Sourcebook access as (a major feature of) faction identity (3.5)

[Boci]

So one idea I've had for a while is to have factions in game where a big part of their identity comes from the sourcebooks they have access to. Basically, each faction has 5 points they can spend to access any 5 sourcebooks, which are then assumed to be the secret techniques and technology of the faction. Maybe some secrets have seeped out, but that's the exception.

Obviously this is a very bare bones idea. What are the factions? Not sure yet. They could be guilds within a single city, or whole settlements (like Naruto's hidden villages) spread across a country or even a subcontinent. This idea is a little gamy, but the mechanics of sourcebooks tend to be cohesive enough in their theme that I feel it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to visualize the development happening in universe. I may tweak the costs of some sourcebooks, cutting a few down to cost only half a point, whilst others may need to be raised. For now I've done that to two, that may well change as the idea develops.


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All factions have access to:
Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manuals I through V, Magical Items Compendium

Important Exception:
Races are not unique to a faction even if they are in a sourcebook the faction bought, however racial feats, Class Substitution Levels and the like are however. If a magical item is in the sourcebook it is assumed that only that faction can produce these, but a faction is not assumed to posses all artifacts, legacy weapons andother unique items in the sourcebooks they purchased.

Cost increases:
Tome of Battle costs 3 points, one for each base class. The classes can be bought seperatly, buying a class gives you access to the discipline that class uses, and any feat or prestige classes whose preqs you can meet with the maneuvres from those disciplines.

Spells Compendium costs 2 points, one for all the arcane spells, one for all the divine spells. The catagories may be purchased seperatly.


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So what do you think would be some interesting choices to make for a faction to spend their 5 points on and how would you fluff the result? Obviously solid ones would be a mage academy, for which you'd take something like:
Spell Compedium (arcane), Complete Mage, Complete Arcane, Player's Handbook II and Fiendish Codex I (yay for demon summoner and Dark Chaos Shuffle),

But I'm more interested in producing factions that have spread their bets a little and can field a more diverse set of NPCs (and maybe PCs too).

[Troacctid]

A similar idea actually showed up in the Xen'drik Expeditions organized play campaign, where players were divided into factions, each with access to content that wasn't available to the other factions. I think it's kind of a neat worldbuilding concept, but I would not use this sort of point system for a mechanic that only matters on the DM's side of the screen—just create the factions you want to use in the world and give them whatever exclusive content you feel is appropriate.

[liquidformat]

A similar idea actually showed up in the Xen'drik Expeditions organized play campaign, where players were divided into factions, each with access to content that wasn't available to the other factions. I think it's kind of a neat worldbuilding concept, but I would not use this sort of point system for a mechanic that only matters on the DM's side of the screen—just create the factions you want to use in the world and give them whatever exclusive content you feel is appropriate.

I would tend to agree with Troacctid on this, the point system seems like more of a world building tool than a PC facing tool.

On a side note for world building I would suggest varying the 'point allotment based on things like organization size. For example an independent mage academy might only have one book outside of core whereas a nation or massive organization that has influence in multiple countries might have 4 or 5 source books.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Limiting access to character options by affiliation seems like a good worldbuilding tool, but doing it based on sourcebooks seems like an extremely bad way of doing it.

In most cases, merely sharing a sourcebook gives options very little actual flavour association, if any - what in any particular Hell do a Ghost Faced-Killer, a Master of Many Forms, and a Virtuoso have to do with each other? In many cases the results will be utterly nonsensical in-universe (e.g. members of the Holy Church of the Goody Two-Shoes can't be Sacred Purifiers, but members of the Most Foul and Evil Conclave of the Undead can, because the latter obviously took Libris Mortis and the former didn't). At best, you will get a random grab bag of some vaguely associated things and some clearly not, and with some obvious gaps with no actual thematic explanation. Not much of an identity.

The extra tax on Tome of Battle also seems randomly heavy-handed and faintly ridiculous. Of all the things which absolutely need to be stomped into the ground, it's Master of Nine builds? Really?

[Particle_Man]

Expanded Psionics Handbook, Complete Psionic, and two or three psionic-friendly Eberron books might do nicely for a faction.

I personally like Magic of Incarnum so that is one point to slot in somewhere. Maybe the above list?

Complete Mage has reserve feats, which are nice for spellcasters.

[DeAnno]

I don't like the ToB cost increase. Sure it splashes well on melee but 3 points is a lot, especially when SC only costs 2. Melee builds also tend to be the most bookdive-heavy as well, making them further disadvantaged. Why not a cost bump for XPH?

Orthogonal to that, if you're really allowing these settings to use stuff like DCS I think the optimization ceiling is going to be too high for any of this to make sense. That's near the point when you're buying Frostburn just to get Ice Assassin, applying Loredrake to Sorcerers with whatever source they come from, etc.

[Boci]

Expanded Psionics Handbook, Complete Psionic, and two or three psionic-friendly Eberron books might do nicely for a faction.

I personally like Magic of Incarnum so that is one point to slot in somewhere. Maybe the above list?

