Ideas for a prehistoric campaign. [3.5]

[Mr.Christie]

I'm going to be DMing for my group for a while and they wanted to do a prehistoric campaign. I'm just wondering what already printed monsters besides dinosaurs I should put in and what kind of equipment.

[LOTRfan]

No dinosaurs? :smallfrown:

Let's see, there's Neanderthal in Frostburn (along with many, many prehistoric animals). Dire Animals should all fit, I believe there's at least one in every Monster Manual and Environment book. Fiend Folio has two, at least. They are terror birds and Megatherium (killer sloths!).

[Steveotep]

Frostburn is useful especially if you are setting it in an Ice Age. It has Neanderthals as a PC race and several primitive weapons.

[Mr.Christie]

Well its not that I'm not adding dinosaurs its just I already have got everyone in my books already so I didn't have any repeats, but that's for the reply those are great ideas.

[LOTRfan]

There's a list of roughly thirty new dinosaurs over on the homebrew section. Anyway, I'll see if I can find any more prehistoric mammals in the source books.

[Skeppio]

DMG pg 144 has a small paragraph on Bronze/Stone Age weapons and armour if you're interested, although it's rather small. Frostfell has a few primitive weapons you could use. I think there were a couple of weapons in Savage Species that might fit the theme.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Everyone is suggesting frostburn, so I too will suggest frostburn. Neanderthal is a naturally fitting race for this campaign. Some important things to consider...

1. How is magic developed in this world? You know the saying "Magic is indistinguishable from technology." It's partly true. The more advanced magic you have, the harder it is to make the campaign seem prehistoric. I'd suggest banning certain magical classes, or at least making strong arguments towards certain classes. Mystic Ranger, Spirit Shaman, Druid, and wildshaping ranger seem to apply best. You might suggest just writing out wizards and archivists.. A primitive world means a deficit in spellbooks, generally. Hell, without paper, spellbooks would be ridiculous.

2. Primitive technology means different weapons and armor. Stone tools are particularly flavorful, but stone armor generally looks silly.

3. A nature based religious system can be a great way to add flavor. The powers of the natural world would be all powerful forces to a pre-historic peoples.

4. Encourage Primeval, Bear warrior, barbarian, and perhaps geomancer. Discourage the more flashy, light armor types (such as skirmisher and duelist) because they represent a more recent style of fighting. On the other hand, encourage scout and ranger, but remember that thrown weapons would probably be more popular.

5. Giants fit pretty well into an ancient campaign, given their large size. Hengeyokai, being able to change into animals, might also work.

..

...I just realized you actually just asked for monsters and equipment. In that case, look into dire animals, many of them represent older animals anyway (I believe dire tiger is the sabertooth, for instance). Frostburn has the best primitive weapons, though honestly clubs and such should be fine.

[SurlySeraph]

Monsters: Dire Everything.
Equipment: Frostburn weapons, spears, knives, sickles, slings, bows.

[Ravens_cry]

Make it about survival, by removing the Survival skill use for feeding one self, making hunting an encounter. Reduce the kinds of weapons, you can't make effective swords out of flint as well as many other weapons and other simply didn't exist. Spears, javelins, darts, daggers, hand axes, maybe short swords, atlatl, bows of all kinds, and slings should be fine.
Maybe remove many armours, but consider the defence bonus system. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm)
This is something I want to try myself and so I watch this thread eagerly.

[Hawkfrost000]

hold on.....

checks massive pile of 3.5 books

here it is, coughs dust....


The Arms and Equipment guide has rules for wooden, stone, copper (i think) and bronze weapons.

[Rappy]

Frost and Fur has an entire chapter on Ice Age campaigns, as well as Ice Age variants on standard races (including nomadic arrowhead-flinging dwarves, giant drowesque elves, and stone-skinned gnomes) and a bestiary that includes several prehistoric creatures including mammoths and giant ground sloths.