Warcraft in D&D

[earthscorch]

I tinkered around with translating Warcraft stuff into D&D, a few years back. Video games are often too abstract to translate into anything solid, but I found Warcraft III's stats could be worked with. Things like armor class and treasure type had to be created, according to my best guess. I did abomination, ancient, banshee, and centaur, working

Comments

[lunatron]

But I want to play undead. :(

[earthscorch]

If you're undead, clerics can turn you, and then where are you?

Actually, I believe that when I started World of Warcraft, undead were effected by all the anti-undead spells, which lead to some weirdness. They could speak the human language during the beta. Both of these things make sense, mind you..

[flying_landon]

Well, they were, but I don't think that survived beta. If it did it wasn't for very long at all. It was kind of funny because that meant Paladins could absolutely wreck undead of any class in pvp. Honestly, I don't see a reason to exclude them, given that if you're making a Warcaft translation, and in that universe there are sentient, free willed undead..

[earthscorch]

Here's a weird thought: the undead in World of Warcraft don't really represent any of the undead units in Warcraft III. The closest thing I can see is the ghouls, and that's not right.

There was all sorts of weird stuff when I started like plainstriding, using fear in a duel in a zeppelin to kill people, and using mind control underwater as an undead to drown people, also in a duel. Good times! Frankly I like it when there are weird bits like that, and though most of those were kind of a problem, I think they flattened the game out in the long run.

Anyways, what kind of lame RP would you have as an undead? Looting and pillaging? Eating corpses? That's weak!

[flying_landon]

Hardly. The PC undead were just as civilized (for better or worse) and modernized as any other PC race. You have to remember, there are two different sections of Undead. The PC Undead were more along the lines of the Undead heroes from Warcraft 3. though there was one NPC that was a skeleton. His story was that he's still a forsaken, but got hit so hard with Blight that he was deaf, dumb and mute....since he was nothing more than an animated skeleton, having no brain. It was a stretch but it was a fun mission that he followed you around on.

[earthscorch]

Where did these people come from? They aren't represented in Warcraft III at all, as best as I can recall. The only undead that had human-like faculties were warlocks and dark rangers, and the dark rangers were based on one particular unique character, if I'm remembering right. Humans hit with the plague turned into ghouls, if I recall. The idea was that that dark ranger chick (forget the name) freed them from the Scourge somehow, right? If I had to spend the rest of my days as a rotting corpse in a hellish wasteland being manipulated by a group that would kill me without reservation if I was still alive (the Horde), I'm not sure I'd be all that grateful to get my free will back

[flying_landon]

Something you have to remember about the undead. When you start a new character, you are a freshly risen dead. They first thing that happens is more or less "Thank goodness we got to you before the Scourge.." Hell, you zone in at your grave. No, they aren't represented as base units of the army. But for that matter, outside of WoW, it's implied that Paladins were something of a rare and elite order. Heck in the fluff of the second war, there were like..10 paladins. So you have to accept that there's a bit of a suspension of disbelief there. But the heroes of Warcraft 3 set the precedent for non-scourge undead that have free will from the Lich King. Sylvanas just is the one that broke the control enough that it could become a thing

[earthscorch]

In Warcraft II, paladins and death knights were just regular units. Heh

[flying_landon]

Basically the Prince threw his lot in with Illidan. In Burning Crusade, part of the story is the blood elves splitting into the Prince's group and the Horde group. Also, things to remember about Azeroth in World of Warcraft. Things aren't settled at all between the horde and alliance. The humans you fight along side with at the end of Warcraft 3 are those of Theramore, not the Alliance of the Eastern Kingdoms. Infact, in the Expansion, the alliance from the Eastern Kingdoms invades Durotar looking to wipe out the Horde. So that war is never settled, and the orcs in the Eastern Kingdom were never truly defeated (Blackrock Mountain) just some of them. In WoW, the orcs of Blackrock Mountain are starting to fight back out of their holding point. So again, the war between the two never ended... it was just in a lull when the scourge, at the time a more important threat, showed up.

And there was a High Elf bastion in the Eastern Plaguelands. And I have more to write, but have to get to work.

[earthscorch]

That's right, Lordearon is the guys from Warcraft I who get wiped out by the plague and the survivors go to Theramore, but Azeroth (aka the Alliance) is the guys from Warcraft II who still only remember the orcs as bad guys. It kind of underlines my point that Theramore should have been the first neutral city, though

[flying_landon]

The survivors of the plague are from Lordaeron. But also, Lordaearon was the warzone of the second part of Warcraft 2, between orcs and humans, so there's still a lot of bad blood. (Uther the Lightbringer was one of the original paladins, which started in Warcraft 2) Just because they didn't fight in Warcraft 3 didn't mean much. Especially when you consider that Lordaeron was involved in the orc internment. (the first few missions of Warcraft 3 for humans has you hunting down orcs that stayed behind) So you have to remember that even though they largely dealt with the plague in warcraft 3, they were still enemies of the orcs. Just the orcs weren't around at the time. In some of the for fluffed out story, it talks about how really the only person who trusts the orcs is Jaina Proudmoore, and about various subterfuge by Burning Legion agents that did work to keep that animosity going strong

[earthscorch]

My impression was that Lordaeron was wiped out by the Plague, and the survivors were with Jaina Proudmoore, who was friendly with Thrall. (Though the Horde's become harder and harder to feel friendly toward as the story progresses.) I know there are some odd farmers and such left -- what a fun life that must be -- but I felt like most of Lordaeron was gone. I guess it makes sense that there would be survivors who pushed south for Azeroth

[flying_landon]

Just a reminder Azeroth is the entire planet, not a county or continent. If the two eastern continents have names, I don't remember them. They're always referred to as the Eastern Kingdoms

[earthscorch]

Azeroth is also the name of the southern (only remaining) human kingdom in the eastern continent. I think it's probable that the people who were dicks to the blood elves were remainders from Lordaeron. It's kind of stupid to hate an entire race because a certain bunch from a now-wiped-out kingdom were dicks to you. I guess the blood elves are the angry black guys of the World of Warcraft. They can even call each other "blood"!