So my work load this term is lighter than usual, and I just may have time to run a campaign. So I'm thinking about it.
I don't really have any solid ideas on a campaign at the moment (other than a horror theme because those are fun), and I currently only have access to the SRD, so I was thinking of running an improvisational game (which I've done before). Essentially, it will be mechanically like a dungeon crawl, but with an evolving, fluid storyline tailored to your specific characters and your roleplaying. It's challenging and a lot of fun.
My thought was something like level ten, 3.5 gestalt, for about five players. As some of you know, I allow pretty much everything (although third party and homebrew material needs to be run by me, albeit I encourage you to do so), and I have some quirky house rules (more on that in the character gen thread, later). Also, I'm pure evil and may well kill your character (if you don't use intelligent strategies) or use nasty tactics like negative levels with abandon. Moral of the story is: be prepared, and also maybe have a cleric in your party or something. Just sayin'.
Another important point is that if your character is an outlier in power level compared to the rest of the party, it's going to cause problems. If you all end up making super powerful, optimized characters, fine (just please no cheese). If you all make wimpy characters, that's fine too. But if the standard deviation is whacky, not fine. If you're stronger than everyone else, I will pick on you viciously and unfairly. If you're weaker than everyone else, you'll not be up to the challenges created for the rest of the party. I'm not kidding. In either case, you're gonna die and it wont be fun for you and everyone else. It's up to you guys as a group to make sure you're all relatively equal, and it's in your best interest individually to ensure this is the case.
The longer you guys survive (that is, no TPK), the more Happy Fun Time™ rewards I will give you. If you make it all the way to the end, then the story won't be a tragedy, and my working campaign title "Tragic Horror" will be ironic plus I will be sadface.
I don't want to waste my time setting a game up if it wont even get off the ground before it starts (which has happened the past couple times I tried to run a game in the Inn), so I'll probably set a strict deadline for when your character sheet needs to be ready. Similarly, I shouldn't have to drop you for inactivity a week after the campaign starts, so please don't commit to the game if you don't know if you can be active in the immediate future. Activity defined as not holding back the pace of the game by more than a couple days, as opposed to posting on a regular basis when not needed by the relative activity of everyone else during critical periods. Of course, stuff happens, but if you know your life is chaotic I'd rather you give the player slot to someone else from the get-go.
Now, with all that blather out of the way: anybody interested?
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
I've been brainstorming a bit on some ideas, a little excited.
It seems the Inn really has slowed down. I expected everyone to jump out of the woodwork like in the good old days. Perhaps a recruiting mission is in order.
Let's see...
Alacar- banned
Amadi- banned
Sep- not RPing much anymore as far as I can tell
Yukora- haven't seen him in a while
Maybe I'll go hit up the planar chaos clan for possible players.
There are now several more character concepts I'm thinking about, which is annoying because I was supposed to be narrowing it down instead of making more. Hmph.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
@KK: With demand for games as low as it is, I don't see a problem with you joining.
@Caex: My usual rules on both those matters applies. So, Mamelon point buy and you get free LA buyoff for whatever happens before level 10 such that you start at ECL 10. Tequila is making it so that I'm not entirely sure that sentence makes sense. I'll try again tomorrow as needed.
Also, it seems I miss all the drama. And now I'll never get to tell Amadi stories of my insane Finnish professor who raved about German structuralists...
@Caex: My usual rules on both those matters applies. So, Mamelon point buy and you get free LA buyoff for whatever happens before level 10 such that you start at ECL 10. Tequila is making it so that I'm not entirely sure that sentence makes sense. I'll try again tomorrow as needed.
Drow Swordsage is looking more and more interesting to me now that I know I can freely buy off his LA. Not sure what the second class would be...
Fighter could be useful for the combat-related feats and higher BAB.
On the other hand, wizards can cast all kinds of nice buff spells and use abjuration to shut down pesky casters.
Suppose it depends on what other people are going to play.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
Let me put down tentative interest. I've just learned the d20 modern rules for running a Falloutd20 game for a friend... and I've taken the paradigm of COVER COVER COVER to heart. So we'll see how that translates back into D&D... likely a lot of ablative defenses.
