Starting A Campaign, Here's My Idea...

[Scorponok]

Hey Giants, I am starting a campaign, and would appreciate any thoughts you have on it.

The premise is that the PCs (starting level-1) board a ship, and while sailing, encounter a supernatural hurricane. Their ship gets wound up into it, but by some miracle, doesn't tear the ship apart, but deposits it in a different land. (No, not the land of Oz. :D ) They land in a jungle, and the survivors number a handful, but do include a chemist, a blacksmith, a jewelcrafter, and a few other skilled artisans as well as a handful of NPCs. Their main job then is to find fresh water, a source of food, and figure out where they are. Their ship, though unsalvageable, can still be used as a makeshift base.

In this jungle, there are goblins, and they soon start testing the group and seeing how powerful they are. They kidnap some of the NPCs to sacrifice them to their evil gods.

They eventually find out that this section of land they are on is a peninsula, and the way out of there requires they fight their way through the goblin tribe. (Or they can construct a boat and try to sail off the island, leaving their NPCs.)

When they get out of the jungle and enter their first settlement, that is when the main story of the campaign begins.

There are three distinct kingdoms in this area, the first being the Kaladon Commonwealth, which I model after renaissance France. The second is the Xulahar Supremacy, which I model after the Persian kingdoms of the 12th century. They have an emperor as well as dogmen that serve them as soldiers. The third kingdom is the Ninglai Alliance, which I model after China in the dynastic and warring states periods of the 3rd century. They are led by three Asian dragons and an army of Kobalds. The Commonwealth is to the west, the Supremacy is in the middle, and the Alliance is to the East. These are separated by sea between and above them and a vast swath of desert, mushroom forest, and swamps to the south of them.

Due to a disagreement between the Supremacy and Alliance, which led to all out war, the Supremacy, with their airships, invaded the Commonwealth for resources. They begin processing people into work camps, digging for the precious emerald gems needed to fuel their airships or to become slaves in the Supremacy lands. Everything is planned and work is divided up for the conquered Commonwealth citizens.

In this, I will drop the PCs. They will need to pick their battles, forge friendships, and navigate the motivations and intents of the characters in this new land. There are the typical PHB races as well as catfolk, dogmen, ratmen, dragonborn, and tieflings.


Also, I plan to have a few homebrew classes that are kingdom-specific. But what I'm wondering is, if a PC wants to become a Supremacy warrior, or a Alliance Sorcerer, how would they go about switching classes after taking their starting class before boarding the ship? I don't have much experience with multiclassing and what that entails, but do characters become weaker when they split their classes? Is there such a thing as having a PC start all over and create an appropriate level character in the new class?

Thanks for reading and your input!

[Extra Anchovies]

Maybe you could make the homebrew classes prestige classes? Either that or just allow them to retrain class levels if they invest in-game time to do so.

[Phantom Monk]

Hm. Well, You have quite a few options. Would you like to give them entire classes for joining factions? If so, do you Want them to be prestige classes or base classes tailored to the faction They join? You could instead give your players magic items for joining factions. Players always adore magic items, and you can tailor each for the player and the faction they join.

Another option is to give your PCs special faction training, such as allowing wizards extra spells per level, or letting your fighter have some Warblade manuevers.

If you desire to give them actual classes, however, I would recommend having the PCs spend in game time to train in that factions style, and reeve them in a home brew class for that faction.

[Rizban]

My thoughts start at why include the hurricane/shipwreck? It seems unrelated to the main story other than as a method to get them to the land and keep them away from the main story.
If you want them to be foreigners in a new land, why not just have them land at port and be hired by some group to go fight the goblin tribes? That gets them involved in the "real" campaign faster and gives them some ties and potential for plot hooks sooner. The whole shipwreck doesn't seem like it's really a part of the game. It just seems like it'll be forgotten and unimportant once you move to fighting through the goblins.

For that matter, you could have them land in a small port that is then immediately besieged by a goblin horde. Since they're starting at level one, you could have them deal with scouting parties and small bands of raiders and work up towards fighting larger groups of the horde until the goblins are routed, thus saving the city and giving them a way to be noticed by the various factions. Now that I've thought about it, this is probably the method I'd use.


As to the faction benefits, I've changed my thoughts on things recently. While making custom PrCs would be nice, I'm more inclined to avoid that method. I'd just make up a list of minor benefits to give them related to how much influence they've earned with the faction. The guild/organization rules are a good start for this approach, but it might be better to just do it ad hoc, e.g. each task they complete for the organization gives them the next benefit on the list. This allows them to build their characters however they want without forcing them into a particular PrC while still giving tangible bonuses for helping one group over the other.

[Scorponok]

You could instead give your players magic items for joining factions. Players always adore magic items, and you can tailor each for the player and the faction they join.

Another option is to give your PCs special faction training, such as allowing wizards extra spells per level, or letting your fighter have some Warblade manuevers.

If you desire to give them actual classes, however, I would recommend having the PCs spend in game time to train in that factions style, and reeve them in a home brew class for that faction.

Excellent ideas, and thanks for the bump as I thought my thread would just die. I'm thinking what I will do is include a few new maneuvers they could train their melee guys to do. It would require some study time, some sparring time, and tutelage under a master.


My thoughts start at why include the hurricane/shipwreck? It seems unrelated to the main story other than as a method to get them to the land and keep them away from the main story.

I kind of wrestled with this as well, and there are a few main reasons why I decided to do it this way. First is it starts the players in a small group of people they have to try and defend. This builds comradery(?spelling?), and gives them some NPCs from their home country they know they can trust. Kind of like when people move on from a small town to a metropolis, they'll always have that bond from having the same beginnings. Secondly, it lets them build and level up their characters before throwing them into the main story. The main story will have them involved in more serious battles with other humans that will have levels in classes (albeit lower ability scores) and knowing my players, they'll want to go straight to the main bad guys right away without levelling up on goblins.


Another thing I was thinking of doing was to have the players make up 3 different characters, and depending on the story, have them go through the story as members of kingdom #2 and kingdom #3 as well. And then eventually have them potentially meet their other characters and ally themselves to take down the final boss. Not sure if this has been done before or how well it works.

[Rizban]

The multi-character plot can be done and is amazing when it works, but it requires lots of planning and a mature group of players. If they're not willing to save a village from goblin hordes rather than running off in search of the final battle at level one, then there's going to be some significant pacing issues (among other things) that would make this pretty difficult.