The Elder Scrolls to D&D

So I had this idea of porting The Elder Scrolls world to D&D... With some adaptation on both sides.

So before I started this shift of concepts I would like you guys to take a look to what I'll be dealing with to see if you have any ideas that would help me.

The Elder Scrolls is a series of RPG for both PC and XBox.. I'll try to adpat form The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Oblivion

I wanna know if you guys have any ideas about how to adapt the attributes and their influences on skills:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Attributes

I already have some ideas for the Magicka and Fatigue systems.

I'll post my progress here.

Sounds interesting. Which edition will this be for?

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Originally Posted by kwanzaabot

Sounds interesting. Which edition will this be for?

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Well, it doesn't really lend itself to 4e, so i would guess a system similar to 3.5e Psionics.

I would think you could find a much better system for an Elder Scrolls game.

Dungeons and dragons is a game where, effectively, the Fighter becomes a better Fighter and the Wizard becomes a better Wizard even if they are participating in roguelike adventures that revolve around sneaking.

I'll be using 3.5e, but isn't going to be a full 3.5 port. I'll change/create part of the system to give The Elder Scrolls "feeling" :smalltongue:

I recommend looking at True20 then. It's a lot like 3.5e, but does not use classes.

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Originally Posted by Yora

I recommend looking at True20 then. It's a lot like 3.5e, but does not use classes.

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Thanks, I'll take a look. But I'm going to use the classes avaible in Oblivion. :smallbiggrin:

What about [user-created class]?

If you're going to do this right, I highly suggest reading into the lore of the Elder Scrolls series as a whole - there's a lot that Oblivion doesn't even suggest, and there's a lot that, well, Oblivion got wrong. How you handle that fact, I'm not really sure.

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Originally Posted by DragoonWraith

If you're going to do this right, I highly suggest reading into the lore of the Elder Scrolls series as a whole - there's a lot that Oblivion doesn't even suggest, and there's a lot that, well, Oblivion got wrong. How you handle that fact, I'm not really sure.

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Yes sir, I should really do that.
But I'm more worried about the mechanics right now. So I think I'll get to the lore next week.

On other news:
I realized today that I was doing it in portuguese lol
As soon as I have time to translate it to english I'll post some things here

Mm, frankly the mechanics of the Elder Scrolls never interested me. The world did.

The issue with the primary mechanic "schtick" is that you had to constantly be consciously aware of how your actions would affect your character. Though I suspect it will work better as a PnP game than as a CRPG, to be honest. On the other hand, the system requires that you keep track of a lot of activities as you play, to keep track of how much you've used individual abilities. That's going to be an issue.

Anyway, back to the lore, since that's what interests me, and you'll need to think about it eventually. Personally, I find the lore from TES A: Redguard and TES III: Morrowind the most compelling, cohesive, and interesting in the series. Yay for the old guard. TES I: Arena's lore wasn't even particularly thought out, with only minor variations from straight D&D, actually. TES II: Daggerfall started to create their own world, but a lot of the actual sitting down and figuring everything out happened after Daggerfall (and you thus you see more of it in TES L: Battlespire, TES A: Redguard, and TES III: Morrowind). Then TES IV: Oblivion decided to LotR-ize everything, losing a lot of the really unique lore that had been built up. Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles did a somewhat better job, but then they were really trying to cobble together anything coherent at that point after Oblivion had ruined everything (I'm only being somewhat facetious here).

Really? I mean, I didn't play Oblivion a lot, but what Lore did they get wrong, other than that Cyrodiil should be a jungle?

I don't see why it's necessary to even bother with the lore. It's all there, let the DM figure out what he/she wants to do with it.

Personally, while converting certain game mechanics is a good idea, (for example, I guess you'll want to use the Luck stat in some capacity, or maybe a Magicka system resembling Psionics or Spell Points) personally I'd want a game where I could, if I wanted to, take what I needed from it and put it into my own setting (I actually homebrewed a whole bunch of Tamrielic races a while ago, and I'm quite happy with them), or take what I needed from something else and place it into this setting.

It's my biggest problem with the (largely abandoned, I believe) Legend of Zelda d20 project. There's no (or very little, anyway) backwards-compatibility.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is: don't fix what's not broken. :smallsmile:

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Originally Posted by Eldan

Really? I mean, I didn't play Oblivion a lot, but what Lore did they get wrong, other than that Cyrodiil should be a jungle?

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Mehrunes Dagon goes down really easy for a freaking Daedra Prince. Also, there's a bit of controversy around the whole "Lorkhan was a Daedroth, and this was his realm" revelation--Frankly, I'm just annoyed that it came out of nowhere and is never referenced again.

