|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
[D&D] Kobolds of Wyweria - 1st Session
This is an adventure summary from a Dungeons & Dragons Campaign I'm currently DMing. For information on the campaign, check out the introductory post here first: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=354214
Due to some slight retinkering of the party, the group is now a Druid, Monk, Bard, Wilder (the Cleric is now a Bard and the Psionic Warrior is a Wilder).
--The Bard is focused on a few charisma skills that are helpful to the group, as well as a bit of use magic device to give them access to a couple of spells they really need. In battle he's typically using buffs and a few curses and fighting at rang.
--The Wilder is a typical kinda nukey psionic character, though he's also taken Expanded Knowledge to get Astral Construct, which although low-damage-output and a huge drain on PP gives the party a bit more flank and tank.
After the usual settling-in (and harassing our Bard player to get his shit together) we got started.
The Session
They started off by researching the post-war era. After the war, each of the four Champions retired from adventuring, taking up positions of leadership and wealth-- without the kobold threat, the Four Nations were no longer friends-- they returned to being bitter enemies, with shifting alliances and occasional skirmishes. It hasn't been until recently they have recovered enough for a full scale war, but remembering the last one, few want to cast the first stone. The Champions each exert their influence to prevent war between the civilized people.
The Sage Rotuvius retired to the depths of his homeland where he sits on the Council of the Forest and manages a vast library that attracts mages from even across The Great Sea. Hundreds of years old, and expected to live for hundreds more, his knowledge becomes vaster with each passing day, and with it, his power. He has seen little reason to shift in these years since the war, though, and the events between the humans and the dwarves pass by seemingly without his notice.
The Avatar has brought great power and glory to the church of St Cuthbert, and he is universally worshipped in Sternen. His priests go and do charitable work and bring hope to the people in times of drought or famine, and his warriors keep the peace along the King's roads. It's said that in Sternen you seek the audience of the king only of you could not get that of The Avatar. He resides in the great cathedral in the Capitol and is said to commune regularly and directly with St Cuthbert himself.
Urdol the Dwarflord continues to rule the Mountainhomes, at first holding together the fracturing nations by the strength of his will and his honor alone. In time, even as the fervor of war died down, the Dwarves came to think of him as their king. Under his guidance, the Dwarves have become wealthy beyond measure, and his brothers govern the factions with justice and prudence. His heirs are not yet of age, so he sits uneasily on his throne, but there has been no-one to challenge him for many years now.
Bloody Jack disappeared shortly after the end of the war, and has never been heard from again. Some say that he left to journey over The Worldspine, seeking new battlefields and new slaughter. Others say he chartered a ship to try to reach the other side of The Great Sea, a feat usually only the powerful caravels from across the waters are capable of. Some bards' tales end with him retiring to farm, or to tend bar. The only thing everyone agrees on though is that he's still out there, somewhere-- he's escaped death too many times to let it catch him now.
At this point, there was much discussion amongst the players. Calhar, the player playing the Monk, argued that the Sage should be attacked first. Being a Wizard, the Sage would benefit the most from being prepared, and their first target wouldn't know Kobolds were on the loose-- the element of surprise is best employed against a wizard. Vodkaholic, the Druid and least experienced player in the group, said The Avatar was a greater threat, because as a powerful spellcaster and the head of his religion, he'd have more, slower-moving resources to organize. Sandwhale, the player playing the Wilder and the most experienced of the group (who, like myself, has played D&D for almost a decade) shrewdly suggested going after Bloody Jack first, then deciding between the casters. If Bloody Jack bit the dust, nobody would know-- he's in hiding or far away. Soon the others were in agreement with him: Bloody Jack dies first.
Of course, there is first the matter of finding him, and doing so discreetly, as tipping him off to their approach would be damaging to their attempts to catch him. They traveled to the second-largest city in Lerka, Telport. Their investigations found out little about Bloody Jack, for as any hero he is steepled in rumor and legends. The stories agree he was a mighty archer and a capable swordsman-- and that he had a scar on the palm of his left hand. In passing, though, they noticed the city was under heavy guard. A recent resurgence of banditry, they found out.
They began investigating, asking questions. The guards were always conveniently a step behind the bandits, catching or killing them. The banditry would hit one town, then the next, and would be accompanied by thievery and general larceny. Whatever it was, it was organized, so asking more questions would be dangerous. After some discussion, they decided they'd confront the bandits and see if Jack was involved at the top. Sandwhale paid off a barkeep to ask which road was the safest way out of town (the east). They exited the west gate, their armaments hidden.
