Low Tech/Magic/Power/Fantasy Campaign

[Murg]

After years of playing in high powered high fantasy Forgotten Realms I'm ready to try something new. But I'm still trying to work out how my new houserules will mesh together. I’ve never tried having this many houserules before. I’m just worried about big unintended consequences that often crop up from new rules! Any advice would be appreciated!

My new campaign will be:
1: Low Tech: PCs start in a Stone Age level of technology
2. Low Magic: All casters but adepts are banned
3: Low Power: E6 rules
4. Low Fantasy: Humans, goblins and elves are the only races. No monsters.

1. Low tech

My concept: My intention is to create a totally different world than what my players are used to -- where surviving against Nature will be just as tough as surviving against hostile NPCs, and a world where resources that they have taken for granted are scarce. The PCs will start in a Stone Age civilization.

My houserules: PCs won’t get bonus languages for having a high intelligence. They will start out as most people of the world – illiterate.

Many types of equipment will be initially unavailable. The PCs will start in a civilization that has not even mastered the wheel, so they certainly will not have access to iron weapons or armor, or crossbows. Rather than come up with a long list of allowed/banned items for the PCs I was thinking of having the players ask themselves, “Is this something I would expect a caveman to have? If not then it’s probably not available in my tribe either.” Then again I can’t expect my players to be history experts and this is a fantasy world loosely based on reality in any case, so maybe a better solution would be for me as DM to individually go over each player’s initial equipment list with them. Afterwards the “shops” the PCs encounter would gradually get better and better stuff as they get closer to “civilization.”

Potential Issues: Lack of access to better armor could hurt classes with the heavy armor proficiency. But on the other hand my intention is that by the time the PCs reach 3rd level or so that they’ll be in more “civilized” Iron Age areas where they can get full plate mail, tower shields, ect. So by the time they could afford the better armor they will have access to it?

Speaking of affording stuff, I was thinking of having a Stone Age economy too – there would be no currency, only bartering. But while it would add flavor to the setting I’m afraid it’ll be too difficult to implement. I’m not even sure how to implement it honestly. And my feeling is I’ve got enough house rules as it is, so adding another one just for more flavor probably isn’t worth it. Has anyone successfully used an all-bartering system before?

2. Low magic

My concept: I’m tired of reading official adventures/campaigns where every backwater hamlet has a resident wizard, where every city has a “magic mart” that sells magic gear, where even low level PCs quickly amass a hoard of dozens of magic potions, scrolls, and weapons. In this campaign magic will be rare and special. Magic will be “magical” again. Many commoners will go their whole lives without even seeing magic.

My houserules: Magic item creation feats are gone. There are only a handful of magic items in the world and they are all unique. The main plotline of the campaign will be about two tribes that go to war with each other over possession of a magic dagger. Hah, in Forgotten Realms magic daggers are a dime a dozen, so this should be a real culture shock for my players!

All casters except adepts are banned. So possible PC classes would be:
rogue
barbarian
fighter
monk
CW or OA samurai
knight
scout
marshal
swashbuckler
CW ranger spell-less variant
CW paladin spell-less variant
ninja
crusader
swordsage
warblade
adept

Potential Issues: Now things like the samurai and ninja wouldn’t really fit the Stone Age feel of the campaign, but I’d allow them with a proper PC backstory. Maybe the PC is a traveler from a faraway land that got stranded in the Stone Age tribe. Or maybe the samurai/ninja just represents a different kind of fighting style with no cultural connotations.

I’ve never done a campaign with so little magic before. I’m sure this will have huge effects on gameplay but I’m not sure exactly what they’ll be.

3. Low power

My concept: I want the PCs to be mortal. In a standard D&D campaign even midlevel PCs possess ludicrous power. A midlevel wizard can kill a mighty dragon with a snap of his fingers. A midlevel barbarian can kill an entire kobold horde without taking a single point of damage. A midlevel cleric can bring dead PCs back to life! Where is the risk???

