Vaz
2012-11-27, 08:28 PM
I am part of a group of players who have recently picked up the Game since we started university and found a pile of books that all in perfect condition; noone has come back to claim them (despite asking around), and with their being the best part of £1200 worth there (guesstimation), we didn't really want to throw
out. Now between the typical student life and work we haven't had much time
to do much with it; but now the time has come to start a campaign over christmas.
So; we had a flat meeting over dinner one night (between admiring - professionally, of course - Natalie Lowe's insane body on Strictly Come Dancing), and we have decided to do a low-to-no magic campaign.
This is one where magic is basically not present. Why? We found it far, far too powerful, just looking at the spell books, and having a quick look-see round here, it seems that everyone else feels the same way. So; the simplest way of doing it was simply banning everything that had a Spellcasting ability, but also
some of the more supernatural creatures; with a few exceptions; essentially the more "humanoid" you are in appearance, the more likely it will be present although more likely as a baddy; for example; a Marilith is perhaps my favourite Demon; I used to play Warhammer, and there was a character called Dechala the Denied One who was essentially a Marilith appearance wise - as such, the Marilith is likely to be our big final enemy. However, exactly how low magic are we? No Elves, Dwarves, Walking Lizards or Lich's will be present.
The general setting of the campaign world is one similar to Rokugan (I think we have all of these books), with Dragons (all of them technically on the same side, but with different factions within them), fighting Demon and Devil hordes; the Dragons are Peacekeepers, neutral arbitrators, while the other two are the evil guys who are fighting each other across the galaxy; having destroyed the last world, they have now come to this one. The magic was drained from the world by the Dragons, who now have a fragment of their prior power, but that same
magic drained into small pockets all over the world. Whenever anyone comes to these pockets; they are rendered able to cast magic and learn a dangerous truth about why it was removed; the last person to do so was corrupted by it, and through this surge in emotions, the Evil hordes had an outlet to this world from their last one; the final boss is the place where our corrupted spellcaster disintegrated into nothingness, leaving only a pulsing hole in the aether; here the Vanguard of the devils and daemons come; not weaklings like dretch, but overlords (so pit fiends, cornugons, mariliths, and balors). It is from here they corrupt the human populace, and the setting of the story.
so Clans, Samurai etc, but no Shadowlands, etc, but without some of the big limitations present. I myself love the Romance of The Three Kingdoms storyline; Dynasty Warriors and all that jazz as a young teenager - and love the style of Chinese martial arts; Jet Li; Jackie Chan, House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger, Hero, etc; so will likely be creating a character around that. Yes, yes, ignoring the whole Bamboo forest and walking on water things, but those are fairly synonymous with the mad feats of Legends; and is far more satisfying to explain to extraordinary talents rather than simply gating in a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon.
We have run a few encounters in preperation to learn the rules, but not a full campaign.
However, this is where we are getting a little stuck; looking at the Tiers; anything without Magical/Psionics is in the 3rd or 4th Tier; and obviously some creatures have lower challenge ratings due to their expected challenge; i.e easy access to Potions and Wands of Cure, Fly, Invisibility, while some creatures have some fairly powerful Magical abilities; like Dragons and Demons, and Devils which buffs up their CR.
So; a Pit Fiend which can no longer at will Blasphemy/Mass Circle v. Good (of which we almost definately will be) or even Wish; or a Green Dragon incapable of Mass Dominating the PC's; what would yountypically rate these characters at? Will there be a significant loss in a Challenge Rating? Or conversely, despite a Gold Dragon no longer able to Discern Gems, thanks to not allowing Greater Invisibility and fly, will that make it go up in CR? For example; there is no quick heal or quick "phoenix down" I can use to restore a character mid/post battle. The only healing is what happens naturally; resting in a wagon with a good healer and a herb poultice to hand, maybe. Having read the SRD and UA about Gestalt CR; all it states is simply give more Save or Die and give them a harder
CR to fight. If there is no quick fix for these high CR creatures, what about "the corrupted"; these do the bulk of any of the 3 D's work and primary foe replacing Orks/Gnolls etc with human samurai/ronin/ashigaru/bandits, as well as puzzles, traps, and the natural environment.
Note that we will be getting some of the Magic Items; due to the nature of using Samurai or Kensai at some point. But none of this blatantly obvous "magic wand of iWin".
Lastly; Gestalt; I love this idea; I have heard warnings about all the wacky things which can go on about a Gestalt; but they are related to magic casters so do not apply. But the Prestige Classes; without access to spellcasting (spellcasting classes banned, or more likely allowed, excluding Requirement for casting spells/psionic powers, and having those Spellcasting/psionic progression ignored), what is the reason for not allowing PrC/PrC, yet C/C or PrC/C is allowed? I know "because it says so" but the DM wanted me to find out if there is some unseen mechanism that would be skewed out the wazoo compared to Wizard 20 shenanigans (Monk with fighter feats/crusader maneuvres sticks out a fair bit).
