World of warcraft D&D / D20

[Kaleph]

During the current campaign, we found out that a couple of the players (including me) are potentially interested to play, in a future campaign, the WoW setting for D&D.

For me it would be a novelty, because I play D&D 3.x since it came out (which forces me to big efforts in order to avoid metagaming), while I have no experience whatsoever with WoW - so the style, the backstory, the enemies and the setting would be completely unknown to me. On the other hand another player is interested since he enjoyed the videogame.I had a look to the available PC options (let's say, potentially including SRD + WoW 2nd edition, nothing more), and I have the gut feeling that the system may favor an hack'n'slash approach, rather than strategical tactics. I also foresee that arcane casters have the risk of pidgeonholing themselves into optimized one-trick-ponies - I can easily find class features or feats that are clearly superior to the D&D counterparts, but the big picture of the arcane System seems to lack depth, versatility and complexity.

Has someone of you direct experience with this game system? Do you confirm what I expect after a quick reading of same pages of the Manuals, or did I get everything wrong?

[Fizban]

The 2nd edition (which converts a bunch of stat terminology to match WoW terms) should used on its own, not with any normal 3.5 material. I mostly trawled through them for stuff to yank or examining the tech system so I'm not sure what they did with base casters, but if they're trying to emulate a hack 'n slash MMO yeah I'd expect casters to be pushed toward hack 'n slash loadouts. I remember in the 1st version there was a 9th level spell that gave you infinite spells and a magic item (rather expensive) that could be consumed to replenish all your spells, both are quite high level.

Like most things, you'll want to actually read through and see what things do. The classes range from slight to heavy reskins of standard 3.5 classes, to completely original works of dubious use (I remember the Scout being complete garbage), to the Tinker which isn't so much a class as it is a liscence to use the tech rules, which are mostly just "make stuff up." It's kinda sad how much they managed to convert well, while other things they just reprint the SRD version and pretend it'll do.

[Florian]

I´ve to agree with Fizban on this. They tried hard to hit the tone of WoW and failed because of that.
Outside of 4E, we simply can´t do that style of PvE with the d20 system, especially not if you want classes to be able to create/act in accordance to their background.

Azeroth has some cool lore, so go with that, but don´t use the game system.

[Kaleph]

Thanks to both for the answers. As far as I understand, it makes more sense to use the setting/monsters/flavor of WoW but use the normal 3.5 rules, right?

[Florian]

Thanks to both for the answers. As far as I understand, it makes more sense to use the setting/monsters/flavor of WoW but use the normal 3.5 rules, right?

Personally, I´d rather use PF because I´ve the feeling that things like the Alchemist or Cavalier are better fits but yes, that´s the gist of it.

[Solaris]

Pretty much. If you really want, you can use the stats from the WoW races and monsters. They're kind of excessively complex compared to their D&D counterparts, but not impossibly so.

[Kaleph]

One last question.

I'm interested in alternative tier-3ish casters, since the ones from 3.5 are not very appealing to me. Due to the gamestyle and the average optimization level which is considered to be acceptable at the table, something slightly gishy is normally appreciated. Also, in a class I enjoy sheer flexibility more than raw power.

In case we're really going in the future to try the WoW flavor within the 3.5 mechanics, does it make sense to import 1-2 base classes (runemaster comes to mind), in order to test a new magic system? Does it somehow fit what I'm searching?
What about the Tinker?

[Fizban]

Hmm, I may have implied more than I meant to, clearly I'll need to look back over my notes and cast Wall of Text.

Thing is, I don't know squat about WoW, and I don't really want to. Warcraft 3 on the other hand was a great game, the Warcraft RPG book (the 1st version) was full of great setting stuff and a pretty decent amount of good mechanics- for Warcraft 3. The Warcraft setting works just fine with plenty of the 3.5 craziness inherent in the system: magic=win makes perfect sense in a setting all about big magical invasions and ancient spellcasters in charge of everything, and it just takes a bit to warcrafitify 3.x over to it. Sure the Scout exists simply to push Ranger into a PrC and the Tinker has no class features, but the former is part of unifying character builds and the latter is because they expect you to make up inventions yourself with the power of Roleplaying Games. The 2nd edition tries to go full WoW in renaming stuff and redesigning the casters, but it's easy to see the seems between SRD, Warcraft RPG, and then the new content for WoW RPG.

