The problems with Wealth-per-level - and the potentially interesting solutions

[Frozen_Feet]

So lately I've been running a thought experiment of what Year Zero of Adventuring would look like. At first I was mostly interested in how different starting ages affect relative power of classes of classes when everybody has to start from scratch. But a setting where everyone has to start from below level one has other interesting rules interactions too.

Namely, there is no magic mart. There are no mundane marts, either. There aren't even coins yet because no-one's made them yet. Vast majority of treasure won't be in the form of finished products, instead being barter goods or raw materials.

No-one automagically gets their wealth-per-level, or even their starting wealth or equipment. For every single thing there must be someone to make it first. This means the adventurers have to get creative to shape society in such ways that they can meet their wealth quotas. For many classes this means experience is much easier to gain than wealth, so they need to level up first and then use their skills and abilities to generate their wealth. This enforces a lot of downtime and potentially cripples progression for some classes (notably, wizards).

It also forces some creative rules interpretations. For example, Profession skills by default just net you some value of coins. In a world without coins, this wealth increase has to be modeled in some other way. Fortunately, there are simple solutions. For productive labour (such as farming), you can assume a character gains raw produce in amounts appropriate to the coin value. For service professions (such as a barber), the characters generates favor debts - that is, other characters have to pay back in equal value of services or raw produce.

All assets can of course be liquified when sufficient amount of coin is created and released to the market. However, one can expect significant liquification problems to occur for a long time in small, primitive economies like this. Especially costly magic items and high level spell services are likely to become frozen assets, that is, no-one has coinage to buy them, and their utility is too little compared to the amount of barter goods required for trade. Low level magic weapons are a great example. A +1 longsword is way too costly to pay for in coin, but it is not great enough compared to Masterwork weapons or other lesser goods to warrant a trade. This means you can't buy or sell these things.

I feel like this is great setting building material, in addition to examining other rules closely to model a truly low-level society and how it could evolve to a higher-level one. Anyone else here up for Accountants & Ankhegs? :smallamused:

[RoboEmperor]

As someone who as attempted something similar in his group, I'll list some problems.

1. Mundanes are destroyed. They need to be fully geared with the best magical gear to stay remotely relevant high levels compared to casters.

2. Profession skills are performed in SILVER pieces, not gold. It will take years, maybe even decades to accrue the cost of magic items. So like if you have profession(gather magic supplies), it will take decades before you can craft one.

3. This forces people to play classes like Sorcerer, Druid, or Cleric without mundanes because they can function without magic items.

4. Planeshifting to a city with magic marts or Planar Binding a Mercane (merchant outsider) negates what you attempt.

5. Wizard spellbook ink costs and such might cause a nightmare. How do they pay for the free 2 spells per level up when they aren't any magic ink? Stuff like that.

[Frozen_Feet]

1. Mundanes are destroyed. They need to be fully geared with the best magical gear to stay remotely relevant high levels compared to casters.

The mundanes won't be competing with high level casters for a long, long, long time with the premise given. In fact, plenty of mundanes get a leg up to get off the ground because they have lower starting ages and hence have headstarts often measured in years to gain wealth and experience. This isn't a gentlemanly game where we're pretending things are balanced and everyone starts at level 1 by default. The game starts from zero and if you roll low on starting age you have the option to start adventuring and/or acquiring wealth before those who roll high.

The notable exception to this is sorcerers, who are non-item-dependant full casters who get off the ground as soon as the fastest mundane classes. I see this as setting building opportunity instead of a problem.


2. Profession skills are performed in SILVER pieces, not gold. It will take years, maybe even decades to accrue the cost of magic items. So like if you have profession(gather magic supplies), it will take decades before you can craft one.

I'm well aware. Trying to gain all your wealth with your own profession checks is indeed slow. That's why you try to build an actual economy where there are people other than yourself doing those checks. The real challenge is figuring out how many people and in how many professions you need to get the ball of civilization rolling.


3. This forces people to play classes like Sorcerer, Druid, or Cleric without mundanes because they can function without magic items.

How so? This is a challenge game, you choose class based on how hard you want it to be. If all the players want play on Easy Mode, that's fine, but I'm not going to assume they will. Even if they do, it still leaves the GM with all those delicious barbarians, rogues etc. To figure what to do with.


4. Planeshifting to a city with magic marts or Planar Binding a Mercane (merchant outsider) negates what you attempt.

Year Zero of Adventuring, pal. Everyone's starting from scratch. Everyone. The planes included.

Come on. If I want to model a super primitive, low level setting, I'm not gonna halfass it and leave all that high level stuff just hanging around the corner. There ain't gonna be magic marts anywhere before one of the players or the GM gets one off the ground.

Plane Shift and Planar Binding can obviously get you ahead, like always, but getting Plane Shift and Planar Binding are campaigns unto themselves when you start from the utter bottom.


5. Wizard spellbook ink costs and such might cause a nightmare. How do they pay for the free 2 spells per level up when they aren't any magic ink? Stuff like that.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Someone's gotta make them books first, which means someone's gotta make them parchment first, which means someone's gotta herd sheep first, which means... you get the idea. Just getting a wizard to level 1 will be an adventure of its own.

[RoboEmperor]

How so? This is a challenge game, you choose class based on how hard you want it to be. If all the players want play on Easy Mode, that's fine, but I'm not going to assume they will. Even if they do, it still leaves the GM with all those delicious barbarians, rogues etc. To figure what to do with.


I think i get a better picture of what you want.

You want the PCs to build an actual civilization from total scratch, recruit followers/commoners to start working on farms, hunting etc, spend decades just on village development before getting basic gear to adventure with.

But it's also gonna be a pain to determine what materials do what. D&D just blankets all magic item crafting as "magic supplies", but if you want to go deep you're going to have say what rare oils do what, etc, mixing what stuff creates "magical ink" for wizards, etc.

Let me know what you come up with.

[Mars Ultor]

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Someone's gotta make them books first, which means someone's gotta make them parchment first, which means someone's gotta herd sheep first, which means... you get the idea. Just getting a wizard to level 1 will be an adventure of its own.


You might be interested in the articles at this site (http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/category/critical-hits/)written by Multiplexer.

[ShurikVch]

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Someone's gotta make them books first, which means someone's gotta make them parchment first, which means someone's gotta herd sheep first, which means... you get the idea. Just getting a wizard to level 1 will be an adventure of its own.Complete Arcane, Alternative Spellbooks, Tattoos

Skincaster feat (Dragon #359)

Eidetic Spellcaster ACF (Dragon #357)

Anagakok wizard variant (Dragon #344)

https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/sfery/images/a/a2/Anagakok.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/188?cb=20131007123120
An anagakok's spellbook is usually made from crudely cut layers of bark. Some anagakoks even carve the formulas for their spells on stone, tree roots, or other materials found in nature, but most prefer bark because it is lighter and easier to write on.

[Deeds]

I'm gonna throw this out there: the gods intervene.

Morradin, God of dwarves, will bless his people with blacksmithing. And why shouldn't he? Gruumush just gave his wicked race of orcs mighty axes and they began attacking elvish tribes (who, by the way, have this sweet new weapon called a bow.) Any good deity with a vested interest in a race or people will want them to survive the horrors of the world.

Even if the gods don't want to pull a Prometheus then the demons will. "Hey, check out this thing called magic missile. Use it to become leader of your group. All you have to do for me is..."

[Fouredged Sword]

I have played around with a year zero setting myself (with one race of proto-humanoids based on halflings). I worked with a bit more of a divergent setting (dinosaurs to hunt and dragons being the big bads).

Here is my suggestions and the things I did to make the setting work.

Make it E6 - Much of the mechanical problems you find with such a setting just vanish if you play an E6 setting. The lack of a +1 sword won't be the end of the game at level 6. The classes don't have a ton of time to diverge in power level and magic items have not taken over the Christmas tree. I would also grant 1+int skill points every time the player "levels" past 6, but not increase the skill cap. Players never become the physical gods of high level 3.5 that stomp all over creation and cannot be bothered with trivialities such as commoners and crafting.

Second - Standardize magical material requirements. My solution was to replace all magical material components more valuable than 1gp with gems and gem dust. It is already on treasure tables. Wizard need to scribe some spells? He grinds up some gems and mixes the dust with normal ink to hold the magic to the page. Need to cast eternal flame? You need a gem with value higher than the material component cost. You end up with a two tier economy. You have mundane goods that you can trade whatever for and magic, where the maker is very unlikely to accept any payment other than gems. You can even allow the players to get creative and allow a player who can explain how they use a gem in a way that makes it work on a theme add 10-20% to it's value (sapphire dust in the quench works extra well when making a frost weapon, ect.). Gems become a form of magic economy. (part of the reason I did this was to encourage my players to raid dangerous dragon hordes for the gems they contained)

[Zanos]

I guess long-lived races are pretty bad, what with their super high starting ages and all. Humans, Halfings, and Half-Elves and Half-Orcs pretty much dominate everything for the first couple hundred years, potentially wiping out every other race before they even get a class level. The youngest elf with a class level is 114.

[Hackulator]

Just to point out another thing...in a properly done "year zero" game, mundanes stomp all over wizards because most spells haven't even been invented yet. Beating people to death with a stick however is one of the first inventions.

If you are really doing year zero, does something like blacksmithing even exist? Probably not, and lets not even get into making paper for spellbooks, the wizard will have to carry around 500 pounds of stone tablets for his spellbook. Magic items are the equivalent of high technology and beyond them not existing in such a world, the IDEA of them might not even exist.

[Zanos]

Just to point out another thing...in a properly done "year zero" game, mundanes stomp all over wizards because most spells haven't even been invented yet. Beating people to death with a stick however is one of the first inventions.

If you are really doing year zero, does something like blacksmithing even exist? Probably not, and lets not even get into making paper for spellbooks, the wizard will have to carry around 500 pounds of stone tablets for his spellbook. Magic items are the equivalent of high technology and beyond them not existing in such a world, the IDEA of them might not even exist.
Technically all of those spells and books are automatically created when a Wizard takes their first level. Finding or creating a spellbook isn't a prerequisite to becoming a Wizard, it's a class feature.

[Psyren]

I feel like this is great setting building material, in addition to examining other rules closely to model a truly low-level society and how it could evolve to a higher-level one. Anyone else here up for Accountants & Ankhegs? :smallamused:

Are there gods or even monsters involved? Or is this just some kind of Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon total conversion?


I guess long-lived races are pretty bad, what with their super high starting ages and all. Humans, Halfings, and Half-Elves and Half-Orcs pretty much dominate everything for the first couple hundred years, potentially wiping out every other race before they even get a class level. The youngest elf with a class level is 114.

Not that I agree with the premise (like, at all, but it's possible I'm not parsing it correctly) but the obvious answer to this specific objection is that the elves get a big head start - which they do in most settings anyway. Tolkien for instance had them around for who knows how long before Men showed up.

[Hackulator]

Technically all of those spells and books are automatically created when a Wizard takes their first level. Finding or creating a spellbook isn't a prerequisite to becoming a Wizard, it's a class feature.

Almost every arcane spell was at some point created/researched by a wizard. In a world where you might be the first wizard, that hasn't happened. Your argument is no more valid than someone arguing that a magic item should drop from a monster because it's on the treasure table. In a world where nobody even knows how to forge metal, monsters haven't killed people carrying magic swords.

[Psyren]

Almost every arcane spell was at some point created/researched by a wizard. In a world where you might be the first wizard, that hasn't happened. Your argument is no more valid than someone arguing that a magic item should drop from a monster because it's on the treasure table. In a world where nobody even knows how to forge metal, monsters haven't killed people carrying magic swords.

Putting aside outsiders and deities, the first arcanists in most settings were sorcerers - specifically, dragons. The science of wizardry was developed (by elves, usually) to consciously harness the power those creatures were tapping into instinctively. The First Wizard is unlikely to ever have been starting completely from scratch, they had sorcerers around to at least get that basic understanding of how the laws of their metaphysics worked.

