Back into the swing of things

So it has been quite a while since I've updated this blog on the regular. Real life seemed to take over everything for the past year or so making it very difficult to even play games, let alone find time to write on this random little exercise that I had started.

In the past year my life has changed significantly. I am now divorced and dating very seriously a wonderful woman who has integrated her life with my own following the split my ex-wife and I had. She's and her son have joined with myself and my two kiddos. It has been a grand adventure for us all.

My children are either uninterested or too young at the moment to enjoy gaming, but her son is very interested. So whenever my two kids are off at their mother's the remaining three of us sit around and do some geeky activities. Mostly it has been enjoying video games or a geeky movie, but last week I introduced her and her son to Dungeons and Dragons.

This has helped to make me feel inspired as life begins to settle back into place after a year of hell. I have things to write about again, some things to finish, and some things to start). It's time to continue back on the path I set upon when I started this blog. Soon this blog will again be filled with my insane rantings and ravings and minor gripes about systems and such while also relaying the stories and adventures of my family and friends as we go into this rabbit hole.

The Plague Campaign

A discussion on a Facebook group about Plague Campaigns piqued my interest. In it there were people talking about how they’ve run plague campaigns and the usual discussions of how societ will break down and blah blah blah. I gave my typical opinion and viewpoint where I don’t believe that a magical society really has to worry about these types of things because Magic and centuries of curative spell items and so on and so forth. Numbers were thrown around, references were made, and a grand debate was had. It was a wonderful discussion. It also inspired me to have another spark of an idea for a campaign that will likely never see the light of day. I also have an Pathfinder Adventure Path to look into called “Curse of the Crimson Throne”, specifically the 2nd book because it apparently breaks down the numbers in a very meaningful way. (Something like a city of 18000 people might have between 12-20 Clerics capable of casting Remove Disease at a time and maybe 180 Divine casters total)

The idea has to exist in a high-fantasy world like the Generic DnD/Pathfinder world. The specifics don’t matter much, but it must be a D20 based system for this to work. The society is a properly outfitted and prepared society where magic exists quite as clearly as science exists to us. This is because humans act like humans and recognize useful tools, even if they don’t fully understand the tools they’re using they will continue to use them and find new ways to improve their lot in life. In my opinion this means that humans will do everything they can to ensure that they can do the best they can to prevent bad things from happening (more or less). In this case it means that someone will use magic to prevent plagues from breaking out.

Imagine if you will a world where magic is real and there is a deity along the lines of DnD 3.X’s Pelor who is dedicated to healing people and preventing outbreaks of disease. The god grants people very real and very measurable amounts of his own power that his faithful can directly use to influence the world. They can fashion magic wands, rings, potions, scrolls, and various other implements that have the ability to help stave off diseases, bolster people’s immune responses, or just remove the disease entirely. They can create wondrous magical fountains that could be capable of performing these deeds for them too and provide it to those who come to their temple. This is in addition to other magics they’ll have at their disposal, like scrying magic that would allow them to detect where a disease is about to strike, or detect who is infected and who isn’t.

Some people countered my thoughts on those with “these are higher level clerics that would have to do this” “there’s no way there’s enough of them to do that” “why would they waste their time, money and spiritual energy (read: xp) on those things”. Which are legitimate points if you’re talking about people thinking rationally about their own benefits; not a millennia old religious order dedicated to the prevention and curing of disease. You look at real world example where our religious leaders aren’t able to coat themselves in glowing magical armor by reciting a prayer and what real humans sacrifice for their religions based upon faith alone. We argue about the existence of deities because we don’t see real, measurable results like “Remove Disease” “Call Lightning” or “Animate Dead”. Imagine what people in the real world would do if their god rewarded their faith with access to a couple 0-level spells. Hell, Jesus displayed abilities equivalent to an 8th or 9th level cleric in a 3.X setting and we proclaim him to be the son of God imagine the world if your region’s Catholic clergymen could perform that stuff on a daily basis.

My point is, that when I look at a potential for a plague campaign there has to be more wrong than there just being a plague that exists. Religions like those dedicated to Pelor would have stockpiles of items with Spell-Trigger completion (that would allow lower level casters to use a spell like Remove Disease) while constantly making a new supply, active plans for dealing with outbreaks, Scryers and Healers working around the clock watching for plague, permanent magical artifacts at their temples that provided some type of healing or disease resistance, monthly cleansing rituals at the temple, and countless other measures that we might not be able to comprehend because we live in the real world. In order for a disease to cause a plague or have a major outbreak would require something different to happen with the disease.

If a disease is to cause an outbreak it either needs to be unusually virulent (Bubonic Plague is “only” a DC17, easily within the power of a low-level caster to help out with), magical in nature (very possible because microbial evolution is a thing. Just think about MRSA and other treatment resistant diseases), or allowed to spread in some way by nefarious people for nefarious purposes.

And now that this groundwork is established, here’s where things get interesting. The campaign idea starts with the PCs being members of one such religious order. They are tasked with taking care of a potential outbreak of some disease. They are sent off by their order into a district quarantined per their standard rules, but something is wrong. Maybe the disease is spreading in an abnormal pattern, or its resists all magical treatment, or maybe something is actively trying to stop them from curing the sick. Eventually the disease will have to escape from the confines of the quarantine and maybe something else is discovered about the situation. Maybe the order’s stockpile of Remove Disease Wands was stolen, broken, or disenchanted. Their magical fountain may have been smashed. Maybe their god disapproves of the city and is damning it for its sins. Is it the work of a doomsday cult? A lich? A mutated bacterial infection that has gained hive-mind sentience? SO MANY OPTIONS!!!

The PCs don’t even have to be just Clerics and Paladins either. Churches have use for all kinds of people with a variety of skills. Maybe a nun used to be a rogue in her pre-convent life. The paladins may be supplemented by regular Fighters and Knights. Oracles and Bards could be there performing their normal functions. Alchemists could Easily supplement the healing supplies. The trips out to cure diseases and help the down trodden could easily be construed as pilgrimages and evangelizing. What better way to convert people than by performing good deeds and curing people of The Plague and promising them further protection by attending your sermons?

For the first time ever I think I actually would want to play a Cleric…

PS: Upon further reading it appears that the spell Remove Disease grants no future immunity to a disease. So if you catch a virus it appears that Remove Disease will cure you but doesn’t allow your body to produce anti-bodies against future exposure to the disease. Interesting but useless trivia!

Starting a What!?!

So I had an awful bit of inspiration the other day. I want to create and publish a true tabletop campaign setting for commercial sale. I have been doing research into how I can do this on the cheap and think I have a pretty good grasp of the budget for such a thing. How that money is going to be raised is a different issue that will be worked out later when we have a product to work with. For now though I want to concentrate on producing the setting.

The first thing to go through my head was that I immediately need to involve Clint, the DM for the Pathfinder Campaign I’m playing in, because he and I have been talking about designing a campaign setting together anyways. We have similar design philosophies when it comes to mechanics and settings and have been bouncing ideas back and forth between each other for various RPG related topics for a while now. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to collaborate on a project with him and give us both a chance to take a step into the industry we both love.

Right now we’re working on figuring out what type of setting we want to create. We both have campaign settings already created that could be published, but I want to create something new with him from the ground up. If we can’t come up with any ideas we will probably flesh out and publish one of our existing settings first. In the meantime I’m going to type out some of my brainstorming and the thought process behind the creation of a setting that I go through when I create something like this.

Normally I’m inspired by something I watch, read, or see and then write down that idea in a margin, notebook, or the back of a piece of paper and come back to it later when I have enough ideas to flesh it out. This is different than normal though. Now I need to do something that will force some inspiration. I’ve been looking at legends, watching some movies, and delving into Wikipedia over the past few days searching for inspiration and I’ve had a few things pop up.