Three bandits accosted them, mounted on horses and armed with swords and crossbows. The one in the center, the leader, explains the nature of the King's Road and the price of the toll. He is surprised to find his compratiots suddely slain-- one by a shift jab from the monk, and the other bitten dead by a giant snake. The bandit leader is knocked unconscious with ease. They take from him hair and spur his horse, which runs off into the woods. You gotta throw back the small fish to get a chance at the big ones-- with a body part of the bandit they'd be able to scry on him with ease, and see who he was working with.
After a day of scrying, they see him reporting to a superior-- an older man with long hair and a good horse. They follow him back to town, and spy on him with scrying and observing him at a distance. The man (named Ser) spends his days organizing criminal activities in the town-- paying off the guards, collecting insurance money from his insurance collectors, collecting money from the bandits, whores, and smugglers, and insuring everyone gets along just fine in the underworld.
One day, their man watching him (the Druid) observes him walking towards the market, and follows. Suddenly, Ser speeds up and moves quickly through the crowd, and Vodkaholic must choose between moving at his normal speed and possibly losing Ser, or speeding up and being more likely to be noticed. Instead of calling for help, he pursues him through the bazaar, down multiple streets, and into the slums. Suddenly, he finds himself chasing him down a deserted road, and is painfully aware of how visible he is. Then, he is surrounded by thugs. After some cursory words, he dispatches them, but finds that Ser has gotten away, and worse, knows he was being followed.
He reunites with the others and they evaluate their situation. They decide to Scry on Ser immediately. They see him enter a ruined building and they realize he's meeting with a man who always wears dark gloves (hereafter referred to as "Gloves"). The players debate whether or not Gloves is Jack or one of his lieutenants or bodyguards disguised to look like him. Gloves interrogates Ser, chastises him for letting himself be followed, and sends him home.
Calhar, the monk, follows Ser a week later as he goes to visit Gloves again. He's carrying with him a one-shot item of Sending specifically crafted by the Bard to relay a 25-word message back to the group for when they should follow him. He keenly sneaks across the rooftops and keeps his eyes on Ser, and waits until he enters a ruined building. He jumps to the building's roof and descends through it, snapping the neck of the guard standing just inside the entrance on the ground floor. The building is empty, but there's a hatch in the floor that probably leads into a basement. He retreats up to the floor above, and sends a message-- come and look for him, use Detect Magic to find 5 potions on the 2nd floor in a pentagon.
He takes out 5 magic potions (of various types) and arranges them in a pentagon-- this will be detectable by someone with the correct spell if they focus for 2 rounds, and waits. A few minutes later, the party is reunited and prepares to descend into the basement. Gloves and Ser are down there, plotting or exchanging gold or whatever it is organized thieves do. They open the hatch and one by one descend down the ladder into the darkness.
  
|
Very cool man, sounds like a great adventure! Last time I played was a month ago but I feel like jumping back in it! (AD&D 2nd Edition for 20 years :p )
|
Thanks for keeping me up to date on your campaign! :D
I really enjoyed reading the 1st Session I'd love to hear more about the back story about the world. Have the players come up with any more back story about their characters or are they just enjoying playing right now?
|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 25 2012 06:29 TheRealNanMan wrote:
Thanks for keeping me up to date on your campaign! :D
I really enjoyed reading the 1st Session I'd love to hear more about the back story about the world. Have the players come up with any more back story about their characters or are they just enjoying playing right now?
I don't have most of it on this computer, but here's how the world was formed-- it's probably one of my favorites pieces of background I've written.
The Gods, Celes, and The World-Beast
At the dawn of time, when the world was yet unborn, the Gods existed together as children in the garden of the Cosmos. They had no purpose, and knew no history, so they created these things for themselves, as Gods are wont to. In the sky they grew, made love and friendship and hatred and war and philosophy and all the things Man knows today. A timeless epoch passed, for time had no meaning in those days, and the Gods were children no more.
They were blessed to not be children, for the World-Child had come, a Beast of endless terror and ferocity, to consume them and give birth to a new generation of worlds. These Gods were no longer lambs, though-- for their times of peace had taught them not only art, but science and architecture, and their times of hatred honed not just their words but their fists. And so when the World-Beast came to consume its livestock, it found them armed, furious, and for the first time united.
