Saturday 6 April 2013

Rudolph Van Richten stats for 'Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing'


  I previously posted stats for Rudolph Van Richten for Castles & Crusades based on the ones given in 2e and 3e of D&D. You can see that post HERE.
  Now, Van Richten is in the Second Edition much weaker in power than in Third Edition. There's two reasons behind this. The first is that in 2e, many undead monsters had the Level Drain ability and it could not be undone. (Or so I've come to understand, I am not very knowledgeable in 2e!) The second reason is that a lot of people seem to think that important fictional characters automatically need high levels, that their importance can only be reflected by levels and not by story. I am not discrediting that way of thinking, just pointing it out. Personally, I think that way can work for some characters very well, and less well for others. But I digress.
  I will not be taking the 3e stats into account this time around because unlike with Castles & Crusades and 3e there is no Restoration spell in LotFP. Any levels lost due to Level Drain are genuinely lost. Also, I felt like it was important to give him a few more levels in C&C in comparison to 2e because in C&C, a character's level affects his 'skill' rolls. (Optional rules aside, there are no actual skills in C&C, everything is rolled based on the six Ability Scores.)
 Now, I think that Van Richten is a character better defined by his skills than his combat ability. If anyone disagrees with me on this, they probably know the character very little. Therefore, I will approach this according to his skills.Since he'll be closer in level to the 2e version, I'll use that one as a starting point.
  In 2e, these were his stats skills-wise: Pick Pockets 15%, Open Locks 40%, Find/Remove traps 65%, Move Silently 10%, Hide in Shadows 5%, Detect Noise 15%, Climb Walls 60% and Read Languages 70%.
  Pick Pockets becomes Sleight of Hand in LotFP. Open Locks and Find/Remove Traps becomes Tinkering. Move Silently and Hide in Shadows becomes Stealth. Detect Noise has no skill equivalent in LotFP. Climb Walls becomes Climbing. Finally, I'd put Read Languages in Languages, a close approximation of the intended effect.

  Page 70 of LotFP's Referee book (Grindhouse Edition) gives us a rough conversion of LotFP skill scores in percentages.
1 in 6 = 16 2/3 %
2 in 6 =  33 1/3 %
3 in 6 = 50%
4 in 6 = 66 2/3%
5 in 6 = 83 1/3 %
6 in 6 = 97.22%
(Having 6 in 6 in a skill does not ensure success.)

  In LotFP, all characters have 1 in 6 in every skill by default. Therefore, I won't bother mentioning skills where he'd end up with that score.
  So what we get is:
Climbing: 4 in 6
Languages: 4 in 6
Tinkering: 4 in 6 (I decided to keep the score he'd get from his Find/Remove Traps skill and not average with the 2 in 6 he'd get with Open Locks. Otherwise, he would have gotten a 3 in 6 in Tinkering, but I felt cheap to lessen him.)
  That gives us 9 skill points. To get enough points, he'd have to be a level 4 Specialist, except a level 4 Specialist gets 10 points. I think it'd make sense to put the extra point in Search. Some might argue that Van Richten used to be able to Backstab/Sneak Attack as a Thief/Rogue in D&D 2e/3e, but frankly that always seemed more like something that came with the class he fit the best due to the skills he needed than something that really had to do with the character concept. So I'll give him 2 in 6 in Search.
  What we get:



  Dr. Van Richten
Level 4 Specialist
HD: 4d6

Str : 11
Dex : 16
Con : 10
Int : 17
Wis : 16
Cha : 13


Skills: 
Climbing: 4 in 6
Languages: 4 in 6
Search: 2 in 6
Tinkering: 4 in 6

  Van Richten always carries a holy symbol, a vial of holy water, a small mirror, a silver dagger, and a wooden stake. When hunting prey, he carries other appropriate items, too. He rarely faces an opponent in direct combat, preferring to outwit the evil creatures and use their inherent weaknesses against them.
(Excerpt from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Ravenloft Boxed Set Realm of Terror Manual’.)

No comments:

Post a Comment