First and foremost though I need to decide what type of unique things will make up this world and what potential systems we will use to create it. This has to be a commercially viable product so we need a hook and we need to apply it to a popular system. I think the best system to use will be Pathfinder. It is popular in the community, we can use the Open Gaming License to link our book to it, and we are both pretty familiar with the system at this point. Clint and I have some issues with the system that we’ve discussed at length before, so we will probably want to alter the system a little to fit our own tastes, maybe a couple of simple, custom systems that are potentially appealing to other people.

Clint and I are also fans of firearms in fantasy settings, magic systems that have built in catastrophic failure systems, and unique/different races. So I’m pretty sure we’ll end up with some type of firearms and a magic system along the lines of each of our magic failure systems from our individual campaign settings (both of which are using a variation of the Taint mechanic). The unique/different races thing will be hashed out more when we’re closer to defining the actual setting itself I think.

So starting from the ground up…

Any world I build I start with a grittier, low magic setting. Typically I think of an Everway style setting. Magic exists, and you might see it in use every day, but it isn’t (always) world shattering stuff and everything comes with a price or potential for failure. So we’ll start off with that type of assumption. We can discuss the potential existence of deities, dragons, and odd-ball races later.

The night I sprung this on Clint the wife and I were watching a Jimmy Stewart movie from the 60’s called Shenandoah. Great movie, depressing as hell, but still great. It’s about a family from Virginia that gets dragged into the Civil War against its will and gets screwed over by both sides and other people. It’s a good look into some of the issues of the day. This immediately inspired me. A good setting should always have some type of brewing or active conflict. It gives you a lot of things to work with. Just like the civil war, there’s got to be a lot going on under the surface so that no side is clearly good or evil.

There was a lot of things going on during the American civil war other than slavery (which despite the arguments to the contrary, it really was mostly about slavery even though the South tried to dress it up as more than that). Both sides in the conflict weren’t doing good things and weren’t necessarily fighting for the right reasons. I won’t get into the specifics here, but both sides were doing bad things and both also had good things. It is a very complex situation and both sides are shades of grey. Sounds like the perfect thing for me to use.

So a big civil war type situation is all well and good, but it needs more. Obviously it requires two sides of a larger and stronger nation. What else can I add though to make it more than just an analogue for exploring the issues of the civil war? Obviously more drama is always a good answer. What if we expand it? What if this civil war is fall out from the collapse of what used to be a larger empire? Like, say the Roman Empire or the United States collapsing into 3 or more chunks. Maybe this former empire broke up into 3 major chunks and a few smaller minor kingdoms/city-states.

What if two of these major chunks didn’t agree on whether or not they were one or two nations? One remnant claims that this other one is part of it and demands taxes, conscripts, and resources while the other claims it is independent. The third chunk is remaining entirely neutral in the matter. To make matters worse, this empire used to be a stabilizing influence across the entire continent and with their collapse and being on the brink of war with itself it has freed up the other powers of the continent to do what they want. Maybe this empire was more of a bully than police, maybe a meaner Roman Empire.

Maybe there’s an “evil” nation starting to amass their own armies to attempt conquests upon their neighbors. Oh, there could be an extremely well-defended city-state somewhere that is considered a Freeport type city with massive monetary influence. Kind of like a Singapore or Tortuga. (I really like these Freeport city ideas for some reason, that might be my politics influencing me.). [after popping in Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust] OH! Dhampier are awesome. Maybe we can use them somewhere, like that “evil” nation!

Wikipedia led me to pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures… again… the thought of a Mesoamerican style culture with sacrifices and elaborate ceremonies is always a fun thing to contemplate being an influence upon a Western European style culture.

A viewing of Howl’s Moving Castle made me think about an idea I had long ago for an Arcanatech style setting and a class that a navy buddy of mine helped me design (the Articifer, a base class that was all about making constructs and magic items. Mostly constructs). Might not fit with the low magic/magic with consequences though.

What types of traditional fantasy tropes exist here? What types of ancient secrets are around? Potentials for dungeon crawls? Can we develop an item creation system outside of the normal magic item system, maybe with alchemy, unusual materials and superior craftsmanship instead? What type of geographic landscape are we looking at here? How many traditional races are there and where do they live?

What I’d like to see is about 80-95% human coverage of the continent with the rest split up between the rest of the races, whatever they are. I hate elves so can we make them real jerk-offs? I’d like to see them as xenophobic, racist assholes. It just seems appropriate.

Maybe there’s a place where there’s just a cubic ass-ton of minor kingdoms and city-states that are constantly at war with each other. This could be a great place for a Kingmaker style game to take place. Maybe there are some vast swaths of unclaimed territory on the continent, at least not claimed by any of the important nations. This could be where the remains of a great and ancient magical empire was and the landscape is dotted with magical beast/mutants and ruins that are extremely dangerous to go after. Especially when there are easier ways to make your fortune in the constantly brewing conflicts elsewhere.

There is of course that Mercenary setting that Clint had me help him out with. That was neat. It could be adapted to its own setting outside of Hekinoe but that is pretty well established.

Hmmm… That’s a pretty good list of random things to work with so far. Maybe after I read Clint’s ideas (and he reads these) we’ll be able to hash some more out and start laying down the foundation.

I have no class, and I like it.

A thread on a Facebook group caught my attention, and one comment in particular got me a little riled up. The subject was on how you prefer your character creation system. Do you prefer Iconic Classes, Homebrew Rules, or Classless systems (e.g. GURPS)? Good question and a neat thing to think about and see what other people say just to get a peek at the way other people think.

I of course mention that I prefer systems that don’t use classes and that I feel that Iconic Classes (and classes in general) restrict the player unnecessarily when crafting their characters. That got a few likes from like-minded individuals and it was all pretty benign discussion until one person decided to disagree with my statement. Now, I’m all for disagreement, but when you don’t address me directly and say something that’s philosophically incorrect it bothers me in a pet peeve kind of way.

Anyways, the response was directly regarding what I said with an underhanded insult. Basically he said Iconic Classes are only limiting if you lacked imagination. It got a little bit nastier as it went on. There were accusations of requiring Labels and Mechanics in order to be able to design a character. Some type of implication that the only way to interact with the world is through dice rolls. I’m sorry for being the butt hurt guy going to my blog with this but, WHAT!?!

Seriously, that’s insane and doesn’t make sense. A character class automatically is a restriction on your imagination. It is designed to give you certain gameplay bonuses based on a set role. A fighter is a weapons master, typically refining their ability to use a single type of weapon to the point of insane mastery. A Wizard studies spell books and is able to cast spells. A Rogue sneaks about, does precision damage, and is an extremely skill-based character.

In a game like Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder you select a class to be granted a set of bonuses, abilities, and powers related to your specialties that give you bonuses based upon particular rules situations. When you create a character you must funnel their personality and backgrounds through the filter of how it brought them to whom they are when you start playing. Their abilities are restricted to whatever the class says they are unless you’re allowed to multiclass. Even then you are still going to see restrictions on what you can or cannot do based upon what classes and archetypes are available to you.

I am very strongly in favor of a system that isn’t based on classes and allows complete creative control of the design of PCs. It might be because I grew up playing Everway and how spoiled I was playing such a simple and liberating system. You don’t realize how spoiled you are until you try to design your first character in a class based game with a non-class based mindset. This was something I struggled with for years. I never could get it quite right.

