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View Full Version : [3.5] Single Class Party: Tal's 3 wizards in a college game setting [PEACH]



taltamir
2010-03-28, 06:12 PM
This thread is the one specific to my first DMing experience (which I have yet to start, I am building it yet). it is based on this idea:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147041

I wish to hash out more specific things for the 3 wizards in a college gameworld in this thread.

So far my idea is to have only ~3 players who are the same class; This lets me do a lot of cool things for them without worrying about inter-class balance at all. Also it lets me do away with the god-mode that XP for encounters is (you killed 20 goblins, your mastery of magic increased by the same amount as 20 years of study). XP for fighting monsters makes a lot of sense for a fighter, as he gets invaluable combat experience; maybe even a sorcerer, but not so for a wizard...

XP system:
So far my notion is to have it be a pseudo gestalt. You have two XP pools, Wizardry XP and Combat XP.
Wizardry XP gives you wizard class levels and is acquired doing wizardly things (more on this later).

Combat XP gives levels of "combatant" measured separately... Defeating encounters under normal rules grants you XP and levels of "combatant".. for this your level of wizard is ignored. So if you somehow managed to get 10 levels of wizard via education and fight your first monster, you are considered a level 1 person for XP calculation.
Each level of combatant gives you a flat +3HP per level, improves your BAB by 0.5 per level, improves all 3 saves by +0.25/level
use sensible partial saves and bab: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135421

Gaining Wizardry XP:
Learning spells: 50XP * SL for every spell you learn. 25XP for cantrips.

Familiar: Binding a familiar gives you a one time XP boost of 500XP, this is often enough to make you levelup, this is well known by wizards and is considered a rite of passage. Once you have a familiar, you gain 10% bonus to XP gained (measured exactly, so you could have some decimals there).
Improved familiars require a "delayed gratification" sort of deal, you have to invest more into getting one. you end up with a better familiar, but lose out on the XP bonus until then.
You can also improve a familiar... for example, giving it the ability to assume a humanoid form at will, or have some SLAs or always on abilities as appropriate.

Casting spells: At the moment I have decided against granting XP for "practicing spells"... Any value worth keeping track of would result in everyone being epic within a few months. And a diminishing rewards system is insane to keep track of.
However you could spend time drilling with a spell; it requires casting it many times and has three levels. when recording a spell put the drill level near it as (D0 / D1 / D2 / D3).
D0: unpracticed
D1: +1 to concentration checks when this spell is interrupted.
D2: +1 to ranged touch attack to hit. if it requires no ranged touch attack this grants nothing.
D3: +1 to penetrate SR with that spell, if it ignores SR then this grants nothing.
Please help me come up with what constitutes drilling with a spell.

Consuming power sources: found an ancient power source? nom nom nom... XP variable

Stealing souls: for the evil necromancers, you can steal souls... sell them to demons, store them in an enchanted gem or a prison of your own mind (or body... remember in mortal combat the sorcerer who stole souls with his eye?), you gain XP per soul stolen... XP value undecided (advice appreciated).

Bind an implement: I love the notion of implements from 4e, it really fits the fantasy style wizard... staffs are a classic, but so are other items such as wands, crystals, orbs, scepters, etc.
undecided about details.

Create "source of power" items.. Example, travel to the elemental plane of earth to imbue an expensive enchanted gem you created with the energies of that plane forming a stable link and then consuming it... +XP and maybe a bonus depending on the plane you traveled too. (+1 CL when casting spells with a matching descriptor to the plane).

Binding demons / being blessed by celestials / etc... - variable rewards

Most of the times you are basically trying to come up with "goals"... each goal will require finding knowledge / crafting items / etc... A goal could be the mastery of a specific spell for example, letting you cast it at will or several times a day... And XP.

Feats: you do not gain feats on levelup! Every feat will have "prerequisites" that must be done... basic ones might require a simple ceremony or getting enchanted by a senior wizard for some gold, some training etc... big ones will involve a quest.

Crafting: Crafting does not cost any XP or GP. The crafting cost is measured in GP only, thats the cost when using MagicPoints aka MP. Magical ingredients (such as dragon blood or unicorn horns etc) will have an MP value, when you use the right magical ingredient you get the full MP, you can convert them into a generic EtherDust but they lose half their value in the process. Items can also be converted in such a manner... Not all wizards are crafters, but it is a required curriculum in this college, so all the members of the party have the crafting feats needed as soon as they are high enough level to craft. They just need to be willing to etherdust (tell me if you have a better name for it) worth the GP of the market price of the item, or they need to quest for specific ingredients if they want it cheaper.

