Grit Campaign- 3.5

[Lateral]

I'm trying to put together a gritty 3.5 campaign, but I need some help. Here's what I've got:

Magic items are very rare.

Nobody is stronger than an NPC by dint of class- tier 5 and below, and only weak tier 5's.

No incarnum or psionics, and no spellcasters-magic exists, but it's wild. Also, all spell-like abilities become supernatural instead.

Divine magic is more of a plot device than anything else.

I'm using vitality/wound points. I wanted something more 'pulp fiction'-y than HP, but Injury makes it too easy to die- my plans involve war. Also used is the Defense Bonus variant to help survival for the non-heavy-combatants on the team, and this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/deathAndDying.htm) variant- again, more grit.

Characters so far: One of my players wants to play a big, heavy bruiser. Something like this (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=106398), for example. He's a hard drinker. Another wants to make a clever, witty, swashbuckling character. Think Inigo Montoya. Also, a heavy drinker (seeing a theme here?), but for different reasons. The other 3 players don't know yet. (One of them e-mailed me telling me that he had found a picture of the kind of character he was going to make. The link led here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0). :smalleek:)

I don't play very often with a campaign like this. If anyone could help:
Classes at low tiers that can be like the above.
Good ideas for plot points.
Tips on DM'ing a game like this.

Thanks!

[tynger1234]

who's the player that R-R'd you?

[Lateral]

That what'd me?

Hey, guess what?You lost the game too. :smalltongue:

[Brendan]

remember, as DM you have the ability to put that player through HELL. make him be some like rick astley. give him a singing talent that gives allies a +1 on all rolls and leave him as a warrior. with perform as the main (only) skill.

[Eldariel]

Well, the campaign journal in my signature may be relevant to your interests, though it seems you're pretty much using most of the same variants as we are. We actually allow most martial classes; the game is gritty enough regardless of tier but playing tier 5 can be boring. We just ban any Su abilities we can't easily refluff as Ex (and Crusader's Healing Strikes can only heal VP).


But yeah, WP/VP, defense bonus, no real magic items, scaled ability boosts (honestly, without magic items, you can afford to give characters more feats, skills and attribute bonuses to fool around with: I urge you to do this, actually, as otherwise so much of the system is wasted), rewritten feat trees to make crap like TWF and PBS not suck due to feat tax, reworked poisons (they need to be more lethal to be anywhere near realistic) and yeah...

Magicless D&D is very gritty by default as healing is very slow, one hit can kill (by WP system) and so on. I definitely like the "when you take WP damage, you might take limb damage" rule we've been using lately. Makes things very interesting and might end up with one-eyed, one-armed and earless PCs. As said, fun. If they survive, anyways.

[Lateral]

@Brendan: No. Not gonna happen. If I made him have a Rick Astley character he'd annoy everyone else to death. Although I could have an NPC with a class based off of Bard that is nonmagical and uses rickroll to cause effects similar to certain spells. Like shout. Or hideous laughter. Or hell, even wail of the banshee. :smallbiggrin:

@Eldariel: Yeah, maybe I'll take a look at that. What's scaled ability boosts? Also, that might be true about tier 5 being boring. Maybe he'll get to make his bruiser a barbarian/fighter after all. I just did it that way to make the PCs no more powerful than NPCs except by level and wit, but maybe I'll just have NPC barbarians and rogues. The main protagonist is a wizard- normally no big whoop, but in a campaign w/o magic it's pretty epic.

Edit: Is the scaled ability boosts thing a variant rule? Also, I didn't want any tier 3's- everyone is supposed to have to rely on wits more than mechanical advantages. Also, ToB classes are... what?

[Eldariel]

@Eldariel: Yeah, maybe I'll take a look at that. What's scaled ability boosts? Also, that might be true about tier 5 being boring. Maybe he'll get to make his bruiser a barbarian/fighter after all. I just did it that way to make the PCs no more powerful than NPCs except by level and wit, but maybe I'll just have NPC barbarians and rogues. The main protagonist is a wizard- normally no big whoop, but in a campaign w/o magic it's pretty epic.

Scaled ability boosts as in faster rate of natural stat increase; as there's no magical means of doing it, this includes the feel of "advancement" and improves the character customizability. Like, +1 to a stat every 2 levels or even 3/4 levels, maybe +1 to all stats every 5 levels. Y'know, development.

And I personally love ToB classes in gritty games. Wizard I'm not sure; if you want to make magic hard-to-acquire, feel free. PCs like the rest of the world I definitely love; but there are tier 3-4 classes that aren't magical. Those may be of interest to you.