A few months ago I tried the Witcher RPG, but the mechanics are clumsy and outdated, it seems they just mixed together the Cyberpunk 2020 rules with The World of the Witcher fluff… I was thinking about adapting it to 2d20 but I’m not sure which game would be better. Conan seems like the obvious choice, but I’m not familiar with the sorcery and alchemy mechanics. Anyone has tried it before?
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Conan is a good start for the feel of combat, for magic however, use the Art Powers from Mutant Chronicles 3rd edition as a baseline they are far more “Witcher” in flavour (Right down to the careful control of power lest the backlash tear you a new ■■■■) than Conan’s magic which is very esoteric, very subtle and very lovecraftian. (In line with Sword and Sorcery pulp where magic was rare, and an “other” a dangerous, unkowable force that man was never meant to know, let alone control). Luckily the mechanics for it can be dropped in without any hassle. You would however need to come up with talent trees, probably one for every Witcher Sign and then a few more for different school’s of magic (Thankfully some of the Art talent trees have you covered here, Elementalism springs to mind in particular for fireballs and other such spells)
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It does seem feasible. Not much trouble also, MC and Conan would probably be easy to mix.
Yeah it should be pretty easy to do, just remember to adjust damage dice when doing any direct conversion of damaging Art powers, to account for the extra effect symbol on phoenix dice in conan (Dark Symmetry Dice only have one effect symbol)
I’ve also been thinking that 2d20 would be a good fit for the Witcher.
Going through the skill lists for Conan and the Witcher RPG, I found three skills in Witcher that don’t seem to have match in Conan:
- Forgery. Not surprising as reading and writing are much more widespread in the North than in the Hyborian Age.
- Disguise. Not a skill that Conan uses himself, but there are many examples of others going in disguise. Did I miss something?
- Performance. Covered as a Persuade talent in Conan the Barbarian.
- Gambling. A classic, but also always an odd one to have in any game. Could be a Society talent. Probably not essential.
So, would these better be adapted as new skills with their own talent trees or as talents on existing skills?
Most of the adaptation could be done through talents, particularly for Sorcery.
i believe those are skills in Dishonoured rpg; might want to check the free quickstart to confirm.