As an aside, completely irrelevant, I noticed the Living Spell Template; has anyone got a list of spells that work well with it? I am thinking of running a seperate campaign based in the Mournlands full of these oozes, and I'd be interested in seeing any wierd or wacky variants (Like the use of glitterdust, as opposed to pure evocation).
out. Now between the typical student life and work we haven't had much time
to do much with it; but now the time has come to start a campaign over christmas.
So; we had a flat meeting over dinner one night (between admiring - professionally, of course - Natalie Lowe's insane body on Strictly Come Dancing), and we have decided to do a low-to-no magic campaign.
This is one where magic is basically not present. Why? We found it far, far too powerful, just looking at the spell books, and having a quick look-see round here, it seems that everyone else feels the same way. So; the simplest way of doing it was simply banning everything that had a Spellcasting ability, but also
some of the more supernatural creatures; with a few exceptions; essentially the more "humanoid" you are in appearance, the more likely it will be present although more likely as a baddy; for example; a Marilith is perhaps my favourite Demon; I used to play Warhammer, and there was a character called Dechala the Denied One who was essentially a Marilith appearance wise - as such, the Marilith is likely to be our big final enemy. However, exactly how low magic are we? No Elves, Dwarves, Walking Lizards or Lich's will be present.
The general setting of the campaign world is one similar to Rokugan (I think we have all of these books), with Dragons (all of them technically on the same side, but with different factions within them), fighting Demon and Devil hordes; the Dragons are Peacekeepers, neutral arbitrators, while the other two are the evil guys who are fighting each other across the galaxy; having destroyed the last world, they have now come to this one. The magic was drained from the world by the Dragons, who now have a fragment of their prior power, but that same
magic drained into small pockets all over the world. Whenever anyone comes to these pockets; they are rendered able to cast magic and learn a dangerous truth about why it was removed; the last person to do so was corrupted by it, and through this surge in emotions, the Evil hordes had an outlet to this world from their last one; the final boss is the place where our corrupted spellcaster disintegrated into nothingness, leaving only a pulsing hole in the aether; here the Vanguard of the devils and daemons come; not weaklings like dretch, but overlords (so pit fiends, cornugons, mariliths, and balors). It is from here they corrupt the human populace, and the setting of the story.
so Clans, Samurai etc, but no Shadowlands, etc, but without some of the big limitations present. I myself love the Romance of The Three Kingdoms storyline; Dynasty Warriors and all that jazz as a young teenager - and love the style of Chinese martial arts; Jet Li; Jackie Chan, House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger, Hero, etc; so will likely be creating a character around that. Yes, yes, ignoring the whole Bamboo forest and walking on water things, but those are fairly synonymous with the mad feats of Legends; and is far more satisfying to explain to extraordinary talents rather than simply gating in a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon.
We have run a few encounters in preperation to learn the rules, but not a full campaign.
However, this is where we are getting a little stuck; looking at the Tiers; anything without Magical/Psionics is in the 3rd or 4th Tier; and obviously some creatures have lower challenge ratings due to their expected challenge; i.e easy access to Potions and Wands of Cure, Fly, Invisibility, while some creatures have some fairly powerful Magical abilities; like Dragons and Demons, and Devils which buffs up their CR.
So; a Pit Fiend which can no longer at will Blasphemy/Mass Circle v. Good (of which we almost definately will be) or even Wish; or a Green Dragon incapable of Mass Dominating the PC's; what would yountypically rate these characters at? Will there be a significant loss in a Challenge Rating? Or conversely, despite a Gold Dragon no longer able to Discern Gems, thanks to not allowing Greater Invisibility and fly, will that make it go up in CR? For example; there is no quick heal or quick "phoenix down" I can use to restore a character mid/post battle. The only healing is what happens naturally; resting in a wagon with a good healer and a herb poultice to hand, maybe. Having read the SRD and UA about Gestalt CR; all it states is simply give more Save or Die and give them a harder
CR to fight. If there is no quick fix for these high CR creatures, what about "the corrupted"; these do the bulk of any of the 3 D's work and primary foe replacing Orks/Gnolls etc with human samurai/ronin/ashigaru/bandits, as well as puzzles, traps, and the natural environment.
Note that we will be getting some of the Magic Items; due to the nature of using Samurai or Kensai at some point. But none of this blatantly obvous "magic wand of iWin".
Lastly; Gestalt; I love this idea; I have heard warnings about all the wacky things which can go on about a Gestalt; but they are related to magic casters so do not apply. But the Prestige Classes; without access to spellcasting (spellcasting classes banned, or more likely allowed, excluding Requirement for casting spells/psionic powers, and having those Spellcasting/psionic progression ignored), what is the reason for not allowing PrC/PrC, yet C/C or PrC/C is allowed? I know "because it says so" but the DM wanted me to find out if there is some unseen mechanism that would be skewed out the wazoo compared to Wizard 20 shenanigans (Monk with fighter feats/crusader maneuvres sticks out a fair bit).
As an aside, completely irrelevant, I noticed the Living Spell Template; has anyone got a list of spells that work well with it? I am thinking of running a seperate campaign based in the Mournlands full of these oozes, and I'd be interested in seeing any wierd or wacky variants (Like the use of glitterdust, as opposed to pure evocation).