2nd Edition Spell creation DBZ conversion

[Muurgh]

Ok, while im sure this isn't an original idea I've been having some trouble doing this and keeping it balanced. Either its too strong, or it isnt worth the time. Some friends and I are trying to convert Dragonball z Ki attackts into a type of pure magic attack. We dont want dbz classes, just turning the attacks into magic. maily energy beams/kamehameha, energy balls, and an ergy wave with variants as our characters develop them. So to my point. Does anyone know of any good conversions for this. We use skills and powers and the point system on magic rather than number of spells per day.

[storybookknight]

Try the kineticist attacks from the Psionics handbook?

[Vik]

Errrr ... You know that Master Roshi blew up the moon in DB1 ? And he was not even one hundredth as strong as any relevant character from DBZ ... who could easily destroy a planet (just as Freeza does to Namek). Meaning that your average "DBZ spell" will destroy anything in the DnD rules settings.

[SpiderBrigade]

Vik, I think to do a sensible conversion you have to assume that the original characters are super-epic legendary hero types, and the PCs are much mor "regular" hero types, who can't achieve that level of power...yet.

Although I don't have much knowledge of 2E, it sounds like storybookknight has the right idea: find powers that seem to fit, and adapt those slightly. I guess it would also help, Murrgh, if you were to flesh out what you mean by "isn't worth the time." What kind of things do you want your characters to be able to do? Not blow up the moon, I hope

[Jayabalard]

Errrr ... You know that Master Roshi blew up the moon in DB1 ? And he was not even one hundredth as strong as any relevant character from DBZ ... who could easily destroy a planet (just as Freeza does to Namek). Meaning that your average "DBZ spell" will destroy anything in the DnD rules settings.

Actually it was piccolo that destroyed the moon, while training Gohan iirc.

[Lapak]

Actually it was piccolo that destroyed the moon, while training Gohan iirc.

They each destroyed the moon once. Roshi in Dragonball, Piccolo in Dragonball Z. It was restored in the interim.

And the fact that it was destroyed in the much, much lower-power environment of Dragonball is pretty telling.

[Wolf53226]

Actually it was piccolo that destroyed the moon, while training Gohan iirc.

Actually, Roshi does it first, when first training Goku, he takes him to the tournament and he enters under a pseudo-name. Then when Goku and Roshi fight in the final fight of the tournament, Goku ends up turning into the giant monkey thing and Roshi fires a giant Kameha-meha (sp?) wave at the moon destroying it thus turning goku back to a little boy.

I know Piccolo also destroys one, somehow they get there moon back, I believe with the dragon balls they wish for it once, but I'm not certain about that as I haven't seen those where they get it back.

And yes, I'm a geek and proud of it!

Edit: Simu-ninja....ATTACK!!!

[Vik]

Vik, I think to do a sensible conversion you have to assume that the original characters are super-epic legendary hero types, and the PCs are much mor "regular" hero types, who can't achieve that level of power...yet.

Super-epic is underrated. DBZ characters have Str in the 1xx range, are attacking so fast that no one can see them (in fact, they are attacking so fast that people able to attack so fast that people able to attack so fast that normal trained martial artists can't see them, can't see them, can't see them), can travel around the world by flying in a few minutes (a speed of something like 1,000,000 ft / rnd), and so on.

Although I don't have much knowledge of 2E, it sounds like storybookknight has the right idea: find powers that seem to fit, and adapt those slightly. I guess it would also help, Murrgh, if you were to flesh out what you mean by "isn't worth the time." What kind of things do you want your characters to be able to do? Not blow up the moon, I hope

Well, I don't think any DB_Z_ character can be adapted to DnD. DB characters will already be Epic (even if Epic is not defined in 2nd Ed).

[Muurgh]

Ya we dont mean blow up the mean, and they dont have to be super powerful attacks. They should obviously be proportioned to level and what not. Like i had said the problem we have had is either making them too powerful or not worth the time. What i mean by not worth the time being the way my current DM tried to design them would make them pointless because fireball would do more damage for less spell points. What I am trying to work out with him is using spell points for the initial casting and giving up HP do add damage. There would be some damage increase for caster level but it would be more like one d6 or d8 per 2 caster levels then add another d6 or 8 for every 3 or 5 hp given up or something. Those have been my ideas on it maybe others can tweak it some. The idea being no limit on damage but can the caster afford to give up that much HP. Keep in mind right now in this game there is a level 7 mage, a 6/6 fighter/mage and a level 6 fighter, and using skills and powers, it is definatly a power campaign. Something else we were doing is the more energy pumped into an attack the slower it is to cast, so just casting the base spell the speed is one but for every damage di added due to a hp loss would increase to the casting time.