The 1st ed rules were a setting book, so you used sor/wiz/healer into PrCs, which is fine. Taking another look, the 2nd ed has a WoW-ified sort of specialization system for the Arcanist that actually penalizes spells outside of your specialty, which if anything makes it waaay better than 3.5 specialization. They have the spell lists organized same as psionics, with a general Arcanist list and then the Mage/Necromancer/Warlock groups. That all works just fine. Then priest and druid are both healer paths, which is again gonna be more balanced than 3.5. They use a prepared+spontaneous casting system which basically guarantees you will have all your known spells prepared at all times, but you explicitly have to buy training or have a copy of a spell for an Arcanist to learn it (no freebies on level up). However, the Healer list

Personally I don't think just running "normal 3.5," but in Warcraft, would actually cut it. No matter which game you're coming from, it's a distinct game with mechanics and fluff jumbled together in places, and mechanics need to reflect fluff and feel like they're part of the same game in order to maintain the feel of a specific game. The 1st ed version used short list list of base classes with the WC3 stuff done as restrictions (on necromancy and summoning), PrCs (for just about everything), and feats, and while it wasn't perfect it at least had a plan. The 2nd ed keeps some of those PrCs (and probably all the feats and more), while making other things into base classes or class paths, so you've got stuff designed to be bland base class-> PrC alongside stuff designed to be 20 level path, which makes it less unified than before, and it annoys me. When you've got a properly re-designed Arcanist and Healer alongside a Paladin that's basically just traded the mount for some more weak buffs, a Hunter who's weak supernatural stings are matched by a barely scaling animal companion, a Scout with no purpose that hasn't been updated, and completely unmodified Fighter, Barbarian, and Rogue, it's a bit jarring. Compared to the 1e version where everything was clearly bland: Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, Sor, Wiz, +Healer, Scout, and Tinker, then PrCs for your actual warcraftified class, the 1e version feels like a much more unified game built on 3.5 mechanics. The 2e version is more like the history of 3.5 itself, a bunch of layers of unmodified/modified/redesigned classes that don't fit together, with more variants in the later books, which shatter the coherence I'd expect from basing things on a specific game. On the other hand, maybe that matches WoW just fine, as it's piled in more and more stuff over the years.

The Tinker is the only real set of mechanics they made up and it definitely benefits from the 2e revisions, as the base class got some actual class features and the technological device guidelines were updated. It still has all sorts of problems though: even with updated guidelines it's plain as day that almost every example item in the book is bogus (I tried reverse engineering a few items and they need significant fudging to add up). The idea is supposed to be that the Tinker has a bunch of gadgets and can even build something in the spot, but being tied to the 3.5 crafting skill rules means that you need a ridiculous amount of downtime to actually build anything. This is why the 2e version is needed, for their Cobble ability that allows you to check per hour instead of per week, but now you're paying full price for something that will inevitably break due to the Cobble penalties. So then you need to combine it with the Scavenge Materials feat (not the Scavenge Class feature) to build at 1/10 the price instead of 1/3. Still, between the Scavenge class feature, the Cobble class feature, and the Scavenge Materials feat, the 2e Tinker should be able to actually do things. Actually playing a Tinker would require either drawing up a bunch of designs and getting them pre-approved, or being veeery familiar with the tech device guidelines and having the DM push lots of stuff through mid-game to let you solve problems with skill checks.

Then there's the steam armor and the tech mods. In short: tech mods are basically them realizing that their tech device system didn't actually work with weapons, so they make one based on magic weapons. It's a decent idea but the power sources call into question all other power sources and even if you pull all the tech mods from the three books they're scattered in, there's barely anything to work with. Steam armor, the 1st ed Steam Warrior PrC (Magic and Mayhem) made as little sense as the upgrade system, while the 2nd ed steam armor mechanics and Steam Warrior PrC (both in More Magic and Mayhem) are quite solid.


So I'd say to use mostly the 1st ed stuff, with the 2e Tinker class, tech guidelines, and steam armor, and for tech devices use whatever printed stuff you like and be ready to make stuff up when you need more. That gives you SRD sor/wiz spells with necromancy and summoning restricted to PrCs, but otherwise including all the normal SRD stuff. The Healer has its own list which includes much of the SRD staples, and then is expanded by PrCs same as the arcanists. For non-casters, increase the Scout's BAB to full so it doesn't delay Elven Ranger or Mounted Warrior entry. If someone really wants to use the 2e Hunter, make it into a PrC that doesn't suck. This all should make it feel like you're playing warcraftified DnD without changing base spellcasting mechanics or having weird half modified classes.

