I'm planning on running a campaign here, but there's a problem.

[Avianmosquito]

The title sums up the core premise pretty well, but the specific problem is I'm using an unfinished campaign setting and a few alternate rules. So, in this thread I'm going to try and find out how much information I need to provide before I put up a recruitment thread.

Here's the information so far on the rule changes. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?524732-Rule-changes-in-Aelsif)

I'm writing up setting information right now, and I'll post a link after I get some feedback on whether the rule information is detailed enough.

[Shark Uppercut]

The rules are... interesting.
Most of it's pretty good, some Pathfinder substitutions, some Unearthed Arcana stuff.

You nerf every non-bipedal creature in the world, as well as all aquatic creatures.
I, obviously, don't like it. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, quadrupedal predators have a -10 penalty to AC. That's weird, and they should've gone extinct if they suck so much.
Maybe they have gone extinct, and were replaced by carnivorous apes!

But let's talk about your goal: getting prepared to put up a recruitment thread.

What is the fluff of your world? Are you using a published campaign setting?
Will it be primarily urban, wilderness, seafaring, extraplanar, a mix of everything?
How much combat vs Intrigue?
Any races not allowed? Any obscure races you'd encourage?
Class-wise, any prohibitions? It sounds like you don't want Druids, so banning tier 1's would be reasonable.
What cultures exist? What countries? What religions?
Elaborate more on the No Gods thing.
What books, TV shows, movies or comic books have the same 'feel' as your world?


Once you can answer all of these, I think you're ready to post a recruitment.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Hmm. I'd say provide a brief summary in your recruitment thread ("only humanoid forms are combat-capable, a wide range of guns and artillery exist, and weapon damage will be high"), and link to the full rules in another thread. You should absolutely make the rules in full available.

Overall, though, unless the houserules are meant to be the main selling point, I'd emphasize the usual. Shark Uppercut has some good suggestions. What sort of game are you intending to run feel-wise, what's the "hook" for the story and setting, that sort of thing.

[Avianmosquito]

The rules are... interesting.
Most of it's pretty good, some Pathfinder substitutions, some Unearthed Arcana stuff.

I suspect my Unearthed Arcana influence was indirect.


You nerf every non-bipedal creature in the world, as well as all aquatic creatures.
I, obviously, don't like it. Regardless of the reasoning behind it, quadrupedal predators have a -10 penalty to AC. That's weird, and they should've gone extinct if they suck so much.

Okay, look at these rules. Now imagine fighting a tiger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tiger.htm) at level 3 (default starting level). You'd still get absolutely destroyed if it was an unarmed 1v1, no contest. Now imagine instead of a wizard, or a fighter, you were an expert. Most of the animals that are a lethal threat to you in real life are still a lethal threat in-game, they're just not as overpowered as they used to be and if you're wearing armour and carrying a weapon they're still more threatening in-game than they would be in real life.


Maybe they have gone extinct, and were replaced by carnivorous apes!

Apes are omnivorous, and plenty of them do hunt. Including chimpanzees, might I add.



But let's talk about your goal: getting prepared to put up a recruitment thread.

What is the fluff of your world? Are you using a published campaign setting?
Will it be primarily urban, wilderness, seafaring, extraplanar, a mix of everything?
How much combat vs Intrigue?
Any races not allowed? Any obscure races you'd encourage?
Class-wise, any prohibitions? It sounds like you don't want Druids, so banning tier 1's would be reasonable.
What cultures exist? What countries? What religions?
What books, TV shows, movies or comic books have the same 'feel' as your world?


Once you can answer all of these, I think you're ready to post a recruitment.

1. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?524857-Eastern-Marakiz-information

2. There will be a lot of countryside travel, but there will also be visits to cities. The goal of the campaign is to locate a third party that is very effectively supporting a fascist theocracy and try to eliminate it, to give the secular nations neighbouring them to the north a better chance to win the war of ideals.

3. That depends a lot on the party, but as it is laid out it's mostly intrigue early on with some combat, and increases in combat without decreasing in intrigue as the campaign progresses.

4. There's a list. The players are from a human nation, but elves (including drow) are that nation's largest ally so those two are preferred. Halflings, kobolds, goblins and lizardfolk are all allowed, but those races are all kept as slaves in the region, so travelling without members of the "master races" would be strange, though none of the PCs would actually be slaves. Dwarves, gnomes, hobgoblins, orcs, sahuagin, the other fish people whose name isn't coming to me, spirit folk, vanara, nezumi, hengeyokai, yuan-ti (including purebloods) and nagas all exist in Aelsif with player races built for them but in this campaign they're just far too foreign and would attract too much attention, so I'm not allowing them.

