Eargon based World

[dantiesilva]

So as the title implies my ideas are based of the Inheritance cycle. But with a small twist, everyone that is an elf rides some form of dragon or lesser dragon, and are thus the most powerful race in the known world. Humans have just come to the area, say around 500 of them to settle and make their own kingdom, they do not know that their are inhabitants on the continent yet, and thus are not worried about attack yet saying all they have seen is a beautiful peace filled place where the trees grow tall and the food is plentiful. Dwarfs have the largest kingdom set up because they have dug into the underdark and hold every way in and out of their kingdom with nothing less than a small army.

The elfs to incorporate their natural ability for magic are going to have automatic levels of a psionic class along with their other class that is of their choosing.

Humans have any martial class for their other half of the multiclass due to the fact that those who came to the land were trained warriors expecting war.

The dwarfs have two levels of the NPC class Expert for each level gain for the fact that in my eyes all the NPC classes should be considered half of what a normal class is. Along with that it represents their love of the craft.

My idea for the campaign was to have everyone start of as a human, that way they know nothing about the world which most players don't when they first start out. The game is a Version of Gestalt in the fact that it automatically grants you a second class level for each level you gain. Once you choose the class though it can not be changed for another, nor can it be used to prestige class ( In other words you can not forfeit gaining a level in the class to instead take a prestige class). Instead of Urgals their are orges and giants and the such that have a chain of command. Titans are considered half gods but only one is known to exist.

The chain of command goes Giants at the top, Orges, and then all kinds of goblinoids. I'm trying to keep everything else out right now and keep it simple for the PCs. But I do plan on later on a fallen Paladin trying to raise an undead army to destroy everything. As well as a Half elf half demon wizard who wants the world consumed by demons. Both who ride on dragons.

No matter what the PCs are doing I plan on having the other "Groups" progressing with their own plans. Say after the humans actually have a castle built and start expanding they encounter one of the riders.

For the elfs I am planing on having a very military led government. Where the lowest level guard is even a problem. ( The city guard is escintaly a Fighter 3/Marshal 2/ Dragon samurai 5//Psionic warrior 10)

Please playground any help with ideas and builds for the leaders of each thing would be great. Thank you all in advance.

[Das Platyvark]

Eargone? I'm getting a sudden urge to go look at some Van Gogh.

[Grimsage Matt]

If you want a Eargon based world..... Use this http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120488 . Truenaming, what a lovely word. Also fits the Flavor.

As for the dwarves, http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm#expert . A Varient of the Expert class that might scale better.

As for the Ogre/Giants.... Trolls. Have you ever considered Trolls?

And for the "Old things, deep underground", want to try a Deep Troll? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245719

Also, will think of a crazy dwarf. A very powerful runesmith. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245719

[dantiesilva]

As I have seen in the past and so saw again Truename magic is just personally a pain, all the roles just for one simple thing. If I wanted to role 5 times to say somethings name I would rather just role 5 attack roles and kill it. Truenames have always come down to way to many rolls for my liking, it takes to much away from the experience when to do the most common thing you are rolling something at the very least 2 times. Its why I go with psionics, even though it is much easier to break, in the end it is less of a hassle for both me and my players. A lot less book work to.

As for your idea for the expert, unless I'm mistaking it looks like the same one as the one in the DMG.

Trolls didn't really think of them but only because I wanted to start with the basics, Troll would be on tier with the giants though, maybe even above them. But would come in much later on.

Lastly do you know the dwarf runesmith and the deeptroll are the same thing? Don't know if it was on accident or not just wanted to point it out. But yes they do seem to fit well theme wise with everything.

[Grimsage Matt]

Ya, just thought I'd mention truenaming.

As for the expert, it's a UA varient that gives lots of bonus feats. PC version of the class. There's also one for the Mage and warrior. Should check out d20srd.org sometime.

[Wyntonian]

As I have seen in the past and so saw again Truename magic is just personally a pain, all the roles just for one simple thing. If I wanted to role 5 times to say somethings name I would rather just role 5 attack roles and kill it. Truenames have always come down to way to many rolls for my liking, it takes to much away from the experience when to do the most common thing you are rolling something at the very least 2 times. Its why I go with psionics, even though it is much easier to break, in the end it is less of a hassle for both me and my players. A lot less book work to.

Where are you getting rolling multiple times from? You roll once per effect. Exactly the same number of times as an attack roll. Less, actually, because attacks get iteratives and truenames don't.


As for your idea for the expert, unless I'm mistaking it looks like the same one as the one in the DMG.

