PDA

View Full Version : House Ruling Help (Planes related spells, Resurrection based spells, other)



JonathonWilder
2013-04-06, 02:52 PM
Hello, I am putting together a roleplay using D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder rules yet the setting is based on something else. My ‘main’ questions are as follows:
1. For simplicity I wish to remove the existence of other planes, or at least make the existence of planes simply the theories of the learned. Yet this would mean that many spells would either have to be removed (such as Plane Shift and Gate) or altered (such as the Summon Monster spells).
* How should I go about having a campaign without the existence of other planes and what should I do with the spells that need the planes existence?

2. I wish to put together a campaign that has as a dramatic and thematic point that one cannot bring back those that have died, no matter how much one may wish that they could and that to pursue a course to do so will lead only to tragedy or darkness (this would not affect spells involving the undead as it could be seen as example of the horrors of those that try).
How should I go about doing this, should I simply remove all Resurrection based/related spells or go about such in a different why? This would also mean one cannot use the Wish spell to bring someone back or call for deity intervention.

Surfnerd
2013-04-06, 03:26 PM
It sounds like for the most part you have it figured out. Might I suggest checking out the modified rules presented in Ravenloft 3.5 on spells. I don't think you can leave the demiplane of dread so they limit contact with other spells, they take out detect alignment spells I know for sure.

You can check out the Ravenloft Player's Handbook pg. 105. They break it down by school and then clarify per spells that need to be changed.

Raise dead and resurrection both require a saving throw on the target with a fail creating an undead instead of bringing the recipient back to life.

and I think trying to plane shift out just doesn't work.

Hope that helps.

JonathonWilder
2013-04-06, 03:46 PM
One problem one of my players gave was that this ruling would make the Conjuration school all but dead, and weaken wizards/clerics because they can't use Summon Monster Spells. On a similar note it would weaken a Cleric, as bringing back the dead is one of their gimmick (admittingly at higher levels but still).

I know of Ravenloft a bit, I very much liked the books make by Monte Cook involving the setting especially the ones on classic horror monsters such as vampires, liches, werebeasts, exc

Surfnerd
2013-04-06, 04:07 PM
You could still allow summon monster; maybe no one knows exactly where they come from. Perhaps some schools of thought is that they are plucked from their habitat and this is bad, making it a RP tool but not restricting the players from casting said spells.

I don't think modifying raise dead or resurrection would weaken the class, its not a combat spell, it would just make death final. I could see how some players wouldn't like that, but they could just make smarter choices and not be so brazen.

The ravenloft PHB addresses conjuration as a school and suggests making summoned creatures harder to control and that summoning outsiders sometimes don't return to their plane because the Mists don't like to relinquish hold over any creature.

I feel like putting conditions on the spells that may be the most commonly used and explaining the reason to the players would be totally fine. Really unless you want the campaign to go to another plane, planar travel can't be argued as nerfing if all the challenges are on the prime material plane.

I love the idea of keeping the higher planes of existence restricted, it keeps the mystery. I am sure you have a reason for your exclusions and the players should have piqued curiosity over where it may go versus caution. Maybe explaining you aren't restricting them to take advantage but that its integral to the world.

navar100
2013-04-06, 04:49 PM
There's nothing wrong with simply just removing Resurrection etc. and the Summon Monsters spells from the game. It's not like without those spells spellcasters are The Suck. The Summon Monster spells are handy, but they aren't must haves might as well be a fighter if you don't.

Since you are removing resurrection from the game, while character death risk is still necessary you have to make sure the game is not so lethal. Pathfinder made most save or die spells save or take damage, but they should still be rare. Phantasmal Killer even rarer. Keep Breath of Life, but you might instead consider house ruling the Cure spells (and Heal) work like it. A Cure spell can bring someone back from the "dead" as long as it was cast within 1 round per level of the spell. For example, if a PC is killed, as long as a Cure Serious Wounds spell is cast on him within 3 rounds, the PC wasn't really dead. A Cure Light Wounds only has a 1 round window. The Cure spell still has to be able to bring the recipient up to at least his negative Con. If after the healing the recipient still has more than that in damage he is dead for real.