[Zanos]

Not that I agree with the premise (like, at all, but it's possible I'm not parsing it correctly) but the obvious answer to this specific objection is that the elves get a big head start - which they do in most settings anyway. Tolkien for instance had them around for who knows how long before Men showed up.
I would never play or run such a thing and propping it up as some kind of balance fix is silly, but it's fun to inspect the implications.


Almost every arcane spell was at some point created/researched by a wizard. In a world where you might be the first wizard, that hasn't happened. Your argument is no more valid than someone arguing that a magic item should drop from a monster because it's on the treasure table. In a world where nobody even knows how to forge metal, monsters haven't killed people carrying magic swords.
First level wizards have 3+Int first level spells and all cantrips. That isn't mutable. I guess you create them if they don't exist yet, but the fact of the matter is that you have them. The same thing applies to level up spells, which can specifically be flavored as from personal research. A wizard who hits level 3 gets his 2 2nd level spells automatically added to his spellbook at no cost. That's just a thing which is true.

You could no more argue that a Fighter doesn't get his bonus feats because nobody's studied that form of combat yet.

[Psyren]

I would never play or run such a thing and propping it up as some kind of balance fix is silly, but it's fun to inspect the implications.

It's certainly interesting to think about, I agree. But I go back to my question to the OP - you pretty much need, well, no meaningful monsters of any kind (nor gods) to make this work in actual play.

[Fouredged Sword]

It's certainly interesting to think about, I agree. But I go back to my question to the OP - you pretty much need, well, no meaningful monsters of any kind (nor gods) to make this work in actual play.

Well, a lot of the big ones are pretty restricted. Without planer travel it is hard to get the focuses required for planer travel (a tuning fork made from the material of the destination plane). That means you are stuck looking for the very rare natural breach. As there is no coinage it becomes very hard to get planer binding to work and without the ability to generate wealth it becomes prohibitively expensive. So demons and devils are likely to remain in their natural plane as there are far fewer mortals barging in and questing.

Also, without cities far fewer NPC's survive to reach high levels.

[Psyren]

Well, a lot of the big ones are pretty restricted. Without planer travel it is hard to get the focuses required for planer travel (a tuning fork made from the material of the destination plane). That means you are stuck looking for the very rare natural breach. As there is no coinage it becomes very hard to get planer binding to work and without the ability to generate wealth it becomes prohibitively expensive. So demons and devils are likely to remain in their natural plane as there are far fewer mortals barging in and questing.

Also, without cities far fewer NPC's survive to reach high levels.

The devils and demons don't require foci though, their own plane shift is typically an SLA. Worse still, no matter how undeveloped a commoner might be, souls are still souls and thus valuable, not to mention the evulz of just torment for its own sake.

For this kind of pre-industrial agrarian utopia to thrive, would require such interlopers to either not exist or to be blissfully unaware. (Not that this is impossible by any means. in Diablo's setting, this is exactly the origin of the mortal realm of Sanctuary - the major alignment players simply don't know it exists for a good long chunk of time, and all those juicy mortal souls remain unmolested.)

[Thunder999]

Just bind something with wish, get infinite wishes, wish up all the magic items that should exist.

[Gildedragon]

Clerics are v v strong in this setting; especially evil ones that don't mind sacrificing sentients for magic item creation

Warlocks and Binders are extremely strong.

An Eidetic Elven Generalist Precocious Apprentice is... Well he has a LOT of leverage v anyone else

And psions are scary mofos

... I mean I sorta get what the OP suggests but it doesn't work too good with standard dnd.
A "primitive" dawn-age campaign where the PCs are "culture heroes"
I'd start by making "Wizard" and "Artificer" into PRCs

Start out as Adept or Sorcerer... find secrets of magic... yadda yadda teach others how to do magic.

I'd also implement "natural" magic item creation. Animal sacrifices, great deeds, etc... being able to harness ambient magic to ensorcerell items.
Also also: stat boosts more often than +1/4lvls to make up the lack of stat enhancement bonuses.
Also also also: mundane potions/boosting the Heal skill

[Fouredged Sword]

Clerics are v v strong in this setting; especially evil ones that don't mind sacrificing sentients for magic item creation

Warlocks and Binders are extremely strong.

An Eidetic Elven Generalist Precocious Apprentice is... Well he has a LOT of leverage v anyone else

And psions are scary mofos

... I mean I sorta get what the OP suggests but it doesn't work too good with standard dnd.
A "primitive" dawn-age campaign where the PCs are "culture heroes"
I'd start by making "Wizard" and "Artificer" into PRCs

Start out as Adept or Sorcerer... find secrets of magic... yadda yadda teach others how to do magic.

I'd also implement "natural" magic item creation. Animal sacrifices, great deeds, etc... being able to harness ambient magic to ensorcerell items.
Also also: stat boosts more often than +1/4lvls to make up the lack of stat enhancement bonuses.
Also also also: mundane potions/boosting the Heal skill

Or make one single casting class - The Adept.

[Frozen_Feet]

You might be interested in the articles at this site (http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/category/critical-hits/)written by Multiplexer.

Already read them. They're good inspirational material for phenomena I might encounter, but few of them get down in the nitty-grits of any particular ruleset. So most of the actual work is yet ahead.

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Complete Arcane, Alternative Spellbooks, Tattoos

Skincaster feat (Dragon #359)

Eidetic Spellcaster ACF (Dragon #357)

Anagakok wizard variant (Dragon #344)

Thanks for the references. I think I'll stick mostly to SRD material, though CArc tattoo wizards are neat and give off a nice tribal feel. Of course, tattoos have their own set of obstacles to overcome in a primitive setting.

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I guess long-lived races are pretty bad, what with their super high starting ages and all. Humans, Halfings, and Half-Elves and Half-Orcs pretty much dominate everything for the first couple hundred years, potentially wiping out every other race before they even get a class level. The youngest elf with a class level is 114.

Going by core, this is true, but it's actually nice change of pace. Away with super-old smug elves and their ancient civilizations! It's their turn to play catch-up.

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I'm gonna throw this out there: the gods intervene.


Of course they do - via giving rise to their Clerics. The joke being that clerics still take 2n6 years to get off the ground.

Point is: no religions are well-established, or even invented yet. Gods have extremely weak spiritual presence. If I wanted to be cruel about this, I'd say gods won't even exist before enough people believe in them, or use my own Divine rules variant where gods too will start as first level, rank zero spirits of single objects.

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I have played around with a year zero setting myself (with one race of proto-humanoids based on halflings). I worked with a bit more of a divergent setting (dinosaurs to hunt and dragons being the big bads).

Here is my suggestions and the things I did to make the setting work.

Make it E6 - Much of the mechanical problems you find with such a setting just vanish if you play an E6 setting. The lack of a +1 sword won't be the end of the game at level 6. The classes don't have a ton of time to diverge in power level and magic items have not taken over the Christmas tree. I would also grant 1+int skill points every time the player "levels" past 6, but not increase the skill cap. Players never become the physical gods of high level 3.5 that stomp all over creation and cannot be bothered with trivialities such as commoners and crafting.

Second - Standardize magical material requirements. My solution was to replace all magical material components more valuable than 1gp with gems and gem dust. It is already on treasure tables. Wizard need to scribe some spells? He grinds up some gems and mixes the dust with normal ink to hold the magic to the page. Need to cast eternal flame? You need a gem with value higher than the material component cost. You end up with a two tier economy. You have mundane goods that you can trade whatever for and magic, where the maker is very unlikely to accept any payment other than gems. You can even allow the players to get creative and allow a player who can explain how they use a gem in a way that makes it work on a theme add 10-20% to it's value (sapphire dust in the quench works extra well when making a frost weapon, ect.). Gems become a form of magic economy. (part of the reason I did this was to encourage my players to raid dangerous dragon hordes for the gems they contained)

I'm not sure E6 or any other level cap really achieves anything that doing away with... well, most of everything doesn't. Since I'm working forward from a starting point instead of trying to uphold a status quo, I'm pretty fine with levels going up and the setting becoming more magical and civilized gradually.

Standardizing magic materials sounds like a good idea; I'll at least fill in the gaps where RAW is vague. Henceforth, magic ink shall be made of sorcerer blood.

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Just to point out another thing...in a properly done "year zero" game, mundanes stomp all over wizards because most spells haven't even been invented yet. Beating people to death with a stick however is one of the first inventions.

You are right, mostly by the virtue of majority of wizards, druids and clerics still being 0th level trainees when most other classes are already 1st level. Sorcerers are, again, the big expection.


If you are really doing year zero, does something like blacksmithing even exist? Probably not, and lets not even get into making paper for spellbooks, the wizard will have to carry around 500 pounds of stone tablets for his spellbook. Magic items are the equivalent of high technology and beyond them not existing in such a world, the IDEA of them might not even exist.

Everything that's in the SRD can be said to exist as concepts, but most things are not actualized. F.ex. a blacksmith needs metal. You need a miner to get the ore for it and a lumberjack to fell the wood to burn for melting it. Someone needs to build the houses for the miners and lumberjacks, and someone needs to feed them. So on and so forth. Basically, for o a thing to exist the ecology for it to exist must be created first. How much you can get out of a population depends on its size and surroundings. F.ex. with an initial population of 200, you plain do not have enough people to support a blacksmith at the start. But you might be able to get a shoemaker or a fletcher of the lot.

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Technically all of those spells and books are automatically created when a Wizard takes their first level. Finding or creating a spellbook isn't a prerequisite to becoming a Wizard, it's a class feature.

Yes and no.

A wizard's training takes 2d6 years. It is this time that the wizard is assumed to use for fundraising and completing their spellbook. The default rules imply a stable, wealthy feodal economy with high influx of looted treasure, with extremely high literacy and established tradition of arcane magic. Within this implied setting, it is completely reasonable to conclude a wizard won't leave training without a spellbook.

This plan is obviously bust when the world has no economy. You cannot assume the wizard will be able to get his book before the bookmakers have been established, and this might not happen before the wizard reaches level 1.

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Are there gods or even monsters involved? Or is this just some kind of Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon total conversion?

Gods will be involved through their clerics, as usual (see above). Monsters are more complex. Their presence or absence is decided based on their logical compatibility with the Year Zero premise.

For example, animals, and other non-artificial non-civilized can be expected to be found where they'd normally live. For example, if the game is set on a continent like primeval Africa, the lions, crocodiles etc. will be where you'd expect. In general, high CR animals might be insurmountable to individual zero-level-humanoids, but are threatened by large groups and are rarely existential threats when actually roleplayed like real animals.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have stuff like shadows which are automatic extinction events to no-magic low-level humanoids. I think we can agree that such beings logically exclude existence of primitive societies, so one being present implies the other is absent. Ergo, if primitive society, then no shadows.

Most monsters may exist somewhere in the world as long as they are not immediate threats. "Everyone starts from scratch" applies to them as well where appropriate. For example, dragons might exists, but as fresh hatchlings preying on local wildlife high up the mountains, deep in the marshes, far in the glaciers, and at the bottom of the sea. So on and so forth.


Not that I agree with the premise (like, at all, but it's possible I'm not parsing it correctly) but the obvious answer to this specific objection is that the elves get a big head start - which they do in most settings anyway. Tolkien for instance had them around for who knows how long before Men showed up.

As noted, I'm happy with faster growing races dominating, it's a nice change of pace.

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Putting aside outsiders and deities, the first arcanists in most settings were sorcerers - specifically, dragons. The science of wizardry was developed (by elves, usually) to consciously harness the power those creatures were tapping into instinctively. The First Wizard is unlikely to ever have been starting completely from scratch, they had sorcerers around to at least get that basic understanding of how the laws of their metaphysics worked.

I totally agree with you - and this is already modeled by the rules, due to sorcerers being in the lowest starting age category. The first sorcerer will very likely get around before the first wizard.