Okay, now we're getting somewhere. If people are feeling ready to churn out character sheets, I'll put up the character generation thread.
I will mention that for gestalt, having versatile offensive options is probably not quite as valuable as having a comprehensive defense. So keep that in mind. You only get one action per round, but you can die to many different possible things.
Considering I don't even really know what the setting is going to be (other than the sort of gothic romance and Dickensian grotesques that go with horror), there's no reason why you couldn't do a far east character.
I was considering a tanky character using a "Homebrew" class by Rich Burlew. If I could get your opinion on The Champion (about 1/2 way down the page or 9 posts), plus the feats in the post after it if the class is ok, especially the ones for combining class levels for determining abilities, and the special gestalt rule those have.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
Seems fine, although the post is a bit vague on how to derive stats for avatars. The feats are all fine as well, and I think the special gestalt rules are a good addition in general for the feats that stack class levels for class abilities.
It either means you use the same ability score system to pick your avatar's stats, or you use the same totals as your base character only you can rearrange them. And it's subject to you base character's racial modifiers as well.
Private Mod Note
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I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
After further consideration, I think I'm going to go with a NG Drow Swordsage//Abjurer.
Swordsage handles both offense and defense fairly well, depending on the maneuvers you take. Abjuration is just all kinds of handy.
Some kind of mage hunter. Someone who likes killing liches especially, maybe. Except that damn undead-killing weapon crystal is going to take up a lot of my money.
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
Everything scares me... kitties scare me... squirrels scare me... corpses....corpses bring forth a pletora of confusing feeling which i prefer not to dwell on...:p
I'm slowly plugging away at my character concept. At the moment I'm having difficulty finding a God to have given my Champion his power that fits the lawful-good zealous type I want, yet actually grants me 1-4 level domain spells I don't already have access to.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'll bet you wish you had a non-unglued/unhinged card that shared your first name.
You can always invent your own god. The worst you could do is make something equally boring to the core deities, or just about any divine character associated with D&D.
Join Planar Chaos, A Colo clan
Generation B1: The first time you see this, copy and paste it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.
Join Planar Chaos, A Colo clan
Generation B1: The first time you see this, copy and paste it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.
Now I think I've finished deciding on my class: Champion//Monk(multi-class into Fighter in a few levels). Think high defense+high hp. Plus casting shield other on the caster.
I think I've done all the pre-character generation planning I can now. I've got a lot of questions I'm saving for after the gen rules are up.
EDIT: Here's a question I can ask in general though: When a spell description mentions your level, does it always mean caster level even if it doesn't specify?
I don't really have any solid ideas on a campaign at the moment (other than a horror theme because those are fun), and I currently only have access to the SRD, so I was thinking of running an improvisational game (which I've done before). Essentially, it will be mechanically like a dungeon crawl, but with an evolving, fluid storyline tailored to your specific characters and your roleplaying. It's challenging and a lot of fun.
My thought was something like level ten, 3.5 gestalt, for about five players. As some of you know, I allow pretty much everything (although third party and homebrew material needs to be run by me, albeit I encourage you to do so), and I have some quirky house rules (more on that in the character gen thread, later). Also, I'm pure evil and may well kill your character (if you don't use intelligent strategies) or use nasty tactics like negative levels with abandon. Moral of the story is: be prepared, and also maybe have a cleric in your party or something. Just sayin'.
Another important point is that if your character is an outlier in power level compared to the rest of the party, it's going to cause problems. If you all end up making super powerful, optimized characters, fine (just please no cheese). If you all make wimpy characters, that's fine too. But if the standard deviation is whacky, not fine. If you're stronger than everyone else, I will pick on you viciously and unfairly. If you're weaker than everyone else, you'll not be up to the challenges created for the rest of the party. I'm not kidding. In either case, you're gonna die and it wont be fun for you and everyone else. It's up to you guys as a group to make sure you're all relatively equal, and it's in your best interest individually to ensure this is the case.