Take a character like Shem the Forsaken. Shem is a fallen paladin. Not a Blackguard, a fallen paladin. His story was that his knighthood and powers were stripped from him by his order because he tried to protect non-believers and violated the orders of his superiors doing so. He married one of them and was living a simple life with the people he saved until some new evil-infused power raided his town. He fought as bravely as he could, but he didn’t have his old powers and was eventually overwhelmed. Most of the people in his town were captured or killed while he was unconscious and left for dead. He awakens to see the evil god that was the nemesis of his order’s god before him offering him power to go forth and find and rescue his wife and his people. He was given a magic sword, some magic, and “shadow creatures” that would help him on his quest. The shadow creatures were things coming from his own shadow that mostly only he could see that would make strange noises and would tempt him down the darker path at every opportunity. He doesn’t want to be lead down these paths of evil and tries his best to resist, but the more he uses the powers, the more he is tempted and converted.

Shem is a character that doesn’t fit anything in the DnD/PF system. The closest thing available is Pathfinder’s Anti-Paladin who shares a couple of the proper powers. Unfortunately, as always, the requirements to be an anti-paladin are pretty restrictive. The requirement of being forced to perform evil deeds and embracing evil to its fullest just doesn’t sit right with me. I’d have to alter the concept more towards the embracing of evil rather than the attempt to only use it when necessary to prevent corruption for as long as possible.

Meanwhile in a game like Fate or Everway all I need to do is generate these powers using the rules with the DMs help designing and we’re good to go. I get exactly the narrative and mechanical items that I as a player want and we create a character that will be beholden to his high concept as a reluctant agent of evil who is trying to do the right thing. We have a man walking the path to damnation while trying to redeem himself and repent for his decision, but only attempting to drop the mantle when his quest is complete. If you attempted to do this in DnD/PF you’d be having far more difficult time playing this character in an RP heavy game.

Essentially all I’m saying is that I like it when I have no class.

The World's Largest Dungeon, Part 2

So it turns out that the internet has plenty of conversations already about The World’s Largest Dungeon (TWLD) being converted into Pathfinder.

Most of it requires nothing more than just running it as written or using the Pathfinder version of a critter. Combat Maneuver Bonus and Combat Maneuver Defense can generally be estimated and is really the only important difference between the 3.0 and the PF versions most of the time anyways. Anything that has PC class levels though will need some conversion, but those aren’t all that much to worry about, other than some possible spell selections being altered.

Overall my biggest difficulty is going to be using Roll20.net to run this. It is a wonderful program for the price that it is (free), but I haven’t directly messed around with it to map out something this intensive. I don’t know if my initial concept of just loading the map files I have is going to work. I may have to individually build each room as its own encounter map.

That’s a totally legitimate solution and everything, but it’s a lot of work. There are 800+ pages in this book and most have 2-5 rooms a piece on them. It can get confusing and painful very quickly if I act like my normal lazy self. I’ll ask to potential Co-DMs if they wouldn’t mind helping out with it. That might make it tolerable.

The next thing to worry about is how to handle the building of characters and the drop-in drop-out nature of this game that’s taking place in a dungeon that’s meant to be a one-way trip to the exit with all your supplies gathered from inside. If the players are different from session to session, how are you supposed to be keeping track of things like Power Points or Spells per day between each section? How do you justify new PCs suddenly coming in with fresh supplies when the party may not have anything customizable available?

These are the some of the questions I really need to figure out answers to. It has the potential to throw off the balance of the game.

I think the best way to handle the swapping players will be to end each session with a full night’s rest for the party in a guaranteed “safe room” so that each session we start off with freshly rested characters. This way we can swap out characters and no one is at a major disadvantage. The supplies thing might be an issue though. I might have to just say that there’s an interdimensional immortal merchant that can offer most of the basic supplies as found in the Core Rulebook between sessions. I’ve got to read through some more to see where there are other merchants available throughout to see if this is potentially game breaking. (Maybe we can justify getting some items by “finding previous adventurer parties’ remains” after or during a session.)

Now, as for what PCs are available. That’s going to be a tougher question. I think sticking with a Point Buy system for stats is the fairest way to do that portion. Races would best be your standard races, maybe a few of the +0 monstrous humanoids/templates. Maybe a few ECL type characters. Everything must be approved though. Starting gold will be the class maximum or appropriate starting wealth when making a higher level character. HP will either be rolled or max, probably max. This dungeon was not designed with gunplay in mind so I think having Gunslinger classes in there might be inappropriate. There may be an allowance for it though in a very limited capacity with very simple firearms and a good build. Other than that potential Gunslinger issue, I’m thinking everything is fair game.

There is a thing about long distance/interplanar travel and summoning in TWLD though. Officially it is designed as a prison for celestial critters and prevents anything from escaping it except through the single exit. So because of this prison status the dungeon doesn’t function well with spells or abilities that call upon extra-planar creatures and abilities. This means that Summoners and Summoning spells might not work right, or that the creatures aren’t banished at the end of spell duration or the summoner loses control of them afterwards. I don’t think that works for casual atmosphere that I’m trying to encourage though. So maybe we’ll not deal with that concept unless someone really wants to be designing someone that would test the limits of TWLD.

I’m not sure how harsh I want to be with carrying capacity because I’m not a fan of it, but in a hardcore, save or die, style adventure it seems like a bad idea to just hand wave it away. So it means we probably will have to give a rat’s ass about it just to be practical and fair.

Now, magic items, rewards and such are going to require more research and an answer to the immortal merchant question.

I think that’s a good start. We’ll see if this one goes anywhere…

The World's Largest Dungeon

Upon finding out that the maps for The World’s Largest Dungeon are available online for free I just about made a mess in my pants.

For about 9 years I’ve had a copy of the book The World’s Largest Dungeon (TWLD). It is a supplement by AEG for Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition. When released it was a $100 book with over 800 pages, 16 full color poster sized maps, and it even came with a couple miniatures from Reaper. The thing is a work of art. It is designed with the express purpose of taking up to 2 years real time to get through from start to finish. During one of the many moves I had while in the navy, all of the maps for this book were lost and I was really upset about it. It has sat on my shelves waiting for me to find a use for it ever since. At least until now.

The book also claims that it uses “every monster” in the 3.0 Monster Manual. Which is partially true, it doesn’t use regular animals and it doesn’t use every single version of things. For example they use a single Sphinx in the entire dungeon and you will never see the other two types. There are also a lot of things that have odd templates added to them as well. I haven’t read all of it over the years because I want to keep it a surprise, but from what I hear they are at least interesting.

The whole concept for it is really neat too. The Dungeon that the PCs wander into is essentially a completely sealed prison for celestial beings forgotten for an untold number of millennia. It is filled with some of the most dangerous creatures in the game and has been reshaped from its original design by countless beings and natural disasters. The dungeon is designed to take a single party on a one way journey (because the entrance is a one way wall of force and the entire thing is sealed against interdimensional transportation) starting at level 1 and taking you to level 20 at the end.

It is rough, difficult, and unforgiving. This thing is one of the most brutal endurance tests of the gaming world. Oh how I wish I could play this. I haven’t met many gamers who haven’t wanted to take a crack at it. It is a challenge that we all have wanted to take on at some point just for the bragging rights. No one ever does though because of how big of a commitment it is. Plus, outside of my high school gaming group, I don’t think I’ve ever had a gaming group that I’ve had 2 or more continuous years with gaming on a nearly weekly basis. I think the group we had on board the boat is the second closest and we were getting interrupted by that whole “deployment” thing every once in a while.