So XPH, Complete Psionic, Races of Eberron, Secrets of Sarlona and Magic of Incarnum. I like that, a faction that focuses on these alternate forms of magic, could even link psionics with incarnum. Seems like it should work, soul energy and mind energy. Yeah, I think you could build a strong identity for such a faction.


I don't like the ToB cost increase. Sure it splashes well on melee but 3 points is a lot, especially when SC only costs 2. Melee builds also tend to be the most bookdive-heavy as well, making them further disadvantaged.Why not a cost bump for XPH?

Because XPH gives you access to a set of casters who are worse than a wizard, and everyone gets wizards. Tome of Battle on the other hand gives you access to 3 of the best martial classes in the game. As I said I may change the points cost, but my idea right now is that if a faction wants to hog the tier 3 martial classes they should need to invest a significant portion of their budget into that, not just 20%.

You would recomend then that ToB is 2 points, and so is XPH? Any other books I should

[NigelWalmsley]

Limiting access to character options by affiliation seems like a good worldbuilding tool, but doing it based on sourcebooks seems like an extremely bad way of doing it.

I agree.

Imagine you wanted a faction of people who did shadow stuff. You'd probably want the PHB II (for the Beguiler), Races of Stone (for Shadowcraft Mage), Complete Mage (for the fear/illusion caster), Tome of Battle (for Shadow Hand Swordsages), whatever Forgotten Realms book the Shadow Adept is in, Tome of Magic (for the Shadowcaster), and then various other stuff I'm forgetting. And while you'd want all those books, you wouldn't want most of the stuff in any particular book. Your faction has no interest in Dragon Shamans, Truenamers, or Warblades. You're not going to be recruiting a bunch of Goliaths. You're basically reverse-engineering a Big Book of Shadow. And I think most compelling faction concepts are more like that than they are like "all the stuff in these five books". And most books have stuff that doesn't fit together especially well (an attempt to unify Tome of Magic into a single faction basically amounts to "these classes were in Tome of Magic").

[Boci]

I agree.

Imagine you wanted a faction of people who did shadow stuff. You'd probably want the PHB II (for the Beguiler), Races of Stone (for Shadowcraft Mage), Complete Mage (for the fear/illusion caster), Tome of Battle (for Shadow Hand Swordsages), whatever Forgotten Realms book the Shadow Adept is in, Tome of Magic (for the Shadowcaster), and then various other stuff I'm forgetting. And while you'd want all those books, you wouldn't want most of the stuff in any particular book. Your faction has no interest in Dragon Shamans, Truenamers, or Warblades. You're not going to be recruiting a bunch of Goliaths. You're basically reverse-engineering a Big Book of Shadow. And I think most compelling faction concepts are more like that than they are like "all the stuff in these five books". And most books have stuff that doesn't fit together especially well (an attempt to unify Tome of Magic into a single faction basically amounts to "these classes were in Tome of Magic").

That's 6 books so let's drop PHB II. So that leave us with:

Races of Stone, ToB (Swordsage), FR's Shadow Adept Book, Complete Mage, Tome of Magic

So what do we have? A primarily gnomish faction of spellcaster, with a penchant for shadow magic. They started out as a mage guild or academy, exploring the planes. They discovered the vestiges in the space between the planes, from devils and archons they discovered true naming, and from the plane of shadow, they discovers shadow magic, which over the years grew in popularity until it became the primary focus of their studies. From this they developed the shadow hand swordsages, and the Shadow Adept (I'll need to check what else that book has). Being gnomes and based in the mountains they have good relationships with other mountain dwelling folk, like goliaths and dwarves.

There, I think that works kind well, a fun faction with a solid identity.

[Fizban]

All factions have access to:
Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manuals I through V, Magical Items Compendium
Problem is this starts off already covering a wide range of unequal content. Each monster manual's "balance" is significantly different from the others: MM1 is the base, 2 has some glaring CR problems, 3 is obviously catering to a much higher power crowd, 4 is full of new idea testing while the power level begins dropping back off, and 5 is full of "ready made" monster families with even more focused mechanics. If everyone has "access" to all of them, there's no differences between them, and they "should" just use the same OP stuff you can cherry pick from each book. Same thing with MiC vs DMG, they're made under seriously divergent mindsets and many DMG and MiC items look ridiculous next to each other. One group having mastery of variable daily charge items while another has a monopoly on proper continuous immunity items would be interesting, but you don't get that with this setup, or even with a hard DMG vs MiC split.

Tome of Battle costs 3 points, one for each base class. The classes can be bought seperatly, buying a class gives you access to the discipline that class uses, and any feat or prestige classes whose preqs you can meet with the maneuvres from those disciplines.
What about all the non-ToB mundane content spread over half a dozen books? If it takes 2, 3, 6 points to get access to all the feats you want you might as well just go ToB-only.