The longer you guys survive (that is, no TPK), the more Happy Fun Time™ rewards I will give you. If you make it all the way to the end, then the story won't be a tragedy, and my working campaign title "Tragic Horror" will be ironic plus I will be sadface.
I don't want to waste my time setting a game up if it wont even get off the ground before it starts (which has happened the past couple times I tried to run a game in the Inn), so I'll probably set a strict deadline for when your character sheet needs to be ready. Similarly, I shouldn't have to drop you for inactivity a week after the campaign starts, so please don't commit to the game if you don't know if you can be active in the immediate future. Activity defined as not holding back the pace of the game by more than a couple days, as opposed to posting on a regular basis when not needed by the relative activity of everyone else during critical periods. Of course, stuff happens, but if you know your life is chaotic I'd rather you give the player slot to someone else from the get-go.
Now, with all that blather out of the way: anybody interested?
I need a character concept I'm interested in. So far, I've thought of a couple. I'll just have to narrow it down among the ones I'm thinking of:
Paladin/Cleric- Undead mangler
Monk/Wizard- Mage hunter
Wizard/Sorcerer- Ice mage
Soulknife/Rogue- Assassin type
{Magic: The RPG}
It seems the Inn really has slowed down. I expected everyone to jump out of the woodwork like in the good old days. Perhaps a recruiting mission is in order.
Let's see...
Alacar- banned
Amadi- banned
Sep- not RPing much anymore as far as I can tell
Yukora- haven't seen him in a while
Maybe I'll go hit up the planar chaos clan for possible players.
There are now several more character concepts I'm thinking about, which is annoying because I was supposed to be narrowing it down instead of making more. Hmph.
{Magic: The RPG}
I can commit to checking if I need to post at least once a day. If no one has a problem with that, I'd love to join.
Also, how will we be doing ability scores?
{Magic: The RPG}
@Caex: My usual rules on both those matters applies. So, Mamelon point buy and you get free LA buyoff for whatever happens before level 10 such that you start at ECL 10. Tequila is making it so that I'm not entirely sure that sentence makes sense. I'll try again tomorrow as needed.
Also, it seems I miss all the drama. And now I'll never get to tell Amadi stories of my insane Finnish professor who raved about German structuralists...
Drow Swordsage is looking more and more interesting to me now that I know I can freely buy off his LA. Not sure what the second class would be...
Fighter could be useful for the combat-related feats and higher BAB.
On the other hand, wizards can cast all kinds of nice buff spells and use abjuration to shut down pesky casters.
Suppose it depends on what other people are going to play.
{Magic: The RPG}
Let me put down tentative interest. I've just learned the d20 modern rules for running a Falloutd20 game for a friend... and I've taken the paradigm of COVER COVER COVER to heart. So we'll see how that translates back into D&D... likely a lot of ablative defenses.
Good to see you back, ASA.
I will mention that for gestalt, having versatile offensive options is probably not quite as valuable as having a comprehensive defense. So keep that in mind. You only get one action per round, but you can die to many different possible things.
Still way in the brainstorming process, but something along the skeleton of Rokugan Ninja||Beguiler...
Swordsage handles both offense and defense fairly well, depending on the maneuvers you take. Abjuration is just all kinds of handy.
Some kind of mage hunter. Someone who likes killing liches especially, maybe. Except that damn undead-killing weapon crystal is going to take up a lot of my money.
{Magic: The RPG}
I'd like to get the campaign started next week. Roll call?
I'm just dreading doing both maneuvers and spells. It's too much like paperwork.
{Magic: The RPG}
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Outbreak
Generation B1: The first time you see this, copy and paste it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Outbreak
Generation B1: The first time you see this, copy and paste it into your sig and add 1 to the generation. social experiment.
I think I've done all the pre-character generation planning I can now. I've got a lot of questions I'm saving for after the gen rules are up.
EDIT: Here's a question I can ask in general though: When a spell description mentions your level, does it always mean caster level even if it doesn't specify?