5.5E to Cyberpunk RED Species Part 3 - World of Warcraft 2003-2006 and Extras

Now the World of Warcraft book for 5.5E is out, it seems like it would be amiss to not extend what I was doing with my Cyberpunk Waterdeep game to it as well. As well as a couple of species I missed before. This post covers Classic/Vanilla and Burning Crusade, but the various subtypes include more modern expansion. Overall, I would say there is a lot of reskinning here. As whole lineages that would be in Warcraft are lifted and only slightly remixed.

Draenei

Man’ari are just the Infernal Tieflings lineage pasted on the Draenei species.

Over 7 feet tall

Change Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 20 yards/metres.

Change Eredar Lineage. You gain the LUCK 2 benefit of your chosen lineage. At LUCK 6 and LUCK 8, you learn the spell listed for your lineage. You always have it prepared and can cast it once per Long Rest.

INT, WILL, or EMP is your spellcasting ability for the spells you cast with this trait (choose the ability when you select the lineage).

Draenei Lineages

Draenei

LUCK 2 - You have Resistance to Necrotic damage and know the Spare the Dying cantrip.

LUCK 6 – You also know the Healing Word spell.

LUCK 8 - You also know the Prayer of Healing spell.

Krokul

LUCK 2 - You have Resistance to Poison damage and know the Poison Spray cantrip.

LUCK 6 - You also know the Ray of Sickness spell.

LUCK 8 - You also know the Hold Person spell.

Lightforged

LUCK 2 - Resistance to Radiant damage and know the Sacred Flame cantrip.

LUCK 6 - You also know the Guiding Bolt spell.

LUCK 8 - You also know the Aid spell.

Man’ari

LUCK 2 - You have Resistance to Fire damage and know the Fire Bolt cantrip.

LUCK 6 - You also know the Hellish Rebuke spell.

LUCK 8 - You also know the Darkness spell.

Change Heroic Presence. When you cast a spell granted by your Eredar Lineage and don’t have Heroic Inspiration (immediate reroll after seeing the results of a dice roll), you gain it. Once this happens, it can’t happen again until you finish a 1-hour rest or Long Rest.

Duergar

Dwarves in WoW D&D are just normal Dwarves, not subspecies based on the four different types/clans. As the Duergar were indicated in Heroes of Faerun to be sutiable to play in 5.5E, I am including them here. They are just a lineage type for Dwarves, but their write-up in Monsters of th Multiverse is like the Eldrian in having a few traits swapped out.

Replace Stonecunning and Dwarven Toughness with Duergar Magic and Psionic Fortitude

Change Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 yards/metres.

Change Duergar Magic. With LUCK 6, you can cast the enlarge/reduce spell on yourself with this trait, without requiring a material component. At LUCK 8, you can also cast the invisibility spell on yourself with this trait, without requiring a material component. Once you cast either of these spells with this trait, you can't cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest.

 INT, WILL, or EMP is your spellcasting ability for the spells you cast with this trait (choose the ability when you select the species).

Change Dwarven Resilience. You take half damage to Poison and toxin damage. You also have Advantage on rolls you make to avoid or end the Poisoned condition. 

Psionic Fortitude. You have advantage on rolls  you make to avoid or end the Charmed or Stunned condition on yourself.

Elf

Notably, High elves reuse the Player’s Handbook’s High Elf option. A bit of a cop-out, but so is Nightborne and Night Elves being 1 starting cantrip off being a Drow and Wood Elf respectively.

Elven Lineages

Blood Elf

LUCK 2 - You know the Prestidigitation cantrip. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can replace that cantrip with a different cantrip from the Wizard spell list.

LUCK 6 - You also know the Detect Magic cantrip.

LUCK 8 - You also know the Arcane Vigor spell.

Night Elf

LUCK 2 - You add half your LUCK stat to Stealth. Once per turn, in addition to any actions taken this turn you can roll to hide while in Dim Light or Darkness.