My houserules: Use the E6 optional ruleset. PCs and NPCs get maximum hitpoints per Hit die because, with only 6 levels to work with even a single bad hit point roll can really mess up a PC in the long term, and that’s not fair to players.

Potential Issues: I assume most of the linear advancement, quadratic caster progression issues would be solved. But I’ve never tried E6 before – to those who have – how did it work out? Should I use tier-based point buy or standard 25 point buy or something else?

4. Low fantasy

My concept: This goes hand-in-hand with magic being too common. I’m tired of seeing every official adventure/campaign have a dwarf blacksmith in every village and an elf bard in every tavern. In this campaign seeing an elf should be a wondrous experience, like in Lord of the Rings. In this campaign most humans will live their whole life without ever seeing a goblin or elf.

My houserules: Humans, goblins and elves are the only races and they are rare outside their home territories. I will strongly encourage players to be human because the campaign will start in human lands, but I will allow goblin or elven PCs as long as there is a backstory (orphan, refugee, ect.) There are no monsters. So no dragons, liches, beholders, ect. There are giant dangerous animals such as dire wolves and giant spiders. There are also some dinosaurs still around.

Potential Issues: While all class-based NPCs would be playing by the same rules, I’m afraid the CR of the dinosaurs and giant wildlife is based on the assumption that they will be encountered in a “standard” campaign at the standard power level.

----
Any suggestions, comments, advice?

[BowStreetRunner]

In a stone-age campaign you have to include Neanderthals! (From Frostburn) It just wouldn't be right without them. :smallfrown:

Edit: I found this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-226089.html)post in the archives that you may want to take a look at.

[Zaq]

Healing will be an issue. Even with the Heal skill, nonmagical healing is slow enough to bring an adventure to a grinding halt after pretty much every combat, let alone a full day of adventuring. Adepts can use curative magic, yes, but then you're pretty much declaring that the party needs to have an Adept, or needs to have magic items made by an Adept, and you're almost back where you started. You could also squeeze a little bit of healing out of a Crusader, but that doesn't work so well out of combat unless you're cool with bag-o'-rats. Note, also, that most of the ways of avoiding taking damage in the first place (either by bypassing encounters, minimizing the lethality of encounters, or protecting one's self within an encounter) are magical, so stand-and-slug will be the order of the day most of the time, which means that HP loss is going to be a thing pretty much no matter what.

How do you plan to address this?

[Yora]

The Barbarian Themed campiagns (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256080) thread might have some useful things for your.

How about giving adepts the spells known and spells per day of sorcerers, but using the adepts spell list?

In E6 spellcasting usually doesn't become a problem. If you are really concerned, druids should probably still be removed since in addition to their spells they also have lots of very powerful class features.
But I don't see problems with sorcerers, clerics, and bards. If you are still unsure, go over the spell lists and take away spells you don't like. Almost all problems with spellcasters except for druids are because of a small handful of terrible spells. Terribly good spells.

Just take away the spells from Rangers and still use the class. At 6th level, that doesn't hurt the ranger at all and the rest of the class is just too good for such games to ignore.

Don't remove bonus languages for Intelligence. Instead remove "Common" and replace it with a couple of human languages.

The Midnight setting does have a barter system instead of monney, but I never learned how it actually works.

[Draken]

I don't know how well the "no casters other than adepts" rule for low-magic truly works. Adepts aren't all that bad spell-wise.

I would suggest taking an alternative approach. Make it so that all spellcasters start with 1-2 spells and any new spells they want to learn they need to learn through the "develop new spells" mechanic or obtained in some other fashion (learned from dragons and other naturally spellcasting creatures, for instance).

This works pretty well in your intended world, I would say. Magic is primitive and undeveloped. There are no great magic institutions sharing knowledge of spells with magic users at large.

[Murg]

In a stone-age campaign you have to include Neanderthals! (From Frostburn) It just wouldn't be right without them. :smallfrown:



Oh wow, I have Frostburn but I totally forgot about the nearderthal. That would really fit with the setting too. I also saw some neat Stone Age equipment in there that I'll definitely have to use! Thanks!



