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Paganboy28
2010-08-18, 06:07 AM
I was wondering if people on here would be willing to help me with a campaign idea I have come to me.

The basic premise is that its based on Pathfinder rules with the backstory of Eberron, though I might change a few things according to campaign/DM/Player tastes.

The starting scene would be that they were on a ship travelling somewhere, each character has their own reasons for travelling, and there is a crash. The ship ends up wrecked on some unknown beach with wreckage, bodies, etc all strewn about. There are survivors but since no one really knows who or what other people are then you have the Lost scenario.
I was thinking of making the crash on a large island some distance from Khorvaire, maybe between continents and have the island based on jungle terrain with dinosaurs, etc as well as a lost civilisation now ancient and in ruins though the players don't know about that yet until they venture into the jungle.

The players would have starting characters of around level 10 to get them some decent level of power as well as making them central to the plot with other NPC's being generally of lower level. They could potentially lead the rest of the survivors to safety.

I could make the PC's roll for their level, say 1d3+8 so they end up at either 9,10 or 11. Though is having PC's starting at slightly different levels a good idea?

I was going give players freedom to choose between the point-buy system or rolling stats. Point-buy would be about 35 points (starting stats at 8) with rolling being 4d6 discard the lowest and reroll 1's once. However no stat would start below 8 unless players really want to for some legitamate reason.

I was also toying with the idea of giving players freedom in terms of how they spend their 10 levels worth of character.

1) they could take the normal route of base/PrC

2) they could gestalt 2 classes together (say 5 wiz/5cleric)

3) they could gestalt but unevenly (say 7 wiz/3 cleric)

So it would be sort of multiclassing but without penalty.

However, would these 3 options be equally balanced?
Is creating characters this way a good idea or what are the flaws in this plan?

NPC's could be gestalt, they might not. Not all NPC's on the boat will be good, some may be evil though unlikely that they are chaotic evil.

Equipment-wise players would have to state before hand what they have on them when they are journeying on the boat and what they have left at home. There will be cargo on the boat so it would be up to the players to salvage what they could. Plus the boat is still afloat, just with a big hole in the side and stuck on large jagged rocks.
The navigator who piloted the boat is still alive though has little clue as to what happened as he says he did not see the rocks (which considering their size is dubious).

Other passangers might include:
a merchant gnome with his servitor warforged
a family of travelling halflings
warforged adventurer
dwarf
elf
humans

not entirely fleshed out the crew or other passangers yet.



Campaign character rules would be that other sources can be used but any attempts to create deliberately broken characters would be removed,
Gestalt rules for characters are as normal (no dual caster on one side),
Characters should have a short background about themselves (I'll create a proforma to be filled in),
Anything is up for discussion but characters should be able to work together without too much intra-party fighting (no CE and LG mix for example).


So are there any other rules/restrictions you think I should place on the characters?

Any other ideas that you feel can contribute?

Snake-Aes
2010-08-18, 06:44 AM
Your idea of gestalt confuses me. Also remember that "10 levels" is roughly '740 times more powerful than 98,3% of the npcs in the setting' for eberron.
The plot is, at points, too open for me to be able to say anything, and at other points too closed for me to change anything :p

You do probably want to simplify those rules a little bit if your players aren't used to it though.

Tetrasodium
2010-08-18, 07:11 AM
also crashed airships and other elemental vessels tend to have one or two very angry large elementals suddenly getting freed from imprisonment and forced servitude if their housing is damaged and it makes things more interesting. The rules for airships are spread among multiple eberron books a couple paragraphs at a time, I think the explorer's handbook has a bunch of it consolidated though.

Jack_Simth
2010-08-18, 07:15 AM
1) they could take the normal route of base/PrC

2) they could gestalt 2 classes together (say 5 wiz/5cleric)

3) they could gestalt but unevenly (say 7 wiz/3 cleric)

So it would be sort of multiclassing but without penalty.

However, would these 3 options be equally balanced?
No. A Gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltcharacters.htm) Cleric-5//Wizard-5 is not nearly so strong as a regular Cleric-10, Wizard-10, or even a Cleric-3/Wizard-3/Mystic Theurge-4.

