a homebrew 4th edition campaign I'm running.

[Mystic Muse]

I'm running a 4th edition homebrewed campaign. I'm not running a 3.5 because
A. I prefer 4th and you're going to have to deal with the fact that some people do.
B. me running a 3.5 game would make all the players want to kill me and one or two go through with it.

here are some of the differences between the normal 4th and my campaign.

skills are treated a bit more realistically. for example if you're going into a castle fully armed with an axe with a blade the size of a ten year old kid you're going to be more intimidating then you would if you had a dagger. therefore you receive an intimidate bonus. intimidate is either diminished or fails automatically however when you're threatening a king surrounded by guards.

certain marks of the same type stack.
as a certain person pointed out (not mentioned because I can't remember):smalltongue: a warrior's mark does not make the paladin's not in effect and the paladin's mark does not make the warrior's not in effect. however marks that deal damage when the opponent attacks somebody else do not stack.

the orb of annihilation disintegrates the person completely instead of just 6d6 +15 ongoing damage.

now for the campaign itself.
most of the gods are dead. the sole survivors of a long and bloody batttle are correlon larethian, Bahamut, Pelor, Gruumsh, Tiamat, Vecna and Orcus(ascended to godhood after slaughtering the raven queen and now controls Vecna because he's the demon prince of the undead) the good gods can no longer stand against the evil other than occasionally interfering.

the world is now ruled by the evil gods. Vecna is Orcus's puppet and the one ruling a fraction of the world currently turning any who displease Orcus into undead abominations.

Tiamat has her own country to rule which she calls.(insert a name here. I can't name it dragon land after all can I?) she rules over the dragons with a fire, acid, lightning, ice and poison fist:smalltongue:

for some reason as soon as gruumsh started ruling part of the mortal world he lost many of his followers. some did not approve of his alliance with the other evil gods and others weren't on his side to begin with. there were very few who escaped his awful wrath for that.

while they can't interfere too much without the other gods knowing and slaughtering them there are a few exceptions. Tiamat recognizes Bahamut as her original other half and has commanded the other gods that only she would be allowed to kill him and only if she desired to do so. the few dragons who aren't on Tiamat's side bravely and wilfully die to take down Tiamat's dragon army and steal their eggs in order to produce more goodguys. they aren't much of a threat unfortunately but are very good at hiding.

Correlon is constantly taking down Gruumsh's armies which sets him back quite a bit. the pathetic orcs, goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears are no match for a deity and whenever Gruumsh goes to meet correlon in battle Correlon escapes. last time though Correlon nearly took out Gruumsh's other eye.

Pelor is the last and most outspoken of the three. he wilfully and blatantly intervenes in mortal affairs constantly. the only reason he's even alive is because he's very good at avoiding the badguys. however there have been a few close calls. Vecna was duking it out with him and almost slaughtered Pelor.

this is being played next summer so I have some time to edit it. anything I should add/subtract? I want this game to be a little more realistic and a little more dangerous and the thing about marks just kind of bothered me so I thought I'd take it out. am I making a mistake in any of these cases?

[Mystic Muse]

can SOMEBODY help me out here?

[Xefas]

I think the intimidate thing is kind of unnecessary and missing the point of it being a charisma skill. If you are meek (low charisma) and/or don't have a lot of experience being intimidating (not having it as a trained skill), then it doesn't matter how big your axe is, you just look silly or easily exploited.

I call an example of the Princess Bride. Fezzik is a big friggin' giant dude who tosses boulders like playpen balls. Vizzini is a tiny, balding Sicilian with no upper body strength to speak of.

And yet, Fezzik has low charisma (he has confidence issues because everyone calls him a monster) and he isn't trained in intimidation (he hasn't had to deal with people much, being a 'monster' who avoids people at all costs). Vizzini has lots of self confidence and is an expert at pushing people around. He gets whatever he wants out of Fezzik, winning every intimidation check he makes against the giant.

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As for actual plot, I'd like a little more justification for the forces of good not being wiped out than two counts of 'not threatened enough'. Gods aren't saturday morning cartoon villains. They know the score. They've read the Evil Overlord list (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList). In fact, they probably wrote it, after having learned from the freshly charred corpses of their evil peers as one more plucky, yet unlikely hero fireballed them to death and made off with the princess.

If you were using the Great Wheel cosmology, I'd say a clause in the Pact Primeval prevents there from ever being an imbalance among the Lawful Deities, to prevent the devouring of all existence by the Demonic Horde, so there must always be at least one Lawful Good deity alive. That deity then raises the heroes to combat the overwhelming forces of evil.

[lord of pixies]

i have to agree with xefas, to me a guy with a big sword is a lot less scary then a guy in black robes who looks like he could pull a dagger from any inch of his body.

[Gawaeyn]

most of the gods are dead. the sole survivors of a long and bloody batttle are correlon larethian, Bahamut, Pelor, Gruumsh, Tiamat, Vecna and Orcus

Offhand, about the gods: Having only these 6 gods (or 3 playable, if you're only allowing non-evil good PCs) severely limits the choices of any Divine characters. They can only serve the good god of good, the honorable god of honor, or the magical god of magic. There is no god of change, no god of nature, etc... Let's says we have a cleric who wants to multiclass druid, but finds that there is no nature god to build up to it with. A little bit of a problem, no? And mechanically, only having Pelor's Radiance, Armor of Bahamut and Corellon's Grace limits characters too, doesn't it?