Healing will be an issue. Even with the Heal skill, nonmagical healing is slow enough to bring an adventure to a grinding halt after pretty much every combat, let alone a full day of adventuring.

Most of my campaigns tend to be RP-heavy, combat light. So what I was thinking was that combat would be single tough fights interspersed with long periods of downtime, with heavy use of the Heal skill.


Adepts can use curative magic, yes, but then you're pretty much declaring that the party needs to have an Adept, or needs to have magic items made by an Adept, and you're almost back where you started.


Well I definitely do not want the players to think that they need an adept, but I can see now that you are right, that is exactly what will happen!

I saw a post a while back where someone implemented a "Dragon Age" style of healing, where after every fight was over the PCs got fast healing 1. So I could try that...

Though maybe I could change the rules to the Heal skill. Instead of healing 2 or 4 hit points per level per day, the PCs would heal a number of hit points equal to their skill check. PCs would be allowed to take 20 on their skill check, and healing kits would be immediately available in the campaign. I would much rather the PCs use the Heal skill than magical healing...

[Yora]

I saw a post a while back where someone implemented a "Dragon Age" style of healing, where after every fight was over the PCs got fast healing 1. So I could try that...
In the platest version for 5th Edition, you can take a rest of 10 minutes and then get some hit points back by rolling dice. And every day you can roll dice like the Hit Dice of your character.

A Ranger 3/Rogue 1 could roll three d8 and one d6 every day during those rests.

[BowStreetRunner]

I saw a post a while back where someone implemented a "Dragon Age" style of healing, where after every fight was over the PCs got fast healing 1. So I could try that...

Though maybe I could change the rules to the Heal skill. Instead of healing 2 or 4 hit points per level per day, the PCs would heal a number of hit points equal to their skill check. PCs would be allowed to take 20 on their skill check, and healing kits would be immediately available in the campaign. I would much rather the PCs use the Heal skill than magical healing...

I had an idea a while back that might work for you. It involved a variety of plants with special properties. Each could be used to duplicate the effects of certain spells but without the use of magic. There was a series of skill uses necessary to make them work.


Knowledge Nature was needed to identify each species of plant correctly.
Survival was needed to properly gather the right parts of the plants which need to be relativley fresh to work properly.
Craft (alchemy) was needed to process the plant into a proper poultice, salve, or healing draught as appropriate.
Heal was needed to administer the treatment properly. Unlike a potion you could not just take a dose blindly and expect it to work.


There were different plants that had the effect of the various spells, including Vigor, Lesser Restoration, Remove Paralysis, Neutralize Poison, etc.

This takes the role of healer out of combat mostly - none of these were standard actions that could be performed during a battle.

Edit: Since earlier I suggested using Neanderthals in your campaign, I should also mention that the option of using these plants is in fact, so easy a caveman could do it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5JV0Fs_GE8).

[Answerer]

I cannot more strongly recommend against D&D, of any edition but especially 3.5, for this. The system is awful for it. It is one of the highest-magic fantasies in existence, and it was designed around that fact. The system simply is not designed for this. Many systems are; I implore, you use a system that actually works for what you want instead of trying to bash 3.5 into something it's not. This is the epitome of trying to fit the square peg in the round hole; even if you can, it's not a good idea.

[Yora]

E6 works just fine.

[Murg]

The Barbarian Themed campiagns (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256080) thread might have some useful things for your.


That thread hits right on the money. Ambiguous morality, a savage tribal world, modern cultural mores and norms thrown right out the window. That's exactly what I'm aiming for. I'm a big fan of the Conan stories myself.



How about giving adepts the spells known and spells per day of sorcerers, but using the adepts spell list?


I'm afraid of making adepts any stronger. At 4th level adepts get 2nd level spells, which means web, scorching ray, darkness, ect. At an E6 level of play clever use of those spells can really cause some damage!