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Originally Posted by DragoonWraith

Anyway, back to the lore, since that's what interests me, and you'll need to think about it eventually. Personally, I find the lore from TES A: Redguard and TES III: Morrowind the most compelling, cohesive, and interesting in the series. Yay for the old guard. TES I: Arena's lore wasn't even particularly thought out, with only minor variations from straight D&D, actually. TES II: Daggerfall started to create their own world, but a lot of the actual sitting down and figuring everything out happened after Daggerfall (and you thus you see more of it in TES L: Battlespire, TES A: Redguard, and TES III: Morrowind). Then TES IV: Oblivion decided to LotR-ize everything, losing a lot of the really unique lore that had been built up. Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles did a somewhat better job, but then they were really trying to cobble together anything coherent at that point after Oblivion had ruined everything (I'm only being somewhat facetious here).

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I agree completely, Morrowind was an amazing game. Oblivion had better gameplay but Morrowind had a better plot and "feel" to it.

Anyway, your ideas so far sound good, but I think the elder scrolls leveling system won't. Leveling up through skills, is more realistic, but it wouldn't work good in a PnP game.

For example, in oblivion or morrowind, you could hypothetically level up my just casting a spell over and over, while waiting for your magicka to restore. If you used that in a PnP game, a PC could just say "I cast flare for a day", and then he'd level up, in a minute. That would also make the game pretty dull, as it loses its challenge.

I'd definitely use an xp system of some sort.

Yeah, light 1 for 1 second on self with the button held down and even the most basic of NORD starting stats could be done indefinately til you get max Illusion skill... made building the 100% chameleon set rather easy, which made most of the game very trivial.

I think that's what the GM is there for, guys.

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Originally Posted by Ouranos

Yeah, light 1 for 1 second on self with the button held down and even the most basic of NORD starting stats could be done indefinately til you get max Illusion skill... made building the 100% chameleon set rather easy, which made most of the game very trivial.

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Know what else is easy? Frickin' Pun-Pun.

I ran an Oblivion game not too long ago. I treated it very Gestalt. I made custom races and improved the baddies to gestalt level.

I balanced this by forcing players to give me a concept of their character and i gave them a few class ideas early. It wasn't too hard.

Table topping with fatigue is pretty hard... especially since its a video game system and you don't wanna run a 4e. 4e has fatigue kinda set up by what power your going to use.

If you want the custom races we made... we integrated most of them into 3.5 races. Most of them should be +1 level adjust..without that adjust.

Additionally, we tried to stay true to the game as much as possible...so we included the stat out of powers (like eye of night) etc.

if you want em, send me a PM

-wrath

Could just use the generic classes from unearthed arcane and buff them a little bit. If they fight/archery/etc more then use their skills/charisma/stealth or magic? Give them a level in warrior. They use skills/stealth? Expert. If they use magic? Spellcaster. Make all spells arcane based - and use both wiz/sorc/cleric/druid spell lists. The more they want to excell in something, then focus on 1/3 of those classes. You can really nearly make anything from the elder scrolls game with the right combination of those generic classes.

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Originally Posted by Jane_Smith

Could just use the generic classes from unearthed arcane and buff them a little bit. If they fight/archery/etc more then use their skills/charisma/stealth or magic? Give them a level in warrior. They use skills/stealth? Expert. If they use magic? Spellcaster. Make all spells arcane based - and use both wiz/sorc/cleric/druid spell lists. The more they want to excell in something, then focus on 1/3 of those classes. You can really nearly make anything from the elder scrolls game with the right combination of those generic classes.

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This is more or less what I did when I homebrewed a Tamriel d20 game. If you want, I can send you some of my documents. They're... Extensive.

Well, if you look at the Custom Class-Building from Oblivion, it has three classes as its foundation which coincide quite nicely with the generic classes. I agree with using psionics, or at the very least spell points, but we might want to look into a more complex magic system based off of the Oblivion spell-building system (which I have yet to actually get to, so I'm kinda out of that - for now). Doing away with feats might, maybe, be a good idea - instead, you get 'feats' for having certain ranks in each skill.
I'm thinking that a skill for each weapon group, and possibly for armor, might not be a bad idea. Every 5 ranks adds +1 damage to the weapon skill, and making an attack roll is a skill check. Every 10 ranks in the Light Armor skill improves your AC by +1, every 10 ranks in the Heavy Armor skill improves your AC by +1, something like that.
If you'll notice, the Elder Scrolls games give you what amount to class skills, the seven main skills you're good at. They also give you cross-class skills, which are everything else. We could get real wild and crazy and look into building a magic system based off of skills from each group - Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, and Restoration. You'd need a certain amount of ranks with each skill to be able to pull off a spell, say 4 ranks for a 1st-level, 6 ranks for a 2nd-level, 9 ranks for a 3rd-level, and so on.