LUCK 6 - You also know the Longstrider spell.

LUCK 8 - You also know the Pass Without Trace spell.

Nightborne

LUCK 2 - The range of your Darkvision increases to 40 yards/metres. You know the new Arcane Pulse cantrip.

LUCK 6 - You also know the Faerie Fire cantrip.

LUCK 8 - You also know the Darkness cantrip.

Void Elf

LUCK 2 - Your Darkvision increases to 40 yards/metres, and you know the Mind Sliver cantrip.

LUCK 6 - You also know the Entropic Embrace spell.

LUCK 8 - You also know the Misty Step spell.

Arcane Pulse (Nightborne Evocation Cantrip): As an action, you release arcane energy in a 3 yards/metres radius, originating from you that does not affect yourself. Each creature of your choice in the area makes WILL + Resist Torture/Drugs roll. On a failure, it takes 2d6 Force damage and its MOVE drops by 2 until the end of your next turn.

Entropic Embrace (Void Elf Level 1 Necromancy): You cast this as a Reaction when you roll with Advantage or Disadvantage and both dice show the same number. For 1 minute/20 turns, you’re wreathed in shadow: you automatically succeed on WILL rolls to maintain Concentration, your space is now considered to Low-Light, and once per turn you can deal an extra 2 Necrotic damage to a creature you damage or restore an extra 2 Hit Points to a creature you heal.

Gnomes

The gnomes in the WoW D&D book are otherwise just Rock Gnomes. The Deep Gnomes/Svirfneblin are from Monsters of the Multiverse, but were indicated in Heroes of Faerun to be playable in 5.5E. Though I wonder if they will be updated in time. Their lineage as it would be in 5.5E is still split up as it was in 5E, but otherwise should be treated as one. Mechagnomes don't share any traits with normal gnomes and seem to be based on Warforged.

Deep Gnome

Change Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 yards/metres.

Change Gift of the Svirfneblin. With LUCK 6, you can cast the disguise self spell with this trait. From LUCK 8, you can also cast the nondetection spell with it, without requiring a material component. Once you cast either of these spells with this trait, you can't cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest.

Change Svirfneblin Camouflage. When you make a Stealth roll you can make the check with advantage. You can use this trait a number of times equal half you LUCK stat, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Forsaken

Creature Type: Undead

About 4-7 feet tall or about 2-4 feet tall

Change Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 20 yards/metres.

Deathly Endurance. You have Resistance to Necrotic damage.

Change Everlasting. You are immune to the effects of Fatigue, Drowning and Asphyxiation, dehydration or malnutrition. You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep. You can finish a Long Rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.

Touch of the Grave. When you deal damage to a creature, you can deal half your LUCK stat as extra Necrotic damage, regaining Hit Points equal to the extra damage dealt. You can use this once per Long Rest.

Will of the Forsaken. You have Advantage on rolls to avoid or end the Charmed or Frightened conditions.

Tauren

About 8-9 feet tall

Change Horns. When you hit with a Brawl attack and deal damage, you add 1d6 Piercing damage to the total after deducting SP.

Change Goring Rush. Immediately after you take the Run Action and move at least 6 yards/metres on your turn, you can make a Brawl attack once per turn, in addition to any actions taken this turn.

Change Hammering Horns. Immediately after you hit a creature with a melee attack, once per turn, in addition to any actions taken this turn. You can make a Brawl attack that dos no damage, but the creature must make a DEX + Athletics or DEX + Dodge/Evasion roll (their choice) to avoid being pushed 3 yards/metres.

Change Tauren Lineage. You choose one of three tauren lineages below. If your lineage calls for a roll, the DV equals 11 plus your BODY or WILL stat (chosen when you pick the lineage).