Don't remove bonus languages for Intelligence. Instead remove "Common" and replace it with a couple of human languages.


I'm torn about how to handle the languages issue.

On one hand, my fear is that, if I'm going for a Stone Age culture then most people would never travel far beyond their home territories in their lifetime. So multilingual people would be very rare.

Right now I've come up with 6 different factions that I expect the PCs to encounter during the course of the campaign. I could give all 6 of them their own language, but the problem is that all of these factions are geographically and culturally separated from each other at the start of the campaign. There isn't really a whole lot of trade going on.

I'm half tempted to just say, "The heck with it, everyone speaks Common."

I could justify it by saying that almost all languages spoken in the world are derived from just one language which spread throughout the world a long time ago. But after thousands of years each geographically and culturally separated tribe developed that language differently. So if someone from faction #1 encountered someone from faction #2, they might not be able to speak their language fluently, but there would be enough common syntax/words so they could get the gist of what is being said.



I had an idea a while back that might work for you. It involved a variety of plants with special properties. Each could be used to duplicate the effects of certain spells but without the use of magic. There was a series of skill uses necessary to make them work.


I certainly do want to do something like this! My players often ignored their skills in the Forgotten Realms, even the relevant ones, because magic did such a better job. Why use the disguise skill if you can just cast alter self? Why use the survival skill to find food when you can just create it with magic? I'm going to come up with a list of opportunities for them to use their skills to survive in this savage, primitive world.

[Yora]

The problem with spellcasters is really the spells. Using clerics and sorcerers but making new spell lists of level 0 to level 3 spells for them is not difficult. And then you can just put those spells on them which you want to have in your game.

Here's the druid spell list modified on the fly by removing attack spells and adding some cleric and druid spells. Use this for a sorcerer who has the class skills and skill points of a druid and you have a very nice supporting shaman.
0-Level Druid Spells
Cure Minor Wounds: Cures 1 point of damage.
Daze: Humanoid creature of 4 HD or less loses next action.
Detect Magic: Detects spells and magic items within 60 ft.
Detect Poison: Detects poison in one creature or object.
Guidance: +1 on one attack roll, saving throw, or skill check.
Resistance: Subject gains +1 bonus on saving throws.
Virtue: Subject gains 1 temporary hp.

1st-Level Druid Spells
Bane: Enemies take -1 on attack rolls and saves against fear.
Bless: Allies gain +1 on attack rolls and saves against fear.
Calm Animals: Calms (2d4 + level) HD of animals.
Cause Fear: One creature of 5 HD or less flees for 1d4 rounds.
Charm Animal: Makes one animal your friend.
Cure Light Wounds: Cures 1d8 damage +1/level (max +5).
Endure Elements: Exist comfortably in hot or cold environments.
Goodberry: 2d4 berries each cure 1 hp (max 8 hp/24 hours).
Hide from Animals: Animals can’t perceive one subject/level.
Obscuring Mist: Fog surrounds you.
Remove Fear: Suppresses fear or gives +4 on saves against fear for one subject + one per four levels.
Summon Nature’s Ally I: Calls creature to fight.

2nd-Level Druid Spells
Animal Trance: Fascinates 2d6 HD of animals.
Bear’s Endurance: Subject gains +4 to Con for 1 min./level.
Bull’s Strength: Subject gains +4 to Str for 1 min./level.
Cat’s Grace: Subject gains +4 to Dex for 1 min./level.
Daze Monster: Living creature of 6 HD or less loses next action.
Delay Poison: Stops poison from harming subject for 1 hour/level.
Fog Cloud: Fog obscures vision.
Gust of Wind: Blows away or knocks down smaller creatures.
Hold Animal: Paralyzes one animal for 1 round/level.
Owl’s Wisdom: Subject gains +4 to Wis for 1 min./level.
Remove Paralysis: Frees one or more creatures from paralysis or slow effect.
Resist Energy: Ignores 10 (or more) points of damage/attack from specified energy type.
Restoration, Lesser: Dispels magical ability penalty or repairs 1d4 ability damage.
Shield Other: You take half of subject’s damage.
Summon Nature’s Ally II: Calls creature to fight.
Summon Swarm: Summons swarm of bats, rats, or spiders.