But if you want a WoW experience, you'll probably need to pull in more stuff from 2e since it's actually focused on that, though it's still years and years old so it won't be up to current WoW.

[Kaleph]

Wow (I mean, super, not world of warcraft) , this was quite a comprehensive explanation. I had to read it two times to understand everything :-) I'll keep in mind your advice, either leaving the wizard as it is, or changing it into standard wizard + prc to get full class access.

As far as I can understand, importing 2nd ed tinker and steam warrior could be a good idea. I'll study the classes.

I'm still curious about rune magic, any experience?

[Fizban]

The 1st ed Runemaster seemed okay. It's very clearly a "gishy" class, with 3/4 BAB, Flurry of Blows, sharply limited spells known and spells per day. The runes are all buffy/healy/supporty themed even with the few direct spell assaults, there aren't that many to choose from (you'll generally get 2-3 of the 7 available patterns), and it casts spontaneously with int. The 2nd ed one seems to have had some more drastic changes, no Flurry but more spells (up from 0 to 1 when you get new levels), a bunch of passive abilities to choose from (which can regain the Flurry and gain monk AC), bonus feats, feats that can alter how some runes work, faster and easier acquisition of additional patterns known, additional flame/frost/stone/storm patterns, and it casts with spirit (wisdom). So it's basically been buffed across the board, but it's still no wizard in terms of picking any spell and just pointing them at people and is mostly self-contained.

[Kaleph]

Thank you, now I have a culture :-)

[Agamedes]

I have been DMing WoW RPG for about a year and... yeah, it is not a very good game, I ended up homebrewing half of it. If we hadn't already started and everyone hadn't learned their classes etc. I might have switched to d20 or pathfinder and homebrewed it instead. Definitely would not recommend using the WoW RPG.

If you are familiar with the world enough, simply go with the system you prefer and just change some stuff, the books are so horribly outdated anyway that if you want the mechanics to match the setting, you will change the majority of stuff anyway.

[Kaleph]

I'm not the WOW fan anyhow, let's see if my friend will be so interested in the setting, that he'll decide to prepare a campaign. Anyhow I'll inform him that he should look at the books only for the fluff and ignore the rest - in 3.5 there's already enough material to emulate the flavor of more or less any kind of character, and what's missing we can homebrew as you said.

[Agamedes]

I'm not the WOW fan anyhow, let's see if my friend will be so interested in the setting, that he'll decide to prepare a campaign. Anyhow I'll inform him that he should look at the books only for the fluff and ignore the rest - in 3.5 there's already enough material to emulate the flavor of more or less any kind of character, and what's missing we can homebrew as you said.

Even the fluff isn't really good, as it is immensely outdated. I have homebrewed pretty much every encounter, as the monster manual is atrocious. Plus, the lore is so ancient that most of it has been changed by now. Plus, if he likes the Horde, he's gonna hate the books, as they are tremendously biased to favor the Alliance. Honestly, the good approach would be to even ignore the fact that these books exist and start from scratch on the basis of 3.5. or even any other system.

[Zombulian]

One last question.

I'm interested in alternative tier-3ish casters, since the ones from 3.5 are not very appealing to me. Due to the gamestyle and the average optimization level which is considered to be acceptable at the table, something slightly gishy is normally appreciated. Also, in a class I enjoy sheer flexibility more than raw power.

In case we're really going in the future to try the WoW flavor within the 3.5 mechanics, does it make sense to import 1-2 base classes (runemaster comes to mind), in order to test a new magic system? Does it somehow fit what I'm searching?
What about the Tinker?

I'm a huge fan of the Trickster ACF for the Spellthief (Dragon Magazine 353) and it can probably be what you want. I've been writing a handbook for it which I could provide if you want, but it's not too useful yet. It uses the Spellthief (Complete Adventurer) chassis with a fairly large hit to the skill list, and doesn't progress sneak attack past 1d6. BUT. It gets Bard casting progression(!!!!), and adds the Bard spell list to the already quite potent Spellthief list (which is the Sorc/Wiz list minus Conjuration, Evocation, and Necromancy).

[Sagetim]

If you want to emulate the hack and slash and regular dropping of powers into combat, you might be well served to use the maneuvers system (either with 3.5, and the Tome of Battle, or from Pathfinder with Path of War). Given the nature of the setting, reflavoring Crusaders as Paladins, Warriors as Warblades, and Arcanists as Swordsages might get you where you're going without too much work on the mechanics.