The battle raged for another timeless epoch, for time had no meaning those days. We know little of what happened in that furious melee, but we know that Celes died, and as she died she sunk her blade deep into the heart of the World-Beast. The blood of the World-Beast leaked out and became the oceans, and the body of the beast collapsed, died, and became the land. The Gods gathered around the World-Beast, and in their anger cast it down into the Material Realm, a land without Magic, governed only by Physical Law and that Magic you could manifest yourself. The corpse would never rise again to haunt them.
A grand funeral was held in honor of Celes, and for a few moments longer the Gods put aside their petty disputes. However, even at the funeral the old wounds were raw and chafing, and the fighting broke out again. It was disgusting and bloody and terrible to behold-- Celes herself became splattered with the blood of Gods. Pelor, her lover, could bear it no longer-- he cast himself out of the heavens, eternally banishing himself and her body from the godly planes. He rebuilt her pyre and lit it high in the sky, and let it burn until it ran down. Every night he goes to gather more wood to light it again, a memorial to the love of his life. Celes always shines down on Wyweria, except for when Pelor's grief is too great and his tears blot out the sky and bring rain.
Life on Earth
In time, some Gods found their amusement in creating life on the World-Beast. To a God, you see, nothing is a challenge-- in their Outer Planes they can reshape matter to their will. Life is tremendously boring. For those who did not make as much a pastime of fighting each other, their only cure to boredom was challenge. And on the Material Plane, where their power was weak and distant, creating life was challenging indeed.
Obad-hai was the great innovator, and with his mighty powers he sprung plants from the earth, poured fungus into the caves, streamed kelp into the oceans and struck mighty trees into the ground. Finding this life fascinating, he created for it a counterpart, an enemy to stem its tide-- the oceans filled with fish and whales, the earth with worms and insects, the surface with rodents and dogs and birds and lizards and all manner of life. Obad-hai was never a big-picture man. Every tiny creature fascinated him and filled him with joy and love. It never occurred to him to make monsters, or intelligent life. Nature was all he ever wanted.
The Gods saw Obad-hai's work and grew jealous. They had not the attention to small detail of Obad-hai, so they created great creatures, monsters, and most of all, intelligent life. First were the Elves, Ehlonna's children. She fashioned them in the nature of Gods as she saw them-- long-lived, free-willed and intelligent. She sent them to live among Obad-hai's children on the surface, where they thrived. Moradin's try was clumsier but no less effective-- Dwarves he fashioned after the Gods as well, but he wanted to represent what he thought the greater values of the Gods to be. They valued closeness and order, and lived beneath the earth in tightly bound family groups.
With the surface and the earth occupied, all that was left was the oceans, and so were fashioned Merfolk by Yuraern-- those poor, doomed creatures. Air-breathing water folk, they lived among the dolphins and had no worries. Little did the gods know, in the eons that passed as they brought their creations into existence, sapient life had come to be on its own-- Man. How had they escaped the watchful eyes of Ehlonna, Yuraern and Moradin? Well, Obad-Hai had always been a man of detail, and a haunch of the World-Beast had fallen far to the East of the body. He planted the seeds of life there, as well, and from it had grown Orcs and Men, who did battle for many generations. Eventually, the Kingdom of Man was driven to the sea. In their final years, the Men crafted mighty boats and set oar westwards-- their seers told them they could find land beyond the sea.
The Journey of Man
Many Men were left behind, of course-- they were simply vassals and slaves of the Orcs. And the merging of the Haunch into a single political unit under Orcs did not last long. Bereft of an external enemy, the Kingdom of Orcs shuddered apart violently. Claims to the throne, revolutions, separatists, Orc supremacists who wanted to kill all Men-- the Orc Council could not hold the continent together against foes such as these. To this day, The Haunch is a mess of warring cities and states, each trying to assert dominance and reclaim the throne.
The Kingdom of Man would not have lasted long at Sea were it not for Yuraern and the Merfolk. The Merfolk found the Men and Yuraern took pity on them-- he gave them sails and iron, and blessed them with astronomy and an innate power of great learning. He decreed that these pitiful creatures would be his children as much as the Merfolk, and he would shepherd them all through the eons. The Merfolk took them in to their own island homes, and prepared to make room for their new neighbors. The hearts of Men are filled with darkness, however, and they took their Iron and Sails and made horrible war on the Merfolk. The poor creatures knew nothing of War-- and Man, having been tempered by constant battle with the Orcs, slaughtered the Yuraern's children relentlessly.