[Frozen_Feet]

For this kind of pre-industrial agrarian utopia to thrive, would require such interlopers to either not exist or to be blissfully unaware. (Not that this is impossible by any means. in Diablo's setting, this is exactly the origin of the mortal realm of Sanctuary - the major alignment players simply don't know it exists for a good long chunk of time, and all those juicy mortal souls remain unmolested.)

I wouldn't call a bunch of hunter-gatherers at the dawn of time an utopia.

In any case, as stated, "everyone starts from scratch" cuts across planes. So it's indeed possible Outsiders are 1 HD wonders who haven't yet gotten the memo that Prime Material exists or has anything worth of mentioning on it. I'd expect players to "fix" that fairly quickly, with the usual consequences. Adam & Eve will be proud.

[Dagroth]

GURPS Ice Age. Literally written for what you're trying to do.

[Frozen_Feet]

Not really, since what I'm trying to do involves looking at specific implications of d20 rules interactions. GURPS, not being d20, fails to qualify.

[Schattenbach]

From the way I see it, wouldn't the world be dominated by some (sufficiently fast-growing ... or in general all creatures with powerful inherent strength) monsters?

Objectively speaking, plenty of DnD 3.5 Monsters would be nothing short of natural calamities for low level societies and not something they could possibly hope to face. So creating lagrer settlements would be quite risky for the first few thousand of years as its likely to attract quite a few unwanted visitors. Some regions might be somewhat save due to nothing too dangerous living there, but then again, there might be sme kind of reason for that. Without epic NPCs (or, to be blunt, Epic Spellcasters/manifesters or at least near Epic spellcasters/manifesters), I don't see how any city could survive these kind of calamities. Typical DnD 3.5 settings seem t assume that most dangerous monsters have been pusahed back to the outskirts of any noteable kingdom and/or have been hunted so much that they've lost interest in facing of against humanoids and such, but without that, its still a world that is ... or should? be ... dominated by roaming monsters and such?

As far as deities go ... wouldn't most of the worship first go to either spirits/personifications of nature (that are quite weak in and itself if there#s no large scale religion or people understanding the nature of deities) and even then, most of the worship might get sucked up by some uncaring (and possibly hostile towards nature-destroying humanoids and such) personification of the region/planet/etc. that isn't all that into granting spells for no reason/to the unworthy.

Magical talent isn't something that should be assumed to be the case for most of the population (as not everyone might possess that special something that#s necessary for that ... be it some mutation or the supernatural fey/dragon/outsider/etc. ancestor), I guess?

[Psyren]

Gotcha, I understand what you're after now. It's not appealing to me, but I do wish you the best in devising it.

[Remuko]

I just know one thing, Nerull will probably be one of the first popular deities to worship, being the god of death. Its a simple concept and a simple god that people would likely learn about rather fast and a lot of people will pray to.

[Zale]

I wouldn't call a bunch of hunter-gatherers at the dawn of time an utopia.

In any case, as stated, "everyone starts from scratch" cuts across planes. So it's indeed possible Outsiders are 1 HD wonders who haven't yet gotten the memo that Prime Material exists or has anything worth of mentioning on it. I'd expect players to "fix" that fairly quickly, with the usual consequences. Adam & Eve will be proud.

I'd actually love to play a game where everyone starts out as a 1HD outsider, each the first to exist in their respective planes, and all trying to become a great planar power.

[Dagroth]

I just know one thing, Nerull will probably be one of the first popular deities to worship, being the god of death. Its a simple concept and a simple god that people would likely learn about rather fast and a lot of people will pray to.

In human history, the first gods are almost always Sun gods & Weather gods. Death gods usually come after organized religions get started, because an afterlife isn't important until organized religions tell us an afterlife is important.

[Gildedragon]

In human history, the first gods are almost always Sun gods & Weather gods. Death gods usually come after organized religions get started, because an afterlife isn't important until organized religions tell us an afterlife is important.
Gonna have to see some citation on that for a couple reasons
1) archaeological religion is a hazy field at best: few records and objects from the dawn of magical thinking; if anything animal deities seem to be preeminent above and beyond weather gods
2) early ritual(?)-like burials seem to put an onus on some sense of continuity beyond death: see Neanderthal flower burials
3) gods are invoked to keep something away; especially thin s beyond human control. Death and disease are pretty universal constants, and pretty far from human control: that deities to keep these calamities away arise early is not inconceivable.

Though a god like Nerull is unlikely in an early pantheon; he offers little to his worshipers.
Wee-Jas makes more sense. Beauty, love, power, death... She fits a "Great Mother" archetype quite nicely
If one believes that arrangement of deities, and that the Great Goddess is the earliest of religious expressions: Elohnna-Wee Jas would be an early religious concept to arise. Possibly with Lolth to round them out... If one is only using core deities

[Dr_Dinosaur]

The idea mentioned previously, where the gods we know don't exist yet as proper gods, just spirits of things/places that might someday grow into godhood, is really compelling imo. Lots of potential there, especially if the players get in one's good graces by helping it get famous.

[Frozen_Feet]

From the way I see it, wouldn't the world be dominated by some (sufficiently fast-growing ... or in general all creatures with powerful inherent strength) monsters?

Possibly. This may not be a problem if it prefers munching animals or other monsters instead of humanoids. Do you have suggestions for which specific monsters would qualify?


Objectively speaking, plenty of DnD 3.5 Monsters would be nothing short of natural calamities for low level societies and not something they could possibly hope to face. So creating lagrer settlements would be quite risky for the first few thousand of years as its likely to attract quite a few unwanted visitors. Some regions might be somewhat save due to nothing too dangerous living there, but then again, there might be sme kind of reason for that.

I am aware. See my earlier comment about shadows. Some monsters are incompatible with primitive humanoid settlements. If monster, no settlement, if settlement, no monster. Same applies to natural disasters. A forest fire, tsunami or volcanic eruption would be just as bad as a monster. If disaster, no settlement. If settlement, no disaster... yet.]


As far as deities go ... wouldn't most of the worship first go to either spirits/personifications of nature (that are quite weak in and itself if there#s no large scale religion or people understanding the nature of deities) and even then, most of the worship might get sucked up by some uncaring (and possibly hostile towards nature-destroying humanoids and such) personification of the region/planet/etc. that isn't all that into granting spells for no reason/to the unworthy.

Worship of nature is how we get rangers and druids, eventually. Apatheic ******* deities are a perennal favorite of mine, but really, who gets the most worshippers depends on the ratio of clerics to people versus druids to people. Clerics and druids have same starting age, but based on whim of dice, the early setting might end up with disproportionate amount of one group. Generally speaking, druids have one over clerics because they share object of worship, code of conduct and language. Druids are more likely to co-operate with other druids, than clerics of opposed deities are to co-operate with each other.


Magical talent isn't something that should be assumed to be the case for most of the population (as not everyone might possess that special something that#s necessary for that ... be it some mutation or the supernatural fey/dragon/outsider/etc. ancestor), I guess?

Simply going by amount of core classes:

Rogues, fighters, barbarians, commoners, warriors, experts aristocrats, 1st level monks and 1st level rangers are completely unmagical.

Sorcerers are only strongly magical class which can just randomly spawn due to magic ancestor.

Bards and paladins are only mildly supernatural.

Wizards, druids, adepts and clerics are strongly magical but require high education and/or literal divine intervention.

So 4/5 (80%) of NPC classes are non-magic.

5/11 (~45%) PC classes are non-magic, 2/11 (~18%) are mildly magic, 4/11 (~36%) are strongly magic with 1/11 (~9%) being explicitly magic by inheritance.

All put together: 9/16 (~56%) not magic.

That's before you start factoring in ability score spreads, alignment, starting ages etc. Just by starting ages, early clerics, druids and wizards will be outnumbered manyfold by barbarians and rogues etc. Too many classes wanting wisdom for casting, so you will see a lot of rangers and paladins without magic. 25% of people are unsuitable for any sort of casting due to low stats. So on and so forth.

So you don't really need to tell me to not assume magic talent. Rules already put a stopper on that. Everyone can only do magic if you start including non-core pseudocasters (Warlock? Binder?) who are not barred from casting due to low stats.

Of course, you can up the magic by using magical races, so that even commoners end up with supernatural quirks. Or all humans could grab Wild (Hidden?) Talent.

So really, it can swing any which way.

---


I just know one thing, Nerull will probably be one of the first popular deities to worship, being the god of death. Its a simple concept and a simple god that people would likely learn about rather fast and a lot of people will pray to.

Death gods are always a popular choice.

---

EDIT: Something to note about gods: some popular gods are/were ascended mortals. (Lolth? Corellon? Moradin? Definitely Dark One.) They obviously won't be around in a Year Zero set-up.

[Zale]

The idea mentioned previously, where the gods we know don't exist yet as proper gods, just spirits of things/places that might someday grow into godhood, is really compelling imo. Lots of potential there, especially if the players get in one's good graces by helping it get famous.

I was thinking the same thing. The gods we know now were not the creators of the various races, but rather were ancient primordial spirits shaped by the races they are the patrons of.

The Smoking Mountain Lord, an elemental and primal spirit of depths, magma and the liminal spaces between surface and the great Underdark- worshiped by the Dwarves because they too are drawn to fire and heat, darkness and stone. Eventually, they invent iron-working and smithing and associate it with this god of fire and stone; and, their worship transformed him from ancient pyroclastic spirit into the god of smiths and steel.

[Dagroth]

Think Aztecs. First God... Sun God. Second God... Rain God. Third God... Moon God.

Think Egyptians. First God... Sun God. Second God... Earth God. Third God... Evil God. Fourth God... Death God.

Think Greeks. First God... Sky/Weather God. Second God... Sea/Weather God. Third God... Underworld God.

Think Norse. First God... Sky/Creator God. Second God... Storms/Combat God. Third God... War God.

Think Japanese. First God... Sun Goddess.

For many religions, a God who specifically was in charge of the afterlife was an afterthought. There was no Aztec God of Death. Sacrifices to the Sun God went to the Sun God. Sacrifices to the Rain God went to the Rain God. Etc. Warriors who died in battle went to Valhalla.

In the Nordic tradition, there wasn't a God of Death, just eventually a Goddess of Death who watched over those who died as cowards.

Even Hades, of the Greek pantheon, didn't judge the dead... they went to their appropriate rewards automatically. Hades just got to design the punishments for those who were the worst offenders against the gods.

In primitive cultures, the Sun is pretty-much the most important thing there is. Once a culture settles down from wandering, the Weather becomes very important.

Death isn't something there's traditionally a deity of... Death is something that happens.

Once a culture starts organizing religion, those who are against the established religion create Death Gods to worship.

[Psyren]

I did have another thought - if the faster-breeding races will dominate, and there are no gods around since everyone is 1HD, why aren't the goblinoids and orcs completely wrecking humanity? Humans end up more tech-savvy in most settings eventually, but in a low-tech hunter-gatherer society the more monstrous races have significant advantages - rapid gestation, large litters, low-light and darkvision, and just plain better physical stats in general.


In human history, the first gods are almost always Sun gods & Weather gods. Death gods usually come after organized religions get started, because an afterlife isn't important until organized religions tell us an afterlife is important.

Well yeah, but in D&D this varies. In FR for example, Death is one of Shar's domains and she definitely predated the sun. And there are other settings (Dragonlance? Ravenloft?) that I'm not even sure have a sun deity at all.

[Gildedragon]

Think Aztecs. First God... Sun God. Second God... Rain God. Third God... Moon God.

Think Egyptians. First God... Sun God. Second God... Earth God. Third God... Evil God. Fourth God... Death God.

Think Greeks. First God... Sky/Weather God. Second God... Sea/Weather God. Third God... Underworld God.

Think Norse. First God... Sky/Creator God. Second God... Storms/Combat God. Third God... War God.

Think Japanese. First God... Sun Goddess.

