B/c i apparently made a mistake by stating "someday maybe in the future I might run a gestalted D&D game" and have already received characters, I guess I will in fact run sometime soonish.
Rules are:
Atts: 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13
Gestalt: Pick two classes you feel you can live with forever, and take them.
Fractions: Use the fractional advancement tables linked further on down the thread.
Skills: Do average skills. We will be using the pathfinder skill list and method of skill tracking me thinks.
HP: Use average for level, add both class' averages together, divide by two, round up.
Books: All "Races of..." and "Complete..." books, all environment books (Sandstorm, etc.), all setting books (Heroes of Horror, etc. with special approval required for anything from Exalted or Vile Cheese), Miniatures Handbook, all Core and Expanded Core (phbII, psionics, etc). In summary, just the generic stuff, no setting specific stuff.
Time/Date: Soon. I'm hoping to start before October. We'll see though. I've started writing, and I'd like to have several of the early set pieces together before play.
Starting level: 1
Crabgrass: No.
Questions or comments?
D&D 3.X: Spear of Fate - Game
Last edited by rydi on Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Threading the Gerbil since 1982
Another thing: You are young for your species, whatever that may be. And you are all from the same village.
Your home village was settle roughly 100 years ago by survivors of a famous military regiment, Tarn's Irregulars. They gave up the warriors life, and settled down with their treasure, using it to pay for improvements to the area, such as schools, temples, plumbing, and other oddities. In the years since, many of the first settlers still survive, and they endeavor to make their land prosperous and happy. Many of the old timers teach their descendants some of the fighting tricks they learned, and tell stories about the old days.
The community is a mixed community, with dwarves and elves living alongside one another, and there is surprisingly little tension over the shortened lifespan of the humans. This is due both to the incredibly long lives that humans in the area have (Monk Daoway is rumored to be at least 120), and the peace that the inhabitants have made with their place in the natural cycle.
The alignment of the city is NG, and the community is a tech level above that of the surrounding kingdoms. The land is gifted to the inhabitants in perpetuity as a reward for the legendary actions that took place at the Battle of Tarn. While the town is, by any outside standards, quite wealthy, they do not see themselves as such. Rather, they are a mostly happy, content people, that are willing to share with those that come through. Recently they have had to contend with grumblings from their northern borders however, as the neighboring kingdoms have fallen on hard times (drought and blight, paired with military unrest on their borders), and are jealous of the riches and continuing prosperity of the area (it helps having a high level elven druid bless your land, and Dwarven tech to work it, and a cleric of Yondalla to protect it).
Your home village was settle roughly 100 years ago by survivors of a famous military regiment, Tarn's Irregulars. They gave up the warriors life, and settled down with their treasure, using it to pay for improvements to the area, such as schools, temples, plumbing, and other oddities. In the years since, many of the first settlers still survive, and they endeavor to make their land prosperous and happy. Many of the old timers teach their descendants some of the fighting tricks they learned, and tell stories about the old days.
The community is a mixed community, with dwarves and elves living alongside one another, and there is surprisingly little tension over the shortened lifespan of the humans. This is due both to the incredibly long lives that humans in the area have (Monk Daoway is rumored to be at least 120), and the peace that the inhabitants have made with their place in the natural cycle.
The alignment of the city is NG, and the community is a tech level above that of the surrounding kingdoms. The land is gifted to the inhabitants in perpetuity as a reward for the legendary actions that took place at the Battle of Tarn. While the town is, by any outside standards, quite wealthy, they do not see themselves as such. Rather, they are a mostly happy, content people, that are willing to share with those that come through. Recently they have had to contend with grumblings from their northern borders however, as the neighboring kingdoms have fallen on hard times (drought and blight, paired with military unrest on their borders), and are jealous of the riches and continuing prosperity of the area (it helps having a high level elven druid bless your land, and Dwarven tech to work it, and a cleric of Yondalla to protect it).
Threading the Gerbil since 1982
I have made this page for everyone to reference. It displays the values for base saves and base attack bonus for a given level for all potential combinations of good/poor saves and good/average/poor base attack.
http://www.lostknightsrpg.org/wiki/inde ... se_Bonuses
http://www.lostknightsrpg.org/wiki/inde ... se_Bonuses
Updates:
Gids game allowed me to dodge the bullet for a while. I'm going to put some fairly serious work into this setting and game design in my spare time from school. I will then run whenever it looks like i'm close to done getting things in order. Every other Saturday.