As much as I love the campaign I’m currently playing in it just happens far too infrequently due to a variety of real life factors to satisfy my relapsed addiction to tabletop gaming. I also want to practice my GM skills to hone my very dull instincts. Then there’s also the want to try out many different and bizarre character builds that have been running around my head for a while. I also want an excuse to be gaming more often; enjoying the great nerdy gathering that is a game night. Mostly I just want the company of fellow nerds on a regular basis, oh how I miss it.

So, as much as I’d like to run TWLD I know I can’t realistically get a dedicated and enjoyable group together to run it. Not without making the game flexible. Plus there will always be the inevitable GM burnout that can kill a game as well. If I were to run this I would need to have a rotating GM, a flexible player base, and a regularly scheduled session with casual requirements for who is playing and who isn’t.

While thinking about those requirements I remembered something I had thought of back when I first picked up the book. It could be run in an X-Crawl campaign. Then an idea started forming in my head. If this was used in an X-Crawl style tournament or marathon, then we could just do it in a completely casual and semi-goofy style. Maybe X-Crawl isn’t necessary, but it gives us a viable story-like reason to justify it. Basically I just want to run a 4thcore style gaming group every couple of weeks using TWLD as the primary module.

I want to play some good old fashioned dungeon crawls with no real storyline and/or run some classic modules in addition to using the world’s largest dungeon. I want some min-maxed powergaming with a flexible group of people who are there to kill some monsters and take their stuff.

I guess X-Crawl isn’t needed in all reality. We can just do some hardcore dungeon crawling on a virtual tabletop in non-sequitur dungeons while enjoying silly game mechanics. I think I might explore this concept a little bit more.

More on this later. I've got some numbers to run and things to look up. There might be some conversion issues because of 3.0 vs Pathfinder, but I doubt that it's much of an issue.

Fate in Pathfinder and 3.5

A thought occurred to me the other day while debating other gamers on Facebook about alignment systems and how I feel about them. Which of course, as you should all know by now, I really don’t like them because of how restricting and personality stunting they tend to be. My preferred systems tend to use personality traits of some type or another that reward role play with mechanic based rewards.

 

In Whitewolf’s old World of Darkness games this would be Nature and Demeanor, with acting out your Nature giving your character back extremely important Willpower points. In Fate, you have your character’s Aspects; High concept, Trouble and three Aspects. Having your aspects compelled gains you fate points you can use to enhance your rolls in some way shape or form related to your Aspects. It is one of the nicest and smoothest systems for encouraging roleplaying I’ve seen in a system and have been dying to use it for real.

 

Bringing up the topic of Fate’s aspects made me pause for a second though when I was debating the merits of alignment. Why couldn’t you put the Aspects and Fate points into DnD style games in place of the 2-axis alignment system?

 

You might be able to put the whole set of 5 Aspects (High concept, Trouble, and 3 “Other”) on each D20 character and make it work. Compels and Invocations could still work the same too. The only real questions that come up are related to the mechanical effects of Fate points in a D20 setting and the removal of alignment from a D20 setting. Those two concerns are not little. Both of those things are capable of completely breaking the mechanics of the game. I’ve talked about my problems with alignment before (maybe not on this blog, but I’ve had the discussion before!) and I think I can deal with the issues of removing it fairly well, but the Fate point question is a new one to deal with and is going to require some speculation and thought.

 

The removal of alignments is pretty straight forward. Overall I remove the descriptors of Law, Chaos, Evil, and Good from many different abilities, spells, and class features. In cases of spells like “Detect Evil” it becomes a spell that detects intent and/or actions and not just a general aura of “this dude is just totally reeking of Evil” to make it a more strategic spell to use. Any type of damage related abilities (e.g. Smite Evil, or Damage Reduction 5/Good) is replaced with either a generic “magic” descriptor or some specific type of damage modifier (Silver, Fire, etc). Good and Evil are actions, not elements. Holy and Dark can replace Good and Evil as energy types, but they aren’t inherently Good or Evil. Some spells like the Protection spells just get combined and turned into a generic spell that just does what it does in general and doesn’t care about specific types of enemies or their alignments.

 

Like I said, eliminating the 2-axis alignment is easy. Now for the hard part.

 

The creation of aspects is easy enough to put into D20 systems. You just use the same exact rules. Easy, simple, clean. The rules for that stuff are basically universal and could be applied anywhere since it is all really just about creating a character and defining their personality quirks and motivations.

 

Where it gets difficult is when you get into the mechanics of it all. Fate points and the Fate point economy are very different from most anything in standard D20 settings. Mechanically the Fate point grants a +2 bonus, a reroll, and a handful of other mechanic specific things unique to the Fate system that are only able to be utilized by invoking an Aspect on something. A +2 bonus isn’t very useful most of the time. It is really only improving your odds on a D20 by 10% and is only a minor boost to any damage roll. Very different from the significant increase that it grants you in Fate. The reroll is a useful tool and could be wonderful to use. The creation of a scene aspect is something that translates decently too. Maybe it’s time to look at some of the things available in the D20 system that might be similar.

 

In Unearthed Arcana you find Action points. Action Points are a rather similar thing that have also made an appearance in settings like Ebberon. A character, according to Unearthed Arcana, gains 5 action points at first level or 5 + ½ character level for characters starting at higher than level 1. The characters gain 5 + ½ Character level (rounded down) every time they level. Leveling is the only way (per Unearthed Arcana at least) is the only way to obtain more Action Points. Action points can be used to give a bonus on a D20 roll (+1D6 lvl 1-7, +2D6 lvl 8-14, +3D6 lvl 15-20, taking only the highest number rolled when rolling multiple dice), use a class ability an additional time per day, double their AC bonus for fighting defensively (goes from a +4 to a +8 Dodge bonus to AC normally, +6 to a +12 with 5 ranks in tumble), Emulate a Feat that they qualify for but may not have, gain an extra attack during a full attack action at their highest attack bonus, boost their effective caster level by 2 for a spell, recall a spell just cast, stabilize if they’re in negative HP, and enhance various feats that already exist (e.g. Applying metamagic feats on the fly, bonuses to power attack or combat expertise).

 

These action points sound like they’re a good place to start. I’m going to check Pathfinder’s rules for something similar though first to make sure that these are the best they can be.

 

Well, so a check with Pathfinder reveals them using Hero Points. Each character starts off with 1 Hero point and only gaining one every level (or with DM rewarding them for milestones and such, there’s a long list to give you ideas). Each character is only allowed a maximum of 3 Hero points at any one time. These points can be used for the following types of things: Act out of turn to perform a Move or Standard action, Bonus to any D20 roll (+8 Luck for prior to the roll, or a +4 after the roll. Can be used on another character for half the bonus), Extra Move or Standard action on your turn, Petition the GM for a hint, Recall a spell or daily ability use, Reroll any D20 roll, Special things not normally possible (like a fighter casting a first level spell, blind a foe with a normal attack, bypass damage reduction entirely, all of which should typically require a skill/attack roll), Cheat death (if your character would be killed you are instead left with negative HP and are Stable. This requires 2 Hero Points).

 

Well, they have some similar themes. That’s for sure. They also have a limitation of only allowing a single point to be used in a turn (the exception being the Cheating Death option). Maybe a combination of the two would be best since neither seems quite right for the intent and spirit of Fate points.

 

So obviously the amount of starting points is an important thing to establish. Starting Fate points are normally determined by your character’s Refresh rating. This isn’t possible to use since there is no refresh rating in the D20 system. Unearthed Arcana’s Action point starting number is way too high. It ruins the Fate point economy right out of the gate. Why compel an aspect if you have plenty of points on hand? So I think the 1 point of the Pathfinder Hero points system wins out.