You should also consider Teleport and related spells. They say you travel through the Astral Plane, but that is not absolutely necessary for the spells to work. Nothing wrong with just "Poof! You're there."

If you want to keep the Summon Monster spells you can say they're actually different forms of Spiritual Ally (Advanced Player's Guide) but use Summon Monster statistics. The Planar Binding/Ally spells would still have to go away. Not a catastrophe.

Erik Vale
2013-04-06, 07:33 PM
For conjuration, you could say Summon Monster and similar spells are creating creatures from magic [hence their short duration], possibly with a side of level boost. Binding's and such however would be gone, just gone.

JusticeZero
2013-04-06, 08:54 PM
Probably people will work up contingency plans to serve a similar purpose. In a different game, there was no raising of the dead - but everybody carried around items with weak Flesh to Stone effects set to go off when they were in danger of death, and there were spells to hold off death and the like, all to allow healing characters back from the brink of a casual brush with -47 HP. (At higher levels, that 10 point window can get vanishingly tiny.) It took preparation, and it still took them out of the fight, so it wasn't a problem. PF Vitalists are described as not having power to get the gods to muck with souls, so no planar access to retrieve souls from the afterlife - but they still have spells to restore the dead to life. One of them has to be used within one round of the victim being mangled, and the other keeps their mind intact to expand that timeframe. You might look at remodeling those as clerical spells.

Slylizard
2013-04-07, 06:50 PM
We've removed raise dead/resurrection and the like from our game of Pathfinder. As a compromise we added in a certain amount of points (D3 per character, rolled by DM, hidden from the PCs) that would allow a dead character to come back as -1 but stable (i.e. no more checks needed).

It allows them to take some risks, and survive that odd moment when a mook crits. But stops them from taking silly risks... because they don't know how many more chances they have.

Cerlis
2013-04-08, 07:53 AM
I think alot of spells wouldnt need to be removed, simply the fluff reworked.

For instance the only reason why shadow walk and Etherealness are significant in the fact that they send you to another plane is the fact that there are creatures living on that plane that can effect you (plus maybe one or two other things). in this setting you dont turn ethereal because you go to the ethereal plane, you just turn into a magically incorporeal version of yourself. And Shadow can still by a physically existing form of magic and power, it just exists in the real world (which would make the real world that much darker, since things that go bump in the night dont need to cross the planes). And though i think its a good notion to make mortality that much more significant, you might consider making ressurrection that much harder (only the pure hearted can resurrect others, it requires a life for a life. No sign people have souls, there is no light, gateway or inner peace. You brought his corpse back to life and hopefully he didnt get that much brain damage on him)

You might borrow someone's book of the planes for 3.5 as they have a few pages worth of information in the section about the inner planes about how removing planes effect the game. Usually each one has suggestions for keeping spells and just modifying their fluff.

such a world that kept such high magic would put alot of emphasis on the power of mortals. For instance a summoning spell is replanting a real animal (or manifesting one from magic). There is definitely some moral ambiguity with the notion of creating a living animal out of magic....to exist for only a few seconds.....making said animal that is good hearted and pure (celestial lion)....to exist for only a few seconds. Or to manifest such a creature and fill it with anger and hatred (fiendish animal).

simularly, Summon Planar ally might just make manifest notions of Good or Law. In this case you might take the aspect in which you can not use summons spells against your alignment, and make it so that you can only use summon spell that coincide with you

i'd point out the spell Power Word: Shield "Draws on the soul of the friendly target to shield them, absorbing damage" when you cast it, the ally gains the "weakened soul" effect making them unshieldable by this spell (or other priests using the same spell).

So imagine you are a cleric of fire, or a cleric of chaos. And when you summon an elemental or "aspect"(outsider) you are actually drawing on your own magical energy and shaping it based off your connection with that item.

YOu might make it so that if you do this you can only manifest aspects (outsiders) that are actually physically weaker than you (because at lvl X your soul may not be strong enough to manifest the aspects of an astral deva).

though this also heavily implies a soul, which you might not want.