Witchers will no doubt be a debatable topic. Less contentious/skubish: Monsters!

Here’s a hip-fire series of approximations:

Minions:

Barghest, Ghouls, Nekkers, Harpies, Drowners (Freshwater), Weaker Wraiths, evil vegitation, sirens, Leshen animals, Worker Endrega; creatures that usually are spawned in groups in W3.

Rivals:

Alghouls, Lesser/Animalistic Vampires, Noon/Night Wraiths with solvable curses, Smaller draconids and hybrids, elementals, Foglets w/illusions, Average humanoid Relicts, stronger harpies, zurgals (tentacle things in sewers), trolls, weaker hags, weaker lycanthropes, warrior endrega; creatures that normally are supported by minions, are at most one-shot Witcher contracts in W3.

Nemesis:

“The Exotics” that usually get parts of major sidequests or high-level contracts: Hyms, Leshen, Fiends, Greater Vampires, Genies, Endrega Queens, Manticores, Giants, Striga, Plague Maidens, Kayran, Chorts, Larger hybrids, and stronger/smarter/older versions of the above Rivals.

Campaign Threats/Factors:

Your Gaunter O’Dimms, Detlaffs (Higher Vampires), Dagons (Eldritch Lords), Dryad Queens, and Dragons should be preserved as massive threats. Geralt in-books avoids Higher Vampires because he describes them as suicide runs, and a Dragon takes a small army to bring down.

A good note to remember: just because Geralt can bring down something single-handed does not garuntee the average Witcher can without help.

I'd like to pit a vampiric Witcher beastie against my players in this weekends session. How do you think a Katakan would be statted, or maybe an Ekimara?

I'm thinking...

Katakan

Characteristics

Brawn 3, Agility 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 1, Presence 1

Soak 3, Wounds 15

Skills

Brawl 2, Coordination 2, Perception 4, Survival 3, Vigilance 3

Equipment

Claws (Brawl; Damage 5; Critical 3; Range [Engaged]; Pierce 1)

Talents/Abilities

Invisibility (Once per round, may spend an action to gain Concealment 3)

Blood Drinker (May consume blood as an action subject to availability. Consuming fresh blood heals 3 wounds per round spent consuming. May only gain nutrients from blood.)

I would love your thoughts and feedback! I want this creature to be able to challenge the heck out of a low level party of five, but not be insurmountable.

Maybe change the Blood Drinker to giving a damage bonus if you're trying to be true to Witcher, but otherwise that looks great! Plus, different Katakans will have slightly higher or lower stats or skills based on age anyway. Is that one supposed to be a Rival or a Nemesis?

This is good but as mentioned previously you might want to add a monster trait the increases soak against weapons not made of silver. Also increase its willpower this thing would probably jump at it's own shadow and that's not a good look for a nasty blood sucking monster.

Speaking of... what is a good resource for the monsters? I love the narrative/crunchy bits about all the creatures from the universe (pulled from various real world regional myths and legends). Is there a good source for this sort of thing?

26 minutes ago, HedgeWizard said:

Speaking of... what is a good resource for the monsters? I love the narrative/crunchy bits about all the creatures from the universe (pulled from various real world regional myths and legends). Is there a good source for this sort of thing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_legendary_creatures

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptids

Personal Favorite not listed there is the Kikiyaon, the Soul Cannibal. Basically a giant owl spirit that eats souls; I used it in a Call of Cthulhu game once.

oooh! Exactly what I was scrounging around for. Thanks!

23 hours ago, ectandberg said:

I'd like to pit a vampiric Witcher beastie against my players in this weekends session. How do you think a Katakan would be statted, or maybe an Ekimara?

I'm thinking...

Katakan

Characteristics

Brawn 3, Agility 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 1, Presence 1

Soak 3, Wounds 15

Skills

Brawl 2, Coordination 2, Perception 4, Survival 3, Vigilance 3

Equipment

Claws (Brawl; Damage 5; Critical 3; Range [Engaged]; Pierce 1)

Talents/Abilities

Invisibility (Once per round, may spend an action to gain Concealment 3)

Blood Drinker (May consume blood as an action subject to availability. Consuming fresh blood heals 3 wounds per round spent consuming. May only gain nutrients from blood.)

I would love your thoughts and feedback! I want this creature to be able to challenge the heck out of a low level party of five, but not be insurmountable.

As someone already said, I'd have a trait that increases soak against non-silver weapons.

I also think the Invisibility trait should be a maneuver. They can shift form into invisibility fairly quickly. The strain cost of moving and turning invisible is a pretty good representation.

Also, what's "Concealment 3" mean?

I think it's either 3 boosts or 3 setbacks in relation to not being seen. Odd considering it has no stealth skill and only 3 agility so it would be not too hard to spot either way. I don't think it needs that much perception skill, some sure but 4 is overkill. It's vigilance makes enough sense since it's quick in terms of its initial attack. Brawl is high enough maybe a little more damage on the claws and a bite attack since its a vampire. Oh and I'm not sure which one can do this but some lesser vampires can mimic human voices to lure prey so if you go with that give it deception. Lastly as a bit of advice vampires can be picky on what type of blood they feed on so it might feed only on dwarves, elves, redheads etc. Hope this helps make it a bit more threatening.