Mulgore Tauren - You can replace one attack with a magical war stomp (as long as you aren’t Prone, flying, climbing or swimming). Each creature of your choice in a 1.5-yard/metre radius, originating from you that does not affect yourself. Must succeed on a WILL + Endurance roll against a DV of 11 + STAT or become Prone and fail DEX rolls until the end of your current turn.

Highmountain Tauren – When you take the Run Action, you can ignore Hold Actions and automatic attacks from other creatures as you move through their space. Each Medium or smaller creature whose space you enter must succeed on a DEX + Athletics roll against a DV of 11 + STAT or take damage equal to your BODY and have the Prone condition (a creature can take this damage only once per turn).

Taunka – You have a natural 4 SP on all locations and Resistance to Cold damage.

Troll

About 7 feet tall

Change Bloodied Frenzy. While you’re Seriously Wounded, you have Advantage on attack rolls.

Change Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 20 yards/metres.

Change Troll Healing. If you become Stabilized and undertaking rest and light activity for 1 hour, you heals HP equal to half your BODY stat.

Change Troll Lineage. You choose one of the following lineages:

Amani Troll - Whenever you spend LUCK in combat, you gain a bonus equal to half the LUCK spent to your next Stabilization roll.

Darkspear Troll: When you take the Run Action. Ice, rubble, snow or undergrowth doesn’t reduce your MOVE or impose Athletics rolls until the end of the turn.

Zandalari Troll: If you roll a 1 on a roll, you gain Heroic Inspiration (immediate reroll after seeing the results of a dice roll) at the end of the current turn.

Miscellaneous Grab Bag Part 5

 I was deeply inspired by the Mothership adventure Interloper to include an ecology section for an adventure idea I had. Part of that ended up unravelling the unstated rules behind the food web in the module as the prelude for using it elsewhere.

(Interloper, art by either Francesco Zanieri or his outlines formatted by Meredith Silver)

- There are 4 trophic levels,

Primary Producers (usually plants) -> Primary Consumers -> Secondary Consumers -> Tertiary Consumers

- Each Secondary Consumers species needs to feed on 2 prey species,

- Each Tertiary Consumers species needs to feed on 3 prey species,

- A Primary Consumers species can be prey for 3 other species if obligatory herbivores (like deer) or 2 if occasionally omnivores (like pigs).

- Species with different diets/niches to stages in their lifecycle can occupy different trophic levels across their lifecycle.

I couldn't quite define this as a rule but it appeared that each species should have a different feeding strategy.

Extras

I arbitrarily require 1 grass/ground-level, one-bush/short and one-tree/tall plant species for Primary Producers, as the only other ecology minigame I know is Spore.

There should probably be just as many insect/small animal species as big animals.

One big animal and insect species must be a scavenger/detritivore. This is bourne out of nothing but the sample food web had a Primary Consumers detritivore, several slightly different scavening species and in general something should be breaking down biological matter.

Fantasy Violence might be an alternative to the standad Violence in the Street rules for my pair of Violence hacks.
https://pressthebeast.bearblog.dev/fantasy-violence/

Would have to readjust the Reach and Lethality for all natural weapons again.
Reach starts a 0 for claws, gos to 1 for antlers and projecting defences and 2 for tusks.
Optional - And then -/+1 for every final 4 Growth stages they are from 8-12 according to the growth rules.
Damage dice start at Lethality 0 for 1d4 nd go up by +1 until 2D6 = 4.

Cardinal System

Thre have been a few iteration of this system. Which fits uneasily into that category post-D&D go where they have skills and dangerous combat, but no fromwork of proceedures for what to do as the players cross the campaign space except roll dice whenever the "Narrator" feels justified. It's a dice pool system a bit like Savage Worlds and the rest of Sauguine Press.

.