3rd-Level Druid Spells
Bestow Curse: -6 to an ability score; -4 on attack rolls, saves, and checks; or 50% chance of losing each action.
Contagion: Infects subject with chosen disease.
Cure Moderate Wounds: Cures 2d8 damage +1/level (max +10).
Dispel Magic: Cancels spells and magical effects.
Dominate Animal: Subject animal obeys silent mental commands.
Heroism: Gives +2 on attack rolls, saves, skill checks.
Neutralize Poison: Immunizes subject against poison, detoxifies venom in or on subject.
Prayer: Allies +1 bonus on most rolls, enemies -1 penalty.
Protection from Energy: Absorb 12 points/level of damage from one kind of energy.
Rage: Gives +2 to Str and Con, +1 on Will saves, -2 to AC.
Remove Blindness/Deafness: Cures normal or magical conditions.
Remove Curse: Frees object or person from curse.
Remove Disease: Cures all diseases affecting subject.
Summon Nature’s Ally III: Calls creature to fight.
Wind Wall: Deflects arrows, smaller creatures, and gases.

[gr8artist]

We actually ran a prehistoric pathfinder campaign a few months back. Made it about 10 games before college kicked in.
We had a variety of races to pick from:neanderthal, orcs, gnolls, mole-dwarf, chimp-elves, kobold/troglodytes, thrikreen (mantis people), and a few others. The catch was that we had to be from neighboring tribes. This meant the group had to decide together what race they wanted to play, with only one other race being allowed.
(For example, orcs and gnolls lived near each other. Orcs also lived near neanderthals. If most of us wanted orc, the others were restricted to either neanderthal or gnoll.)
We did away with classes entirely, for the most part.
You played as either a warrior or an expert.
Warrior had d10 HD, full BAB, 4 skill points, 6 class skills, 1 good save.
Expert had d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, 8 skill points, 10 class skills, 2 good saves.
In place of armor, we had a defense bonus, gained through toughness and combat practice. Warrior had 6+1/3 level, Expert had 3+1/3 level.
We also lost the free feats granted at every odd level (3rd level for 3.5)
But every time you gained a level, you picked one class feature from any class to obtain. Some things were banned, others were edited, but anything from your level and lower were allowed.
(so no weapon mastery at 1st level. But sneak attack, favored enemy, and rage were all options.)
Magic was done differently. If you wanted to cast magic, you spent a class feature on it. For each feature you spent, you gained the spells known and spells per day of 2 levels in a casting class. So the first time you took it, you cast like a 2nd level sorceror. Next time, like a 4th level sorc. Then 6th, 8th, 10th etc...
There were some obvious hiccups (everyone took LOH, every brawler took rage, etc.) but for the most part it worked out fine.

for your campaign, I'd suggest something like that. Cut casting power by 50% (caster level increases once for every two levels) and give heavy armor classes a better defense bonus than clothies.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well I had a similar but not exactly the same idea some time ago..

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163569

[Urpriest]

I'd rather use D20Past for this, personally. Or something non-D20.

[Wise Green Bean]

I see CR as a big problem that will get worse as time goes by. They'll be ok so long as they're fighting their fellow cavemen, but I imagine they'll be fighting animals and the like as well. And a level 5 group is supposed to be fighting CR 5 monster with several 1000 GP of gear. The PCs just don't have that and will not be able to handle what you'd think appropriate CR would be. Down the line, you will have to personally evaluate the PCs versus the threat, as CR will simply no longer apply.

I also could see knowledge skills breaking the game. Roll high enough in architecture and engineering, and they will figure out the wheel. High enough nature, and they will recognize the potential value of iron. Whatever. But I could easily see the PCs becoming inventors taking their tribe into a new era.