You are. It's a UA generic class. They're not supposed to mesh with normal ones.

[dantiesilva]

I was getting the multiple roles from reading the link that was given. And my bad for the class

[Wyntonian]

I was getting the multiple roles from reading the link that was given. And my bad for the class

I suppose you could fulfill multiple roles in a party, but that's not really a bad thing. :smallconfused:

If you mean multiple rolls, as in times you roll the dice per action, yeah, still no. You roll once against a DC to use an Utterance. On a very few, you roll for damage. Melee types need at least two. (Attack+Damage). You only need one for truespeaking, usually.

[dantiesilva]

Well thank you for the correction, I will read it again when it is not 12am.

So what do you think about for an idea when they finally go to meet the dwarfs they find all the gates are locked and they are being refused entrance into the dwarven world.

When they first meet the elfs the dragons think they are food, like monkeys, and the elfs...the elfs try to teach them how to live without destroying the land around them maybe. Not sure on that end. Any suggestions?

[dantiesilva]

And now have the build for mid to high level military melee at least.

Paladin 3/ Marshal 2/ 5 Crusader (White raven)/5 Dragon rider//15 Psyinic warrior

Thinking for the healer Something like

Sorcerer 5/ Rainbow servant 10/ Psion 15

And for the arcane Sorcerer 5 Zelturm skylord 10//Wilder 15 Does that sound good?

[Zale]

How will you handle the fact that the Elves are flat out better than everything else?

[dantiesilva]

Dwarves gain two levels of expert every level

Humans gain one martial class per level on the side.

In eargon the elfs were better then everything besides the dragons and those who rode them so I see no problem. A well made character could easily combat what the elfs have by using their resources wisely. Just not a rider. Which I still haven't made yet.

The thing I'm having the hardest time with now is deciding how many elfs are actually around. Because I have decided patrols are groups of 12. 9 of them melee oriented, 1 leader that is a mass buffer ( Marshal type build), 1 healer, and one caster focused.

I know their are a total of 500 humans, small amount yes but they just came to the the world so to speak. Dwarves will have roughly the same amount of people as the elfs if not less even though they have been their longer because they have had the war with the dragons that they kept on getting eaten in and then the trolls that i was shown.

Speaking of which should I have a druid as the low level healer Or not? Low level being 10.

[Zale]

Martial Class being Tome of Battle, or just Barbarian or Fighter?

Are Elves intended to be a playable race, or is it just humans?

[dantiesilva]

Elves are intended at least at the beginning to be a non playable race. Later on though as the story line progresses yes they will eventually become playable if a character were to die. But they would have to have made peaceful contact with an elf and held it. Because they will be extremely powerful.

Martial class being PHB, TOB, CW classes. Not sure if their are any more books so I'm just naming the ones of the top of my head. And when you have a group of crusaders all with white raven as their focus thats alot of buffs.

I want to see how the group would do empire building mostly, they have always enjoyed the war games so making it a step further should make it interesting, after all one of my favorite campaigns I ever played in was taken place around each PC being a noble of a neighboring village or such and I was a rogue that had the biggest criminal network around.

Ninja10/Ghost faced killer 10, was one of my favorite builds saying I was a droppleganger and had immunity to almost everything do to the spellcaster. I want to recreate that kind of idea for them to see if it interests them like it did me. After all what is more rewarding then having an empire made by you, or destroyed by your actions. That way each and every single time you create a new character it takes place after what your previous characters had done.

[Zale]

Hmm..

The ideas you put forth are very interesting, but I still think that perhaps Elves would be a bit.. powerful to play as.

They'd likely overshadow everyone else in the group for as long as they remained.

Superhumanly strong and fast, impossibly attractive, ageless, innately magical. Not to mention the apparent Draconic Companions they get.

Eh. Perhaps I'm just being finicky.

So, what are you doing for the magic system?

[dantiesilva]

The magic system..wow i did not think of that, to make it fit better i would have to make everything be psionics and thus eliminate arcane spells for the fact that they are weaker. Psion vs Wizard as far as I know Psion wins because they can store power points while the wizard can not save up his spells for days on end. Divine magic will still be normal though with cleric and druid and such. So basically wizard an Sorcerer are taken out. Bard can be played around with because it does not focus on the spellcasting, maybe instead of spells it gains white raven abilities from To to make up for lose of arcane spellcasting. What do you think?