2010 Ironclaw 2E

6 traits BODY SPEED MIND WILL SPECIES CAREER

Species 3 Skills

Species 3 Gifts

Career 3 Gifts

Career 3 Skills

Personality + Local Knowledge 2 Gifts

13 Skill Marks

3 Gifts

TOTAL

6 Skills + 13 marks

11 Gifts (9+2)

2011 Noggle Stones

6 traits BODY SPEED MIND WILL NATURE(Species) NURTURE(Career)

Species 3 Skills

Species 2 Gifts

Career 3 Skills

Career 2 Gifts

Personality + Combat Save 2 Gifts

9 Skill Marks

3 Gifts

TOTAL

6 skills + 9 marks

9 Gifts

2013 Myriad Songs

6 traits BODY SPEED MIND WILL LEGACY(Species) CAREER

Species 3 Skills

Species 2 Gifts

Upbringing 2 Gifts

Career 3 Skills

Career 2 Gifts

Personality + Combat Save 2 Gifts

9 Skill Marks

3 Gifts

TOTAL

6 skills + 9 marks

11 Gifts

2016 Urban Jungle

7 traits BODY SPEED MIND WILL SPECIES CAREER TYPE

Species 3 Skills

Type 3 Skills

Career 3 Skills

Species 2 Gifts

Career 2 Gifts

Type 0/1 Gifts

Type 1/2 Soaks

Personality 1 Gifts

TOTAL

9 Skills

5/6 Gifts

1 to 2 automatic soaks

There has definitely been a series of reduction, if not refinement in how games from the Cardinal system work. Noggle Stone was explicitly dubbed "lean" but the writers. But even then, they have been reducing the number of Gifts a playable character gets and can spend and reducing skills as well. But Skills are consistent here, finding a good number and moving the burden onto automatic Gifts like Area Knowledge to provide basic-level rolls. Urban Jungle is interesting as its inclusion of a 7th characteristic; Type does three things. Besides being a refinement of Upbringing from Myriad Song. It provides another automatic dice for a bevy of skills and so compensates for the smaller number characters get in that game, it generally coms with an automatic Soak (defence) and so educes the main thing Gifts were being spent on and it allows for a standardisation of what the species and career dice apply to compared to Ironclaw.

Ironclaw Standard Fantasy Races

Back in the early 2000s, Ironclaw 1E had the option of playing a selection of non-animal fantasy races. This was never updated to 2E offically. But I think I found someone else's draft and added Tieflings and Dragonborn from 4E, as that's when I stumbled onto Ironclaw 2E around 2012/2013?
I don't remeber where I got this from or even if I was the one to make the conversion of someone elses Ironclaw 1E write-ups. The 1E write-ups had 2 more human types for Tolkien-style things and didn't have Warforged.

Those last two are probably the iffiest of them all. As one is missing an inherent magical nature and the other has one in defiance of how the rest of Ironclaw species/races are written up.

>Human

Habitat: Choose One

Cycle: Day

Senses: None

Natural Weapons: None

Include Racial Dice with: Academics, Tactics, choice of Social or Culture skill

Racial Gifts: Geography, Increased Trait: Wits, Diplomacy

>Dwarves

Habitat: Mountains

Cycle: Night

Senses: None

Natural Weapons: None

Include Racial Dice with: Climbing, Digging, Endurance

Racial Gifts: Night Vision, Sure-footed, Spelunking

>Wood Elves

Habitat: Forest

Cycle: Choose

Senses: Hearing

Natural Weapon: None

Include Racial Dice with: Observation, Stealth, Weathersense

Racial Gifts: Acrobat, Keen Ears, Fast Climber

>High Elves

Habitat: Coastal

Cycle: Choose

Senses: Hearing

Natural Weapon: None

Include Racial Dice with: Observation, Academics, Supernatural

Racial Gifts: Acrobat, Keen Ears, Increased Trait: Mind

>Plain Orcs

Habitat: Plains

Cycle: Day

Senses: Smell

Natural Weapon: Tusks

Include Racial Dice with: Endurance, Presence, Tactics

Racial Gifts: Frenzy, Hiking, Animal Handling

>War Orcs

Habitat: Plains

Cycle: Night

Senses: Smell

Natural Weapon: Tusks

Include Racial Dice with: Endurance, Presence, Melee Combat

Racial Gifts: Frenzy, Hiking, Increased Trait: Body

>Ogres

Habitat: Choose (Plains, Forest, Mountain)