 

Next up is how you earn them. I will continue with the 1 point free per level theme of the Hero points system here. It’s quite a logical extension of the system already established in the previous paragraph. Now as for other ways to gain points, we look to the normal way Fate points are earned. Here we use the normal rules for driving the Fate point economy. Compels give the PCs points to use while Invoking or placing aspects spends them. The hard limit set on Hero points of no more than 3 at a time is meant to limit the potential for abuse by players. Now that the points are being used via the Aspect system that means that there are other limitations on their use and the need to have a hard limit like that is unnecessary now. So we’ll remove that from the rules.

 

The uses of these points will be a little bit more difficult.

 

First you have to invoke you aspects. When you Invoke in Fate you have to show a good reason why it makes sense for this aspect to be used in the situation and context you are using it in. In Fate spending a point lets you do things like adding static bonuses to a roll for yourself or another PC, allowing a reroll on any of your rolls, or adding bonuses to the passive defense of something. Obviously these mechanics don’t translate well so I think just allowing a combination of both systems (Unearthed Arcana and Pathfinder) is the way to go. So I think a proper list of actions should be as follows:

 

-Give a Luck bonus of +8 to any D20 roll, or +4 to another player’s roll (if the aspect invocation is appropriate)

                -I’ve eliminated the penalty for before or after because of that’s the spirit of the Fate point rules

-Reroll any one D20 roll, taking the second result no matter what

-Recall a spell or gain 1 additional use of an ability/power

-Gain an extra Standard or Move Action (if the Standard action is an attack it is at your highest Attack Bonus)

-Act out of order, acts like a readied action. May only use a Move action or a Standard Action

-Cheat Death, does not require the invocation of an aspect. As above, spend 2 points and you survive a blow that should have killed the character with negative HP, unconscious, and in stabilized condition. This will force the character to have to take a new Aspect similar to a (Severe Consequence or Extreme Consequence, can’t decide yet) that is entirely a negative and is in keeping with the theme of the blow delivered to them. The recovery will require something similar to the recovery rules in Fate and will impose a new aspect on you until you are fully recovered from the blow.

-Boost your effective caster level by 2 levels

-Use a feat you don’t have but qualify for, or enhance one you already have

-Perform an action that is “impossible” (casting a spell as a pure Fighter, bypassing damage reduction, etc). This action should have a a skill check or an attack roll associated with it at an appropriate difficulty.

 

I will also replace the 1 point per turn limit with a rule requiring the invocation of multiple aspects, and the limit of only being able to invoke each aspect once per turn. Obviously Compels work the same way they always do. You gain a Fate point for accepting a Compel and can refuse one by spending a Fate point.

 

By adding in Fate points to the mix you might be able to add additional uses for your various skills in D20 settings. You could potentially use them to create advantages and Tags, or use them to allow the players to add a free-invocation aspect to a scene. The possibilities are really limitless and could really enhance the game. Obviously there are plenty of tweaks that can be made here and these are only the baselines I’m looking at for how I would implement these. I’d love to hear someone else’s thoughts on this.

 

(Hmmmm… what about the consequences rules being used as bonus HP…)

Tony Stark, Master Articifer

So some buddies of mine have been doing a series of blog posts about translating the Avengers into Pathfinder characters. Nothing super specific, just the high concept and general path they’d take with the build. It’s a fun little exercise and pretty entertaining to read their counter points. (You can read those here.)

This week they did Ironman. I read both of their descriptions and disagreed heavily with both of them. That tends to happen when I see someone playing around with the high concepts of one of my favorite characters though. The first one made him into a power/steam armor Fighter, while the second made him into an Alchemist. The Alchemist build is closer to what I would consider to be a more accurate build, but it is still very far off from what I would consider to be Tony Stark. The Steam Armor Fighter build I’d think would be more accurate for Warmachine or one of Tony’s enemies, but not Stark himself.

That is what both of these are missing. The Alchemist build gets some of it right, but falls short of what you’d expect from Tony Stark. His strengths are not in his combat abilities, they are in his ingenuity, creativity, and intelligence. Take away his suit and he’ll just build a better one. He learned science while following in his father’s footsteps creating some of the most advanced technology in the Marvel Universe, and I mean he personally helped design and create this stuff. There is a very clear path to take here and that is a crafting Wizard.

Now as I go through this build you need to understand how I’m going about this. I am not trying to build an actual playable version of him, just trying to design him as he should be in keeping with his character themes, concepts and abilities. I am going to assume that he his funding is unlimited and I might downplay some aspects that are common characteristics of Superheroes because they don’t follow character creation rules.

So first we are going to start with his race and class. Obviously he’s Human, with Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma as his highest stats. His physical stats aren’t all that important because his crafted items will make up for them later. Very clearly he will be a Wizard, that’s the closest thing to an actual scientists that this setting has in it. He deals with insane theories, formulae and then crafts powerful items with that knowledge. Alchemist would work if they could craft to the extent that a Wizard could. I don’t see alchemist as his kind of thing because the bombs just don’t fit as well as the idea of him crafting wands of Scorching Ray.

Source

He would have an Amulet as his bonded object because that’s close enough to an Arc Reactor implanted in your chest. (The life saving aspects of all of this Arc Reactor stuff will need some tweaking since D20 style games don’t handle terminal illness in PCs very well. Lots of DM permissions here.) His feats would primarily consist of Craft related feats and the ability to use armor with lowered spell failure rates.

So for a full 20 levels of progression, the Wizard has 15 Feats, plus 2 more for Flaws, which he definitely should have. His list of feats must include Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Wand, Craft Construct, Forge Ring, Craft Rod, Arcane Armor Training, and Arcane Armor Mastery. The last two need to have the character to have some type of armor proficiency and so rather than having him waste two feats allowing him to get access to those feats he will take one level of Magus with the War Warder Archetype or one level of Fighter.
I put Create Construct in there for a very good reason. In the Ultimate Magic book there is a modification for any crafted Golem called Construct Armor. It basically turns your construct into a suit of power armor that only counts as a Breastplate for purposes of wearing it, which means that a guy who constructs Golem armor who also has feats reducing his penalties for casting while wearing armor is going to be able to fully utilize it in combat.

These items are the core of the character build. Without these you can’t have the Iron Man armor. Now the creation of the Construct Armor is a problem because of the way D20 systems run their construct creation systems, basically he either needs to be a high level Bard, Cleric, or be able to cast Wish in order to complete these constructs himself. With unlimited funding, as Tony Stark should have, obtaining the requisite ability to cast a 6th level Cleric/Bard spell (Animate Objects) shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s just annoying.
Anyways. After you work out how he’s building the armor you can move on to the easier stuff, creating magic items that mimic the abilities of the Iron Man Armor. Everything is just a handful of Spellcraft rolls away from this point on. Lasers/Repulsor blasts, flight, “sensors”? Easy to create magic items that do all of that. The only thing that will limit him at this point is funding.

Once you get the armor, the rest of this happens naturally

All of his remaining feats can be used to fill out your particular flavor of Iron Man as long as those key points are filled. Any failings that the Stark has can be overcome with his magic items (aka technology). Little bits and pieces can be altered as needed, maybe give him a specialty school, add some discoveries, different types of armor, etc. Hell you could even forgo the Construct crafting all together and just craft up different suits of armor.

My only problems with this build fall under the “little details” section. As usual, D20 class based systems don’t account for things that comic book superheroes are just able to do. It’s hard to simulate Tony Stark’s Craft Skills, Knowledge, Professional Knowledge and Charisma with such a low skilled character class.

Not sure what else I could really delve into on this particular entry. Anyone else got some thoughts on it?