Some items require specific ingredients and etherdust alone will not suffice... for example, you use etherdust to craft the gem to bind to elemental planes, but you need material from the plane itself, and you can't buy that in a store (you could hire adventurers to get it for you though).

More methods will be added as they are thought of.

A big notion here is to let the players come up with ideas, as well as provide them with many of my own (via teachers / tomes introducing that knowledge).
basically, the players can do almost anything... they just have to work for it.
A lot of it will involve on the fly rulings, or being told what the player wants to do beforehand and coming to the forums and ask.
But just because they can do anything doesn't mean its given on a silver platter... "i want to be god" would be retorted with "the only known methods to become a god are to slay a god and subsume his powers, or to be granted divinity by the head of a pantheon." and if the players can actually do THAT then they deserve to become gods.

EdroGrimshell
2010-03-28, 07:23 PM
Love this idea. Maybe you could come up with feats/talents/backgrounds that could let them replicate some abilities from other classes or based on degrees of mastery for specific schools of magic (such as an evoker gaining the warmage's edge class feature)

Geiger Counter
2010-03-28, 07:32 PM
I disagree with this, a wizard gaining combat experience is very similar to saying to a scientist "okay we're going to send you to a country we don't like, you have free reign to test out any experimental weaponry against anyone you run into." In the field testing is invaluable to wizards growth.

taltamir
2010-03-28, 07:44 PM
Love this idea. Maybe you could come up with feats/talents/backgrounds that could let them replicate some abilities from other classes or based on degrees of mastery for specific schools of magic (such as an evoker gaining the warmage's edge class feature)

certainly.
i have entertained the idea of focused specialization. I could include special abilities per school chosen or personal history.
In regards to feats, instead of feats you have abilities. the difference? feats are chosen at levelup... abilities are earned via gameplay (and earning an ability always comes with XP, so earning an ability could cause you to level, but not vice versa). Abilities can be massively more powerful then feats.

Warmage edge is a class feature that grants a bonus to direct damage spells. This could be acquired in many ways. from binding a demon to your wand, to consuming an orb containing the essence of the elemental planes (which requires a trip to the elemental planes of course). Giving it as a "starter ability" to someone who choses to specialize in evocation works too. But I'd prefer if a starting character were the same and all abilities were earned in game.

taltamir
2010-03-28, 07:47 PM
I disagree with this, a wizard gaining combat experience is very similar to saying to a scientist "okay we're going to send you to a country we don't like, you have free reign to test out any experimental weaponry against anyone you run into." In the field testing is invaluable to wizards growth.

I am not sure I understand you, what you are disagreeing with here.
doing "field testing" (aka combat) grants wizards more HP, BAB, and saves.
doing labwork allows wizards to invent better weaponry (aka, spells).

Are you saying scientists NEED to go to hostile countries and test weapons themselves in order to invent better weapons? because I would say testing them in a lab provides better data, and studying from books and the like also helps them be a better scientist, without improving their "combat" effectively (aka, ability to aim (BAB), dodge (reflex), resist pain (fort), willpower (will), and deflect blows in the last moment (HP))

Ihala
2010-03-28, 08:58 PM
Love this idea, reminds me of the old Fantasy Wargaming book, especially with your binding items of power. There magic system was based on astrology, including the creation of magical items, and the more associated factors in the creation, the more powerful an items was.

For example a sword created by someone born under Aries (1), between March 21 and April 20 (2), completed on a tuesday (3) between 4 and 5 o'clock (4), forged in fire (5), made of iron (6), with a ruby pommel gem (7), with an oak hilt (8), sprinkled with rosemary (9), and painted green (10), bathed in the fluid of a single (11) ram's (12) brain (13), in the hills (14) where a famous deed of strength or valor took place (15), would have all 15 correspondences, or factors, and be the equivalent of a +5 vorpal sword. Of course the more factors involves raised the degree of difficulty so a mage of lesser power would not be able to gain the benefit of having all these factors present, because he lacks the power to utilize them.

I'm not sure what you are looking for but I always loved the ideas in this book, specifically the magic system. I've wanted to incorporate some of these into D&D but never have, but it seems that it might fit into the idea you have. The game also split experience into general, combat, magical and religious pools. General was basically your character level, giving bonuses to skills and such. Combat experience was fighting ability and was increased much the way you are describing. Magical experience was gained from successfully casting spells and other magical activities, similar to what you have described. Religious experience was gained from participating in religious ceremonies.