[Gavinfoxx]

No no you need to invent copper and then bronze and THEN iron... look at the various civ tech trees...

[Answerer]

E6 works just fine.
E6 is a step in the right direction but is still a fundamentally poor choice. D&D, 3.5 in particular, simply does not handle this well at all.

There are entire systems designed from the ground up to handle these sorts of things. Why won't people use them?

[Agent 451]

Murg, this book might interest you. I don't have any experience with it myself, but it might be an interesting source for you.

From Stone to Steel. (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/2669/MonkeyGod-Presents%3A-From-Stone-to-Steel?it=1)

[Murg]

I cannot more strongly recommend against D&D, of any edition but especially 3.5, for this.

What other systems would be good for a low tech campaign? Preferably ones where I wouldn't have to buy a ton of new rule books.

Aside from D&D, the only other fantasy RPG I've played is GURPS, which IMHO has even more balance issues than 3.5 and is less polished in any case.

I've heard of d20 Past but I thought it was more Renaissance than Stone Age.

There's d20 Conan but I'm not interested in running a campaign in Hyboria(?), so I'd have to make a whole new set of house rules to get rid of the Hyborian-specific stuff.


I see CR as a big problem that will get worse as time goes by. They'll be ok so long as they're fighting their fellow cavemen, but I imagine they'll be fighting animals and the like as well. And a level 5 group is supposed to be fighting CR 5 monster with several 1000 GP of gear. The PCs just don't have that and will not be able to handle what you'd think appropriate CR would be. Down the line, you will have to personally evaluate the PCs versus the threat, as CR will simply no longer apply.

I agree that CR will become a problem. Maybe the best way to make up for the PCs' lack of equipment is to give them a very generous point buy. Like maybe 35 point buy instead of the standard 25? Or a generous tier based point buy?



Murg, this book might interest you. I don't have any experience with it myself, but it might be an interesting source for you.

Thanks, wow 352 pages for only 5 bucks, might have to check that out!:smallcool:

[Answerer]

I cannot make any specific recommendations because I would not care for this style of game in the least. I can only tell you about my knowledge of 3.5, which is that it cannot handle this kind of campaign at all.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This idea is workable as you've put it forth.

What you've got is just a stone's throw away from a no-magic campaign, since adepts are the only casters and there are no magical creatures. The only issue you've brought up that's a real potential problem is the CR's of animals, vermin, and the rare non-magical-magical-beast are going to be just a touch off. Generally assume that any creature listed at a CR higher than three is at least 1, if not 2, points higher than it's listed.

You may want to drop the martial adepts though. Any of the other classes played beside a martial adept is going to feel bland and boring without magical doo-dads to increase their options. BTW, does OA samurai's ancestral daisho class feature still work?

On barter: unless you wanna roleplay haggling, just treat items and livestock as being worth either their listed price or half their listed price, and allow the players to trade them directly for the items they'd purchase if they were getting gold. That's all spending money really is anway; bartering with a middle-man item. At least that's what it was until some wing-nut cooked up government fiat based money.

[Gavinfoxx]

I would allow the following classes in the setting:

Aristocrat
Commoner
Warrior
Battledancer
Expert
Fighter
Healer
Magewright
Mariner
Mlar
Noble
Paladin
Swashbuckler
Adept
Barbarian
Dragonfire Adept
Dragon Shaman
Hexblade
Marshal
Master
Ranger
Rogue
Savant
Scout
OA Samurai


--Anything that has a spell-less variant that makes sense, you HAVE to use that variant--

DO NOT USE THE CWar SPELL-LESS VARIANTS. THEY HAVE SPELLS. Use one of the other spell-less variants; the CWar ones call their spells supernatural abilities, but they ARE spells! I think Complete Champion has some.

[Murg]

BTW, does OA samurai's ancestral daisho class feature still work?

