How to Train Your Dragon Conversion for In Harm's Way: Dragons!

Well my printer/scanner/copier died so I still don't have the images I needed for my cryptid post so instead I am going to make a series of posts for In Harm's Way Dragons!

 

This rpg allows for playing dragons and their riders during the Napoleonic wars much like in the Temeraire novels by Naomi Novik.  Not much has been done to support this game so I decided to fix that with a supplement for playing in the Orient.

 

I am currently working on a Viking expansion and that immediately got my family wondering about the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. While my version is historical I figured out a way to convert the dragons in both the books and movies to In Harm's Way statistics.

 

To make things easier on my fingers I am going to abbreviate How to train your dragon to HTTYD and In Harm's Way: Dragons to IHWD.

The charts below can be used to convert dragons from either Cressida Cowell's 'The Incomplete Book of Dragons' (or her other books) or the movie dragons from the How to Train Your Dragon Wiki
http://www.howtotrainyourdragon.wikia.com to the In Harms Way system.

In order to get the flavor of the world of How to Train your Dragon several changes must be made to the dragon breed generator in IHWD. If no entry is given then assume that that feature is the same as in the basic rules.

Converting Dragons from the Books & Movies

The dragons in the 'How to Train Your Dragon' franchise are given statistics on size, attack, armor, disobedience, and other factors. This allows one to easily convert dragons from the movies or books to a role playing game. Given below is my method of conversion.
First you need to evaluate your source of information. I used mainly The Incomplete Book of Dragons which gives ratings of 0 to 10. The other HTTYD books by Cressida Cowell occasionally go up to 15 but these were all changed to 10 in The Complete Book of Dragon so if using these books just use 10 for anything larger than that number. The stats given by DreamWorks are much larger; going up past 30 but if any stat over 10 is divided by 2 than they closely match the ones for the same breed in Cowell's books. If the stat is still over ten then consider it a 10. Add all these statistics together then average them to get the average stat for that breed.
For example, when creating the Gronckle I found that the breath damage was 8 in the books and 14 in the movies. Dividing 14 by two gives me a 7. Averaging 8 and a 7 gets me a final Attack rating of 7.5 which is rounded off to 8.
Once all the source information on the breed you want to convert is averaged then look on the following charts to convert them to In Harm's Way: Dragons stats.

 

Dragon Size

Size is a bit tricky because the sizes may contradict the rating given. For example the Flashfang is said to be to large to be a hunting dragon but the size rating it has is smaller than a common garden or basic brown which are the most common of all hunting dragons. In these cases I tried to follow the description rather than the actual rating.

Flight Statistics & Aggression

These statistics determine how well your dragon will fly using the game rules. The book or movie rating is given under the game term so to determine, for example, a dragon's Max Speed one would use the book/movie's Attack rating.

For example, a Night Fury has an attack of 15. As this is a movie stat this is divided by 2 to get 8. Looking on the chart under Max Speed we find that a rating of 8 equals a Max Speed of +4.

Base aggression uses the books Disobedience score. Consider the result to be the initial roll before adding any modifiers for diet. For example if the dragon's rating is 6 = Stubborn and it eats fish (+10) than looking at the rules in the basic rulebooks and adding 10 to the last number in stubborn gives a final roll of Defensive.

 

Constitution & Armor

 

Base constitution is derived by adding Fear Factor and Size and dividing by 2, rounding as normal. So if a dragon has a size of 4 and a fear factor of 6 than you will divide 10 by 2 to get a rating of 5 for a base constitution of 14.

 

Base Armor uses the armor rating. For those sources that lack an armor rating use Defenses or Fear Factor.

 

Attack Skills

The Attack skill for natural weapons uses the Attack rating, naturally. The Attack rating also determines the damage of the dragon's breath weapon while the dragon's size determines the number of times per day it can use this breath.

Intelligence

 

This stat is a bit iffy. I usually just choose what fits best or use Disobedience. For IQ I usually allow the player to choose or roll for one of the values within the INT rating of the dragon. For example, a Basic Brown has an INT of 4. Looking on the chart on page 115 of the basic rulebook I find that INT 4 covers two IQ ratings so I let the player toss a coin, heads and the dragon has an IQ of 90, tails and IQ is only 85.

 

Senses

 

Senses are up to you to determine. The Incomplete Book of Dragons gives a chart in the back that gives senses. I assumed one basic sense plus one more for each extra sense of that type given. I also added an extra sight for X-ray vision and for each pair of extra eyes a dragon has. For dragons with multiple tongues I gave one Taste sense for each tongue. Remember that total senses can never be higher than ten.

 

The Conversion Charts

Sizes, Attributes, and Vigor

 The dragons of the Barbaric Archipelago come in many sizes from rodent-sized nanodragons to the colossal Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus. To reflect these variations in size roll on the chart below instead of the one on page 110 of the basic rulebook...

Dice Roll	Size Equiv	Const Adj	Damage Base	Maneuv Mod	Accel. Mod	Ceiling Mod	Break	Range Modifier
01-05	Nanodragon (-3)	+2	0	+15	0	+11	1	X 3
06-10	Cat (-2)	+3	0	+10	+1	+9	2	X 3.5
11-15	Small Dog (-1)	+3	+5	+10	+1	+9	2	X 4
16-20	Large Dog (0)	+4	+10	+10	+1	+9	2	X 4.5
21-35	Pony  (1)	+4	+15	+5	+3	+7	3	X 5
36-55	Horse (2)	+5	+20	+5	+3	+7	3	X 5.5
56-71	Draft Horse (3)	+5	+25	+5	+3	+7	3	X 6
72-85	Hippo (4)	+6	+30	+0	+5	+5	4	X 7
86-90	Elephant (5)	+6	+40	+0	+5	+5	4	X 7.5
91-95	Mammoth (6)	+7	+45	+0	+5	+5	4	X 8
96-98	Small Whale (7)	+7	+50	-5	+7	+3	5	X 9
99-100	Large Whale (8)	+7	+60	-5	+7	+3	5	X 10

 

Dragon Attributes: While on the subject lets get the attribute numbers for the new sizes out of the way...