Magical Musings

A friend's blog inspired me to write a little bit tonight. Attempting to distract myself from the pre-election day conversations, debates, and accusations I thought about what he was trying to talk about and gave a thought out response that was probably too long for a comment on a blog on the remote corner of the internet. It got me thinking about what I picture the nature of magic in a fantasy universe, more specifically what I interpret the nature of magic to be in a Dungeons and Dragons based universe.

Magic in this system is basically split into 2 or more flavors. The two main flavors of magic are called Arcane Magic and Divine Magic. Arcane magic is the stuff of wizards and sorcerers. Divine magic is the stuff of belief. The power of the gods made manifest.

I typically will lump in a third type into the mix as well because I particularly like the flavor of it. It isn't typically considered a magic, but it fits in the category well enough. I am talking about Psionics, the power of the mind.

Each type of magic has its own strengths, weaknesses, and specialties. Arcane is typically associated with big, flashy effects. Fireballs and whatnot. Divine is a lot of buffing magic, typically capable fo subtle effects except when they call down lightning upon the heads of their enemies. Psionics is unique, it is a hybrid of the two, but typically only associated with the empowering of the self.

When I think of Arcane magic it is an art form or science. It is the ability of someone to look at the fabric of reality and be able to use a measure of innate talent or practiced knowledge to make the material world bend to their will. It is more of a nuanced approach to magic. It taps into what is physically there and alters it. It has roots in its own sets of laws, rules, and physics.

Arcane can be learned. It is about playing with the rules of reality using another set of rules. Magic items from this school are basically technology and follow formulas and patterns. Scrolls are basically instructions.
Divine magic is different. Divine is classically associate with Divine beings, gods granting a portion of their power, accumulated through worship, to their most devout worshipers to project their will into the material realm. This is only but one piece of the puzzle that is Divine magic though. Divine magic is the power of Belief. Yes, with a capital B.

Divine magic is the very nature of creation being channeled through the will of the caster. The nature of creation is by definition, unknowable. Everything is possible with it. Deities may be a piece of this energy, spontaneously rising to embody some aspect of reality. But not all divine power is granted to mortals through worship of these beings. Various divine classes exist that do not worship any particular deity and still they are granted power.

Divine magic has always seemed more organic than Arcane magic to me. If the Force were to be classified as a type of magic, I'd put it as Divine. It is powered by the very existence of reality.
Psionics is an interesting thing to consider as a type of magic. Classically it isn't considered magic in fantasy/sci-fi but in DnD it fits into the category. Where Arcane is like art or science and the Divine is the manipulation of that which powers existence, Psionics is the manipulation of the world around the character through sheer force of will.

The psionic character has unlocked the potential of their brain or has tapped into their own reserve of psionic energy to be able to manifest their will and basically force their perspective upon the world. I've always assumed that being a psionic character required a certain level of confidence. A confidence so strong that they just force their will upon the world and it bends to them.

The energies they manipulate are typically formed from their own energies and life force. That power source is what's represented by the Power Points system and feats like Body Fuel. These aren't learned behaviors, formula, or gifts granted by forces of nature. This is the manifestation of what the caster believes is their right.
Psionic characters have always seemed to me like the type that let their powers go to their head (no pun intended, well... maybe a little bit...). In order to manifest their abilities they have to be far more self obsessed and stubborn in nature. This is because their will must be strong enough to turn their own energy reserves into power.

Anyways, those are some of my thoughts on the nature of magics in DnD. Maybe I can delve into this type of thing more later and explain how all of this leads into the nature of magic in my campaign setting.
I mean, I do need to distract myself from the real world every once in a while.

Game Title and Obsidian Portal

Well, after a long (political burnout induced) hiatus I'm back on here to say that I've figured out the name for my campaign setting. I'm going to call it The Forever Seas setting. It's tons of oceans, and they go on forever, get it!?! Oh em gee, I am such a genius!

I also finally discovered Obsidian Portal. Get to use tools like Google Maps intefaces for campaign maps and a Wiki that has two levels of information, General and DM-eyes only. All to help you replace your spiral notebooks with easily accessible information. For a guy who is planning on using Skype and rollD20.net for his campaign this will make everything easily accessible for players.

There are other neat features too, like a forum, an adventure log, a charachter section that can include the PCs and any regional NPCs of importance, and an entire section dedicated to party loot. It is a very powerful tool and the best part is that it's free to use.

I may decide in the future to turn to the subscription based service for it that lets me customize the look and adds in a few additional tools (including the ability to make your Wiki an Invite-only instead of publicly accessible site).

Transition to Pathfinder

So I've been working on and off for a couple months now on translating the campaign I made while I was still in the navy from DnD 3.5 to Pathfinder. Along the way I've been updating, altering, and generally screwing around with everything I have already and in some cases, remaking it from the ground up.

I've created new gameplay mechanics that fundamentally alter the way magic works and that has introduced some interesting quirks into some of my encounters. Some were easy, but most require heavy alteration.

My storytelling skills and attention to detail have changed since I started this project which has caused me to retweak the storyline over and over. I'm going through it again this week, tweaking some things that felt too forced and trying to help create the organic feel between the transition between the structured/linear portions and the open world portions.

It's hard to predict player reactions, but I think I'm striking a good balance, playing on expected reactions and using that to get them to do what I want them to. That whole illusion of choice concept that Bioware once had perfected before becoming a soulless husk following their acquisition by EA is what I'm trying for. Hopefully they'll bite.

The bounty system I've developed should help keep things fresh and interesting between story quests, with plenty to do of they end up taking a different direction. The addition of the trade rules also gives them some options to spice things up and earn cash easily without any real adventuring. Which is a blessing and a curse.

I still need to redesign about half of my PC-Class mobs and make sure the random encounter tables are level appropriate too. Sometimes I wish I still stood mid-watches, it would make this so much easier to find the time to do.

With the custom ships I've been designing I've figured out that most of the D20 stuff just doesn't seem to do Age of Sail ship combat justice. I'm now looking at alternative combat systems, particularly Hex-based systems, for one that feels right to me.

I've also figured out that the sheer number of things I'm altering, creating, or including is going to necessitate me actually writing up a standardized campaign book in order to allow players to keep track of it all. Maybe that's a good thing.  Maybe I could eventually sell it off, wouldn't that be something... I doubt I'd be able to but that would be pretty damn cool. With how much effort I've put into it and how much more I have left to put in it would be nice to have something to show for it other than some blog posts whining about official systems and maybe a completed and run campaign that some people may or may not have enjoyed.

I'm a little excited though. Two of the players have already started making their characters and have fully embraced the theme. It has forced me to step up my efforts and get this ready to go quicker. Maybe if I can get 2 more players started on creating their characters I'll move even quicker.

Region Profile: Wasslund

This is the first of many articles detailing a specific region of my campaign world. I figure I should start with this particular one since this is the continent that initially inspired me to create this campaign, eventually was relegated to an obscure corner when I decided to go with the nautical theme and then suddenly got brought forward as an important stepping stone in the storyline (and a mini-campaign in and of itself). These are meant to be a general overview of the land as a lot of specifics still need to be filled in still. Things like names of major cities, locations, geographic features/formations and such are not determined yet and will be added as I think of them or need them.


This first area is the Continent of Wasslund and it is home to the Sacred Empire of Alamari. It is located in the North-Western portion of the world map and is a few weeks travel from the infamous Storm Wall. It is primarily a temperate climate similar to our world’s European/North-Eastern US with a little bit of the Pacific North-West mixed in. There is one major mountain range with two major passages through. South of this mountain range is a temperate rainforest while North of it there is primarily plains, farmland, hilly lands, small mountains/valleys and forests similar to what you would find in Europe or the American North-East. In the South-Western portion of the continent you will find another temperate rainforest. The Northern coastlines have a large track of coastal woodlands all around the edges.