Hearing the cries of his children, Yuraern bent down to intercede, and cried in horror as not monsters or weather, but his own adopted children slaughtered his created ones. He brought mighty storms and lightning upon Man, shattering many of his boats and slaying his soldiers. Soon he found his attacks halted, though-- for another God stood in his way. Man had taken Vecna, the God of Secrets and Deception, into his heart. It was through Vecna that they had hidden the contents of their hearts, and through him they had taken everything from Yuraern-- his secrets, his technology, and now his children. Vecna was too strong for him, and he could only look on helplessly as his Merfolk prayed for guidance and heard nothing, as they fled and screamed and forsook their God in their dying breaths. Few made it away alive, and though Yuraern sent mighty storms against it, the Kingdom of Man made it across The Great Sea and settled safely.
With nothing left to protect, Yuraern fell into despair, and The Great Sea churned with his anger and sadness as he cast about for some way of bringing Retribution on Vecna and those hideous Men. Vecna laughed and kept his hand tightly grasped around the hearts of man. So keen was he on his new worshipers that he did not notice the Secrets among them. He did not notice The Great Sea go calm, and he was blind as St Cuthbert, fueled by the whispered knowledge of Yuraern, who knew humans all too well, grew a congregation, then a church, then a whole religion. St Cuthbert promised Yuraern Retribution, and it was well-delivered. His priests and paladins rose up, and the Kingdom of Man was wracked with civil war and was sundered in two-- and the Church of Vecna was shattered with the wholeness of the Kingdom, as secrets die easily in war.
In time, other races made their way out of the mud and stone, and the land between The Worldspine and The Great Sea was populated by all manner of folk. Kobolds and Goblins and Halflings, all small things, small and light enough to lift themselves to civilization, spread throughout the land. War and Politics and Religion destroyed and reformed nations-- Humans and more Orcs came across The Great Sea, and Elves and Dwarves went east. New Gods, Gods of the small creatures, were raised by the power of worship alone, and found their place among the Old Gods-- and great tales of all sort came to pass, wars and adventures and magick was wielded that might rival the Gods themselves, but that is for another day, another story.
|
Ohh man I haven't played D&D in 12 or 13 years now.... this is awesome!
When I was about 11 my friends dad had us do some 1st edition modules with my 3 other buddies, it was such a blast playing twice a week for a whole summer.
A quick google search revealed some of the classic modules we did! (they are old because my friend's dad was on his 2nd wife and had originally played them with his first 2 kids, who were in their 20s at the time- he reused them on us lol)
+ Show Spoiler +
|
This is great. I haven't played D&D steadily since I was probably 15 or 16 (nearly 30 now), but I would love to play again. Reading this kind of stuff just makes it worse! Good job!
|
I was reading your stuff and I was wondering one thing, I hosted a D&D group for a couple years and I was never successful in splitting the group up like you imply in your writing. I was wondering if you have any tips about how to execute it while keeping the entire party engaged.
ty, and great stuff.
|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 25 2012 13:20 Gofarman wrote:
I was reading your stuff and I was wondering one thing, I hosted a D&D group for a couple years and I was never successful in splitting the group up like you imply in your writing. I was wondering if you have any tips about how to execute it while keeping the entire party engaged.
ty, and great stuff.
There are a couple of tricks for scenes like this, which are particularly common if you have a Rogue who needs to search for traps and scout ahead, or charisma-heavy character who handles a lot of social interaction.
Rule #1 is that every player should feel like his character is useful, even in an encounter they're not particularly suited for. Let's say the PCs are meeting with the King to get his permission to search for a traitor in his court. Perhaps the Barbarian is the only one who remains alert and wary, and makes spot checks for concealed weapons, since a royal court is a foreign thing to him. The Rogue doing the talking might have the diplomacy to be the party's face, but maybe the King won't listen to anyone but the Ranger, who used to serve in the King's army. Social encounters are easy to manage in this fashion, as is direct combat since each class has a pretty obvious role in direct combat.
Things get trickier for parts of the campaign that fall into neither category. Descending into a cavern of evil kobolds, a Fighter might feel useless during the dungeon crawl section between actual fights-- especially if it takes a while. In areas like these, try to use traps or challenges that also appeal to the Fighter. A classic one would be a swinging blade that chops at the PCs as bars come down, locking them into a section of corridor. Instead of just an arrow trap or some blades that fall down on the party, make it an automated mechanism that keeps on attacking them, and has to be parried-- and the fighter is the only guy with a high enough attack bonus to even hit the score, but doing so means he has to step in the way of the blade. Suddenly, the whole party is involved-- there's time pressure on your rogue to get his Disable Device or Open Locks to work in time, rather than just rolling until he gets a 16 or whatever-- your casters try to buff or heal your fighter, and any auxiliary fighters try to help out. An encounter like this turns a normal trap with some reflex saves or attack-rolled arrows and a few failed Open Lock checks and a Cure Light Wounds into an exciting full-party experience, even if it's the same CR and expected damage.