For many religions, a God who specifically was in charge of the afterlife was an afterthought. There was no Aztec God of Death. Sacrifices to the Sun God went to the Sun God. Sacrifices to the Rain God went to the Rain God. Etc. Warriors who died in battle went to Valhalla.

In the Nordic tradition, there wasn't a God of Death, just eventually a Goddess of Death who watched over those who died as cowards.

Even Hades, of the Greek pantheon, didn't judge the dead... they went to their appropriate rewards automatically. Hades just got to design the punishments for those who were the worst offenders against the gods.

In primitive cultures, the Sun is pretty-much the most important thing there is. Once a culture settles down from wandering, the Weather becomes very important.

Death isn't something there's traditionally a deity of... Death is something that happens.

Once a culture starts organizing religion, those who are against the established religion create Death Gods to worship.

So much wrong here but just gonna say this: Huitzilopochtli wasn't a solar deity (nor the first deity), nor was Odin, and Gaia is Ouranos' elder.
Also of course that picking agrarian civs will have the sun as important.
Pastoral civilizations have herding gods as important, marine civs focus on sea gods...
But pastoralism and agriculture are pretty modern in humanity's history

Furthermore ancestor worship is pretty ancient and universal... And it implies a veneration of death/post-death as a meaningful life transition.

[Vogie]

Complete Arcane, Alternative Spellbooks, Tattoos

Skincaster feat (Dragon #359)

Eidetic Spellcaster ACF (Dragon #357)



These were my thoughts as well - Tribal tats, possibly passed down on tablets or cave paintings

I believe it was Plato's Republic where Socrates was railing on the new invention of "literacy" because of how it would stop people from memorizing everything... like they had been doing for hundreds of years.

[Zale]

Also the whole "first god" thing depends heavily on if you're engaging in the myths as we understand them, or trying to determine which gods were worshiped first. After all, it was very possible for a god to gain such popularity that they were retroactively assigned the role of "oldest" deity.

I mean, there are stories of Persephone creating humanity.

[Frozen_Feet]

I did have another thought - if the faster-breeding races will dominate, and there are no gods around since everyone is 1HD, why aren't the goblinoids and orcs completely wrecking humanity? Humans end up more tech-savvy in most settings eventually, but in a low-tech hunter-gatherer society the more monstrous races have significant advantages - rapid gestation, large litters, low-light and darkvision, and just plain better physical stats in general.


Good questions, and more on topic than the God tangent.

For orcs, the answer is simple: the wisdom and intelligence penalties hurt. A lot. Reason: for hunter-gatherers, the primary skill to feed people is survival (unsurprisingly). Orcs get -1 to that by default from poor Wisdom. Then, compared to human, they have -2 skillpoints per level due to poor Intelligence and human extra skillpoint.

Your average 1st level human barbarian can keep Survival, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Listen and Craft all maxed. His Take 10 result for survival is 14 and feeds 3 people.

Your average 1st level Orc barbarian has to pick three. His Take 10 result for survival is 13 and feeds 2 people.

Then there's how Charisma and Wisdom penalties for orcs mean that an orc barbarian, on average, is less scary and more easy to scare than a human.

So while orcs might breed faster and have an edge is direct combat, humans have an edge in actually supplying their offspring with food and items. Those large orc litters don't help if most of the orc kids are starving to death.

Now, goblins. They have less disadvantages than orcs. Potential reason why they don't wreck humanity is because humanity is not their prime competitor. In nature, creatures with significant size differences usually occupy different ecological niches. So goblins, as small creatures, are probably stuck fighting with some other small creature. Potential culprits abound. In PC races we have halflings and gnomes, in monsters we kobolds.

EDIT: and in general, Charisma penalties for both races mean they're worse at animal handling (bad at this level of civilization), less likely to produce capable sorcerers and bards, less able to do teamwork and less scary. (Yes. The traditional villainous undermountain monsters are less scary than humans by default.) Goblins mighr simply be afraid of humans - humans get +4 size bonus to intimidate checks against them. (Boy do things look weird when you actually look at the rules.)

[bekeleven]

First level wizards have 3+Int first level spells and all cantrips. That isn't mutable. I guess you create them if they don't exist yet, but the fact of the matter is that you have them. The same thing applies to level up spells, which can specifically be flavored as from personal research. A wizard who hits level 3 gets his 2 2nd level spells automatically added to his spellbook at no cost. That's just a thing which is true.

You could no more argue that a Fighter doesn't get his bonus feats because nobody's studied that form of combat yet.I could argue that Shugenja literally can't fill all of their spells known because their spell list is too restrictive.

So, precedent.

[Psyren]

Good questions, and more on topic than the God tangent.

*snip*

Okay, so we're limiting ourselves to 3.5 versions of races. Nothing wrong with that, just wanted to confirm.

You've listed a lot of the downsides to being an orc or goblin, but none of the downsides to being a human. Darkvision is a pretty big deal; the whole time humans are huddling around fires waiting for morning, goblinoids and orcs can be out getting more food (or raiding yours.) And they have cannon fodder to do so with too.

For that matter, what about Hobgoblins, which are all upside stat-wise? Why are they worse at handling animals or foraging? They can see in the dark, are uncommonly good sneaks, and are particularly hardy. They're no dumber or less charismatic, just tougher and more agile. On average they should be wrecking human society.

[Gildedragon]

Okay, so we're limiting ourselves to 3.5 versions of races. Nothing wrong with that, just wanted to confirm.

You've listed a lot of the downsides to being an orc or goblin, but none of the downsides to being a human. Darkvision is a pretty big deal; the whole time humans are huddling around fires waiting for morning, goblinoids and orcs can be out getting more food (or raiding yours.) And they have cannon fodder to do so with too.

For that matter, what about Hobgoblins, which are all upside stat-wise? Why are they worse at handling animals or foraging? They can see in the dark, are uncommonly good sneaks, and are particularly hardy. They're no dumber or less charismatic, just tougher and more agile. On average they should be wrecking human society.

Heck! Cats should be wrecking Human proto-society.

Or what about the primeval horrors of aboleths or mindflayers.

[Frozen_Feet]

As noted, I use d20 SRD for easy reference.

I think you're overestimating usefulness of Darkvision. Darkvision is a feature of things like orcs and hobgoblins because they are intended to be nocturnal or cavedwellers. Especially obvious with orcs, as they also have light sensitivity.

In other words, they normally sleep during day. They don't get any hours more off the clock than humans, they just do the same things at different time of day.

Darkvision 60 feet during night is also not as good as plain sight is during day. This matters in the natural habitat of primitive humans: safari/plains. On open terrain, humans during daylight are better at hunting down and eradicating sleeping orcs, than orcs during night are at hunting down and eradicating sleeping humans.

But hobgoblins? Well I grant you they are strictly superior to orcs. So... they'll probably wreck orcs. Again: darkvision 60 feet implies specialization to dark, enclosed spaces. AKA caves. Hobgoblins of Year Zero aren't slaughtering humans, because humans on the daylit plains are not their primary competitor. Orcs and other cavedwellers are.

The hobgoblins, of races mentioned so far, seem likeliest to utterly dominate them caves, though. And once they mobilize from there, they may eventually dominate the rest of the world. Just might take some time.

But as far as potential advantages or defenses humans could have against hobbos go, I think the free bonus feat will allow humans to differentiate and adapt to enough different environments that hobbos won't have incentive to hunt them all down. Hobbos may dominate, but humans will survive.

EDIT: Mindflayers are actually time travellers from the future, so they won't be around. Their origin point is not Year Zero, it's Year N+Y from which they are visiting year N. Aboleths have fortunate tendency to live so deep in the sea that primitive society isn't likely to encounter them.

[Zale]

On the other hand, a lot of undead horrors may well not exist yet because the magic to produce them won't exist for some time. Naturally occurring undead will still, of course, propogate.

Constructs as a type will probably be non-existent for some time; and, Magical Beasts that aren't naturally occurring will likewise be gone.

Elementals and Outsiders won't show up for a while, until they (or someone else) develops the power to draw them onto the Prime.

I think the Fey could be a major problem, considering the absence of magical defenses and their ability to mess with people's minds. Among Magical Beasts, there are Krenshars and Striges to worry about. Ability damage could seriously impair day-to-day life.

And on the Vermin angle, Giant Bees exist.

EDIT: This is not to say, "Oh these monsters will totally stop people from living", it's it say, "Here are somethings I picture people fearing".

[Frozen_Feet]

I agree with your assessment, Zale.

[Elderand]

For orcs, the answer is simple: the wisdom and intelligence penalties hurt. A lot. Reason: for hunter-gatherers, the primary skill to feed people is survival (unsurprisingly). Orcs get -1 to that by default from poor Wisdom. Then, compared to human, they have -2 skillpoints per level due to poor Intelligence and human extra skillpoint.

Huh....that actually made me realize why orcs are raider in dnd....they're literally not smart or skilled enough to feed their whole society through hunter gatherer lifestyle. They have to pillage to get what they need.

[Quertus]

Hmmm... So, an easy bake wizard, on an extremely short-lived race, to start out a decade earlier than these human muggles? Achieve immortality and ascend to godhood before they even get started?

Rats age fast, right? Were-rat wizard? Anything with an even shorter lifespan to beat this build out? Thanks to its DR, the rats in its ecological niche don't stand a chance. Power leveling Were-rat wizard, god of power leveling and cheese.

Playing as intended, psions and crusaders sound appealing. Easy-bake Wizard doesn't sound bad, either. If the world has a location where lesser undead spawn naturally, cleric might not be horrible, either, once you get started.

Elves are doomed.

It'll be interesting to see which outsiders contact humanity first. Of course, the answer is, a) whichever ones take ranks in Knowledge: Planes + Knowledge: Local, and level up quickly, most likely by tricking and degrading their kin. Here, I'm actually voting on Team Good, because it's kin won't see the deception "for the greater good" coming.




I would never play or run such a thing and propping it up as some kind of balance fix is silly, but it's fun to inspect the implications.


First level wizards have 3+Int first level spells and all cantrips. That isn't mutable. I guess you create them if they don't exist yet, but the fact of the matter is that you have them. The same thing applies to level up spells, which can specifically be flavored as from personal research. A wizard who hits level 3 gets his 2 2nd level spells automatically added to his spellbook at no cost. That's just a thing which is true.

You could no more argue that a Fighter doesn't get his bonus feats because nobody's studied that form of combat yet.

That's my take.

[Zale]

I agree with your assessment, Zale.

Ironically, I feel like Dragons will only be a problem early on, depending on how quickly levels will accrue. Dragons depend on being old, old, old to be threatening on a large scale level. A Wyrmling can probably kill a few people, but a hunting party of three-four level two or so barbarians could probably kill one.

It takes 25~ years to reach the stage of Juvenile, which offers Barbarians some time to reach a level of parity. Especially true if you have a Sorcerer or other Spellcaster supporting them.

The next spike is 50 years, then 100 years, so I don't know how many dragons will be able to keep up with the progression of humans or the like.

[Psyren]

In other words, they normally sleep during day. They don't get any hours more off the clock than humans, they just do the same things at different time of day.

Even assuming a full 8 hours of sleep (which you don't need by RAW), that's still a number of hours of low light and darkness that humans have to deal with and they don't. It gives these races flexibility that the humans lack, particularly since many prey animals are also asleep at night and thus more vulnerable/easier to hunt. More importantly however, it gives them cover of darkness with which to steal the humans' crops or stores, and tactical advantage against retaliation. This is particularly effective for the goblinoids, who have significant racial bonuses to sneak in and out with the humans' stuff.

Also, sleeping in shifts is a thing. You don't need all your hunters going out in broad daylight, especially when the nocturnal ones have two advantages (less competition from the humans, and vulnerable prey.)



Darkvision 60 feet during night is also not as good as plain sight is during day. This matters in the natural habitat of primitive humans: safari/plains. On open terrain, humans during daylight are better at hunting down and eradicating sleeping orcs, than orcs during night are at hunting down and eradicating sleeping humans.