Oh, and to make things more sensible, a couple of notes on skills:
They will in fact be averaged. Sorry.
I think I will use a combined skill list that does away with two stealth skills, 3 social skills, etc. I want a look at the pathfinder skill list before i decide for sure on what skills to eliminate. But this should make the averaged skills less painful.
I want people to have some sort of profession or craft on their characters. Armorsmithing, herbalism, sailing, don't care really. But something. And i will reward those that make characters that can function within society as something other than a combatant.
Also, there will be a new category of Skill Tricks: Crafting. What you can do with this will be further explained later.
Gids game allowed me to dodge the bullet for a while. I'm going to put some fairly serious work into this setting and game design in my spare time from school. I will then run whenever it looks like i'm close to done getting things in order. Every other Saturday.
Oh, and to make things more sensible, a couple of notes on skills:
They will in fact be averaged. Sorry.
I think I will use a combined skill list that does away with two stealth skills, 3 social skills, etc. I want a look at the pathfinder skill list before i decide for sure on what skills to eliminate. But this should make the averaged skills less painful.
I want people to have some sort of profession or craft on their characters. Armorsmithing, herbalism, sailing, don't care really. But something. And i will reward those that make characters that can function within society as something other than a combatant.
Also, there will be a new category of Skill Tricks: Crafting. What you can do with this will be further explained later.
Threading the Gerbil since 1982
More updates:
Motivation - I would like characters to really give a shit about their homeland, and its destruction. From the way this is shaping up, I feel that will provide an excellent backdrop, and a very realistic way of showing the differences between good/evil chars without actually resorting to lame megalomaniacal antics on the part of the bad guys. Vengeance, harsh punishment, and doing whatever it takes to get the people that wronged you and destroyed what you loved, vs. the character that isn't willing to sacrifice others to make things happen. Evil characters that are willing to spit in the eye of evil gods and other creatures that might otherwise be allies, simply b/c they're pissed off. Good characters tempted to do very naughty things to the people that casually destroyed their people. These things make good stories. Please take this sort of feel into consideration.
Skills - We are definitely using the pathfinder skill list. It is very similar to the one I was going to use anyway, and is nice and simple. It also has a much easier way of tracking class skills, and since people are limited to two classes the overlap won't be as big a deal.
Classes - After thinking about it, I doubt I'll use any of the pathfinder classes. They're just a bit much honestly, though I might use a few to provide decent npc's and enemies on occasion.
Crafting - Not within the scope of this post, but I have made some significant alterations to crafting and magic item availability. Items will be grouped into certain categories, with things like Dwarven weapons being very different from Elven weapons, and so on. Low level stuff will be for sale, much like standard craft goods, and crafters don't have to be casters to make many of their items. This will, overall, add more flavor to the game, and more realism.
Motivation - I would like characters to really give a shit about their homeland, and its destruction. From the way this is shaping up, I feel that will provide an excellent backdrop, and a very realistic way of showing the differences between good/evil chars without actually resorting to lame megalomaniacal antics on the part of the bad guys. Vengeance, harsh punishment, and doing whatever it takes to get the people that wronged you and destroyed what you loved, vs. the character that isn't willing to sacrifice others to make things happen. Evil characters that are willing to spit in the eye of evil gods and other creatures that might otherwise be allies, simply b/c they're pissed off. Good characters tempted to do very naughty things to the people that casually destroyed their people. These things make good stories. Please take this sort of feel into consideration.
Skills - We are definitely using the pathfinder skill list. It is very similar to the one I was going to use anyway, and is nice and simple. It also has a much easier way of tracking class skills, and since people are limited to two classes the overlap won't be as big a deal.
Classes - After thinking about it, I doubt I'll use any of the pathfinder classes. They're just a bit much honestly, though I might use a few to provide decent npc's and enemies on occasion.
Crafting - Not within the scope of this post, but I have made some significant alterations to crafting and magic item availability. Items will be grouped into certain categories, with things like Dwarven weapons being very different from Elven weapons, and so on. Low level stuff will be for sale, much like standard craft goods, and crafters don't have to be casters to make many of their items. This will, overall, add more flavor to the game, and more realism.