The Cleric-5//Wizard-5 has a +3 BAB, base saves of +4/+1/+4, 3rd level spells, and 5d8+5*Con Mod hit points.
The Cleric-10 has a +7 BAB, base saves of +7/+3/+7, 5th level spells, and 10d8+10*Con Mod hit points. The Wizard-10 has +5 BAB, base saves of +3/+3/+7, 5th level spells, and 10d4+10*Con Mod hit points. The Clr-3/Wiz-3/MT-4 has (assuming fractional BAB/Saves) +5 BAB, base saves of +5/+3/+7, 4th level spells, and 3d8+7d4+10*Con Mod HP.

Seriously, the only thing the Cleric-5//Wizard-5 beats the Mystic Theurge out on (using a traditional MT entry, mind you, not an accelerated entry) is familiar advancement (2 levels) and turn undead (also 2 levels). And Mystic Theurge is widely regarded as a trap.

Paganboy28
2010-08-18, 08:48 AM
Your idea of gestalt confuses me. Also remember that "10 levels" is roughly '740 times more powerful than 98,3% of the npcs in the setting' for eberron.
The plot is, at points, too open for me to be able to say anything, and at other points too closed for me to change anything :p

You do probably want to simplify those rules a little bit if your players aren't used to it though.

It was just an idea to increase player choice, but on reflection I think it won't work anyway. The NPC's in Eberron I'll probably end up changing to more suit the campaign and players don't need to know their stats anyway. The campaign is just using the Eberron setting as it saves lots of time world-building but things can and probably will change.

Can you clarify at what points its "too open" and "too closed"?

In principle do you think the starting idea is workable?

They are used to 3.5, and Pathfinder doesn't make that many changes that breaks all the 3.5 rules (apart from Combat Manoeuvre but thats not hard).

So what rules do you think need clarifying/simplifying?

Paganboy28
2010-08-18, 08:54 AM
also crashed airships and other elemental vessels tend to have one or two very angry large elementals suddenly getting freed from imprisonment and forced servitude if their housing is damaged and it makes things more interesting. The rules for airships are spread among multiple eberron books a couple paragraphs at a time, I think the explorer's handbook has a bunch of it consolidated though.

The ship is a floating one not an airship. The water elemental housing is still intact though there is the potential of it breaching but again players don't know that. The ship isn't sinking its just wrecked and in need of repair but getting to it is not easy and then there is the question of how to repair it.

The boat's navigator is still alive but is claiming to have no idea of what happened and he seems to have lost control of the elemental bound inside.

Paganboy28
2010-08-18, 08:55 AM
No. A Gestalt (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltcharacters.htm) Cleric-5//Wizard-5 is not nearly so strong as a regular Cleric-10, Wizard-10, or even a Cleric-3/Wizard-3/Mystic Theurge-4.

The Cleric-5//Wizard-5 has a +3 BAB, base saves of +4/+1/+4, 3rd level spells, and 5d8+5*Con Mod hit points.
The Cleric-10 has a +7 BAB, base saves of +7/+3/+7, 5th level spells, and 10d8+10*Con Mod hit points. The Wizard-10 has +5 BAB, base saves of +3/+3/+7, 5th level spells, and 10d4+10*Con Mod hit points. The Clr-3/Wiz-3/MT-4 has (assuming fractional BAB/Saves) +5 BAB, base saves of +5/+3/+7, 4th level spells, and 3d8+7d4+10*Con Mod HP.

Seriously, the only thing the Cleric-5//Wizard-5 beats the Mystic Theurge out on (using a traditional MT entry, mind you, not an accelerated entry) is familiar advancement (2 levels) and turn undead (also 2 levels). And Mystic Theurge is widely regarded as a trap.



Good point. I'll just drop this idea.

Tetrasodium
2010-08-18, 09:21 AM
The ship is a floating one not an airship. The water elemental housing is still intact though there is the potential of it breaching but again players don't know that. The ship isn't sinking its just wrecked and in need of repair but getting to it is not easy and then there is the question of how to repair it.

The boat's navigator is still alive but is claiming to have no idea of what happened and he seems to have lost control of the elemental bound inside.

Ahh, bunch of different elemental water vessels too :). Stormship might be a good choice since it basically storm powered so could continue to remain relatively nasty even after the crash. Gestalt can be a lot of fun though, especially with a smaller party. A lot of the half caster level PrC's and fighter/rogue PrC's that would require you essentially gimp yourself to qualify suddenly open up for unusual builds.