5. Warlocks don't exist, and I'm sure there's a bunch of really obscure classes that don't work for this. Artificer, incarnate, that sort of thing. And please, no paladins. We don't need to attract attention like that, they'll get us all killed. I'd prefer classes able to sneak in some fashion, even if that's by using magic, and we need at least one socially-geared character, be it a bard or a rogue. As for druids, they're on the list of people who would be executed as heathens where we're going, so they'd have to hide it and druids are bad at pretending they aren't druids. Other than that, they're fine. I actually don't have a problem with them, I just thought they needed a rebalance and I'm hardly alone.

6. Well, we're going to be in a human region, where they worship a monotheistic torture god who loves slavery, rape and slaughter and who burns everybody who doesn't worship him sufficiently in a pit of pain and suffering for all time, and has a long list of religious laws that are extremely objectionable such as demanding the murder of adulterers and disobedient children. So, you know, that sucks. Thankfully he's an outright fabrication and doesn't actually exist, but the people who live there don't know that. Also thankfully, the northern half is largely secular, oddly democratic and is made up primarily of people who only kinda follow this religion, sometimes, when it's convenient to them.

There's also the goblins to the southwest, they're significant. They live in the grasslands, which are the homeland of humanity. Tales of how they came to inhabit it instead of humans vary, but there was massive volcanic activity at about the time humans fled the grasslands. Humans say it was god punishing the goblins for stealing their land, the goblins say the volcanoes led humans to flee the grasslands and the goblins just moved in once the volcanoes died down. Either way, that was millenia ago and now the humans in the southern reaches are invading the grasslands to "take back" the land that none of them ever owned from people who were born there, and it's the one thing the northern and southern humans agree on and work together on, which is a big part of why they aren't openly at war.

I'm going to keep much of the culture of the lizardfolk, sahuagin and... "other parties" under wraps since the players likely wouldn't know much about it.

7. There's a lot, and I mean a LOT of real-world influence, but there's also heavy influence from several horror genres. Of all works of fiction, Bloodborne has the most themes in common with this setting, and though the horror of this setting fills the same genres as Bloodborne, it has a greater focus on organized religion (I mean, the plot hook IS about a fascist theocratic government) and the psychological angle of these genres.

[Elkad]

Larger caliber musket firing ball doing more damage than a semi-auto weapon (or any breech loaded weapon) is a problem as well.

Breech loaded weapons use their powder FAR more efficiently. Sure, it's a smaller round, but at a much higher velocity. Since energy delivered is velocity*mass, it ends up ahead.

Muzzleloaders with skirted rounds that expand in the barrel split the difference. 30.06 has about 50% more power than a modern .54cal muzzle loader at point blank range. And the power of larger rounds falls off much more rapidly at range.

Shotguns (or any multiple-projectile firearm, including cannon firing grapeshot) should be using lots of smaller dice, and applying DR to each die.

Oh, and do you intend to have smokeless powder? Because rapid-firing a magazine of black powder rounds leaves you standing in your own non-magical Obscuring Mist.


Your dodge/block thing is just silly.
A large-ish housecat would be AC0+2size+3dex. AC5. Far easier to hit than a man. And yet the opposite is true. They can dodge forward (getting inside the swing, and probably right past you). They can jump backwards (sure, not as far as forwards, but it's still 5 feet or so - as a million Cucumber vs Cats videos has shown us). Or straight up. Even mid-jump they can contort their body and have some chance at dodging.

Anyone who's ever tried to catch a dog that didn't want to be caught can tell you it's at least mighty good at evading a grapple. Or landing the attack of opportunity because you tried. Or both.

Having arms gives you almost no advantage blocking a weapon. Having a shield or weapon of your own does, but without that, you just lose the arm (or the use of it).

There are a fair amount of swimming creatures that can swim backwards at speed. Lobsters. Eels. Etc. The rest may not be able to effectively, but they can change direction in less than a body length. If you try to spear a fish that sees you, it doesn't really matter if it dodges back, or just swims in a very tight circle, you'll still miss.

[Avianmosquito]

Let me start off by saying this would be better placed in the other thread.


Larger caliber musket firing ball doing more damage than a semi-auto weapon (or any breech loaded weapon) is a problem as well.

Breech loaded weapons use their powder FAR more efficiently. Sure, it's a smaller round, but at a much higher velocity. Since energy delivered is velocity*mass, it ends up ahead.