Hopefully those following this thread will find this interesting. I've spent sometime working through the Genesys Core and the Realms of Terrinoth Books to translate the ideas from the Witcher games and novels into the structure of the system. I did find the earlier discussions from Skywalken, a helpful inspiration for designing my version of the mutant human archetype and the Career for the Witcher class. I have also compiled a nice defined translation of the signs into the alternate magic rules and expanded on the ideas of crafting for Alchemy to create the various potions, elixirs and Bombs.

Here is a link to my compiled document from google drive : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PFFHGUwZQCoexyUEbHw3c2u4lO8S0MVk. Please feel free to review the items it contains and provided me any feeedback concerning the content. Albeit, please forgive some of the content phrasing as it may refer to a placeholder character name based on the example format i borrowed from the ROT character PDF.

While not included in this document my framework for the Career and Archetype are as follows:

Witcher Career skills: Alchemy, Athletics, Discipline, Knowledge (Lore), Melee (Light), Runes, Survival, Vigilance

Archetype: Mutant Human (Grassmen)

Brawn 3, Agility 2, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 2, Presence 1 Wound Threshold: 10 + Brawn, Strain Threshold: 10 + Willpower Starting XP: 90

Starting Skills: Begin play with one rank in Perception and Resilience, these may not be raised above rank 2 at creation.

Dark Vision: May remove up to two setback die from all vision related skill checks

Fearsome: Grassmen are feared by normal humans and many other races or societies, as a result they suffer one setback die on all Charm, Deception, Leadership and Negotiation they make, but add one boost die to Coercion checks. This does not apply to members of their own species.

Enhanced Healing: Whenever healing wounds due to natural rest, they recover one additional Wound. This does not apply when receiving medical treatment. I felt that the regenerating limbs was to significant but included the option if used in conjunction with their alchemy. I am not sold on this option yet though.

I had though about leaving the Ready for Adventure rule in place as well, just changing the name to Child of Destiny, but i cant reconcile the cost to reduce the starting XP pool.

Let me know your alls thoughts.

Genesys Witcher Notes.docx

@greyknight74

The Sign breakdown is very helpful. I have someone playing a Witcher (we're calling them Hexers... go figure) but who avoids the Signs and Alchemist aspects due to his unfamiliarity with those systems. I appreciate your work!

idk what happened in my last @ post, did a weird formatting thing.

On 10/18/2018 at 10:48 AM, Skywalken said:

The Sign breakdown is very helpful. I have someone playing a Witcher (we're calling them Hexers... go figure) but who avoids the Signs and Alchemist aspects due to his unfamiliarity with those systems. I appreciate your work!

idk what happened in my last @ post, did a weird formatting thing.

Isn't "hexer" a close equivalent to the original Polish term? I know the Polish TV series was called "The Hexer".

hexer is no (original) polish word, but german imported heks (=female witch).

hexer is actually a german word for a male witch (female = hexe)

• Old English: hægtesse, hægtes, hegtes
• Middle English: hagge, hegge
• English: hag
• Old Frisian: hegtesse, hexe
• Saterland Frisian: Häkse
• West Frisian: hekse
• Old Saxon: hagatusia
• Middle Low German: hagetusse
• Plautdietsch: Hakjs
• Norwegian: haugtusse, haugtuss
• Middle Dutch: hagetisse, haghetisse
• Dutch: hagedis (dialectal)
• Old High German: hag-, hā-, hagazussa, -zas(sa), -zis(sa), hagzissa, hāzus
• Middle High German: hecse
• German: Hexe
• Polish: heks
• Danish: heks
• Dutch: heks
• Swedish: häxa
• Luxembourgish: Hex

Sorry to reply to such an old post, but I'm researching to make my own Witcher-esque build. Looking back on Skywalken's Witcher build, I'd say that's really close. I'd change Dark Vision to Heightened Senses and give boost to all Perception checks. I wouldn't tweak the magic system in Genesys too much, but if you really want to limit Witchers, I'd consider a series of talents (base, Superior, Improved) that grants ranks in Arcana with a limited number of uses per encounter.

Edit: On second thought, of you REALLY wanted the feel of the game, you might be better off creating a new magic skill with that fits in like with Skywalken's spell list a bit; allowing only for magic actions Attack, Barrier, Curse, Dispel. Everything else would be alchemy, following rules in RoT.

With the recent release of the TV series my interest in playing the Witcher with Genesys is on the raise. Has anyone worked on this conversion? Maybe @greyknight74 ?

5 hours ago, Erahard said:

With the recent release of the TV series my interest in playing the Witcher with Genesys is on the raise. Has anyone worked on this conversion? Maybe @greyknight74 ?

Definitely interest in a Witcher Genesys Konversion here as well. 😊