Yes, though I would say that there is no actual magic involved. The blade would be treated as if it were +1 in the hands of the samurai because of his skill/familiarity with the weapon. In anyone else's hands it would just be a masterwork sword. The gold cost could be explained as finding the best materials available to re-temper the blade and keep it in pristine condition.


On barter: unless you wanna roleplay haggling, just treat items and livestock as being worth either their listed price or half their listed price, and allow the players to trade them directly for the items they'd purchase if they were getting gold. That's all spending money really is anway; bartering with a middle-man item. At least that's what it was until some wing-nut cooked up government fiat based money.

That sounds like a good idea.



DO NOT USE THE CWar SPELL-LESS VARIANTS. THEY HAVE SPELLS. Use one of the other spell-less variants; the CWar ones call their spells supernatural abilities, but they ARE spells!


I think the CW variants should be OK because of E6. The supernatural abilities that mimic spells don't kick in until after 6th level. The CW variant paladin will get good-aligned weapons at 6th level, but that's not really useful because almost nobody has damage reduction. Maybe it would just be simpler to say, "Paladins don't get spells."

But since it's a net downgrade for the paladin either way and he's already tier 5 he probably should get something useful in return for losing his spells. Maybe an extra feat, though that would mean yet another houserule and I've already got a lot.

Maybe the best solution is to do generous tier-based point buy. That way everyone gets a buff for the lack of equipment which will address the CR problem. And the high tier classes get a buff to make up for their lack of power.

Something like:

Tier 3: 35 point buy
Tier 4: 40 point buy
Tier 5: 45 point buy
Tier 6: 50 point buy

[Kelb_Panthera]

Just give everybody a flat 32 point buy. You've already eliminated all the T1 and T2's and nearly all, if not all in fact, of the T3's. Between that and playing in E6 the tier distinctions are largely erased.

The numbers work out fine for the most part, since there are almost no magical enemies either. Combat is going to be decidedly more dangerous, but that's to be expected. Just make it clear to the players that the old-fashioned, in-your-face-with-something-pointy style of combat is much more likely to get you killed than sound tactics and teamwork and you should be okay. Humans with pointy rocks strapped to a stick were killing mastadons (albeit infrequently) in pre-history. That's exactly the kind of thing your setup will model. I strongly advise any rogue in your setting to use the wilderness rogue variant. The more urban default rogue might be a bit out of place.

Btw, you do realize this thing will live or die on the RP? The combat mechanics are useable, but there's not much else to say for them, no matter how many feats you tack on.

[Yora]

If it is no magic and no monsters and low-level, there really isn't much left to gain from using D&D.

Dragon Age RPG is a nice system and I think to remember that people mentioned it works quite well without having mages in the party.

Conan d20 should also work quite well without any actual changes. But a 400 pages book of which only 40 pages will see any use doesn't seem like a good investment.

[ThiagoMartell]

GURPS should work a lot better for this.
The d6 System (used in the old Star Wars RPG) is very versatile and free. It would also work better for this.
Mutants & Masterminds is very versatile, has it's own SRD and it also works better for this. It's based on d20, so it's easy to learn.
Older editions of D&D would work better for this as well.

That said, if you want to take all the trouble to get 3.5 to work for this, go for it. It's your time you're going to spend, after all. Looks like your idea is more to put a different spin in 3.5 than to play a stone age campaign. If that is indeed so, changing systems is not going to help.

[Murg]

Btw, you do realize this thing will live or die on the RP?

Hah, that would describe most of my campaigns. :smallcool:



The combat mechanics are useable, but there's not much else to say for them, no matter how many feats you tack on.

Looking at E6, it really does look like it starts to stagnate after you hit the level cap so I don't plan to take the campaign too far beyond that.


That said, if you want to take all the trouble to get 3.5 to work for this, go for it. It's your time you're going to spend, after all. Looks like your idea is more to put a different spin in 3.5 than to play a stone age campaign. If that is indeed so, changing systems is not going to help.

I'm quite happy with how these houserules have turned out, so I'm gonna try it and see what happens. Thanks everybody for the advice!