If you have to literally split up the party, you want to always split them up into 2 groups, so you can play ping-pong with them. The typical flow of a battle or encounter is 1) you give some info, 2) the players make a decision and tell you what they do, 3) you tell them the outcome, possibly with dice rolls, go to #1. If your players are experienced and don't have rules questions, they'll spend about as much time thinking over and discussing their actions as you will interacting with them. In the case of the pursuit and monitoring of Ser, players took turns watching him and speculated about who he was and what his schedule was, and what their next move would be. When Calhar followed him to the base and set up the signal, the others were preparing spells and buying a few items (clerical stuff) since there was actually nothing for them to do until the signal was sent.
|
WOW i really enjoyed reading about how the world was formed, great job with that! :D
I can't wait to read more about this world ^_^ When are you guys planning on doing part 2?
|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
We actually already ran the second half of the adventure, but I haven't had a chance to write it up. I'll do so tonight after work if I get the chance-- it'll be in its own thread, in all likelihood, and I'll edit a link into this post as well so it's findable.
|
I love your backstory, what sort of influences are you pulling from, any campaign settings or books you like to steal from in particular or are you pretty original?
How does the party work together so far? I imagine they are liking the setting so far, i'm curious about any thoughts or concerns because I recently started an Eberron campaign (lvl 1, so in many ways a totally different animal, but ya know, dealing with PCs is dealing with PCs)
|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
For the campaign setting, I drew from a few influences.
In terms of the world's Genesis and the gods, I was mostly inspired by the stories of the Greek and Roman gods. I always thought the lamest part of the traditional D&D Pantheon was the fact that so many of the gods were mortals who ascended. In the case of the racial gods, this made sense-- a new race like the Goblins would come into existence and raise a god of their own. Some racial gods made sense as pre-existing gods, since they had other domains, like say Garl Glittergold. The idea that some default non-race god like Vecna once lived as a Mortal, and had his hand and eye cut out, or that Heironeous and Hextor are biological brothers, didn't really appeal to me.
Also, the 3.5 canon lacks a really compelling creation story. I figured I'd make some of the Gods exist before anything else, in the timeless period-- and then I mixed that in with the Japanese creation myth, in which a spear is dipped into the water of the sea and the drops that fall off are the islands. However, I figured the Gods should have an active role, and so the Earth is the remains of the World-Beast, collapsed in the puddle of his own blood. I drew some of the ideas for the World-Beast and the genesis of the world from David J. Schwartz' The Whisper, the Wire, and the Worm (link).
In terms of the idea of lazy Gods and populating the earth, and the non-main races (halflings, gnomes, and all the monstrous races) bootstrapping themselves up, I picked this because it created a fundamental conflict between the creations of the Gods and those who grew up on their own. This I'd say was inspired by David Brin's Startide Rising and Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep. I wanted Humans to be something inbetween the Elves/Dwarves and the lesser creatures, but still considered a lesser creature, hence the Exodus and the saga with the merfolk.
So, to answer your question, I'd say I don't steal anything directly, but I just sort of mash things together and pick anything that seems cool. If you read Sci-Fi and Fantasy books, and are reasonably familiar with ancient myths and epics, you can combine enough stuff that your average PC won't realize what's going on 
----
So far the party's working out ok. The monk is a bit on the weak side, but he's mobile. The Druid is by far the strongest character, but the player is suffeciently inexperienced that he can't really make the most of it. In terms of people-interactions, things are fine-- these guys have played together before. The biggest thing is that nobody should be bored, and everyone should care about their characters.
One trick I use to make battles more fun is I don't use the traditional room templates in the DMG battle mat. Instead, I flip it over to the blank grid, then lay a clear Acryllic sheet on it. People move their figurines, pieces, legos that are goblins, etc on this, and I draw the terrain on using dry-erase pens. This lets you have much more complex encounters, and makes it a lot easier when someone casts Stone Shape or decides to run into a different room mid-battle. It should be about $20 for the pens and acryllic sheet together-- you can buy the acryllic sheet at a hardware store like Home Depot or Orchard Supply, and the pens basically anywhere.
