Steal These Cards

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent part of the holiday break converting 2nd Ed Warhammer Spells into 3rd Ed Warhammer Spells and Blessings.

Here's a present for your local Priest of Ranald:


Click for a larger image.

Converting Ranaldian lore into 3rd Ed blessings was a little tricky. Between Ranald and his related god Handrich, there's a ton of redundant "bonus to Haggle check" spells in 2nd Ed that mostly weren't individually powerful, but could quickly get out of hand if the GM let them stack. I certainly don't want to convert them all, so I've tried to expend energies on only the most interesting ones and build in mechanisms to prevent them from stacking.

Eye of Ranald is a loose conversion of the 2nd Ed spell of the same name. I added the chaos-star line to make it feel like other Ranaldian blessings in 3rd Ed. Making it recharge at sunrise prevents the in-game economy from taking a beating.

Conveniently Open / Undeniably Open is a high-level conversion of Open. FFG had already made Open into Lockbreaker, but it was underwhelming. It let you roll Invocation + Fellowship instead of Skullduggery + Agility to open a lock, but gave you the same (nebulous) odds for lock-opening that you'd have if you did things by hand. Making this an Epic action gave me some freedom to make the effects more dramatic, and play with the differences based on stance. So the green side is Ranald arranging for the door to have been left unlocked, and the red side is Ranald forcing the door open for you.

Perfect Empathy is such a strange spell, and hardly feels like it should be in the Ranaldite repertoire. In 2nd Ed it was mainly a gigantic haggle-booster, which I nerfed because it would have broken the system. I left in the translation and interrogation aspects, because they're a heck of a lot more interesting than just saving you a few more silvers.

Rumour of Bounty is one of the more flavorful and interesting haggle-boosters in 2nd Ed, but the "reversed" version Rumour of Dearth seemed at first glance to be all but useless. Even in Warhammer FRP, how often are PCs actually merchants? Then it occurred to me, PCs always want to pawn or fence the crap they've looted from the battlefield and are never happy if the GM provides them with realistic pawn rates (5% to 20% of the retail price of the item). Now PCs can occasionally sell items for much more, provided they're willing to take the risks associated with a bad die roll.

I ended yesterday's Bright Order article with a list of other spells I may eventually convert. For Ranald, I'm afraid I don't really have a list. The only remaining spell I'd dream of converting is Trapsense, and that was technically redone by FFG as the terribly underpowered Gut Instinct.

I have, however, made a "Pilgrimage of Fingers" card for Ranald worshipers. I nearly posted it here, but it uses the "Secret Society" rules from Liber Ecstatica / Lure of Power, and that system very specifically states those cards are for secret tracking by the GM, and the PCs shouldn't know what benefits they are getting until they earn them. Effectively, they provide a plot line that helps the GM track how fast the character progresses on the "Quest" and what rewards they get for doing so.