Orpheus Conversion to the New World of Darkness rules

Why would you want to convert your Orpheus game to the new World of Darkness rules? The answer is Combat. Orpheus is a game of Epic proportions, where the characters eventually wade through armies of Spectres.

 

Lets compare the Combat rules for both systems:

 

Old WoD Rules	New WoD Rules
Roll Dexterity + Melee (or Brawl). Roll Defenders Willpower to see if defender can cancel action to dodge. Roll Dodge to cancel Attacker’s successes. If attacker has any successes left over, Roll Damage. Roll Defender’s Soak. Apply damage to Defender’s Health.	Roll Strength + Melee (or Brawl) – victim’s Defense Rating +/- appropriate modifiers. Any successes (Always 8 and above) are marked as Damage on Defending characters sheet. Done.

 

Suddenly, Combat time is cut down to at least 1/3, maybe less.

 

Converting the Rules:

You now know why you may wish to try this, but now I will cover the How.

 

Converting Orpheus into the new system is not as hard as you may think. All you need is the Players Only Demo Rules for the Vampire the Requiem Demo. I will not post them here, but I will provide a link where you can download the PDF file:

 

http://www.worldofdarkness.com/demo/IntroductoryRulesOnly.pdf

 

The conversion rules below assume you will be using the same Orpheus character sheet and abilities found in the Orpheus Core Book, with only minimal alterations. A more detailed section will be posted as soon as I get my hands on the World of Darkness book.

 

Defense Rating:

A Character’s defense rating is equal to either his Wits or Dexterity; whichever one is lower (since they both hinder each other). Armor ratings add to the Defense Rating. For rules on how to use Defense see the Rules and Combat section in the Demo Rules.

 

Converting Damage:

Any Damage rating is added to the appropriate attack roll (see Combat in Demo Rules).

Melee weapons only use their Modifier, not the attribute that it is attached to (Ex: Knife is +1 instead of Strength +1).

 

 

 

 

Converting Difficulty Ratings:

Below I have provided a chart that converts Old rules Difficulties to the new systems Modifiers (See The Rules section in the Demo Rules for more details):

 

Old WoD Difficulties	New WoD Modifiers
3	+3
4	+2
5	+1
6	+0
7	-1
8	-2
9	-3
10	-4

 

Converting Health:

Why convert Health? Because with the new system there is no soak roll.

First, learn the new Health Rating system in Health and Damage section of the Demo Rules (don’t forget the new rules for Damage Modifiers).

 

Health = Stamina + (5 for Adults, 4 for Teens, 3 for Children)

 

Skimmer Rules:

All Attacks to a projecting Skimmer suffer a –1 on their attack roll. This represents the conversion of their ability to soak at Difficulty 5. Skimmers do not soak because they use their new Health Rating for Damage. Lethal still counts as Bashing as per Skimmer description in the core Orpheus book.

 

Ranged Horrors (Thanks neastrith)

As per Ranged Attacks, Characters do not get to use Defense on Ranged Horror Attacks. See “Avoiding Damage in Ranged Combat” under Complications of the Demo Rules

 

Powers Affecting Dodge Rolls (again thanks neastrith)

Powers that normally increase the difficulty of attack rolls merely add to the Defense Rating of defending character.

Ex: If a power adds +1 Difficulty to attacker, it now adds +1 to Defense of defender.

 

Willpower:

If you are going to use the Willpower rules of the Demo (page 3), then you cannot use temporary willpower for automatic successes.

 

Speed (Optional):

Should you decide to use the Speed rules in the Demo Rules, a characters Speed Rating = Strength + Dexterity + 5

 

Misc.:

Backgrounds, Merits and Flaws will be the same as the Orpheus books, with minimal conversion in Difficulty and Damage ratings. Ignore the anything that is unique to Vampires in the Demo Rules (ex: Vitae, Blood Potency, the Effects of Vampirism section, etc…). Initiative Modifier is the same as normal (1 die + Dex + Wit).