Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Dragonlance Unisystem

So I officially started work on a pdf today. I decided I would convert Dragonlance to Classic Unisystem. Its going to be slow going with what little free time I have, but I believe I got a good start. I Photoshopped myself a cover. Take a look!


So far I have the cover and text done for the first chapter. The first chapter is basically just the explanation of stats and how many points a player gets to spend on their PC. Next I need to do work on converting the main races of Krynn, to Racial Qualities in Unisystem. I am using the 3.x Dragonlance books and the Hypertext SRD for my base and converting it based on those write-ups to Unisystem. I plan to make Racial Qualities for these races:
  • Human (actually default, no quality)
  • Dwarves (Mountain, Hill, Dark, and Gully)
  • Elves (Kagonesti, Qualinesti, Silvanesti, Dargonesti, and Dimernesti)
  • Half-Elves
  • Gnomes
  • Kender
  • Centaurs
  • Draconians (Aurak, Baaz, Bozak, Kapak, and Sivak)
  • Ogres (Irda and Ogres)
  • Half-Ogres
  • Minotaurs
I think that covers the general races, for the fourth age. I plan on this "core" conversion to be made for fourth age/War of the Lance era play. If the mood sets with me, and this pdf goes well, other eras may be covered in future works. Anyways, creating the Quality blocks for these races will be my next step.

Some of my ideas, inspired by the Eden Forums, James' Lord of the Rings Unisystem, and my own genius are listed below.
  1. Using the rules for Primals from Armageddon for Cleric's spells. Each god would offer certain categories of powers. This emulates Domains well.
  2. Keeping spell schools, so that High Sorcery limits and specializes for wizards.
  3. Modifying Ghosts of Albion's magic system to use Essence and possibly Endurance or Weariness from LotRs.
  4. Using Martial Arts from classic uni, and the MA Powers from Enter the Zombie for Monks of Majere/Sargonnas.
  5. Try to stay away from strict class-like qualities, or class packages. Instead allow the players to build the PC they want.
  6. Keep the skill list close to classic uni in number, while covering the skills of the DL setting.
  7. Perhaps find a system for Gnome tinkering and their creations?
  8. Damage System, at first thought I would want to use James' rules in LotRs, but now I feel the normal rules would be fine. Dragonlance is a setting where even the good guys fall at a decent rate. Also unlike LotR, Dragonlance does not have many instances of a Hero wading through tons of bad guys unless they are simple creatures, instead its more common for the Hero's to know they are on the brink of a losing battle and escape/run away.
So that is my initial thoughts. This project is just getting started so I hope to post much more information here as I work on it.

5 comments:

hippie_mama said...

*Ooohs and Aaahs*

Also, thanks for helping me figure out the comment problem <3

And lol at the capcha for this post: "nards"

NulSyn said...

Hey no problem.
I have been putting a lot of time into this DL Unisystem idea, I hope it turns out good.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

This looks very cool.

Have you planed to post it anywhere when you are done?

Tim

NulSyn said...

Yes I do. I am still working on it, but getting the flu and school kept me from it for a bit.

When I get back in the full swing of working on it, I plan to blog an update. All the races have been done and that chapter is also finished.

I have been working on the "few" Qualities and Drawbacks I feel are needed that are not already in Unisystem. And then I'll begin laying out that chapter next.

Unknown said...

hi would be interested in what you have .