Threading the Gerbil since 1982
So, after playing pathfinder and liking it quite a bit, I have a question for people:
Is it balanced to allow people to play the pathfinder classes as part of this gestalt model, perhaps making them choose between either the old version+mods (sub levels, etc.), or the pathfinder version with no mods allowed?
I really like the changes to the way the sorcerer/barbarian/ranger/bard look. Monk is a bit more streamlined, and even cleric ends up more flavorful. Wizard is functionally the same, considering you can take most of that stuff as sub levels anyway.
Not sure. I feel like in some cases it would enhance the game, but in others it would be problematic. I know that we discussed it briefly when we first looked at the book, but playing it is making me wonder now.
I'd like to hear what you guys think.
Is it balanced to allow people to play the pathfinder classes as part of this gestalt model, perhaps making them choose between either the old version+mods (sub levels, etc.), or the pathfinder version with no mods allowed?
I really like the changes to the way the sorcerer/barbarian/ranger/bard look. Monk is a bit more streamlined, and even cleric ends up more flavorful. Wizard is functionally the same, considering you can take most of that stuff as sub levels anyway.
Not sure. I feel like in some cases it would enhance the game, but in others it would be problematic. I know that we discussed it briefly when we first looked at the book, but playing it is making me wonder now.
I'd like to hear what you guys think.
Threading the Gerbil since 1982
Being that I'm currently looking at Cleric/Monk, I'll be one of, if not the only, person taking both classes from the corebook. Despite the nerfs to cleric, I would be in favor of using Pathfinder for both.
I'd only be losing a few things for this trade in the way of alternate class features, mostly spontaneous restoration spells, a few spells levels, and a healing pool on the Cleric side and Wall Walker on the monk side. On the flip side, the character gains a few domain powers (though I'd like to negotiate as to which domains Yondalla espouses - I think we can come up with a solid shortlist of 5 or so from the ones in the book), energy channeling (actually better than healing pool), and most of the other class features I was looking at for monk, along with increased flexibility in how monk powers are used (via the Ki pool). Because of the wording changes for flurry of blows and the way monk bonus feats are set up, it also frees up a number of feat slots for me which I could turn around to invest back into other more castery-things (since the monk feats should pretty much cover my combat needs). I find it generally a favorable trade off.
I'd only be losing a few things for this trade in the way of alternate class features, mostly spontaneous restoration spells, a few spells levels, and a healing pool on the Cleric side and Wall Walker on the monk side. On the flip side, the character gains a few domain powers (though I'd like to negotiate as to which domains Yondalla espouses - I think we can come up with a solid shortlist of 5 or so from the ones in the book), energy channeling (actually better than healing pool), and most of the other class features I was looking at for monk, along with increased flexibility in how monk powers are used (via the Ki pool). Because of the wording changes for flurry of blows and the way monk bonus feats are set up, it also frees up a number of feat slots for me which I could turn around to invest back into other more castery-things (since the monk feats should pretty much cover my combat needs). I find it generally a favorable trade off.
interesting. We are allowed to use books from 3.5 in conjunction with pathfinder. I will have to work harder than I imagined to begin with. =)
The first thing I thought of was Pathfinder class merge between Paladin / Bard.
I am not sure I like the "Lawful Good" that comes along with the Paladin however.
How would you feel about a Chaotic Good Paladin? In the event this could be arranged I may consider this combination more seriously. Not a big deal though. My personal philosophy will not instigate a conflict before the first session as far as my will is concerned. =)
More on that later.
Work on guys.
The first thing I thought of was Pathfinder class merge between Paladin / Bard.
I am not sure I like the "Lawful Good" that comes along with the Paladin however.
How would you feel about a Chaotic Good Paladin? In the event this could be arranged I may consider this combination more seriously. Not a big deal though. My personal philosophy will not instigate a conflict before the first session as far as my will is concerned. =)
More on that later.
Work on guys.
Such a variant is doable. We would need to look at tweaking some of the class abilities however.
And there are some add-ons that make palabards especially good, such as the ability to make all paladin spells swift actions, or the ability to increase the duration of bardic songs, making you a highly efficient buffer and party support character.
And there are some add-ons that make palabards especially good, such as the ability to make all paladin spells swift actions, or the ability to increase the duration of bardic songs, making you a highly efficient buffer and party support character.
Threading the Gerbil since 1982