Cycle: Day

Senses: None

Natural Weapon: Wrestle

Include Racial Dice with: Brawling, Endurance, Supernatural

Racial Gifts: Increased Trait: Body, Charging Strike, Choice of (Coward, Frenzy)

>Troll

Habitat: Mountain

Cycle: Twilight

Senses: Listen, Smell

Natural Weapon: Claws, Teeth, Wrestle

Include Racial Dice with: Brawling, Endurance, Choice of (Stealth, Presence)

Racial Gifts: Increased Trait: Body, Charging Strike, Natural Armour

>Tiefling

Habitat: Choose (Plains, Forest, Mountain)

Cycle: Night

Senses: None

Natural Weapon: Horns, Hooves

Include Racial Dice with: Deceit, Stealth, Supernatural

Racial Gifts: Fast Jumper, Sure-footed, Unshakeable Fighter

>Warforged

Habitat: None

Cycle: None (or, As Group Majority)

Senses: None

Natural Weapon: Wrestle

Include Racial Dice with: Endurance, Brawling, Melee Combat, Ranged Combat

Racial Gifts: Sure-footed, Clear-headed, Unshakeable Fighter

>Dragonborn

Habitat: Choose

Cycle: Day

Senses: Listen, Smell, Spot

Natural Weapon: Claw, Teeth, Torch (Torch@ Close d8, d4- Damage + 1 Weak, On Fire)

Include Racial Dice with: Endurance, Supernatural, Presence, Tactics

Racial Gifts: Increased trait: Body, Mystic (Elementalism), Natural Weapon: Torch

Genesys/Edge of the Empire

I played a bit of Star Wars Edge of the Empire and Genesys, it's refinement tended to build it's character archtypes/species/races on a smaller budget. So when I found Adventures in Azeroth, the Warcraft hack. I was idlely curious about how they would differ from the original EotE set. According to one writer on the long-gone FFG forums, he built Star Wars species to a 120 to 130 XP budget. And not going too hard on high stats or reduced Starting Experience. So, I tried calculating and rebuilding the Warcraft races/species to the same totals and trends.

Most Genesys material including Adventures in Azeroth, says Wounds and Strain are 5 XP for a change of 2/1 Wounds/Strain and 15 XP for 3/2. But the writer comment on the old forums said he used 5 XP for each, with an addition 5XP if the core was 1 or 3 as that was compounding. Somtimes it worked out the same either way.

Night Elves +5 XP

High Elves +10 XP

Blood Elves +0 XP

IronForge Dwarves Fine

Wildhammer Dwarves -5 XP

Fine as is for 120 XP total +10 XP if using 130 XP total

Gnomes Fine

Orcs Fine

Darkspear Tribe Fine but very unbalanced, I would give them a choice of either skill but not both and add 10 XP to Starting Experience

Revantusk Tribe -10 XP or make the two skills a choice between but not both

Zandalari Trolls -10 XP or make the two skills a choice between but not both

Tauren I would deduct 1 from Brawn and add 20 XP

Ogres Fine but very unbalanced

Goblin +5 XP but again, very imbalanced

Draenei (Eredar) fine but still two 3 values is not normal for Edge of the Empire

Draenei (Broken) +10 XP

Forsaken Fine

Worgen Fine

Furbolgs Fine but tempting to give them +5 XP

Pandaren Fine but too unbalanced

Naga +10 XP, the divergent Biology thing makes the difference too large

Mok'Nathal +20 XP, Silhouette 2 already accounts for increased Encumberance Threshold and isn't worth as much as it's been costed.