But hobgoblins? Well I grant you they are strictly superior to orcs. So... they'll probably wreck orcs. Again: darkvision 60 feet implies specialization to dark, enclosed spaces. AKA caves. Hobgoblins of Year Zero aren't slaughtering humans, because humans on the daylit plains are not their primary competitor. Orcs and other cavedwellers are.

The hobgoblins, of races mentioned so far, seem likeliest to utterly dominate them caves, though. And once they mobilize from there, they may eventually dominate the rest of the world. Just might take some time.

I don't see why hobgoblins wouldn't go after the easier prey of the humans. Humans have a harder time to see them coming at night even before the racial bonuses, humans need tools and therefore have better stuff to steal, humans are worse at hunting and therefore more apt to do farming instead etc. You haven't presented an advantage other than the bonus feat, and sticking to the d20SRD (as you said you do) does not really present many useful feats that a level 1 human can take that would beat the raw numerical bonuses of the other races.

[Schattenbach]

Lawful Evil Hobgoblins seem like >> often Neutral Humans (edit: though overall neutral societies might be more creative as they're more diverse as far as opinions go compared to the twisted tribal mentalities of Hobgoblins and Orcs) > Chaotic Evil Orcs (though Water Orcs are probably better off, even if Sea Monsters are probably quite mean). Centaurs seem to get quite the good deal here, I guess, as their specs should enable them to survive quite a bit.

Going by SRD races, races like Pixies, Rakashas and Nymphs look pretty strong from the get-go, though their growth potential (expect, maybe, for races like Pixies) is somewhat limited and they might more be along the loner-type compared to humanoids. The same - but to a somewhat lower degree - would apply to plenty of giant variants (lesser giants and such up to Titans) by virtue of their sheer HD pool (and even their children aren't that weak) and Giants as a whole also have the tendency to form societies ... so overall, it seems like its the Giants that are going to get the greatest headstart here until the other races developed enough to catch up?

Aquatic races (particulary those that have a hard time leaving the water) have some trouble here when it comes to develope properly, I guess, as the ocean isn't exactly that helpful when it comes to created developed communities.

Edit: One could also argue that some races might quickly ally themselves with each other, i.e. Elves (non-drow), Gnomes and Halflings with various fey (and, to some degree, magical beasts and such) and various dwarves with some compatible fey creatures and magical beasts. It takes at least 1000 years until the dragons (Dragon Turtles and such aside as those are reasonably powerful from the get-go) become sufficiently strong to become unbeatable compared to common creatures found in the world ... one overlooked group of creatures might be the various types of Naga (spirit Naga in particular, as those might have Ha-Naga behind them ... and Ha-Naga are quite a bit more troublesome than some 1000 year old dragon due to ultra-high mental stats and such) because those actually possess stronger sorcerer capabilities than regular Dragons. Titans seem pretty unbeatable from the get-go ... they don#t even have the usual size-specific disadvantages that giants suffer from (large size+) as they can reduce their size just fine and their SLAs are reasonably strong in general.

Natural born powerful gods (like the divine beasts, titans, and powerful embodiments of the world etc. of mythology) could theoretically exit from the very beginning (and if not ... Titans and some monsters and fey might quickly take their place ... be it as the first deities or as the teachers of the lesser, less blessed races), depending on how deities work here.

[Quertus]

How is "level 1" being handled? That is, are monsters using Savage Species progression, starting out as diminutive versions of themselves, or are they using a more Pathfinder method of taking a -X to everything?

Because a lot of creatures have a really hard time staying alive with Survival as it is; reduce their skills, and there aren't many species left. Large and larger creatures have a really hard time feeding their young, one way or another.

Perhaps the species that makes out best is Dragons, because they can eat anything - no survival roll required for them to stay alive.

If you're using Savage Species style advancement, well, a lot of creatures (say, giants) get to the point where they can't earn XP, because even beating up each other, they aren't worth any XP, because they are too low CR for their level.

So, either way, a lot of species go extinct if the world starts at "level 1".

[Frozen_Feet]

Even assuming a full 8 hours of sleep (which you don't need by RAW), that's still a number of hours of low light and darkness that humans have to deal with and they don't. It gives these races flexibility that the humans lack, particularly since many prey animals are also asleep at night and thus more vulnerable/easier to hunt. More importantly however, it gives them cover of darkness with which to steal the humans' crops or stores, and tactical advantage against retaliation. This is particularly effective for the goblinoids, who have significant racial bonuses to sneak in and out with the humans' stuff.

Also, sleeping in shifts is a thing. You don't need all your hunters going out in broad daylight, especially when the nocturnal ones have two advantages (less competition from the humans, and vulnerable prey.)

Any "greater flexibility" orcs get from hunting during dark us offset by them being poorer hunters due to aforementioned wisdom and skillpoint penalties. An orc is worse at finding prey night and day, compared to humans during day.

Human crops and stores are a moot point in the short term - humans don't have those. There's nothing to steal. Hence, they wouldn't be hunting humans for their stuff, humans would be the stuff they're hunting. That's not a very appealing option compared to hunting animals and foraging.

Your sleeping shifts argument seems strangely disjointed. My argument assumed orcs would primarily hunt during night and sleep during day. Even if some orcs stay up as daywatches ir dayhunters, they're still worse than humans on open terrain, again due to wisdom and skillpoint penalties.


I don't see why hobgoblins wouldn't go after the easier prey of the humans. Humans have a harder time to see them coming at night even before the racial bonuses, humans need tools and therefore have better stuff to steal, humans are worse at hunting and therefore more apt to do farming instead etc. You haven't presented an advantage other than the bonus feat, and sticking to the d20SRD (as you said you do) does not really present many useful feats that a level 1 human can take that would beat the raw numerical bonuses of the other races.

I'm not convinced humans are easier prey. Consider the matter of different living environments I already pointed out. If hobbos and orcs live in the same caves, are humans easier prey once you factor in that humans are over there, while orcs are right on the hobbos' faces? The same question applies to all other cavedwellers in the same cave as the hobbos. I'll do a more in-depth numerical analysis of human abilities when I have better time.

Regardless, predators don't just fight their prey, they also fight to remove competing predators. Where orc and hobbo territories overlap, hobbos have zero reason to leave the orcs unmolested.

If you don't agree, then you're suggesting a species might ignore a similar-but-inferior species in favor of raiding a third one. If you think that's a valid interspecies dynamic, what stops this dynamic from existing between humans and hobbos against a fourth, even weaker species? Or between humans and some stronger species against hobbos?

[Psyren]

Any "greater flexibility" orcs get from hunting during dark us offset by them being poorer hunters due to aforementioned wisdom and skillpoint penalties. An orc is worse at finding prey night and day, compared to humans during day.

Human crops and stores are a moot point in the short term - humans don't have those. There's nothing to steal. Hence, they wouldn't be hunting humans for their stuff, humans would be the stuff they're hunting. That's not a very appealing option compared to hunting animals and foraging.

Your sleeping shifts argument seems strangely disjointed. My argument assumed orcs would primarily hunt during night and sleep during day. Even if some orcs stay up as daywatches ir dayhunters, they're still worse than humans on open terrain, again due to wisdom and skillpoint penalties.

All of the above ignores Hobgoblins, and regular goblins for that matter who would be their workhorses/fodder just as they are now.

Humans might start out hunting too, but the obvious disadvantages they have (especially as relates to night - hard to hunt when you need to carry burning sticks with you) will push them to farming fairly quickly.



I'm not convinced humans are easier prey. Consider the matter of different living environments I already pointed out. If hobbos and orcs live in the same caves, are humans easier prey once you factor in that humans are over there, while orcs are right on the hobbos' faces? The same question applies to all other cavedwellers in the same cave as the hobbos. I'll do a more in-depth numerical analysis of human abilities when I have better time.

Regardless, predators don't just fight their prey, they also fight to remove competing predators. Where orc and hobbo territories overlap, hobbos have zero reason to leave the orcs unmolested.

If you don't agree, then you're suggesting a species might ignore a similar-but-inferior species in favor of raiding a third one. If you think that's a valid interspecies dynamic, what stops this dynamic from existing between humans and hobbos against a fourth, even weaker species? Or between humans and some stronger species against hobbos?

I don't see why hobgoblin and orc territory overlaps. In your proto-society, hobgoblins have no reason to live in caves because everyone starts on a level playing field. Orcs might need to live there because they have light sensitivity, but goblins and hobgoblins don't have that problem. And even if they were to start there, they both breed much faster than humans and will be competing for space in the lush plains/forests in very short order.

As for why they would go after us - humans are the easiest to bully because they have the least biological advantages. They are no smarter than hobgoblins (save for a single extra skill point), have a much harder time detecting them (especially at night), are squishier (no con bonus) and are worse in a fight (no dex bonus.) End result is that your world will be ruled by goblinoids in no time.

[VisitingDaGulag]

OP seems to overlook expected battles per day generating enough XP to cap out within a year. Full casters like Cleric/druid/etc will soon wreck such campaign way harder than normal because there's nothing else in the ecosystem that can compete

OP also seems to have not played in such a campaign as a player. I'm not confident she'd find making parchment a fun exercise in a tabletop game.

[Endarire]

Is this like SimEarth but where you make a cosmology/multiverse from scratch? I feel this needs more explanation.

Craft(Poisonmaking) measures its checks in GP. That's something.

[Sam K]

D&D just seem like an odd choice for this setting, seeing as how just about all the material adds more specialised spells, classes, PRCs, items and organisations, none which will be available. It seems like taking the game then throwing out 99% of it; it seems even most classes from core wouldn't be around. Seems like you would have only warriors, barbarians, (maybe) rangers, and adepts/sorcerers/druids, assuming they don't have to invent their spells. Psions are also likely to be good. Still, I can see the appeal of the setting, at least as an experiment in what races and tactics would dominate.

How would you handle meta gaming? I mean, most people who have read some history knows that it makes sense to try and tame animals, master fire, maybe melt copper... but would their characters? Fire and tame animals might make sense, but the knowledge of mining? That's some serious player knowledge there.

To execute this, I would probably use Conan D20 instead of 3.5 - it's D20 so it fills that requirement and it is more focused on mundane classes than magical ones. Magic still exists and you could easily import/create more exotic races, but the game and it's supporting material isn't built on the idea that players will have ready access to magic items.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Psyren: I'm still crunching numbers, but keep the premise in mind, please. Year Zero, everyone starts from scratch. Hobbos won't get automagic goblins and orc flunkies, they have to beat those races to submission first... which is sort of what I've been saying they'll do first.

The idea of hobbos living in caves and humans living on plains is based on estimated natural living environment of those species. "Level playing field" =/= "starting from scratch". Things which are stated or implied to have risen from a hole in the ground will start from a hole in the ground.

---


OP seems to overlook expected battles per day generating enough XP to cap out within a year. Full casters like Cleric/druid/etc will soon wreck such campaign way harder than normal because there's nothing else in the ecosystem that can compete.

I'm not overlooking it. I'm approaching this with the premise that "expected battles per day" also has 95.4% mortality rate to reach every level. All the really low-level ways of cheating your way out of this are available to mundanes... most of which get years of headstart. So when the first 1st level wizards, clerics and druids get on the field, following your own logic there would be plenty of ECL 2+ creatures to compete with them.

Sorcerers I've already noted to be an exception multiple times and said I'm fine with them being dominant.


OP also seems to have not played in such a campaign as a player. I'm not confident he'd find making parchment a fun exercise in a tabletop game.

You are free to assume whatever you like about my play tendencies and experience.

---


D&D just seem like an odd choice for this setting, seeing as how just about all the material adds more specialised spells, classes, PRCs, items and organisations, none which will be available. It seems like taking the game then throwing out 99% of it.

