On WotC, some people are making Kingdom Hearts d20. They've statted Heartless such that it reads like this:
(emphasis mine)STupid rulE wrote:
If you lose the grapple with the 3 combined heartless, you take 1 point of damage to Int, Wis and Cha. If at any time any of these stats drops below 0, you become a heartless permanently
And the most basic Heartless (Shadow) CR 1 has Grapple of +4, combined of +12. You are very unlikely to tie the grapple. (Not to mention, it says to throw at leas 5, at most 9) Granted, you can stop it, by killing one grappling you. If you have a party, this might be good, EXCEPT. They have DR 10/Good. Yes. At level 1.
It should be noted that even the hero's allies never got converted in KH. The only time it happened was when Sora gave Kairi her heart back, but had to take his own to do so. Kairi later restores Sora by protecting him. Yet, Princesses of Heart cannot reverse HC. Way to go!
This in itself FORCES gm's to give everyone a Keyblade (Holy weapon, makes you immune to Heartless Conversion. Or, a Holy weapon. Welcome to broke D&D rules.
It should be noted that becoming a Heartless means you get +2 CR'd templated, but you can still advance in ranks. (Or, alteranivly play a Nobody).
But you also become evil either way, and are essentially NPC'd
Okay, then someone raised a point that made no sense to me "This is not bad game design."
You have become the only one who matters. Despite what CRPG's and BOoks say, that's bad. I don't CARE if Baldur's Gate does that, it IS BAD FOR A GAME. Other people MUST matter or the world would have stopped to exist!
See, in normal D&D, Shadows are a big problem. But they have not taken over the world because people other than the adventurers can deal with them. That's just how it works. The adventurers do not need to fight off EVERY threat to the world ending at 10 o'clock, only one or two.
The issue with heartless is this. This is not possible. There are too many kinds of heartless. ANd not enough people know magic (which bypasses DR). So they will simply over take worlds. And eventually, the numbers grow so large that they WILL WIN. This makes a KH style game impossible.
Some statement wrote:
"But this doesn't happen in Kingdom Hearts!"
And you can't have Monks in Kingdom HEarts. The setting is fvcking irrelevant if the system cannot support it? Get the picture?
To point. If I make a derivative game in another system, an the system tells me it's impossible, the game is in the wrong system. Period. The system dictates waht is possible, without totally rewriting Commoner NPC's, or assuming that there are Other hereos who matter... well, guess what? Catch 22. Also.
VIdeo games are tightly controlled, PnP play isn't. That simple.
Some other statement wrote:
"Nobodies are True Neutral"
YEt they promote the creation of Heartless, fight light and generally abduct people. No. THEY'RE NOT. It doesn't matter what they're goals are. The means they use do not promote the greater good.
This entire thing aside. It is possible to run a KH game. BUt everyoen and their mother must have a Holy weapon, and you must do it all in the space ofa week, and the Heartless Conversion must also require a save, too. But that doesn't excuse the fact it is still a bad idea for game design, in any system.