Muzzleloaders with skirted rounds that expand in the barrel split the difference. 30.06 has about 50% more power than a modern .54cal muzzle loader at point blank range. And the power of larger rounds falls off much more rapidly at range.

Not only is that not true, since comparing weapons with modern powder to weapons with black powder is just nonsense, energy is not the relevant part. The relevant part is the actual wound left, and the musket leaves a much bigger hole. I have pictures that I can PM you if you don't believe me, but I'm not posting them here because I am 100% certain the mods would not like me posting images of gunshot wounds.

If you could see them, you'd see a representation of a leg struck with a musket ball where the entire side of the leg was ripped open and the leg itself was broken. This image is a recreation of a well-known sketch from a medical textbook from the 1860s, the original sketch being taken directly of an actual soldier's leg after he was shot during the American Civil War. After it, I also have an image of a leg wound from a modern pistol (which has similar velocity and is of similar calibre to a black-powder semi-automatic rifle) where a simple hole was left, larger on the side of the exit. The musket wound would result in an amputation back in the day (and as it was a sketch of a real wound, almost certainly did), the more modern bullet wound wouldn't even stop the victim from walking on it. If you want to see these images, let me know. I am not posting them publicly, and will only provide them through PM if explicitly asked to.

There's no magic component to guns. They put a hole in a living body at a distance. While a modern firearm loses less energy over range than an older firearm, that's not a matter of breach-fire weapons being "efficient", that's just a difference in the shape of the projectile, and that "efficiency" actually works against them in wounding ability. A musket ball is likely to deflect inside the body, creating a larger wound channel by not following a straight line through, and the ball itself is liable to deform and flatten, increasing its cross-sectional area and leaving an even larger wound. A jacketed bullet will just pass directly through, leaving a hole in a fairly straight line, a little larger than the bullet itself.


Shotguns (or any multiple-projectile firearm, including cannon firing grapeshot) should be using lots of smaller dice, and applying DR to each die.

They are. They make a single attack, then if the attack hits they land 1d10 projectiles for X damage each. And bonuses you have for damage only apply to the first projectile to hit (sneak attack, weapon specialization, enhancement), to avoid especially overpowered attacks. The blunderbuss has d8 damage dice, the repeating shotgun and dragon have d6 damage dice, the repeating dragon has d4 damage dice. DR destroys them, but if the target doesn't have DR they deal extemely high damage and are only held back by their short range.


Oh, and do you intend to have smokeless powder? Because rapid-firing a magazine of black powder rounds leaves you standing in your own non-magical Obscuring Mist.

I hadn't bothered to specify, since it will very rarely come up.


Your dodge/block thing is just silly.
A large-ish housecat would be AC0+2size+3dex. AC5. Far easier to hit than a man. And yet the opposite is true. They can dodge forward (getting inside the swing, and probably right past you). They can jump backwards (sure, not as far as forwards, but it's still 5 feet or so - as a million Cucumber vs Cats videos has shown us). Or straight up. Even mid-jump they can contort their body and have some chance at dodging.

This is just an example of size adjustments not being strong enough. And for the record, jumping makes you easier to hit, not harder. You lock yourself into a fixed pattern that is very easily exploited and gives your opponent plenty of time to line up a hit for when you land.


Anyone who's ever tried to catch a dog that didn't want to be caught can tell you it's at least mighty good at evading a grapple.

Anybody who's ever tried to catch a dog knows that the only issue with it is they can run faster than you, and if you can get in range they can't move their limbs out of the way of your hands and not only won't bite you they'd fair pretty miserably if they tried. Seriously, have you never had your dog get loose? Have you ever even had a dog? Mine's a little **** who loves to push past me when I'm coming in the door and make me chase his stupid ass down, I do this about once a week. The hardest thing is getting my arms under him because getting a grip on his hide or his leg would hurt him and he's a chocolate lab so he's not far off the ground. He's so stubborn I have to carry him back, might I add, as the little prick will lie down if I just grab his collar. It is extremely frustrating, it makes me wonder why we even HAVE this stupid animal. Oh right, because my grandfather got him and he's too old to take care of him so now he's my dog. Fantastic.


Or landing the attack of opportunity because you tried. Or both.

So, apparently you think a dog's neck can magically bend 180 degrees and stretch out three feet to bite somebody that's grabbing them. Great. Why am I even bothering?


Having arms gives you almost no advantage blocking a weapon. Having a shield or weapon of your own does, but without that, you just lose the arm (or the use of it).