I'm well aware. Minimalism shouldn't be so wondrous when Sturgeon's law applies to d20 rules material and 9/10 of what I'm throwing out is useless clutter anyway. :smalltongue:


How would you handle meta gaming? I mean, most people who have read some history knows that it makes sense to try and tame animals, master fire, maybe melt copper... but would their characters? Fire and tame animals might make sense, but the knowledge of mining? That's some serious player knowledge there.

Explaining exactly how I handle metagaming would be a multipage treatise on its own. Trying to do this shortly: using player knowledge to pick a path that's desireable to you as a player is fine as long as you can also justify picking that path with the character's knowledge. Most of the people I play with in meatspace are plain not good enough at this sort of rationalization to get away with those things. All of those things are also subject to a number of pre-existing rules - so even using player knowledge to pursue them takes a huge number of in-game steps to achieve. Metagaming which doesn't bypass actual gaming isn't a problem.


To execute this, I would probably use Conan D20 instead of 3.5 - it's D20 so it fills that requirement and it is more focused on mundane classes than magical ones. Magic still exists and you could easily import/create more exotic races, but the game and it's supporting material isn't built on the idea that players will have ready access to magic items.

I used to have Conan d20 and at early levels it's mostly copy-paste from d20 SRD. Using Conan rules would be useful if I wanted to cap the setting at some status quo, but that's not really the intent.

[Schattenbach]

How are you planning to deal with the "growing up" process of non-humanoid/monstrous/monster races and such (particulary for races that, compared to dragons, don't have specific "take that LA and/or HD at specific levels/number of years/etc" rules listed down for them)?

Do languages (or the basic concepts of society actually and such to begin with) actually exist (i.e. everyone at least starts with his/her/its standard language package) or will they be forced to somehow create that stuff, too?

Either way ... figuring out how farming works (or even just how to not be killed too quickly as hunter or while herb collecting ... hunting isn't exactly easy, after all) might take a few hundred or a few thousand years or so (edit: though one could argue that races with close ties to nature, i.e. feybased races and elves and such, might get a noteable headstart here ... drow being forced to develope without creating proper culture beforehand among regular elves quite sucks for them, I guess?)?

I still don't see CE Orcs develope all that much (plenty of CE Goblins face similiar issues, I guess, though with them being fast breeders, they might still be able to make things work out by eventually birthing some particulary exceptional individual ... and otherwise make do with numbers), while LE Hobgoblins might develope a bit (one of their most important traits is tribal unity, after all) but don't think that they're going to be that creative here (and being LE, they might fall in the same trap as the ancient cultures, i.e. ... "slaves being so cheap makes technological progress unnecessary").

[Sam K]

Explaining exactly how I handle metagaming would be a multipage treatise on its own. Trying to do this shortly: using player knowledge to pick a path that's desireable to you as a player is fine as long as you can also justify picking that path with the character's knowledge. Most of the people I play with in meatspace are plain not good enough at this sort of rationalization to get away with those things. All of those things are also subject to a number of pre-existing rules - so even using player knowledge to pursue them takes a huge number of in-game steps to achieve. Metagaming which doesn't bypass actual gaming isn't a problem.

Well, what can I say? You've clearly put some thought into it. Will be interesting to hear how it turns out, and especially what race(es) win :)

[Psyren]

@Psyren: I'm still crunching numbers, but keep the premise in mind, please. Year Zero, everyone starts from scratch. Hobbos won't get automagic goblins and orc flunkies, they have to beat those races to submission first... which is sort of what I've been saying they'll do first.

The idea of hobbos living in caves and humans living on plains is based on estimated natural living environment of those species. "Level playing field" =/= "starting from scratch". Things which are stated or implied to have risen from a hole in the ground will start from a hole in the ground.

But that's exactly the problem - your "natural living environment" is based on a premise that you yourself have dismantled. Humans live in the lush plains in normal settings because the gods put them there and protected them until they built their numbers up. Savage races live on the fringes because they had no choice. Now that you've done away with that, there is nothing left to stop other, tougher races from encroaching, and biology will win out.

Consider our world - imagine if you had a second set of proto-humanoids that have no mental or physical disadvantages relative to us, can see in the dark, and that breed much faster than we can. We'd be toast, and they would control the planet in a very short time. That's the scenario you have created here.

Your thread asks people to consider the implications, but you only seem to want to consider those implications that line up with your own desires for how you want things to go, rather than what would logically happen.

[Schattenbach]

Psyren has a point here ... settings are usually dominated by humans (besides the obvious "humans are the greatest" wank to make the humans feel better about themselves) because they're either protected by the gods (or other powerful beings) until they're able to dominate most other races through the use of tools or because humans breed (others breed fast, too, but somehow ended up being bullied/subdued/killed by other races, anyway ... so it would require quite a few technological breakthroughs or lucky circumstances for humans to somehow pass the original disadvantages) fast and eventually (due to their sheer mortality and creativity, while other races somehow suffer from creative failure or have been wiped out by the gods before) rule the best places around (that aren't dominated by strong monsters). If other races (LE Hobgoblins/CE Orcs/etc.) somehow end up on top, all progress is quite likely to come to an end here due to progress being deemed unnecessary or troublesome by most members of these races (LE is usually very conservative and CE societies are too unstable as society as a whole) ... maybe them meeting some considerable setback might wake them up but I guess that's quite unlikely and they will simply end up teaming up with the future overlords (dragons and giants and such) instead because there's nothing much they could actually do against those unless they progress quite a bit.

About something else ... I've noticed that Giants (and probably other creatures as well) should automatically reach their full standard RHD (and LA) upon reaching adulthood (as there are stats for children and notes about the general growing up process ... was it in MM2 or so?), so within a few dozen years, Giants and others are just too much for the other races.

[Zanos]

Hobgoblins have +1 LA and will still be level 1 while humans are level 2, and have 1 less feat and 4 less skill points at level 1.

A human commoner can max out three skills and have a focus in two, while a hobgoblin commoner can max out only two skills and have focus in one. So humans will be making weapons, armor and fortifications more quickly than hobgoblins, as well as having better farmers and such. So a single human smith with focus in crafting armor and crafting weapons can make half-plate(DC 17) and crossbows (DC 15) on a take 10, while a hobgoblin smith will have to pick one or the other. The human can also have a third skill, probably some kind of profession.

Creating a functioning society is largely a function of skill checks.

Orcs don't have an LA but are even worse off skill wise, the average orc commoner can only max out 1 skill.

[Psyren]

LA is irrelevant for NPCs, not to mention everyone is starting at level 1 per the OP. Hobgoblins still breed faster. If you prefer though, Goblins are no less smart, more agile, breed even faster, still see in the dark and have 0 LA.

[Quertus]

Well, what can I say? You've clearly put some thought into it. Will be interesting to hear how it turns out, and especially what race(es) win :)

My vote is still on were-rats for early start, individual power, and niche domination.

But, for a society?

Again, depends on your rules, because starting at level 1 makes most monsters (and animals) die out.

[The_Jette]

I need a little bit of clarification: are all subraces available at the beginning of your game? Because, honestly, that doesn't really make any sense. The drow, for instance, were a subset of elves who turned against Correlon Lorethian and were subsequently banished to the underdark for millenia, until they evolved to the point that they are who they are now. Aquatic (humanoid) were normal people, until they were either magically altered, or needed to adapt to their surroundings. Lycanthropy is a curse that ended up being passed on to following generations, meaning were-anythings shouldn't exist either, unless the curse has already been laid.
Is the adventuring party going to be straight up humans, or something? I can't see early races putting aside their need for resources in order to work together. Tens of thousands of years later when all of them have thriving kingdoms? Sure. But, back in the day when everyone was struggling to feed their own dwindling race? Probably not.
Honestly, humanity should still be able to take its place in this world. The goblinoid races are mostly too busy fighting each other to ever stand a huge threat. The elves live so long it's hard for them to truly flourish quickly. The dwarves would be carving out their caves, which takes much longer than figuring out farming and wall building. The humans work together, naturally; are adept at figuring out other people's technology and turning it to war; and, breed fast enough to almost keep up with the goblinoids. But, again, the goblinoid races tend to be too focused on internal struggles, whereas humans have that irritating trait of banding together to fight the bigger threat. You can compare them to an ant hill whenever a new threat shows up.

[Frozen_Feet]

Don't have enough time for reply to everyone. Just some tentative observations on orcs vs. humans vs. hobgoblins:

1) by default rules, hunting at night using darkvision confers no bonuses to Survival compared to hunting during day using normal vision while on the plains. Nor should it; darkvision 60' caps at 60', while for normal vision the range 4d6 x 40'. Even if I accept hunting at night has benefit of prey animals sleeping, that's offset by increased difficulty of spotting them.

This means neither orcs nor hobgoblins are markedly better at hunting due to darkvision.

2) Hobgoblins have notable advantage when hunting specific kinds of large prey using the combat rules instead of survival rules. However, it can't be said they're overall better hunters because:

3) The human extra feat let them cross important skill modifier benchmarks. For example, a hobgoblin with an average ability score can have 4 (ranks) + 3 (Skill focus) = +7 skill modifier. +8 for Con and Dex based skills. +12 for move silently. A human with average ability score can have 4 (ranks) + 3 (skillfocus) + 2 (Alertness etc. skill feat) = +9. This has notable implications when it comes to Survival. A human with +9 crosses DC 10 treshold for feeding themselves even under pressure, provided there are no circumstantial penalties. On average, such a human feeds 4 other people along themselves. A hobgoblin with +7 only feeds 3 others when taking 10.

4) the free choice nature of human racial features allows them to specialize at lower level and hence create a more functional caste system sooner. On an individual level, that theoretical +9 to single skill is strictly worse to what hobgoblins get, because hobbos get +1s to more skills as well as hitpoints, AC, initiative and saves. In aggregate, it allows for things like each member in a human village having +9 in different but mutually supporting skills, allowing humans to hunt, craft, tame animals etc. at notably greater aptitude than their individual abilities suggest. For example, each hunter with Survival +9 is another villager freed to have Craft +9, over the +7 hobbos get.

5) hobgoblin generational span is shorter than humans, so they get a headstart and will outnumber humans given enough time. Humans make a better slave race than orcs, though, given aforementioned aptitude for specialization. Sparing and raiding humans (for slaves and products) has better long-term profits than sparing and raiding orcs.

6) orcs get a headstart on both hobgoblins and humans, though, so they're a greater threat to hobbos than humans are in the short term. This is a point against preying on orcs, but also a point for hobbos using resources to stop orcs preying on them.

7) increased early term survivability granted by increased Con and Dex is easily worth +1 LA in the short term. For hobbos, it pays to beat or survive other species in the same age bracket. That some slower-maturing species could level faster is offset by hobbos starting earlier.

8) free choice nature of human bonus feat makes them less appealing as raiding targets due to increased unpredictability. For example, you could have a village of human commoners who all unexpectedly have Diehard, or where significant number have both Combat Expertise and Improved Trip. This kind of variation can make one group of humans much more dangerous than another, and you can't really tell them apart based on race or class composition.

Needs more modeling to come to any greater conclusion, but there you go.

[Fouredged Sword]

I think the big issue is that, if you apply real world logic, you will have one species out compete the others and dominate. You don't get two species in the same biological niche in nature unless it is a broad niche and "smart tool user" is actually a pretty small niche that has show a sharp normalization to the "ideal" form for a given environment in the past. If you start at year zero you will not HAVE non-dominant species after 1000 years or so. The dominant species will out compete them for food and resources and each environment will have a single species control the food and shelter.

Now, an interesting point - differing climates. If all orcs are tundra orcs and have cold resistance they may take control over the cold climates, and Drow are likely to take over the underdark if illithids don't enslave and eat them from the start. While each environment generally will only support one humanoid, there are many environments that one species or another could have an advantage.