Another idea from this book (it had lots of great ideas, just terrible formatting and implementation) was that mana was needed for magical operations. This is of course nothing special, but the interesting thing was the way in which is was gained. Rather than sleeping and simply refreshing yourself you had to go through rituals that released magical energy. Examples: reciting incantations, shamanistic dancing, meditation/study, and fasting. Each gave a point of mana after a certain interval of time with factors affecting the time such as higher level mages reducing the time needed, while being above "normal operating mana" (level times 8, maximum was level times 16) doubled the time needed per point. Mana of course could be converted to spell levels and I think it might work as a good balance for mixed parties so that wizards cannot just throw magic everywhere. If replenishing all your spell slots at level 15 takes you, say, 24 hours of study, you will be less likely to blow everything. It also allows the wizard who expended only a single (but critical) spell slot to spend only an hour in study to rememorize it. Of course this idea may not fit your vision of things, but I thought it was an interesting idea and have always wanted to implement something based on it.

Actually I am now tempted to pause the current game and start one similar to your idea, with these changes. Would you post about how it works out for you and what details you work out so that I might be able to steal them from you?

taltamir
2010-03-28, 10:13 PM
Love this idea, reminds me of the old Fantasy Wargaming book, especially with your binding items of power. There magic system was based on astrology, including the creation of magical items, and the more associated factors in the creation, the more powerful an items was.

For example a sword created by someone born under Aries (1), between March 21 and April 20 (2), completed on a tuesday (3) between 4 and 5 o'clock (4), forged in fire (5), made of iron (6), with a ruby pommel gem (7), with an oak hilt (8), sprinkled with rosemary (9), and painted green (10), bathed in the fluid of a single (11) ram's (12) brain (13), in the hills (14) where a famous deed of strength or valor took place (15), would have all 15 correspondences, or factors, and be the equivalent of a +5 vorpal sword. Of course the more factors involves raised the degree of difficulty so a mage of lesser power would not be able to gain the benefit of having all these factors present, because he lacks the power to utilize them.
that sounds really awesome. I didn't think of doing that for items, but its certainly a cool way to go about it.


I'm not sure what you are looking for but I always loved the ideas in this book, specifically the magic system. I've wanted to incorporate some of these into D&D but never have, but it seems that it might fit into the idea you have. The game also split experience into general, combat, magical and religious pools. General was basically your character level, giving bonuses to skills and such. Combat experience was fighting ability and was increased much the way you are describing. Magical experience was gained from successfully casting spells and other magical activities, similar to what you have described. Religious experience was gained from participating in religious ceremonies.
Interesting, I have considered in the past a reworking of skills to be independent, as for religion xp pool, it would certainly apply in my "3 paladins from a monastery" idea :P... replacing the wizardry XP sytem. So it seems like the system is a lot more comprehensive than what I came up with thus far. I have no idea how they implemented it since i never read the book.


Another idea from this book (it had lots of great ideas, just terrible formatting and implementation) was that mana was needed for magical operations. This is of course nothing special, but the interesting thing was the way in which is was gained. Rather than sleeping and simply refreshing yourself you had to go through rituals that released magical energy. Examples: reciting incantations, shamanistic dancing, meditation/study, and fasting. Each gave a point of mana after a certain interval of time with factors affecting the time such as higher level mages reducing the time needed, while being above "normal operating mana" (level times 8, maximum was level times 16) doubled the time needed per point. Mana of course could be converted to spell levels and I think it might work as a good balance for mixed parties so that wizards cannot just throw magic everywhere. If replenishing all your spell slots at level 15 takes you, say, 24 hours of study, you will be less likely to blow everything. It also allows the wizard who expended only a single (but critical) spell slot to spend only an hour in study to rememorize it. Of course this idea may not fit your vision of things, but I thought it was an interesting idea and have always wanted to implement something based on it.
I really really like this idea.


Actually I am now tempted to pause the current game and start one similar to your idea, with these changes. Would you post about how it works out for you and what details you work out so that I might be able to steal them from you?
I will certainly keep you updated. I might also run this game on PbP if my usual IRL gaming group says no (I already emailed them), in which case you are more then welcome to join.

Overall I am very impressed by those ideas and I love everything in your post. However the sheer scope of doing all of that is beyond my free time means at the moment.
the reason I chose to start with 3 wizards is to have it "rules light"; as I could do more magical hand-waving as needed. I would use DnD as a base with very few houserules, the change to the XP system, and the "combat" levels (which add on to normal levels of wizards, I have considered not giving them HP or BAB or normally, but then it occurred to me that it could just be explained as their "magic" fortifying their body via HP).