Between the Temperate Rainforests you have the main passage of shipping trade, the Sea of Mercy. A calm and shallow area perfectly suited for funneling shipping into the Straight of the Law Giver which leads into the Bay of the Faithful. The Northern most portion of this bay is where you will find the Capital of the Sacred Empire, Alamari’s Beacon. This is the largest trading port in the Empire.

In the North you will find another bay called The Bay of Penance. This is a place where most of the heretics of the nation end up travelling to, either due to necessity or by being shipped off by the Empire for failure to pay their tithing. The area surrounding the bay has a reputation for being less lawful than the rest of the land and far more resistant to the changes put out by the High Council of the Archons.

In the South-East, you will find Paradise Sound. Named for their afterlife destination, this is a large shipping area that is primarily known for the large lumber industry nestled inside. Most of the non-human population of this continent reside on the islands within the sound, doing their best to avoid the Empire’s wrath.

The Sacred Empire of Alamari is thousands of years old. It is the oldest Human civilization still in existence and it is only outlived by the Elves of Nusantara. It has largely been left alone by the other nations due to many different factors. The Empire has the single largest army in the world, it is well organized and full of faithful zealots that will defend the home of their faith, and has a large cache of some of the world’s only remaining Magic Items. Those who serve as instruments of the Goddess Alamari typically have a resistance to the taint that magic brings to those who wield it allowing them use of the power granted to them by their goddess against those who might oppose them.

The Empire is ruled by a theocratic council known as the High Council of the Archons. A group of 7 Clergymen elected into lifetime positions by lower clergy is a style similar to an electoral college. The High council selects from among them a single clergyman to be declared the Supreme Archon, a man whom acts as the primary voice of the Empire, directs policy, and chooses appointments for High Offices, like Viceroy and the Hand of Alamari. He is also the deciding vote in any matter the council, basically the legislature, is unable to come to a consensus on. All council members are selected for life to their positions.

The office of Viceroy is an appointment selected by the Supreme Archon and confirmed by the High Council to run the day to day execution of government business. Basically acting as head of state in all things that the Supreme Archon and High Council deems below their interest levels. Budgeting, tax collection, payment for goods and services, and such fall under his jurisdiction. The Viceroy can be removed and replaced by the council at anytime and do not have a set time period for service.

The office of the Hand of Alamari is the supreme commander of the Sacred Empire’s military. He is selected from within the ranks of the Paladin Order to handle all military and law enforcement matters within the Empire. Within the army, his word is law. Typically selected from the ranks of the Guardian Generals of the order (The ranks are, from lowest to highest: Squire, Initiate, Paladin, High Paladin, Templar, High Templar, and Guardian General).

The Supreme Archon also has a personal bodyguard regiment called The Nightguard. This is his own personal army that reports only to him. Not much is known about them. The selection process for entrance is secret and they are forbidden to speak to anyone outside of their order unless it directly has to do with their duties. They are called the Nightguard because they are the only troops allowed in the [grand palace] at night and because of their distinct black and grey uniforms.

The military is designed as the enforcement arm of the goddess Alamari. Every single officer is a Paladin of some type. The rank and file are made up of either volunteers from the Faithful (worshipers of Alamari) or conscripts entirely from non-believers. Non-believers can volunteer as well, but if the army needs spots filled, they will grab what they need from non-believers. If a non-believer serves in the army they are given special rights not normally allowed to those who don’t worship the goddess of the Empire. [The weaponry and tactics of the military are still up in the air. I can’t decide if they are going to allow their troops to use guns or not. Paladins won’t be allowed to, they are given magic weapons and armor for long term faithful service, aka a high faction score. Guns don’t work as effectively on magic armor as they do on normal armor. All magic armor will retain its full armor bonus against all ranged attacks originating from a gun. It is one of the things that makes it very difficult to take the fight into the Empire. Their navy is nothing spectacular, a handful of older, smaller, outdated ships with poor weaponry all typically volunteer civilian captains offering their assistance to their “benevolent” government for some coin. They aren’t officially Privateers, because the empire views that as dishonorable, but they are very similar in everything but name and the occasional guard duty post near the shipping lanes. There is always at least one Paladin onboard a ship to ensure that the Empire is properly represented by these auxiliary units.]

Life for those under the Empire’s rule is separate and definitely not equal. Those who worship the goddess Alamari are allowed to be considered citizens of the empire and receive all the protections and rights that means. The truth of the faithfulness of those in the empire is regularly judged by Inquisitors every seven years or when required. If someone is found to be lying the penalties can range widely and all depend upon the circumstances. Non-believers cannot receive the goods and services provided by the temples, open a business, or do much more than be a subsistence farmer under a Temple’s fiefdom without paying proper tribute/tithing to the Empire/Clergy.

The Clergy take the place of the typical nobility you’d see in a nation this size. Fiefs are controlled by temples and the temples are controlled by a Council of Clergy arranged in the exact same power structure as the high council with a single one appointed as the high councilor who then selects their level’s equivalent of a Viceroy and Hand of Alamari (along with any other unique offices, these two offices are required per the holy scriptures). This structure of 7 appears at all levels of government for the Empire. From the single, local temple, all the way to the High Council of the Archons. Each level deals with different levels of threats or problems. This structure is called out for in their sacred texts and has helped to keep the Empire capable of handling most problems. It can be a very slow process at times, but it works effectively in the end.

New Clergy are selected by the existing Clergy as required or directed (whether that direction is from their goddess or elsewhere is unknown outside of the Clergy who direct it and isn’t talked about.). New Clergy are selected from any particular walk of life, as long as they are one of the Faithful. No real pattern has been observed in those selected. Paladins are selected in a similar manner, but these selections are made by the Paladin order instead, sometimes based off of the judgment of a paladin.

So that's the land of Wasslund, home to the Sacred Empire of Alamari. I might have more to add to this later (like a trade profile and a map! Seriously, I really have one, I'm trying to transfer it into auto-realm as quickly as possible, but I'm still learning the damn program) so stay tuned.

Campaign character guidelines

So I've thought some things over and decided that I wanted to change things up a little with my guidelines for character creation for my upcoming campaign. After digging into Pathfinder more and seeing how much it balances things out, I've decided to change a few things from my earlier post about the guidelines for character creation.


I'm changing the starting stats from the static 13-18 to the Epic Fantasy level of the point buy system. This gives 25 points for the player's to work with, that should achieve the epic feel for the characters and fits with the power level of the pre-designed mobs with PC classes well enough that they don't need a complete restat. I still need to recreate the various premades using Pathfinder's classes but at least I can keep their stats.
I'm going to keep my Max Hit Die at each new level because I'm accidently too brutal to PCs sometimes.
My original idea for having double starting gold was to give the fresh adventurers enough magical tools that I could throw anything at then. That was before I started implementing the magic system changes. Double starting gold doesn't do the player's much good in a world with no real magic items so I'm going to nix that idea for now which leaves you with your standard 3rd level starting gold of 2,700.
I'm going to maintain the ability to select any class, race, etc from before if people want to use something specific. I just want things run by me beforehand so that I can veto something that doesn't fit (doubtful, but there are somethings I'll probably say no to) and to make sure I have a good idea of what your characters are capable of to tailor the modules to you. Oh and letting me know the race is really important, some races are going to be slightly different builds than their core counterparts.
Psionics are up in the air right now, they might not be allowed. Flaws and traits will be allowed, 2 of each (possibly a 3rd trait will be allowed, not sure yet), let's see, what else would you need to know?
Oh yeah, guns! In this world guns and cannons are common weapons. I am using a modified version of the Commonplace Firearms rules for Pathfinder. All firearms are considered Martial Weapons and do not require Exotic Weapons Proficiency (Firearms) unless specifically noted in a racial description (I think that will be Elves, a few of the more savage or nature-friendly races, and some of the monstrous races). Early firearms cost 25% of what their list price is while advanced firearms are their full price under those rules normally, but advanced firearms (revolvers, non-misfiring single shots, cartridge based ammunition, etc) are a little bit too high tech for this setting. So what I'm doing is just ignoring the existence of the advanced guns for right now. Maybe some will become available at double list price or something later on.