[lord_khaine]

Also, initially large rivers, mountain ranges, deserts, swamps, oceans, would all serve to initially keep the proto-civilisations apart.
Especially when there are a lot of scary stuff in those places. And just in the wild in general, that would considder prospective explores a tasty snack.

[Elkad]

Late to the thread. I like this a lot.

Yes, there is some houseruling involved. But then every time the DM says what books are allowed, he's houseruling to some extent. Same if he bans a class or a spell.

So we pick and choose from the books. DM says "these classes are banned" - hopefully very few of them. "These spells are banned" - and then bans everything that isn't a cantrip, and optionally about 4 basic 1st level spells.
Then you go nuts banning initial knowledge of alchemy, metal armor & weapons, any craft skill involving metalworking, etc.

Our proto-races are on an alien world, so they get a circumstance penalty to a bunch of skills. Survival, Knowledge(Nature), etc. If that +9 Agriculture check is turning into a +4, it takes more farmers to feed the non-producers. Which keeps towns smaller. Other skills are going to get penalties for shoddy/improvised tools.

So given a society of Hide armor and spears/clubs, what do we end up with?

Monk or other unarmed class would be pretty effective for a while. Same with Natural Weapons. If they were ruthless enough (and had enough foresight), they could oppress the lesser classes for a long time.

All spells have to be researched, at the standard 1000gp per week, 1 week per level. Impose penalties for those working without a lab, temple, etc.

Wizards could trade books/scrolls as usual.

Sorcerers could train one another (effectively similar - though probably cheaper).

Divine(Granted) spells I'd probably require to be researched once for each deity, but you can't pray for a spell you don't know exists yet. Getting access to the knowledge of your Temple requires keeping up on your tithes/quests/whatever - similar to Sorcerer sharing.

Druids. Companion and Wildshape are limited to creatures they know, which means local. If I drop you in wild North America (pre-European visit), you are going to be stuck with wolves, bears, big cats, bison, eagle, etc. And they'd have the same spell restrictions as everyone else, plus their solitary/scattered nature might limit sharing even more.

Follow similar guidelines for all the other casters. (And all the sorta-casters, like Incarnum, Psionics, Initiators, etc)
Basically, your options are either A:Research it yourself or B:Pay copying cost (which could take the form of tithes, personal instruction from another sorcerer, or whatever).

(Note, if I was playing in an environment where I could control access to books, I'd take all the spell descriptions away from my players. So they would have to work from memory and write the spell description when doing their research. If they mis-remember Magic Missile as Long range, their research fails. If they mis-remember it as Close range, they get a version that only works at Close, despite Medium being the standard.)


Need to work out some rules for getting rid of those circumstance penalties to skills. And how to invent things like metalworking. Obviously someone needs to take Mining first.
So if we dump Dwarves and Kobolds underground, they are going to take Mining instead of Carpentry just to build their houses. Which gives them a broader base of Miners to find metal for their new smith class. "Darn these harder-than-normal rocks! They wear out our stone tools. Wait, what if we make the tools out of them?"

[Elderand]

I'm not sure there would be sorcerers at all.

sorcerer are born with magic either because they have some magical ancestry back in their genealogy somewhere or they have been exposed to some magical events. Neither of which would have happened if this is year 0.
It will take at least one generation before you see any sort of sorcerer around.

[Elkad]

The Creation of the Multiverse fits "magical events" just fine.
Little blobs of leftover magic that sometimes stick to people. Those people get to be sorcerers.

[Coidzor]

The scenario in the OP makes it sound less like Adventuring Year Zero and more like some sort of huge multispecies Eden scenario where a bunch of humanoids are just made out of thin air and put out in the wilderness buck-naked and have to survive.

So I guess Druids are the kings of that scenario as their materials and foci are easily acquired so long as they're not in a hilariously inappropriate biome.

Much like Minecraft, whoever can get wooden and stone tools is able to start teching up, those who can't have to move or hope that they can get what they need by killing things with their bare hands.

Dragons, which don't need tools would have an advantage, especially if they're all created as adults instead of having to work their way up from wyrmlings.

If this is a virgin plane(t), then there's also surface deposits of metal most likely so it wouldn't be too hard for humanoids created with knowledge of smelting and mining to start on that once the immediate basic necessities are covered.

No problems from orcs or goblins and such due to populations not having a chance to breed uncontrollably or having too little land to go around, so mostly a matter of the beasts around.

[icefractal]

I'm a little unclear on the premise here. Is it:

A) A bunch of 1st level characters suddenly appear, naked, on a brand new world. But in this case the training times for the classes don't matter, because they already have them.

B) A bunch of newborn babies suddenly appear on a brand new world ... and then starve, I guess.

C) There were people on the world, but they didn't have any class levels; everyone was just 1 HD Humanoids. At this point, people start being born with the potential to take class levels.

D) Something else?


The examples in the OP are a bit weird, because it's talking about having to craft paper for spellbooks, whereas by any description I've seen the existence of paper predates the existence of Wizards by a long time. And you wouldn't even go straight from Humanoids to Wizards, there'd be a lot of intermediate steps.

For Warrior (the NPC class), for instance, I'd imagine something like:
1) First there's just Humanoids.
2) The Semi-Combatant: Grew up watching people fight, so by the time of adulthood they have some idea what works and doesn't. d6 HD, Poor BAB still but with an extra +1 at 8th, 12th, and 16th level. Proficient in one simple weapon.
3) The Combatant: Had people intentionally teach them how to fight, benefited from the example of Semi-Combatants. d8 HD, Medium BAB, proficient with three weapons, one of which can be martial, and light armor.
4) Now maybe the Warrior. Or maybe a few more intermediate steps before that. And at some point in this process, you need sufficiently stable food supplies and/or a caste system so that future Warriors grow up eating a high-calorie enough diet to develop sufficient brawniness.

And then to go from that to a PC class like Barbarian or Fighter, you have another series of steps. The first Wizards weren't taught by Humanoids, they were taught by AlmostWizards, a class that no longer exists because it's like Wizard but not as good.

[Coidzor]

I'm a little unclear on the premise here. Is it:

A) A bunch of 1st level characters suddenly appear, naked, on a brand new world. But in this case the training times for the classes don't matter, because they already have them.

B) A bunch of newborn babies suddenly appear on a brand new world ... and then starve, I guess.

C) There were people on the world, but they didn't have any class levels; everyone was just 1 HD Humanoids. At this point, people start being born with the potential to take class levels.

D) Something else?


The examples in the OP are a bit weird, because it's talking about having to craft paper for spellbooks, whereas by any description I've seen the existence of paper predates the existence of Wizards by a long time. And you wouldn't even go straight from Humanoids to Wizards, there'd be a lot of intermediate steps.

For Warrior (the NPC class), for instance, I'd imagine something like:
1) First there's just Humanoids.
2) The Semi-Combatant: Grew up watching people fight, so by the time of adulthood they have some idea what works and doesn't. d6 HD, Poor BAB still but with an extra +1 at 8th, 12th, and 16th level. Proficient in one simple weapon.
3) The Combatant: Had people intentionally teach them how to fight, benefited from the example of Semi-Combatants. d8 HD, Medium BAB, proficient with three weapons, one of which can be martial, and light armor.
4) Now maybe the Warrior. Or maybe a few more intermediate steps before that. And at some point in this process, you need sufficiently stable food supplies and/or a caste system so that future Warriors grow up eating a high-calorie enough diet to develop sufficient brawniness.

And then to go from that to a PC class like Barbarian or Fighter, you have another series of steps. The first Wizards weren't taught by Humanoids, they were taught by AlmostWizards, a class that no longer exists because it's like Wizard but not as good.

It can't be C. Mundane items do not exist yet, no simple tools. No rock that's been picked up to use as a hammer or to chip another rock. No shelter. No food.

Near as I can figure, a bunch of adults come into being and then somehow survive for at least a year or two to gain a class level.

You raise a good point about the evolution of classes.


The mundanes won't be competing with high level casters for a long, long, long time with the premise given. In fact, plenty of mundanes get a leg up to get off the ground because they have lower starting ages and hence have headstarts often measured in years to gain wealth and experience. This isn't a gentlemanly game where we're pretending things are balanced and everyone starts at level 1 by default. The game starts from zero and if you roll low on starting age you have the option to start adventuring and/or acquiring wealth before those who roll high.

Ok. Everyone but races with RHD die before attaining adulthood or before attaining their first class level due to lack of food, shelter, etc.

That's kinda boring, though. Or a really long-winded and indirect way of saying that Lizardfolk rule the earth.


Year Zero of Adventuring, pal. Everyone's starting from scratch. Everyone. The planes included.

So... No gods, the war of Law and Chaos is still centuries if not millennia away. Hmm. No outsiders made using mortal belief, thoughts, or souls... So ancient baatorians, the first slaad lords, the progenitors of the yugoloths, and the OG demons in the abyss. Maybe Mechanus bot?

Or, wait, actually we might just have only the inner planes for a while aside from the Astral.

The lack of gods and yet the simultaneous spontaneous creation of dozens if not hundreds of sapient beings is... A headache.

Do beings that are explicitly divine or demonic/outsider creations not exist yet? If so, then humanity either doesn't exist or humans are the only standard race that exists. Could be an interesting exercise, going through and finding races that don't depend upon a creator or the tampering of another race or entity for their existence and building a setting of them.

This entire conversation about orcs and hobgoblins is pointless as those definitely don't exist without their creator gods or gods that mutate another race into their chosen people. Also, doesn't account for the fact that there's close to even odds of any given race dying out in the first few months, even if we give them some pity skill points.

I guess I should take back the comment about dragons because they can't exist yet. A lot of magical beasts and aberrations can't either.

Plane Shift and Planar Binding can obviously get you ahead, like always, but getting Plane Shift and Planar Binding are campaigns unto themselves when you start from the utter bottom.

Especially when a number of planes don't exist yet or may not even come into existence. Now that's a headache.

edit: Also, the thread title is really incongruous with the subject matter. This is by no means a solution to wealth by level, it's an entirely different kind of thought experiment.

[lord_khaine]

And then to go from that to a PC class like Barbarian or Fighter, you have another series of steps. The first Wizards weren't taught by Humanoids, they were taught by AlmostWizards, a class that no longer exists because it's like Wizard but not as good.

Most likely the first wizard level was taken by someone born with the gift of sorcery, that rolled an 11 for char and a 18 for int. He has the perfect framework for understanding the initial working of arcane forces, but also the motivation and drive to put it into system instead of relying on instinct.


edit: Also, the thread title is really incongruous with the subject matter. This is by no means a solution to wealth by level, it's an entirely different kind of thought experiment.

Yeah.. that is kinda true. This experiment is interesting, but closer to a game of Terraria :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

Most likely the first wizard level was taken by someone born with the gift of sorcery, that rolled an 11 for char and a 18 for int. He has the perfect framework for understanding the initial working of arcane forces, but also the motivation and drive to put it into system instead of relying on instinct.

And also a LOT of time on his hands. The first wizards were elves.


Yeah.. that is kinda true. This experiment is interesting, but closer to a game of Terraria :smalltongue:

Yeah, the thread title has pretty much nothing to do with the premise.

[Quertus]

The Creation of the Multiverse fits "magical events" just fine.
Little blobs of leftover magic that sometimes stick to people. Those people get to be sorcerers.

No, no, creating a universe is clearly labeled (EX) under the DM entry. It's the "miracle of childbirth" that is clearly miraculous and (SU). :smalltongue:

Given that even the planes are starting at "year zero" with one HD outsiders, I've been going under the belief that all monsters are starting out at their Savage Species style first level equivalent. For the most part, this works out ok, but does leave the question as to whether monsters advance by XP or age. Either way, adventurers should advance so much faster, that monsters will quickly become extinct or enslaved in "civilized" lands. Which, incidentally, products your standard D&D "monsters on the borders" setting.

But the whole thing about starting age for classes is a bit concerning. Simply put, it makes it sound like a bunch of babies just got dropped on the plane, in which case, any race that isn't independent at birth dies out, and Dragons rule the world.

