theory behind making multiple tables? Like, I'm thinking I'll have Minion tables, with a small (but how small?) chance of having magic items, Lieutenant tables (i.e. your regular "stronger" badguys) with a slightly higher chance, the B.A. tables, with a moderate chance of something magic and a mild chance of something really good, and the Mid-boss level with a definite chance of something magic, a moderate chance of something super good, and a slim chance of something fantastic.

But like, I've never made tables before? So I'm not sure what kind of values to assign to things.

[ericgrau]

Piles of ridiculous and flavorful weapons that can't be upgraded, easily bought or sold for much are something that may be a good idea.

I'm thinking a bunch of crossbows, weapon enchantments and/or wand hybrids for the mechanics.

[Devronq]

Actually, on the subject of highpowered weaponry, so I'm thinking I need to make a random weapon chart of things that are appropriate. Does anyone have any suggestions on the theory behind making multiple tables? Like, I'm thinking I'll have Minion tables, with a small (but how small?) chance of having magic items, Lieutenant tables (i.e. your regular "stronger" badguys) with a slightly higher chance, the B.A. tables, with a moderate chance of something magic and a mild chance of something really good, and the Mid-boss level with a definite chance of something magic, a moderate chance of something super good, and a slim chance of something fantastic.

But like, I've never made tables before? So I'm not sure what kind of values to assign to things.

Just throwing this out there take the table from the DMGpg.52-53 the one for rolling coins and gems and replace then coins and gems with your borderland themed items. Then when they defeat a monster roll on the table for his CR and he has those items. If the monster is stronger add 15% to your roll if he is baddass add 30% to your roll. This would obviously just be a basis but it could be a good idea to go from.

[ericgrau]

Roll for random weapon. Roll for random weapon properties. Roll for random blast spell (with high a chance of no blast spell). I'd just throw them all on a table with equal chance of each. Higher level weapons should have a chance of getting higher level options or lower level options too, or more weapon properties.

For example a crossbow or gun that shoots ghost touch cones of cold. Or seeking icy burst chain lightning.

[Deth Muncher]

Roll for random weapon. Roll for random weapon properties. Roll for random blast spell (with high a chance of no blast spell). I'd just throw them all on a table with equal chance of each. Higher level weapons should have a chance of getting higher level options or lower level options too, or more weapon properties.

For example a crossbow or gun that shoots ghost touch cones of cold. Or seeking icy burst chain lightning.

I think the whole "spellgun" thing might serve well as a replacement to the rocket launcher class of gun, since I pretty much don't have that if we're sticking to crossbows.