And once more, you're missing the point. Having a weapon in hand requires a hand, and even without one, having arms extends the range of an engagement, making it easier to avoid an attack.


There are a fair amount of swimming creatures that can swim backwards at speed. Lobsters. Eels. Etc. The rest may not be able to effectively, but they can change direction in less than a body length. If you try to spear a fish that sees you, it doesn't really matter if it dodges back, or just swims in a very tight circle, you'll still miss.

There the penalty was mostly about acceleration, deceleration and turning. In water, you cannot turn in place as any attempt to turn will push you. You can't accelerate quickly either as water provides less resistance to push off of than the ground does. You also can't decelerate quickly for the same reason.

[Avianmosquito]

So what's the verdict, guys? I can post this when I get home tonight, is this enough information or not?

[Yahzi]

So what's the verdict, guys? I can post this when I get home tonight, is this enough information or not?
I think the verdict is "too much information." As in, your impassioned defenses of your particular house rules is way more information than any player wants.

For guns, you just say, "These are the brands and models of guns that are in the world. They cost this much and do this much damage." No need to talk about wound channels or physics (though one has to wonder - if musket balls are so much deadlier than modern firearms, has anyone told the professionals who design these things?).

The adjustments to animals' AC just seems to complicate things for no reason. Tigers are supposed to be dangerous, and I assure you wearing full plate and having a good sword would not materially affect the outcome of a battle between a man and a tiger. People don't fight tigers, they hunt them: that is, they use their brains to create traps and situations the tiger simply cannot respond to. Like ranged weapons. Or poison. Or boar spears.

But again, if you want tigers that 1st levels can beat up, you just say "These are Satrapian Tygers, they're different than what you're used to," and guess what - nobody argues with your stat block.

Also do note that the reason it's so easy to grapple your dog is because he doesn't take the free Attack of Opportunity. If you ever tried to tackle a hostile dog, you might have a very different opinion on how the matter is resolved. :smallbiggrin:

[Avianmosquito]

I think the verdict is "too much information." As in, your impassioned defenses of your particular house rules is way more information than any player wants.

Not exactly my fault that everybody wants to argue about every little thing.


For guns, you just say, "These are the brands and models of guns that are in the world. They cost this much and do this much damage." No need to talk about wound channels or physics

And that's what I gave. I only explained why after it was questioned.


(though one has to wonder - if musket balls are so much deadlier than modern firearms, has anyone told the professionals who design these things?).

I'm sure they have. And I'm sure the designers rolled their eyes because they understand lethality is not the most important thing about a weapon, much less the only thing. Modern weapons have better capacity, rate of fire, range, accuracy and penetration, are more ergonomic and reliable. Giving up individual hit stopping power is well worth it.

Even so, the weapons in-game are not modern. They are still firing unjacketed, round-nosed bullets and are propelled by the same powder as the muskets are. Even so, they are far better weapons than muskets the overwhelming majority of the time.


The adjustments to animals' AC just seems to complicate things for no reason. Tigers are supposed to be dangerous, and I assure you wearing full plate and having a good sword would not materially affect the outcome of a battle between a man and a tiger.

"Being completely invulnerable to its attacks would not meaningfully affect the outcome of a battle between a man and a tiger."

That is basically what you said, since full plate armour would render you completely invulnerable to every attack a tiger could make. In fact, that's understating it. The tiger would not only be unable to harm you, it would break its own teeth and rip out its own claws without meaningfully damaging you OR the armour. I don't think you understand how strong plate armour is.


People don't fight tigers, they hunt them: that is, they use their brains to create traps and situations the tiger simply cannot respond to. Like ranged weapons. Or poison. Or boar spears.

Plate armour would also do the job. That is a thing it simply cannot respond to.


But again, if you want tigers that 1st levels can beat up,

1. I don't want that.

2. Are the 1st levels in plate armour?


you just say "These are Satrapian Tygers, they're different than what you're used to," and guess what - nobody argues with your stat block.

Really, I care more about my rules being correct than people thinking they're correct. But since I don't want CR 1 tigers, it's a moot point.


Also do note that the reason it's so easy to grapple your dog is because he doesn't take the free Attack of Opportunity. If you ever tried to tackle a hostile dog, you might have a very different opinion on how the matter is resolved. :smallbiggrin:

I take it you have never separated a dog fight, meaning you either don't own a dog or don't take them to dog park. Let me ask you this: If you had to separate a dog fight, how would you do it?