So I'm not sure how you can actually have a "Year Zero" the way that the OP described.

[Schattenbach]

And also a LOT of time on his hands. The first wizards were elves.


One could argue that the first wizards - at least as far as DnD 3.5 is concerned - were Elder Titans (or other Outsider along these lines). Not that ECL70 Outsider that do nothing expect thinking really hard for thousands of years are - due to various reasons - all that relevant for the premise here, though.

[lord_khaine]

One could argue that the first wizards - at least as far as DnD 3.5 is concerned - were Elder Titans (or other Outsider along these lines). Not that ECL70 Outsider that do nothing expect thinking really hard for thousands of years are - due to various reasons - all that relevant for the premise here, though.

Hmm.. no.. i dont see the same degree of motivation. If we goes with what i think are the rather logical assumption that the first arcane spellcasters were sorcerers. Then i do think it a lot more likely that the first wizard would be someone with a weak connection to the arcane, and a motivation to find a better way of using that power.

In a regular d&d world this would most likely be the elves, who are one of the oldest races around. But dwarfes are also a potential option, having a long life as well and a cha penalty.

[VisitingDaGulag]

Very rarely do I get satisfactory answers. Kudos.


I'm approaching this with the premise that "expected battles per day" also has 95.4% mortality rate to reach every level.I hate to do this to you, but could you show your math?


So when the first 1st level wizards, clerics and druids get on the field, following your own logic there would be plenty of ECL 2+ creatures to compete with them.You got me. I overlooked starting ages. So... uh, again, how do you plan on computing the number of higher ECL threats by the time that most casters are in play? This would be far easier if 3.5e were a video game.


You are free to assume whatever you like about my play tendencies and experience.If you do really want to struggle with this sort of thing as a player, then please find a DM who understands what you want to do with this kind of campaign and as him to run it for you. When learning D&D, I originally thought material components works similar to this.

If I can wrap my head around what you are doing with the above and I meet your other criteria, I'll put my time where my mouth is and run it for you (as if you were any other player I hadn't spoken to before). I might even have a way to force this mechanically on generic 3e in a way you didn't anticipate.

[Endarire]

OP: This concept feels like the absolute start of a strategy game like Civilization or the generation of a new Minecraft world minus villages/villagers.

[Quertus]

If we goes with what i think are the rather logical assumption that the first arcane spellcasters were sorcerers.

Logical as that assumption may be, early editions of D&D tend to disprove it.


OP: This concept feels like the absolute start of a strategy game like Civilization or the generation of a new Minecraft world minus villages/villagers.

D&D-based Minecraft as an MMORPG, perhaps? With "starting age" being represented by... expansions, and the order in which they are produced?

[lord_khaine]

Logical as that assumption may be, early editions of D&D tend to disprove it.

How the world looked in earlier editions are really not relevant in this one though. I mean those were straight up alternate realities. with different laws of nature and magic. Where people healed faster, and some weapons were slower to swing than others.

[Morphic tide]

How the world looked in earlier editions are really not relevant in this one though. I mean those were straight up alternate realities. with different laws of nature and magic. Where people healed faster, and some weapons were slower to swing than others.

Actually, they were the same realities. Most of the edition changes have come with meta-plot nonsense. Vecna, of note, was involved in two or three edition changes in-universe. And people sometimes wonder why he's considered a Villain Sue...

[lord_khaine]

Actually, they were the same realities. Most of the edition changes have come with meta-plot nonsense. Vecna, of note, was involved in two or three edition changes in-universe. And people sometimes wonder why he's considered a Villain Sue...

No they cant be. Some of them straight up differs in the past as well. Best case Elminster. Were at some point just regular wizard 30. Is now that bizare build he is now.
Or dragons. Went from being firebreathing reptiles, to have inborn spellcasting. To be natural sorcerers. That is explained by different alternate realities. And not as much by in-universe changes.

[Frozen_Feet]

I hate to do this to you, but could you show your math?

Why'd you hate doing that? Math's what most this project is about when you get to it.

The math in this case is based on encounter difficulty guidelines. Encounters vary from CR = ECL-1 for Easy encounters to CR = ECL+4 for Overwhelming. Each encounter type is also given its share of total encounters: 10% for Easy encounters, 50% for Challenging (CR = ECL), 15% for Very Difficult (CR = ECL+ 1..3), 5% for Overwhelming (etc.). These average out to CR = ECL+~0. It takes 14 such encounters to level (rounded up from 13.33). Presuming 80% survival rate for each encounter, ~4.4% of adventurers live to see ECL 2. (0.8^14=~0.044)

Both the encounter calculator and the experience tables can be found online these days.

In any case, the exact numbers aren't important. That 80% isn't based on anything "real", it's an abstraction. In a real encounter, chances of victory and survival have multiple variables and are influenced by character actions. The important takeaway is that you cannot speak of powerleveling without accounting for risks. Trying to tackle 4 "level appropriate" encounters per day for a week can take you from level 1 to level 2 in a breeze, but it's more likely to just kill you. From an in-character viewpoint, such risks are not worth it. For the people in the setting, it pays to avoid the default encounter rates and just kill low-CR things as long as they can for slower but safer XP.

More, if you try to rapidly power level in such a low-level environment, you might hit a soft cap because there plain aren't enough encounters worth XP for you. Suppose you're a humanoid or monstrous humanoid warrior trying to make a living fighting other warriors. To get to level 2, you need to defeat 14 other warriors. Then for there to be enough level 2 warriors for you to kill to get to level 3, each of those warriors have to have defeated 14 other warriors etc.. It adds up fairly quick to whole villages of dead people or hundreds of killed animals to create one high level character. And there won't be infinite amount of either.


You got me. I overlooked starting ages. So... uh, again, how do you plan on computing the number of higher ECL threats by the time that most casters are in play? This would be far easier if 3.5e were a video game.

There are computer games running a variant of d20 rules, such as Incursion roguelike, which I could hack to simulate some of the calculations.

I mostly plan to work by hand, though. Which involves drawing maps, choosing territories, generating heaps of characters, calculating averages, test encounters etc. It's a lot of work, hence my replies to this thread have been getting sparser due to that. See the thread I started about probabilities in the Mad Science forum to see one thing I've been working on.



If I can wrap my head around what you are doing with the above and I meet your other criteria, I'll put my time where my mouth is and run it for you (as if you were any other player I hadn't spoken to before). I might even have a way to force this mechanically on generic 3e in a way you didn't anticipate.
I'll keep your offer in mind.

[Elderand]

No they cant be. Some of them straight up differs in the past as well. Best case Elminster. Were at some point just regular wizard 30. Is now that bizare build he is now.
Or dragons. Went from being firebreathing reptiles, to have inborn spellcasting. To be natural sorcerers. That is explained by different alternate realities. And not as much by in-universe changes.

Even if they are alternate realities or same universe that have changed, it doesn't flippin matter either way because that question only applies to specific setting that have existed since then. A brand new setting set in one edition has nothing at all to do with how things were in older editions and might have nothing to do with newere editions if it isn't updated.

[lord_khaine]

Even if they are alternate realities or same universe that have changed, it doesn't flippin matter either way because that question only applies to specific setting that have existed since then. A brand new setting set in one edition has nothing at all to do with how things were in older editions and might have nothing to do with newere editions if it isn't updated.

I really think you should look at the entire line of conversation, instead of just taking the last reply and answer that out of contex.

[Elderand]

I really think you should look at the entire line of conversation, instead of just taking the last reply and answer that out of contex.

I've read the entire line of conversation, and I'm not answering out of context. You're wasting time arguing whether or not old editions rules imply something about the way a dnd world work. And it might, in a specific existing setting that has spawned several edition, which this thought experiment is not.

So I reiterate: this doesn't flippin matters.

[Cirrylius]

Early Druidry could synergize well with the Cave Bear Cult (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_worship), especially considering how much more terrible s**t can just wander out of a hole in the hill and murder you in D&D.

Also, for a Civ-ish game, the Ultimate Campaign book for Pathfinder might be useful for specifics of building cities, altering terrain, and abstracting labor, social, financial, production, and supernatural resources.

[Coidzor]

It could be helpful, but it also assumes that things like tools and infrastructure elsewhere and importation are possible, so some amount of tweaking could be in order, unless it covers transitioning from pre tool-use to the paleolithic or neolithic.

This setup seems to be that there are absolutely 0 tools. Possibly that there's absolutely 0 knowledge of tools.

Which now makes me wonder how long it would take a modern human with no knowledge of tool-use to intuit basic use of rocks and sticks for purposes.

[Morphic tide]

No they cant be. Some of them straight up differs in the past as well. Best case Elminster. Were at some point just regular wizard 30. Is now that bizare build he is now.
Or dragons. Went from being firebreathing reptiles, to have inborn spellcasting. To be natural sorcerers. That is explained by different alternate realities. And not as much by in-universe changes.

Those are mechanics changes, not necessarily retroactive events. What I am referring to is actually campaign modules and books released by Wizards of the Coasts that specifically involve Vecna in a process of altering the laws of physics. As in canon lore that is canonically responsible for the edition swap of many Wizards of the Coasts settings.

[Cirrylius]

It could be helpful, but it also assumes that things like tools and infrastructure elsewhere and importation are possible, so some amount of tweaking could be in order, unless it covers transitioning from pre tool-use to the paleolithic or neolithic.
It does not, no.

Still, I wouldn't think it'd be too hard to visualize which resources are out of reach until the crazy wizard starts yelling off the balcony, like no farms to boost Production until agriculture, no Fisheries until basic hunting weapons or rope, etc. A lot of stuff can be abstracted down pretty far; apart from building a tech tree of extremely basic prerequisites, the biggest problem would , I think, be extrapolating gold from barter.

Plus, the resources can be swapped around to cover for each other; you might not have nearly enough meat or furs or berries or shells or whatever to afford to pay the populace to build a whole temple, but you can use the Influence the DM awarded you for whatever dire threat you've averted to coax Labor and Goods from the grateful villagers.

It also has rules for business investments, which you might be able to alter into a means of tech advancement. Declare a certain amount of resources, translated into "gold", to fund research in a "laboratory" or whatever other setting in which your technological progress takes place. Assume levels of "gold" earned from that investment will unlock whatever advance is appropriate for the setting, and original investment.

[Endarire]

The OP's original situation feels like it would be better handled in a Dwarf Fortress-style procedural generation system, including a procedurally generated history.

OP: Thanks also for mentioning the Incursion roguelike game. On the WotC boards, I suggested a D&D 3.5 roguelike and someone likely thought similarly and made it for d20 open rules anyway.

[lord_khaine]

Those are mechanics changes, not necessarily retroactive events. What I am referring to is actually campaign modules and books released by Wizards of the Coasts that specifically involve Vecna in a process of altering the laws of physics. As in canon lore that is canonically responsible for the edition swap of many Wizards of the Coasts settings.

Those are not only mechanical changes. Partly because some of the mechanics physically changes the world. And partly because some of them influence events on the world. For that matter Vecna only lives in some campaign worlds.
So it can be some of those worlds contain a history with sudden and unexpected changes to the laws of magic, but those worlds are still alternate realities of past editions.

[Morphic tide]

Those are not only mechanical changes. Partly because some of the mechanics physically changes the world. And partly because some of them influence events on the world. For that matter Vecna only lives in some campaign worlds.
So it can be some of those worlds contain a history with sudden and unexpected changes to the laws of magic, but those worlds are still alternate realities of past editions.
...what part of Canon do you not understand? It is literal and fundamental canon, official fact from the first party publisher, that the edition changes are an actual in-universe thing. As in all the laws of reality underwent notable changes. It is not alternate timelines of the previous edition versions of the setting. The alternate timeline would be the one where the rules didn't change.

Yes, the exact mechanics changes aren't part of the setting, but that's because the mechanics have always been an abstraction for the setting.