Oh, and im only wanting to adapt some KI attacks into DnD to be used as magic, essentialy making it so the wizard is casting pure magical energy rather than manipulating that energy into a spell. We are not trying to adapt dbz characters or classes or anything like that into DnD.

[elliott20]

wouldn't roleplaying DBZ be incredibly boring after awhile? The show itself quickly devolved into who had the greater infinite amount of power. It was like an inter-galactic "whose-more-well-endowed" contest.

[Muurgh]

But we dont want to Rp DBZ, we dont want to make DBZ into DnD, we just want to make some DnD magic spells similar to Ki attacks.

[Douglas]

That's not true. No one ever gets an infinite amount of power in the series. Sure, they can all blow up the Earth a few hundred times in quick succession without breaking a sweat (or at least, they should be able to if the effects of energy blasts didn't inexplicably stay about the same on inanimate objects while increasing exponentially against enemy fighters), but even Goku and Majin Buu have limits... Well, ok, those limits consist almost entirely of how hard it is to blow each other up and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see either of them directly cause a supernova with a single energy blast aimed at the star from a light-year away, but that's still not infinite

Anyway, back on topic, it sounds like what you want is almost exactly what the 3.5 psionic energy powers do. Basically, look at the psionic powers list and check out everything that includes "energy" in the name. You may want to change the damage to untyped or something other than fire/cold/etc., but I think they cover the subject pretty well otherwise. You might want to look into the overchannel feat for something to base mechanics for going beyond the normal limit on.

[Muurgh]

I may have to look through the psionics handbook for 2ed. I really dont want to convert the psionics into magic, then have to convert it from 3.5 to 2 as well. That and whatever I do come up with I have to get okayed by the Dm first anyways.

[Douglas]

I'm not an expert on 2nd edition, but I don't think converting Energy Bolt and similar powers to 2nd edition spells should be much trouble, especially since you're already using a spell points system rather than slots. You'd have to change the kind of save to whatever is appropriate in 2e, and make sure it scales correctly (in 3.5, 1 spell level is equivalent to 2 power points; if your system has 1 spell point per level of the spell, you'll have to increase the damage per spell point), but I think that's about it. The Overchannel feat could then be transplanted as just basic mechanics available to everyone rather than a feat that nobody can take because feats don't exist in 2e.

[jlousivy]

i don't know about 2nd edition-- but i can help you get a dbz 'feel' to a character if your willing to waive alignment restrictions and allow some questionable feats.

Monk with feats:
Ki Blast- http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-...ts.pl?Ki_Blast,
Ki Barrage- http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-....pl?Ki_Barrage,
Fiery Fists- http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-....pl?Fiery_Fist,
Lightning Fists- http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-...ightning_Fists,
Circle Kick- http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-...pl?Circle_Kick,
Flying Kick- http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-...pl?Flying_Kick,
and then ALOT of extra stunning fist use feats.

then for magic items, monks belt and then either a magic cloud based off of a carpet of flying, or boots of flying.

[Muurgh]

ya all we play is 2nd edition. Which doesnt even have a monk class. well i think there might be a monk handbook supplment, but its not in the core.

[Matthew]

Monks turn up in (A)D&D 2.x again in the Player's Option series. I think there is some mention of them in The Complete Priest's Handbook. The Complete Fighter's Handbook and The Complete Ninja's Handbook contain nifty sections on Martial Arts for (A)D&D as well.
Really, though, what constitutes 'Core' in (A)D&D 2.x? It doesn't exactly lend itself well to core interpretations. If your DM is using Skills and Powers then he probably would allow the Monk and Martial Arts stuff from the rest of that series.

[JadedDM]

In 2E, strictly speaking, core would be the PHB, DMG, and MM only.

[Matthew]

Sure, but the original poster's definition seems to include Skill and Powers. To be fair, though, there is no 'core' for 2.x in the same sense as in 3.x. There's just the 'minimum' or the 'all you need to play' clause.

[Dairun Cates]

Alright. I'm just going to say this. The power levels on Dragonball and DragonballZ are super inconsistent. Planet destroying arguments aside, which are clearly more plot than substance, I assume everything should be taken with a scale in mind. We should not be comparing characters to human beings or other characters, but to other characters in the series. So, I would say to ignore the whole "Batman/Goku is level 90 argument" and scale things into a simpler and easier to use level scale and assume bystanders are just that; bystanders.