So anyways, a different XP system where you quest for feats which give you XP. Rather then me writing a whole book of what the players can do, they come up with "magic sounding suggestions" (either original to themselves or from some form of media) and I assign hoops to jump through, XP rewards, and feat rewards on the fly (or after posting it online for people to comment on)...
OR they ask for an end result ability (aka, I want my familiar to be able to assume a humanoid shape) and I assign hoops to jump through, and XP rewards either on the fly or after consulting people on the forums.

Basically, the first post of this thread is literally all the rules this game has. And half of it is me coming up with examples and not actual rules.

Ihala
2010-03-29, 03:22 PM
I have no idea how they implemented it since i never read the book.


Yeah it's an old book and not very well known. One of those good reads but bad games.

Just another idea from the book that is probably more work than it is worth; for your paladin game, rather than gaining divine spells (or even having divine magic) they appeal to their deity for a miracle which has a chance of working based on the religious (caster) level of the paladin, the power of the miracle sought (spell, caster level), and their devotion (measured in FW as a piety statistic). Various bonuses could increase an appeals success such as sacrifices, vowing to complete a quest, religious ceremony, etc. Then the appeal was checked with 4 possible results: Failure and loss of 10% piety points, Failure, Success with 10% loss of piety, and just plain success. Piety points worked like experience point that went up in down with piety levels serving as positive or negative modifiers to appeals. At piety level -2 a character lost any chance of successful appeal (temporary loss of divine powers) and at -5 became completely severed from his deity (fallen). Personally I think the appeals process might work for a group of paladins, but would be kinda clunky, and just wouldn't work for clerics, but the idea of incorporating bonuses for devotion seems like it could be good. Perhaps ones piety representing a pool from which one may empower ones divine spells, say one point to increase caster level by one or increase the DC by one, or for paladins, increasing the damage of their smite evil or increasing the radius of their aura of courage for a round, etc. Methods of replenishing spent points could be as simple as regaining spells or spent points may just be lost forever, but somewhat easy to regain through forwarding their diety's cause. Again, just more of my ramblings.


I really really like this idea.

I do too, I've just never gotten around to actually implementing it. I think the system could work fine with spell slots, with "normal operating level" being the normal number of spell slots for your level, with your absolute max being double that. Giving wizards twice as many spells may seem like overpowering, but remember that to gain their normal number of spells requires intensive study and reciting magical formulas (maybe sorcerers practice meditation and dance) which at higher levels may require a period of a day or more to completely restore all normal slots, and remember that intensive study is not restful, so add another 8 hours of sleep to that and you haven't even begun to overload yourself with magical energy. To do that may take twice as long as gaining your normal level of magical energy (so we are up to three 24 hour sessions plus 24 hours of rest, 4 days). Add to this that be overcharged with magic isn't exactly stable (maybe create rules so that it is easy for a reckless or unfortunate mage to lose spell slots through certain actions or events, or even discharge a spell slot randomly). If you give them unlimited downtime and no timetable, then they can always be running hot, but with only limited time, it will force them to be more conservative and try to use their spells to maximum efficiency and even use non magical solutions (use that 18 intelligence for something) to problems. Also use spell slots for other things. One DM I played with ruled that wands took as long as it took you to cast a spell x number of times, x being the number of charges. So a wizard with 2 3rd level slots would need 25 days to create a wand of lightning bolt with 50 charges, while one with 25 level 3+ slots could do it in 2. Learning a new spell might require spell slots to be expended in practice. So after a wizard successfully understands the theory and writes the spell in his spellbook, he now must master the motions, incantation, mental state, etc. necessary to cast the spell. So perhaps one wizard may choose to be running hot with double his complement of spells, another may have a wand of lightning ready, and the third has a few new tricks to try out. It creates an economy of mana that can work well with your other ideas. Binding a demon might also grant you (some of) his spell slots in addition to magical experience, or maybe in place of it. While books of lost arcana do not directly give you magical power, they teach you how to better gain it (experience). Conversely binding a demon is not teaching you about magic (you are using what you know of magic to bind it) but the process of binding a fiend's power to you certainly is going to give you a surge of arcane might.


I might also run this game on PbP if my usual IRL gaming group says no (I already emailed them), in which case you are more then welcome to join.


I've never done PbP and to be honest I am not too keen on trying it, but thanks for the consideration.


However the sheer scope of doing all of that is beyond my free time means at the moment.

You and me both.