D&D World used with Legend/RQ

I am currently using the Legend system but plan to upgrade to to RuneQuest 6 once my wallet allows it. I didn't plan on it since I thought the changes was so minor I saw no need for it. But finally got a chance to browse through a pdf copy of the game and I liked what I saw and will be nice to have everything gathered into one book. But it still applies mostly to my experiences with Legend until that happens.

But what brought me here was after I converted a Pathfinder adventure to Legend.

Made me think about converting Forgotten Realm for play with RQ/Legend rules that are far superior in my opinion and makes combat way more interesting. After all I still have a huge library of Forgotten Realms modules and fond memories of the adventures in that world that I wanna bring back but for use with a good rule system.

I found that once you nailed down all the small details and formed a consistent template converting characters was actually quite easy. I might post my final write up of the template that formed when converting my first adventure.

Either way thinking about converting I have narrowed it down to two paths. It is mostly concerning all the different monsters and races and would appreciate some opinions on the matter.

Option 1: Is to ignore the RQ/Legend monsters and races and just use the stats from existing monsters (mostly D&D 3rd Edition stuff) with minor changes to bring them into line with the current rules. For example instead of using the Legend elf I create a new one from the basic elf in D&D3,5 that represents the FR Moon Elf. In D&D the elf has the Ability Adjustments of +2 Dexterity &-2 Constitution and some other abilities but the most important one being Low-Light Vision. The average elf is 5' (152 cm) and weighs around 105-110 lb. (48-50 kg). Legend doesn't have a SIZ chart so I refer to my copy of BRP and find that that is an average of SIZ 8. I know a very similar table exists in RuneQuest 6 that can be used. So now we know that the stats should be about the same as humans except 3D6+2 in DEX, 2D6+2 in CON. I try to avoid using a negative modifier on attribute rolls so I just remove a dice and place a bonus to get the appropriate average. To get an average roll 8 on SIZ we pick 2D6+1 for that roll. Finally we browse through the Traits and Chaotic Features in Monsters of Legend and the only appropriate one we find is Night Sight to replace Low Light Vision so the Moon Elf gain that. The rest we just ignore and voila a finished Moon Elf for use with Legend.

Option 2: Here we just go through the Monsters of Legend book and replace the D&D equivalent monster we can find with the Legend ones.
Most of the creatures in Monsters of Legend do have a similar creature in Monster Manual/Forgotten Realms that it can replace. For the variants of the base races you just use the Legend base and modify it from there. For example the Legend elf stats replace the Moon Elf stats since that is the base elf stats for FR. For all other elven subraces we just take the differences between Moon Elf and the other race and apply it to the Legend elf in a similar way as in Option 1 above. For example a Sun Elf have +2 INT and -2 CON instead of the +2 DEX and -2 CON the Moon Elf have. No other differences are listed. To sum it up the CON modification are the same so that is not changed. But the Sun Elf should have -2 DEX and +2 INT compared to the base elf template. No other differences are listed. Using the Legend elf as Base Elf template we should apply the modifications for a final result of 3D6+4 DEX and 3D6+8 INT. Done!

I am leaning toward Option 2 in regarding the race and monster conversion. Example Hobgoblins are a larger variant of Goblins so I compare the differences in a similar way as the example in Option 2 to get the new monster. For all other monster I can just recreate it according to Option 1 since I have nothing to compare it too.

Some other details I have already figured out is that armors are generally lower in Legend than D&D but is easy. The highest unmagical armor in D&D is Plate Mail and gives an armor bonus of +8. The best armor in Legend give an AP of 6. That is an 6/8 simplified to 3/4 conversion ratio of armor bonus to AP. This can be used when converting natural armors to AP too.

Common Magic normally are not available as a Common Skill. But races with spell like get it as a Common Skill to replace the spell like abilities. The Gamemaster should decide what Common Magic spells the race get that best represent the old D&D spells.

Now we just have the Divine Magic left but I already have ideas how to do that too and create the Divine Cults to represent the portfolio for each religion.

This became a long rant with only some of the ideas I have in my head at the moment. But the biggest hurdle I have at the moment is deciding if I should go with Option 1 or Option 2 for most of the conversion and opinions on that or maybe new ideas I have forgotten about. Of course there will be changes making it slightly different from the Forgotten Realms according to the D&D 3rd Edition rules. But then again there where a lot of changes to Forgotten Realms between AD&D 2nd Edition to D&D 3rd Edition. I have chosen to ignore the 4th Edition changes to Forgotten Realms since the gap in time between 3rd and 4th edition was so great.

Looks like you've done a good job on assessing the best way to make published D&D modules work with Legend.

I found that the best ones to convert were some of the older ones for 2e AD&D which had a decent plot with less complex stat blocks. The most difficulty I've had is in making Legend Sorcerers provide an adequate challenge without resorting to something like Classic Fantasy to provide spell lists. I tend to look at the NPC and decide a style for them and give them magic to suit. That's usually a combination of Common Magic and Sorcery but if I'm doing the conversion for a particular style of game I do a far more focussed conversion.

