Portraits

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Well it's a fun setting if everyone's in the right mood. The thing I don't like about Ravenloft is that they made Fear, Horror and Madness saves all willpower saves. Fear should've been a fortitude save (since it was easier for warrior types). Since horror was disgust you could see all those spellcasters going "you call that disgusting? I've seen worse on the lab table". Madness was always a step up but in 3rd ed they made it a really linear fear, horror, madness progreession of failed willpower saves. They also cut the 13 stage path of corruption down to 5 or 6 steps. No real explanation for that either.

[Fabian]

When White Wolf purchased the Ravenloft license they did so on the condition from Wizards that they didn't have the rights to use material from other campaign settings; hence Sithicus lost Soth (Dragonlance), as well as any mention of Dark Lords from Athas (Dark Sun).

Intellectual Property law is a sticky topic these days.

[Custom_Hobby]

There was a bunch of stuff done for 3rd edition. Is was all d20 swords & sorcery books. I have 20 of those in PDF and then just about everything from second edition too. Every time I hear the name for Soth's old realm (Sithicus) I think it should be run by Darth Maul.

@ Balgin = Have you been looking for an image for another grey elf wizard?

[Balgin Stondraeg]

When White Wolf purchased the Ravenloft license they did so on the condition from Wizards that they didn't have the rights to use material from other campaign settings; hence Sithicus lost Soth (Dragonlance), as well as any mention of Dark Lords from Athas (Dark Sun).

Intellectual Property law is a sticky topic these days.

Then how come they got to keep that Forgotten Realms darklord? The red wizard of Thay one?

Is was all d20 swords & sorcery books.

Yep, and if you check the copywrite & legal smallprint in those books you'll observe that their company was a subsiduary of White Wolf Publishing.

[Fabian]

re: Thayan wizard - very interesting... at a guess because he's not as cool as Soth? :D

Seriously, I don't know. But I'm sure there is  some explanation. Do they mention him being a Red Wizard of Thay?

[Custom_Hobby]

Maybe because the FR was never licensed to another company. DragonLance and all of its material was licenses to Weis and Hickman until recently.

[Chrysalis]

Are there that many things that changed in the 3rd ed. ?

The one I have is obviously the 3rd, although it's a limited ed. (with the leather-like cover with red metallic letters). There are the D20 - Art Haus - Sword & Sorcery logos inside.

As for running something in the Ravenloft, I feel like there are already a lot of games now, and I don't know if it would be really wise to run another one...

[Custom_Hobby]

If there are enough players interested in joining then it is fine. I will allow as many games on the forum as there are players and DM's available to run them. I know Balgin already has a full load so someone else would have to step up.

[Chrysalis]

If there are enough players interested in joining then it is fine. I will allow as many games on the forum as there are players and DM's available to run them. I know Balgin already has a full load so someone else would have to step up.

I think I could do it. I've been thinking of something recently, although it would be a little experimental concerning the storytelling.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Are there that many things that changed in the 3rd ed. ?

In Ravenloft? Yes, quite a bit.

2nd/3rd ed changes. There was no 1st ed setting (the setting came out about 2 years after the 2nd ed PHB did).

1: Lord Soth was the darklord of Sithicus until 3rd ed. In theory he could have been on Krynn at the same time (with his nightly tortures in his keep there actualy taking place in the domain of Sithicus itself).

2: That big gap/rift through the middle of the world. That wasn't there before. It was caused/created in a series of not very good adventures that came out just before 3rd edition did. It was a series of adventures that would "change the world and it would never be the same" (just like the Death trilogy, never liked the outcome  of that one much).

3: Darkon/Necropolis. In the "Death" trilogy of adventures Azalin (the darklord of Darkon) tried to escape from Ravenloft/ascend from liche to demilich status (it's not too clear). Anyway, he failed and disappeared. A new darklord (called Death) took over his domain and transformed it from Darkon into the "undead only" region of Necropolis. In 3rd ed they put Darkon back the way it was and reinstated Azalin as it's master. I prefer it that way (the whole "Death" thing wasn't very good).

4: In 2nd ed Vecna (and his treacherous knave of a general, Kas) each had small pocket domains, constantly at war with each other. In 3rd ed they just suddenly went missing without a mention.

5: In 3rd ed they blatantly missed out the Nightmare Lands pocket domain. I rather liked that one with it;s five darklords.

6: In 2nd ed there was a 13 step path of corruption. In 3rd ed it got shortened to a 6 step path (no reason why). I prefered the longer and slower method over the 3rd ed "everyone gets a level every 2 sessions when they don't really need it" method of character progression.

7: I think some of the domains might have changed languages in 3rd ed. In 2nd ed it wasn't too clearly layed out (you had to go through the entire book writing down a list of which languages were spoken in which domains). In 3rd ed the linguistics side of things was very well layed out (so much better organised).

8: In 3rd ed they blatantly put "half orcs" into Ravenloft where previously they had not existed. The "half orcs" in 3rd ed were not half orcs (because there are no orcs in Ravenloft). Instead they were twisted creatures like Gollum or Calliban (in fact they called the race "Calliba's"). They didn't seem to fit in very well, as if they hadn't been very well thought out and had just been shoe horned in for popularity's sake.

9: They left a load of monsters out of the Ravenloft monster manual in 3rd ed and only introduced about 2 new ones. I would've rather had the 20-30 missing ones myself.

10: In 3rd ed the physical descriptions of the inhabitants of each region seem much more french/eastern european than the 2nd ed version (where they had more variety). In 3rd ed all regions started to look a bit samey :(. I prefered it when there was more ethnic diversity. There's still the gypsies and the american indians (who are the only ones who cans afely travel the Nightmare Lands with their dreamcatchers just liek gypsies are the only ones who can safely traverse the mists).

11: In 3rd ed they put in a lot of "recently discovered" safe routes through the mists connecting some domains. I think they opened it up a bit too much and would like to see those taken out.

12: They did the Forgotten Realms thing of giving people free bonus feats for being alive. In 2nd ed they didn't get bonus stuff for being born in any particular region but they did get suggested classes, skills and stuff.

I'm pretty sure there are many more changes but those are the main ones I can think of (hey the Dikesha (fortune telling dice) from the black box are the only ones I haven't put in my dice bag yet, they sit in the black box with the Tarokka fortune telling cards, the red box's got it's Tarokka deck too :)).

I'd like to play but I'm busy enough with the games I'm currently running (and the four other pbf's elsewhere :p). Whatever you do, don't set your adventure in Falkovnia unless your players are happy with being state property at the mercy of a brutal police force and a tyranical ruler who treats his subjects mercilessly, slays them on a whim, and often just has mass implaings in his courtyard. If you thought the citizens of Falkovnia had it bad then the nonhumans don't even get granted citizen status (being branded property rather than merely slaves).