OT: The might of Pen & Paper

[Demantiae]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Yeah, I agree 100%. Besides, figuring out why a C'tissian Lizardman, Caelum birdman, Abyssian and a Ashdod Anakite are travelling together might be tough. Sounds more like a build-up to a joke than a PC party. Besides, most of the dom3 races won't really make good player characters. Caelumian with the ability to fly is tough to make work, but perhaps plausible. But a Jotun PC, for example? No way. If I were to make a campaign on dom3 world, it probably would be mostly about humans trying to simply survive with all this epic stuff going around (of course, the more they try to escape, the more tangled up they get in the epic mess). But that just might be my WRFP experience talking.

During my regular play D&D days my group and I (mostly due to the influence of myself and another guy who tended to alternate DMing) drifted away from the idea of having numerous races present in the game worlds, or when there were races other than humans they were far more mysterious or different in some way. I never liked the generic elves and dwarves (and other numerous fantasy staples) running around when each of the human cultures was so different. It's the Startrek mentality, create diversity of peoples by painting them a different colours and adding extensions here and there! I'd rather more detailed human cultures than a mass of barely different racial cultures.

My own personal take on a Dominions conversion would be to use the non-human races/nations as mysterious and enigmatic influences on the culture that is the focus of the game rather than having them prevelant throughout the campaign. To continue my previous idea of using late age Ulm as a basis for a campaign I'd probably use the mythology of Agartha as an enigmatic influence (if I remember rightly Golem era Agartha was started by mages fleeing Ulm), I'd have stories of far away giants in distant lands (the various giant races) and myths of ancient races of supermen (Vans, Aesir, Tuatha, Parthelonians, even Abysians etc) as just that - myths. All the aspects of Dominions would be present but many would by myth, like the real-world myths that inspired them in the first place!

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

“Elemental” based magic of dom3 also could play out well. Characters with supernatural powers work best when their powers are limited in both power and diversity. D&D wizards are basically best at everything with the right selection of spells (“oh, you have put all your skill ranks in Climb. I don't have to do really anything and still I'm better at it than you ever can be.” 'Spider Climb'), another reason why I changed system.

If a mage character started with say Water 1 magic, he'd only be able to cast water spells, which can be quite limited in function. When he levels up it might a tough choice to either diversify in another path (to get spells with a wider range of functions) or just take up another level of water. Note that this Water 1 magic probably wouldn't be the same "power-level" as W1 on dom3 mage, more like 0,5 water.

Yeah I hated the D&D magic system. Not only were the spells wrongly balanced but they were too focused on combat and physical abilities. With just a few lvl 1 spells (Change Self, Alter Self, Charm Person and a few others) a wizard could pretty much do anything he wanted in the game world that didn't require throwing 10d6 fireballs at a dragon! In the games I played spells such as Detect Magic and Augury were far more important and useful than Magic Missile or Shocking Grasp. There was way to much focus on combat and almost no interest in the mystery and subtlety of magic. And I always hated that all mages off the bat could do any kind of magic and that specialization was simply the perfecting of one area of magic. It seemed to me that a mage with access to all magic would be like a rainbow in Dominions - very rare and very hard to achieve. Such a mage must surely have studied a LOT to learn all that magic!

The magic paths in Dominions combined with the magic schools make perfect sense to me. A water mage might begin only knowing a few minor water spells but as he studies the path of Alteration he can learn to control and alter more. If he then branches in Evocation and Thaumaturgy his spell repetoir increases and he can cast more varieties of water magic. However a Conjurer mage might focus on increasing the power of his summonings and branching into different elemental paths to gain access to different types of summonings. So you have say a lvl 9 water mage with lvl 1 in all schools of magic or a lvl 9 conjurer with lvl 1 in all paths of magic. And each would be different and likely hard to achieve. In all likelyhood a mage would be limited in both paths and schools and would thus by default be specialized.

I'd recomend using a simple rule system with which you can easily adapt the magic system to your tastes.

[MaxEffect]

A favorite roleyplaying game of mine is Exalted.

It's a bit funny, I wouldn't want to translate Exalted into its settign as much as I would want to translate Exalted into Dominions 3.
Perhaps it will become a pet project for me, but I get just thinking of how much work it would be

[llamabeast]

Exalted is really very good indeed. I am very impressed by it. People should read it! As with most White Wolf books, they are pretty good to read even if you never play (that is why I have about 50 white wolf books and never expected to play, although I did start recently when a role-playing friend moved nearby).

[Wrana]

One thing about RPG adaptation of Dominions. There should be a number of non-combat spells which weren't included in the game. What was mentioned ingame are enchantments which allow Vans and illusionists to pass in enemy lands unnoticed and those which allow Nature mages to produce supplies. I remind about them because there are systems which sorely lack non-combat applications of magic. On the other hand, a "magical umbrella" in Warhammer RPG can make non-mages green with envy!