Ghostwalk

[weckar]

Pretty simple topic matter right here: Is Ghostwalk any good as a campaign setting? I've been looking through the book, and while I like the ideas behind it I wonder if they can carry a whole game...

[Forrestfire]

It's... got issues, to say the least. The mechanics for the ghost classes are really bad, especially the Calling. Most of the stuff in the book ranges from terrible to average, with a few gems (the genetic engineering Sorcerer feats, Door to Great Evil, and Rapid Wrath are the only three off the top of my head).

The setting is definitely neat, but I think that if you were to run it, the best option would be to just ignore many of the mechanics outlined in the book. Maybe let people take the Ghost template without being locked into the Eidolon and Eidoloncer, and take [ghost] feats as they like (or grant them as bonus feats on top of their normal abilities). The campaign setting itself requires a decent amount of work to fill stuff as well, since it's not especially fleshed-out to a huge amount of detail.

[Eldan]

The crunch isn't very good, yeah. Probably needs a major overhaul.

On the fluff side, I dn't think it can carry a long campaign in itself. I'd perhaps run an adventure or two there. Make it one city in your normal setting that has a weird planar phenomenon related to the dead in it.

[Fax Celestis]

The crunch isn't very good, yeah. Probably needs a major overhaul.

On the fluff side, I dn't think it can carry a long campaign in itself. I'd perhaps run an adventure or two there. Make it one city in your normal setting that has a weird planar phenomenon related to the dead in it.

That's the biggest issue with the fluff, yeah. The setting is so ingrained into itself that either the entire campaign has to be within the city of Manifest or it doesn't work.

There is a 3.5 update on the WotC site for it, but it doesn't solve any issues so much as port things forwards.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This topic came up just a couple days ago.

It's got some interesting but mechanically "meh" stuff. That's about it.

[rgrekejin]

Yeah, I've always been a huge fan of the Ghostwalk campaign setting, and I love the fluff to death, but man... some of those mechanics...

I recently ran a Plane-hopping campaign where my players spent two session in Manifest. It was fun, but didn't wear out it's welcome (or run out of interesting stuff). I'm unsure it would be able to carry an entire campaign without significant addition worldbuilding around it.