Many modules have divine magic users/priests that fit a single stereotype so you can usually do a Priest of X evil religion and slap together a quick prayer book containing a set of spells for that cult and reuse that for every priest from the same cult.

Doing the ground work with the cult books/grimoires first to get the flavour right seems to be the best way of doing these conversion.

Great work! I'd love to see whatever you could send me (ahnen@hotmail.com). After I finish grad school this summer, I wanted to look at a Classic Fantasy conversion to Pathfinder (or to Shadow World). It would be interesting to see how you converted Legend/RQ6 to a Pathfinder setting.

Option 2 is the way I'd go with critters and monsters. As you've noted, both fantasy games have a similar creature list, so why not use the Legend or BRP equivalents and save yourself a lot of work? A monster ported from D&D doesn't have to be exactly the same in your Legend game, it just has to carry off the same feel or fill the same role. Less time doing conversions means more time and energy for actually playing with your friends. ;)

I used to run a lot of old AD&D modules in Greyhawk with RQ2 rules. Giants and Slave Lords stand out in my memory, as well as a lot of one-offs. I used RQ2 creatures because I had Foes, the Big Book of Stat Blocks. As you say, once you have a system for conversion it's easy-peasy.

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Originally Posted by seneschal

Option 2 is the way I'd go with critters and monsters. As you've noted, both fantasy games have a similar creature list, so why not use the Legend or BRP equivalents and save yourself a lot of work? A monster ported from D&D doesn't have to be exactly the same in your Legend game, it just has to carry off the same feel or fill the same role. Less time doing conversions means more time and energy for actually playing with your friends. ;)

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Yeah that was the idea. I rather go for preserving the flavor then exact conversations and so far for a couple of converted D&D/Pathfinder adventures this has suited me well and see no problems in doing the same for a whole world.

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Originally Posted by nclarke

Looks like you've done a good job on assessing the best way to make published D&D modules work with Legend.

I found that the best ones to convert were some of the older ones for 2e AD&D which had a decent plot with less complex stat blocks. The most difficulty I've had is in making Legend Sorcerers provide an adequate challenge without resorting to something like Classic Fantasy to provide spell lists. I tend to look at the NPC and decide a style for them and give them magic to suit. That's usually a combination of Common Magic and Sorcery but if I'm doing the conversion for a particular style of game I do a far more focussed conversion.

Many modules have divine magic users/priests that fit a single stereotype so you can usually do a Priest of X evil religion and slap together a quick prayer book containing a set of spells for that cult and reuse that for every priest from the same cult.

Doing the ground work with the cult books/grimoires first to get the flavour right seems to be the best way of doing these conversion.

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Yeah still have a lot of cover here. So far I have a simple system where I go through a characters D&D spells and then try to find similar ones in Legend. Was thinking about making a spell list for each domain and as in D&D once you choose a god to follow you get their two domains and their other Cult stuff like the available skills and such. The domains and favored weapons already give a good guide of what skills it should focus on. Of course some tweaking will be required but that is my plan for now. At least if I create the domains first the spells are settled for all the gods and I just have to create the rest of the details for each Cult but that I can do when needed and just write it down when I do. For Wizards and Sorcerers I will just consider them as the same as Legend Sorcery users and continue with just trying to find similar spells from Common and Sorcery spells to make up their spell lists with Legend. After all back in 2nd Edition only Mages and Specialized Mages was available in Forgotten Realms. ;-)

Classic Fantasy is being ported to Legend, I believe. Once that has been published it should solve most of these issues.

I know and even though I think Classic Fantasy was a very well written product I just have had problems with the to old scool feel of it. My aim if I bring over Forgotten Realms is to bring and old school world over to a better system with less restrictions. That's one of the problems I have had with the spells in Classic Fantasy, they just felt like their D&D counterpart to rigid. It is probably something psychological that exists just in my head. But my use of CF have always been with Magic and Sorcery rules from BRP instead. Used the Sorcery rules to represent magic you got from another power (divine magic used by Clerics and Druids in D&D for example) and Magic system to represent the more straightforward magic used by Wizards and Sorcerers. Either way I do agree a lot of the stuff threedesix have planned for CF so who knows I might grab the stuff I like from it and use. But for now I am just trying to preserve as much as I can of the core in Legend and instead adapt Forgotten Realms to Legend than the other way around. That is basically what my two options above are. ;-)

Hey Chorpa!

Nice post, thanks for sharing. I am running a Legend campaign in the World of Greyhawk and I am very interested to know how you are planning on creating the cults for the large pantheon? My campaign revolves around 4 rogues at the moment but there may be a requirement for a more standard fantasy party in the future.

The Greyhawk pantheon is also very large, especially when one includes the various demi human pantheons.

Any advice is highly appreciated!