Coidzor
2009-06-04, 08:03 PM
So I was thinking about trying my hand at DMing this summer and a couple of my friends had expressed curiosity/interest in trying out a pirate/privateering game sometime in the future.
Right now I'm wondering what setting might be best to look at for where to start off/base it off of for starters... I mean, I understand I can designate some things by fiat and power of plot, but a little bit of flair is always nice, right? Currently I haven't really used any books beyond perusing the Complete series and things like Dungeonscape, Frostburn, Magic Item Compendium, and the Spell Compendium in addition to some research into Eberron due to trying out an artificer in a sandal-punk homebrew world.
And of course any general advice about how to run ship-ship combat/a crew/ships in general or what books within 3.5 to look at would be greatly appreciated.
A couple of related questions: Since this is inspired by the events within another campaign, I was thinking of it maybe as being an alt future for a campaign that's been put on standby/hiatus due to the fact that the original players aren't around due to the summer... Do you think it'd be better to just port 'em over (they were either level 3 or 4) or bump 'em up to some better baseline level (6, maybe?) for the sort of adventures that take place on the high seas? And any input as to whether I should kill off the PCs whose players would no longer be with us or just regulate them into NPCs which are more attached to the ship than to the party?
Or is dealing with the old campaign at all, even as an alt timeline sort of thing just a bad idea?
...I feel like this is making the post really awkward and laundry listy, but uh... I was sort of considering something along the lines of E6 or E8/E10, basically freezing level progression after a certain point but allowing for some methods of increasing power beyond simple wealth to magic metrics, but I'm not sure where I first read about the idea or where to look for additional study on the concept...
As far as starting off the campaign, I was thinking of basically starting them off in media res, working out with the players before hand what their position on the ship would be and telling them about the first few uneventful bits of their journey before having them come upon something interesting/their first trial combat. If they decide they're comfortable with coming from the Old Campaign, I'll think of something to add to that about how they got there, and come up with some idea of their NPC crew. (Need to figure out what kind of ship they'll be on and how many crew they need for one...)
I think even if they had a Bard with a fairly good charisma having a crew entirely from the leadership feat would be difficult so at least some of the crew would be hirelings...
OH! and I remember hearing about some kind of Armor Class rule variant that's fairly popular for this sort of ship-based thing due to how deadly heavy armor can become to the wearer due to its weight... anyone able to point me in the right direction with that?
Right now I'm wondering what setting might be best to look at for where to start off/base it off of for starters... I mean, I understand I can designate some things by fiat and power of plot, but a little bit of flair is always nice, right? Currently I haven't really used any books beyond perusing the Complete series and things like Dungeonscape, Frostburn, Magic Item Compendium, and the Spell Compendium in addition to some research into Eberron due to trying out an artificer in a sandal-punk homebrew world.
And of course any general advice about how to run ship-ship combat/a crew/ships in general or what books within 3.5 to look at would be greatly appreciated.
A couple of related questions: Since this is inspired by the events within another campaign, I was thinking of it maybe as being an alt future for a campaign that's been put on standby/hiatus due to the fact that the original players aren't around due to the summer... Do you think it'd be better to just port 'em over (they were either level 3 or 4) or bump 'em up to some better baseline level (6, maybe?) for the sort of adventures that take place on the high seas? And any input as to whether I should kill off the PCs whose players would no longer be with us or just regulate them into NPCs which are more attached to the ship than to the party?
Or is dealing with the old campaign at all, even as an alt timeline sort of thing just a bad idea?
...I feel like this is making the post really awkward and laundry listy, but uh... I was sort of considering something along the lines of E6 or E8/E10, basically freezing level progression after a certain point but allowing for some methods of increasing power beyond simple wealth to magic metrics, but I'm not sure where I first read about the idea or where to look for additional study on the concept...
As far as starting off the campaign, I was thinking of basically starting them off in media res, working out with the players before hand what their position on the ship would be and telling them about the first few uneventful bits of their journey before having them come upon something interesting/their first trial combat. If they decide they're comfortable with coming from the Old Campaign, I'll think of something to add to that about how they got there, and come up with some idea of their NPC crew. (Need to figure out what kind of ship they'll be on and how many crew they need for one...)
I think even if they had a Bard with a fairly good charisma having a crew entirely from the leadership feat would be difficult so at least some of the crew would be hirelings...
OH! and I remember hearing about some kind of Armor Class rule variant that's fairly popular for this sort of ship-based thing due to how deadly heavy armor can become to the wearer due to its weight... anyone able to point me in the right direction with that?