If you were looking to do more work on making your own content, I'd suggest looking at Pathfinder and using Archetypes to your advantage. Find a class that's close, then make the adjustments you feel it needs to tweak it to fit the flavor of the setting. Arcanists as Mystics with Elemental Flux could get you the right feel for 'guy who wields the powers of lightning, ice and fire', for example.

From my own reading of the campaign setting books, it seemed like there was a heavy focus on installing penalties into the game for doing particular things. Like, a night elf casting arcane magic is irrevocably transformed into a blood elf, or some such thing. And arcanists have to walk a paladin like line of straight and narrow casting of just arcanists spells, or they start spiraling out and onto some dark path that they can never be redeemed from.

[holyknight3]

One, sorry about the thread necro.

Two, I've been running a Warcraft campaign since 2009 off and on, and have a few insights to share. First, I completely agree with the comments about the first edition rules. My big suggestion would be to gestalt the base classes with the warcraft prcs if you are going to be running from 3.x. I did that for the first two parts of the alliance campaign, before I got into Pathfinder. Since making the switch to pathfinder, I've instead just modified the WoW bits to work with Pathfinder, and running with the pathfinder equivalent if it exists. And because as a GM I'm a gluten for punishment, I allow any of the Warcraft spells that are in any of the books. As WoW RPG is set a few levels higher to start out with(one of the rules is baseline humans start 1 level higher, due to the nature of the world), I use the race guide to build the races at 30 points, to fit them with the racial prestige classes that are presented in the books. I also rebuild human as a 30 point build, so no one has to mess with level adjustment. There are some terribly broken things in the game, that require attention. A far number of the spell conversions from the MMO were not fairly well thought out. They are exceptional cool flavor wise though. Two examples here are Pyroblast and Arcane Explosion. Pyroblast is a lvl 8 evocation spell, that does something like d12 + level per level damage to a single target, save for half. Not broken on it's own, but for every round that you charge it, you can add 1d12 to the damage, before adding metamagics. There is another spell that is 6th level, Combustion, that is basically just empower spell that only works on fire spells, except that it explicitly allows you to also empower the spell via metamagic. The cherry on top is the 9th level spell crystal, which allows you to prepare a spell ahead of time, and break the crystal to cast it. 904 damage, save for half. My bad guys usually have 1.5 max hp, because this sort of thing is all over the materials. For more insanity, you can keep from loosing the spell crystal with arcane brilliance, with a dc 23 spellcraft check. In comparasion, Arcane Explosion is relatively mild. It does d6 per level damage (no cap) in a 20 yard radius, enemies only, as a swift action. This is before you get into any metamagic trickery.

Why have I continued to run this campaign if I feel the rules are so broken? Because if you like Warcraft as a setting, the game can still be a tremendous amount of fun. My wife still loves her High Elf Ranger and her Tauren Runemaster (One of the less broken classes actually, and well worth taking a look at for the curious). I'm on the last two campaigns before I'm done with the work I started years ago, and I basically have to custom build every single monster from three different sources every single time I want to create an encounter, which usually ends up getting bypassed or rotflolstomped into oblivion, which is honestly fine. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't Pyroblasted each member of the party at least once, and they usually end up walking away from it. If you want a simple game to run that doesn't require a lot of tweaking, I can not recommend the game. If you and your players want to play in a world of over the top rocket tag against enemies that would make the most parties cry, while making sure to improvise a lot of things on the fly, then I would give it a try.

And for the curious, the Overall game is Warcraft 3, done as an RPG with the player actions effecting the outcome of the war. All because I saw a fan art of King Arthas, Grandmaster of the Silver Hand.

[StSword]

Since you seem dissatisfied with WoW d20, I thought I'd point out that Name's Games pathfinder patreon has in fact made quite a bit of WoW inspired material for pathfinder- warlocks, rune masters, etc.

Now maybe you'd rather do that yourself, but I'm lazy, I'd much rather have someone else do that for me.

[Elves]

Use 4e. IIRC the wow boss fights were fairly long, so you could treat each phase of the boss fight as a different encounter for the purpose of encounter powers/second wind.

[Kaleph]

At the end of the day, the WoW hype died, and AFAIK there's no interest in importing its lore into a 3.x/d20 environment. But thank you for providing your feedback.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: Thread Necromancy is a forbidden art.