I'd suggest you expand the various god's spheres of influence, to include some things previously controlled by other gods. Admittedly, the evil gods will control most spheres, going by your backstory, but there are things that the evil gods would find insignificant too, won't they? Dwarves? Bah, who cares about Moradin's short little freaks? Change? Who needs a god of change? We want to keep things the way they are? More likely a god of constants!

So basically, expand the both side's spheres of influence, change their commands slightly to include the appropriate new ideals, and then give them the Channel Divinities of the respective gods they inherited them from. This should give players more choice as to which ideals to uphold, and what styles they want to play. :smallsmile:

[Lord Loss]

I Like your The Bigger the weapon, The more intimidating. I would be scared if a schoolkid walked in with a shotgun. More than if an unarmed old man tied to a chair had ranks in intimidate.

Now Here's my Idea. For the God problem, I have a multitude of solutions: LESSER GODS!!!

Unimportant dudes like Ballos, The God of Plentiful harvesting could get a character his domains, without interfering with your The Final Gods Idea.
Also, you could have Vestiges, pitiful versions of slain gods trapped in a kind of Netherspace. They can be worshipped, can give out their domain spells, and be completely unable to do anything else (Unless you're including a variation of the 3.5 Binder Class).

[Mystic Muse]

the making lesser deities actually useful might be a good idea. however I could also just have the gods take over for the dead gods domains.
correlon takes over all the domains of the neutral.(I THINK correlon is neutral)
pelor takes over the domains of good
Bahamut takes over the domains of lawful good.

I might add a few gods but most of the gods being dead is sort of important to the campaign. I'll probably ask the players which gods they choose and then use those three in addition to the three already mentioned or take pelor out. as far as I know he doesn't have a rivalry wirh vecna and Orcus was the rival of the raven queen.

the point fo the remaining good and neutral gods is that the evil ones have gotten much more evil due to the fact that they now have more worshippers and Vecna has taken down most of the churches of the good gods singlehandedly removing a good portion of their worshippers. plus killing so many people tends to give exp.

oh and fezzik=intimidation. you're going to be scared of a guy who can chuck a boulder at your head and squash it like a berry.
vizzini= diplomacy. he pushes people into things but not scare tehm. fezzik mainly did what vizzini wanted because he was a mercenary and didn't want to go back being unemployed in greenland

and some of the badguys in my campaign ARE going to be like saturday morning cartoon villains. honestly if I followed EVERY tip in that list it'd be impossible for the players to kill the main badguy. how about I just cut to the chase and send them into the tomb of horrors? be a lot quicker.

oh and I'm going to edit my first post so the story makes a little more sense.

[Xefas]

oh and fezzik=intimidation. you're going to be scared of a guy who can chuck a boulder at your head and squash it like a berry.
vizzini= diplomacy. he pushes people into things but not scare tehm. fezzik mainly did what vizzini wanted because he was a mercenary and didn't want to go back being unemployed in greenland


I couldn't disagree more with you. I wouldn't be scared of Fezzik in the least. I'd hug him like a teddy bear and have him over for tea. I wouldn't touch Vizzini with an 11 foot pole.

From the script:

Fezzik: I just don't think it's right, killing an innocent girl.

(Vizzini whirls on Fezzik)

Vizzini: Am I going mad or did the word "think" escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotamic land mass.

Inigo: I agree with Fezzik.

(Cut to close up of Vizzini in a fury).

Vizzini: Oh. The sot has spoken. What happens to her is not truly your concern -- I will kill her --

(louder)

And remember this -- never forget this --

(Cut to Inigo and Fezzik, as Vizzini advances on them. Nothing shows on Inigo's face, but Fezzik is panicked by Vizzini.)

Vizzini (To Inigo): When I found you, you were so slobbering drunk you couldn't buy brandy --

(now to Fezzik, who retreats as much as he can while Vizzini advances)

-- and you -- friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless -- Do you want me to send you back to where you were, unemployed in Greenland?

(Vizzini glares at him, then turns, leaves them.)

(During this, Inigo has gone close to Fezzik, who is very distressed at the insults he's just received. As Inigo casts off.)


So diplomacy is all about berating people with insults, getting angry, backing them into a corner, "panicking" them, "distressing" them and generally making them scared as **** of you?

Cause I thought that was intimidation.

[Mando Knight]

I Like your The Bigger the weapon, The more intimidating. I would be scared if a schoolkid walked in with a shotgun. More than if an unarmed old man tied to a chair had ranks in intimidate.

Unless the old guy is Shen-Ji Yang (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitlenhy07uuq). *shudders*

[Mystic Muse]

I'm not going to argue with you whether Vizzini or Fezzik are more suited for intimidation and whether one or the other is more charismatic. I think the general rule is that guy with a boulder who can throw it with one hand and squash your head like a berry when he doesn't even exercise? much more intimidating than a guy who just berates you.