And sorry I didn't clarify, if one person goes elf, that means the party has to vote on whether or not they will go as well. If not the person who plays the elf will play at a lower level do to the draconic companions they have. If its not optimized it should be not to bad, but if we are playing an optimized game yea you are defiantly right. After all I'm making the melee build right now for the military and I wouldn't say it is optimized but... here is the link so you can see and be the judge, keep in mind the build is not completly because they max out at level 15.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=417604

Also this is just one of them, they are in a group of 12, 9 of which are this build.

[Zale]

You could get someone to make a homebrewed system of magic that preserved the themes.

All you'd need is a brainstorming thread.

Possibly just have each word have multiple effects, stacked in tiers of power, each requiring more energy.

Brisingr, for example.

The least effects (And cheapest) could be things like conjuring a orb of fire for light or covering your weapons with fire for a turn or so.

Greater effects would offer other things. Resistance to fire, the ability douse fires or start them, cloaks of fire, etc..

The energy would be point based like psionics..

[dantiesilva]

That could work but they have the mana system in UA that most people would suggest me to look at. How did the build look though?

[Zale]

Hmm.

I'm not terribly good at gauging that sort of thing..

What exactly do you have for Elf racial traits currently?

[dantiesilva]

Everything is the same. The only change I made was granting the the extra class. But I also gave humans the same thing for martial types, and dwarfs two levels of expert to make it even playing ground. After all the dwarfs were known for their clerics in Eargon as well as their craft. While humans were literally made to be warriors. Add in the fact that there are only 500 humans total they have to be able to fight.

[Grimsage Matt]

Instead of giving everypne a free level, just make it a Gelsat setting.

Also, for the dwarves, use that UA Generic Expert class instead of 2 levels of NPC Expert. Would make it simpler to work with.

[dantiesilva]

And i am gestalting

[dantiesilva]

Well I officially made the build for the melee version and here it is.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=417604

Any ideas on how I could improve what I have by a change of feats would be appreciated. Or maneuvers.


As well I need a list of powers I should pick up. 3 of each from level 1 to 5.
Magic items are always one of my weaker suits, but was thinking along the lines of magic weapons that do sonic damage ( saying the wyzern does not have an energy attack) as well as a armor that grants sonic resistance and a bonus to ride checks. Everything else I am completely lost on. Even for materials for the weapons and armor. Any suggestions with their sources would be greatly appreciated.

[Zale]

Telepathy and Psychometabolism seem most fitting.

You'd need to cull powers that defy the laws of the setting, like easy teleportation. Or certain types of shapeshifting.

[dantiesilva]

Ot of the four lists of spells I can cast only 2 of them do teleportation. Think dimension door and shadow step. For shapeshifting get this, they have things that improve your natural bite attack, nothing to give you one though. They also have one that gives you a black dragons breath weapon which fits theme wise and thus has some crunch. I guess all the natural bite attacks could be cast on the wyvern to increase its damage output, and because it deals poison there are many powers that deal with poison. Does that sound like a good investment?

Level 1
Bite of wolf
Thicken skin
Prevenom weapon

Level 2

[dantiesilva]

And now for the spellcasters who also ride the wyverns.

I was thinking something like Factorum/Zhentarim Skymage//Psion that look solid

[dantiesilva]

Anyone? Anyone at all think that is ok or bad or anything?

[jedimattk]

Every single post you've made in this thread has had Eragon misspelled as "Eargon". The difference is this:

http://suvudu.com/files/mt-files/eragon.jpg

And something like this:

http://www.secondpicture.com/tutorials/3d/polygons_in_the_base_of_an_ear_in_3ds_max.png

Thank you, carry on. I'm interested to see your final implementation of the ancient language.

[dantiesilva]

? Ok.... the ancient language is psionics in my world

[Grimsage Matt]

? Ok.... the ancient language is psionics in my world

Which makes little thematic sense. Unless psionics now requires speech:smalltongue: And seriously, do the Truenaming thing, and for the silent words? Add a homebrew feat.

[Zale]

I'm not entirely certain what Eargon is, but it's obviously something different from Eragon.

[dantiesilva]

Anyways now time for the actual riders. I am thinking for this there will be quite a few different builds. One focusing strictly on buffing up everything so probably marshal paladin dragonfire adept. Then Dragon rider prestiage class.

Another being melee focused being Crusader (for white raven) Bard ( to help with white raven) Something then dragon rider. Psion being the other side.

The spellcaster being psion on one side Facotum on the other until it goes to Dragon rider.

Yea so three builds for them. The leader being the most powerful of them all.

Their swords are from this thread. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247815 Any sword is ok. Please help with builds.