In terms of managing people IRL, try to sit friends not next to each other, so that they meet the new guys and interact with each other. At the start of every session, make sure you introduce everyone by name, as well as their characters. Some people prefer to refer to their characters in the third person, some in the first person-- I always say "you take 15 damage" instead of "Teyria takes 15 damage" but that's just my style. I think it's a bit more immersive.
Food should be something that doesn't need dipping or sauce. Salsa and quac are bad and mess up character sheets, and not everyone can eat it at once easily. Popcorn is good, dry snacks like baby carrots and apple slices are good. Don't get too much oil in there or people will start feeling icky. Soda and water is usually a must, or beer if that's your poison.
----
In terms of level 1 characters, the whole background thing is harder since people don't think about it as much. When trying to get your players engaged with the characters, give them an easy guideline of how to make a background. They should have at least 1 good friend who's alive, one enemy who's alive, one victory in the near past, one defeat in the near past, a character flaw, and a GOOD reason to be adventuring. Let them put whatever they like here-- they have to like the backstory, and the backstory MAKES the character.
So an example would be: My character is Piegar the Brave. His best friend Dory was a Royal Guard when Piegar left the Capitol of Afdon-- but the High Priest Marys is still scouring the land for Piegar. After Piegar successfully unmasked Marys' plot to mind-control the King, Marys was forced to mind-control the Prince, Piegar's brother, and made him fight Piegar to the death. Piegar knocked the Prince out, but Marys used his evil magic to kill the Prince and now wants to shove the whole thing under the rug. Piegar, though, loyal to a fault, accused Marys of murder in open court, and is was forced into exile to escape. He is questing to find the Spyglass of Orthul, which can unfailingly show the truth about any crime, so that he can return home and avenge his brother's death.
Man I could write about D&D all day lol.
|
Thanks for the advice!
I would recommend anybody thinking about starting a campaign take what you said to heart.
I like your method of drawing surreptitiously from many sources, but remember, blatant theft of names and such for NPCs can get some great laughs if your group is not super serious. (like Sterling Archer the warforged in my campaign or Alvis Dumbledore, head of the Mage's council in my friends)
I have already learned about what you mentioned with character creation, I would include "GOOD reason to be adventuring with the group" I tried to do an Underdark campaign that fell the fuck apart last year due to the party having 0 cohesion, each PC had a good backstory, a solid motivation, and they did not relate to each other at all, plus some things that were completely my fault as the DM just ruined my intentions for the campaign and it become a two session adventure that never progressed beyond that point.
I get what you are saying about the druid and monk, an experienced player can go a long way towards offsetting class weaknesses, I have a player who refuses to power game at all, he makes his choices for flavor reasons and hopes they will function well. I let him play an Assimar without the level adjustment and just minor tweaks (light instead of daylight, slightly reduced resistances) to his abilities and it is working out just fine because his feat and spell choices offset the power of his race compared to the other players. I'll probably have to start throwing better equipment at him in a couple levels too.
What sort of books other than core are you letting them use? Are they straight classed or have they been throwing as many prestige classes on their builds as possible?
|
I can't wait for the next session write up. Everything here was great. I wish I had friends who were into D&D. I have never had the opportunity to play.
|
Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 28 2012 01:09 TheFrankOne wrote:
What sort of books other than core are you letting them use? Are they straight classed or have they been throwing as many prestige classes on their builds as possible?
My typical rules for source material are "Anything in Core or Complete Warrior is ok, and anything from another sourcebook needs to be run by me. If it's cool and balanced, I'll let it in". What this means in practice is that players tend to stick to those setups, since most add-on books are heinously overpowered. We had a Favored Soul once, though I tinkered around with the class a bit, and we also had a custom Sorcerer who drew his spells known from the Cleric spell list rather than the Wizard Spell List, plus the Law and Animal Domains.
In this particular group, they're actually all single-classed, which is fairly unusual. The Bard considered multiclassing into Loremaster or War Chanter, but stuck with Bard. I think since 3 of them are casters with additional class-related abilities (wild shape, bardic music, wild surge stuff), it was difficult for them to multiclass without cutting either caster levels or class abilities which they wanted. The Monk is straight Monk, I assume, because he is a masochist.
You can find the next segment here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=357543
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.deigames.com/g123.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.deigames.com/D120313.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.deigames.com/d3.jpg)