Starting level will be changed from 5 to 3. This is because the scenario I had designed as the first module is more for the groups I was playing with while in Washington rather than a group that still hasn't been completely settled upon. I also got to thinking about how I was forcing a pretty hefty storyline piece cold turkey upon the player's and decided that they need to establish their characters and goals first before they get shoved into the story.

Near-release beta for my Campaign Magic System

So I’ve finally finished most of the work on my magic system for my campaign. I will be writing it up in a PDF style format in the near future but I’ll put it here for now so people can look it over. The specific terminology may change and there may be a few minor tweaks depending upon specific mechanics that might pop up as being incompatible with the system, but overall I think this system is play-ready.
Anything in brackets [ ] is subject to change.

Spellcasting Alterations for Generic Fantasy World #4:

Magic in this world is a dangerous and corrupting otherworldly force. By using magic you allow energies not of this world to pass through your mind, body and soul. Magic corrupts that which it passes through and those who choose to wield it tend to suffer all manners of mental and physical disabilities while attempting to master its many nuances. Mages are subject to discrimination and distrust because of these things and choosing to wield magic in this world is a dangerous and depressing decision.

All magic users have a [Sanity] score. You determine this score by taking the character’s Wisdom Score and multiplying it by 5 (Wisdom x 5 = [Sanity]). This is your permanent score and is the maximum your character can have at any one time [and maxes out at 99]. This represents your character’s ability to withstand the unnatural forces coursing through your being.

There are two [Sanity] scores. The first one is your permanent score as previously discussed. The second one is your current score which fluctuates depending upon the amount of magic you’ve been using. As you use more magic your score drops as you temporarily damage your psyche making you more prone to the corrupting influences of magic.

Whenever a spell caster casts a spell they lose 1D6 per Level of the Spell of [Sanity] from their current score. When they lose enough cumulative [Sanity] equal to ½ your Wisdom score the caster must make a [Sanity] Check. A [Sanity] Check is a D% roll versus your Current [Sanity] Score. If the number on the roll exceeds your current score you fail the roll and gain [Taint] equal to the Spell Level of the spell just cast.
Whenever the caster gains [Taint], they must make a Will Save of DC (15 + amount of [Taint] gained) or be Dazed for [1 round]. [Taint] has some interesting effects that it manifests upon a caster’s body. There are 3 levels of [Taint] Manifestations and two ways they affect an individual. They manifest in Physical Corruption, and Mental Depravity. The 3 levels are Mild, Moderate, and Severe. [Taint] Manifestations appear immediately after completion of casting a spell conferring all of their penalties immediately.

Wisdom	No Taint	Mild Taint	Moderate Taint	Severe Taint	Insane
1-4	0	1	2-5	6-13	14+
5-8	0	1-3	4-11	12-27	28+
9-12	0	1-5	6-17	18-41	42+
13-16	0	1-7	8-23	24-55	56+
17-20	0	1-9	10-29	30-69	70+
21-24	0	1-11	12-35	36-83	84+
25-28	0	1-13	14-41	42-97	98+
29-32	0	1-15	16-47	48-111	112+
33-36	0	1-17	18-53	54-125	126+

D20	Mild	Moderate	Severe
1	Dead Eye	Lips Sink	Lich Eyes
2	Aggressive	Treacherous	Murderous
3	Ear Scabs	Fingers and Toes Fuse	Shriveled Flesh
4	Bestial	Deranged	Unbalanced
5	Gums Swell	Bones Thicken	Great Swollen Growths
6	Compulsive	Hysterical	Unresponsive
7	Feet Curl	Joint Pain	Spine Twists
8	Crazed	Jittery	Craven
9	Lumps	Eruption of Sores	Wrigglers
10	Disoriented	Hallucinating	Paranoid
11	Odor of Decay	Paralyzed Face	Nose Rots
12	Mild Phobia	Moderate Phobia	Severe Phobia
13	Palsy	Uncontrollable Seizures	Skull Deformed
14	Neglectful	Distracted	Enthralled
15	Skin Seeps	Blood Eruption	Internal Corruption
16	Opinionated	Solipsistic	Hubristic
17	Skin Sloughs	Skin Thickens	Skin Lichen
18	Prophetic	Delusional	Apathetic
19	Winded	Chronic Illness	Lungs Eaten Away
20	Sycophantic	Weak-willed	Fatalistic

*These two tables have corresponding information that will be in the setting booklet.

This isn’t all doom and gloom though. Spell Casters go into their chosen paths knowing that they will be exposing themselves to these energies. With that in mind they start to develop a level of resistance to the corruption. This is represented by their Threshold. Threshold is equal to the character’s Caster Level. Every day a spell caster can ignore 1D6 of [Sanity] loss per Caster Level. So, a 3 rd level Sorcerer could ignore up to 3D6 of [Sanity] loss a day while a Fighter 2/Wizard 1 could ignore 1D6 a day. This Threshold pool is usable as the person running the character sees fit. The [Sanity] loss is traded out on a D6 for D6 basis. [If this is confusing ask me about it and I’ll try to explain it better]

There is an advantage that magic confers to those who wield it in this world though and that’s the ability to cast extra spells by taking extra [Sanity] loss a caster can exceed their Spells Per Day limit if they deem it necessary. The process for that is you add 1D6 to the normal [Sanity] loss for a spell and immediately must make a [Sanity] Check. If that check fails the Caster gains DOUBLE the [Taint] they normally would and must pass their Will save (DC 15 + [Taint] gained) or be Dazed for 1D4+1 Rounds.

[Sanity] is regained at a rate of [1D8 per Caster Level] per day. It can be quicker if in a special location/temple. [Taint] is lost more slowly, you have to avoid spell casting for 1 week and then you begin to lose it at a rate of [½ Caster Level (Rounded up)] per day until you cast spells again or have lost all of it. This spiritual cleansing process also removes Manifestations. The recovery from it can be sped along by finding special springs or recovery assisted in a specially sanctified temple room.

If a character loses all of their [Sanity] they are temporarily rendered unconscious. [This next part is still in flux. Mostly I’m looking at either making the character unplayable until they gain back at least a ¼ of their sanity. Maybe I’ll have them roll on an insanity table or something like that, but I’m not quite sure exactly how that’s going to happen yet. Losing all your [Sanity] will be a big deal with some type of semi-permanent/permanent consequences. Suggestions are more than welcomed.][This permanent consequences thing will also come up for those who exceed their [Taint] limit.]

Now comes the question of how magic items work. In short, unless they’re ancient heirlooms (most of which are controlled by the Sacred Empire and the Elves), they don’t exist and can’t be bought or constructed. [Item creation feats are going to be tweaked to compensate for this fact, eventually…] Magic enchantment has been replaced with Alchemical contraptions and multiple Masterwork item qualities. [Those systems are still in the early planning stages right now.][There is also a list of spells being developed that either don’t work, don’t exist, or work slightly differently. Mostly things like Wish or true resurrection, things that I feel ruin the game more often than not. If I nix a spell from your book, it’s because I hate the spell, not you.]