 

Strength

Size	Nanodragon	Cat	Small Dog	Large Dog
STR	4	5	6	7

 

Agility

Accel	1	2	3
AGY	5	6	7

 

Endurance

Range	42-51	52-61	62-69
END	5	6	7

 

Growth

Full Size Const x 1	Hatchling Const x .25	Youngling Const x .50	Dragonlet Const x .75
Nanodragon (Rat)	Small Insect	Large Insect	Mouse
Cat	Large Insect	Mouse	Rat
Small Dog	Mouse	Rat	Cat
Large Dog	Rat	Cat	Small Dog

Treat all the other results the same as in the chart on page 116 of the basic rulebook. Just treat a small dragon's vigor as if the dragon was pony sized.

Special Abilities

The dragons of this setting have many more special abilities than the dragons in the basic rulebook. Most also have a breath weapon AND a special ability. For example a Monstrous Nightmare breathes fire and can also set its own hide on fire as a defense mechanism. To reflect this just roll on the special ability and the dragon breath table (unless, of course, you get no breath weapon) on the chart below.

Roll	Special Ability	Effects or Edges
01-06	Breath Weapon Only	Dragon only rolls on the Dragon Breath chart and has no special ability.
07-13	Burrowing	Dash 2 Sneak 2
14-20	Chameleon Skin	Undetectable 4
21-27	Dive & Swim	Swim 2 Dive 2
28-34	Elemental Aura	Dragon can cover its skin in a dangerous substance (fire, venom, electricity, etc. Treat this ability as petty breath with a point blank range. This ability can be dangerous to the rider.
35-41	Herd Mentality	Teamwork 4
42-48	Hovering Flight	Landing 4
49-51	Hypnosis	Convince 2 Entice 2
52-58	Motion Detection	Motion 2 Sight 2
59-60	Multiple Appendages	The dragon has an extra head, extra pair of limbs, or an extra tail (choose one). This allows the dragon a second attack with that appendage (two bite attacks, two claw attacks, etc.)
61-67	Night Vision	Night 4
68-72	No Breath Weapon	The dragon has no breath weapon. Roll again on this chart disregarding any roll of 'breath weapon only' or 'No Breath Weapon'. Alternately one can pick Petty Breath.
73-79	Speaks Norse	The dragon can speak Norse or another human language
80-86	Venomous Spikes	Dragon has venomous spines that it can shoot at attackers. Treat as petty breath at the normal range.
87-93	Venomous	Dragon can inject venom with a natural attack. Treat this ability as petty breath with a point blank range adding the damage to either bite, claws, horns or tail sting
94-100	Two Special Abilities	This dragon can roll or choose twice on this chart ignoring any rolls of this entry. If Breath Weapon only is rolled than that dragon has two breath weapon types, one normal and one a Petty Breath, but no special abilities.

Languages: The dragons in this setting can understand but not speak human languages. The dragons instead speak Dragonese. In order to speak a human tongue a dragon needs the Speaks Norse ability.

 

Dragon Breath

 

The dragon breath chart works the same as in the basic rules in regard to times per day and damage however the type of breath is much more variable in this setting. For type of breath use the following chart...

Dice Roll	Type of Breath
01-14	Poisonous Gas
15-28	Water
29-42	Fire
43-56	Frost
57-70	Wind
71-84	Acid
85-98	Lightning
99-100	Special: breath  may stink like a skunk, cause overwhelming fear, cause paralysis or otherwise impair the target without causing damage

 

Dragon Type

These features have no game effect but can help describe your dragon. They are in addition to the Ornaments on page 125-124 of the basic rulebook.

 

Roll	Ornament	Description
01-10	Winged Serpent	Your dragon has no legs but looks like a winged snake. This dragon lacks claw attacks. Winged serpents with bat wings are called pithons while those with feathered wings are called amphiteres.
11-30	Wyvern	Your dragon has no forelegs but either walks upright like a bird or crawls along on its wings and hind feet like a bat. All claw attacks are with the hind legs.
31-40	Lindwyrm	These dragons lack a pair of legs, either having front paws but no rear or looking like an armless theropod dinosaur. These dragons cannot fly but are either excellent swimmers or runners (choose one). See below for the Swimming or running rules.
41-80	Guivre	This is a typical great dragon with four legs and two wings.
80-95	Knucker	These dragons either have no wings or their wings are tiny and useless. They resemble large lizards or dinosaurs. These dragons cannot fly but are either excellent swimmers or runners. See below for the Swimming or running rules.
95-100	Wyrm	These dragons lack both legs and wings and resemble giant dragon-headed snakes. These dragons cannot fly and can only run at half normal speed but are excellent swimmers. See below for the Swimming or running rules.

 

Swimming Rules: These dragons cannot fly but are excellent swimmers even if that edge is not given. In these dragons Acceleration is how fast it can swim and Max Speed is how quickly it can sink under water. Ceiling equals how deeply the dragon can dive while Range is how far it can swim. Maneuverability and stability is when in the water, the wider the back the less rocking.


Running Rules: These dragons are both flightless and non-aquatic. In these dragons Acceleration is the speed on the ground while running and Max Speed is not used. Ceiling is not used and Range is how far it can run before needing to rest. Maneuverability and Stability is while the dragon is bounding along the ground.

 Next Post: Showing how to convert the movie and book Gronckle using these charts.