Spells Compendium costs 2 points, one for all the arcane spells, one for all the divine spells. The catagories may be purchased seperatly.
Spell Compendium has once again the same problem, its editing being of a wildly different mindset and applied unevenly even within its own pages (some spells get buffed or have all drawbacks removed, others remain exactly as printed). It's obviously a power up, but how and why still depend on what is actually being used from the book. While the usual suggestion is that PHB+SpC is all you need, I've actually found that this is often not the case. And once again, what about all the other content? If I want one spell that happens to only exist in a book that's not MiC, even if it would have fit there, why does it cost a point?


Or in other words- I'm with everyone else on this. Lists of available mechanics for various factions or "factions" (regions, etc) is a great idea- in fact, it's far far closer to what the DMG actually suggests doing with new content than how most people seem do it (anyone can take anything printed that hasn't been banned). But as always, book lines really don't hold up to any scrutiny, and you'd be better off writing your own lists that specifically match the taste and power level you want.

[NigelWalmsley]

But that faction could also have a bunch of Goliath Binder/Warblades. Or Dwarven Truenamers. If they're not going to do that, what's the benefit to having those options instead of some additional shadow stuff? I don't dispute that you could write a bunch of factions that only use stuff from five books each, I just don't think that's especially better than other strategies like "adapt something from a book/movie/videogame you liked" or "pick all the stuff that uses a particular element" or "work outwards from a build for the faction leader".

[ExLibrisMortis]

Limiting access to character options by affiliation seems like a good worldbuilding tool, but doing it based on sourcebooks seems like an extremely bad way of doing it.
This. Sourcebooks are extremely unequal, so you would get extremely unequal factions. A point-buy system doesn't change that.

[Boci]

@Fizban You seems to be confusing the intent here, since you're talking about making a character. This is about making a faction.


But that faction could also have a bunch of Goliath Binder/Warblades. Or Dwarven Truenamers. If they're not going to do that, what's the benefit to having those options instead of some additional shadow stuff? I don't dispute that you could write a bunch of factions that only use stuff from five books each, I just don't think that's especially better than other strategies like "adapt something from a book/movie/videogame you liked" or "pick all the stuff that uses a particular element" or "work outwards from a build for the faction leader".

Yes, there could be goliath binders and dwarven truenamers (no warblades though, you couldn't afford them, ToB is 3 points). The gnomes maintain good relationships with the dwarves and goliaths, and whilst the majority of students at the academy are gnomes, they;re not racist enough to flat out bar others, There could also be humans and elves and merefolk. And yes, truenaming and binding is known, the books and scrolls on the art have been neglected since shadow magic took over, but they weren;t burned or anything. It's a cool detail.

Its wierd, you've given me a great idea for a faction, that I would not have happened if I had followed your advice of adapting a book.movie or just piacking stuff, I never would have come up with a gnomish arcane academy that diuscovered new forms of magic and become obsessed with shadows, and yet you remain determine to talk me out of using this method.


This. Sourcebooks are extremely unequal, so you would get extremely unequal factions. A point-buy system doesn't change that.

That's not neccissarily a problem. I hear the factions of Europe 2000 years ago was a little unequal. Apparantly Romans were OP.

[Elves]

What advantage is there to making a ruleset for this rather than just theming different characters as appropriate?

[Boci]

What advantage is there to making a ruleset for this rather than just theming different characters as appropriate?

Because if I did that, its very unlikely I would have come up with something like a gnomish arcane academy that explored the planes, discovering several new forms of magic and become obsessed with shadows, or linking psionics with inarcnum.

[ExLibrisMortis]

That's not neccissarily a problem. I hear the factions of Europe 2000 years ago was a little unequal. Apparantly Romans were OP.
Not necessarily, but in this case, it is. The game is more fun and more balanced with all books open, which this idea limits. You might accept some limits to reinforce faction identity, but such a crude system of dividing game content (i.e. by book) is just going to feel artificial in actual play, won't actually produce many viable factions, will make game balance more "spiky" and uneven by encouraging a few broken combos, and will make many thematically appropriate character concepts much less viable. In other words, it won't achieve anything that makes the game more fun.

And, for what it's worth, one thing that made the Romans "OP" was their ability to incorporate ideas from many different places into their collective consciousness. From that perspective, you might as well have a system where each player rolls a d20 and gets that many books to pick from. Makes as much sense.

[NigelWalmsley]

Its wierd, you've given me a great idea for a faction, that I would not have happened if I had followed your advice of adapting a book.movie or just piacking stuff, I never would have come up with a gnomish arcane academy that diuscovered new forms of magic and become obsessed with shadows, and yet you remain determine to talk me out of using this method.

Really? Because "shadow-obsessed gnomes" is a stock D&D trope, and "arcane academy" is in basically every book with magic. What your constraints are getting you is that this faction inexplicably has a bunch of half-giants and random stuff from the Forgotten Realms, instead of more thematically appropriate portal mages or additional weird casters like Warlocks or Incarnates.

Your point that you could get your faction ideas by mad-libs-ing five splat books is true, but that's far from the only way to get factions, and even if you decided to start that way, using it as a hard limit just results in weird restrictions and allowances that don't make thematic sense (for example, this faction of Gnomes can have Spawn of Tiamat but no Gnome Giant Slayers). By splat isn't even really the best way to do the mad libs. Just make a big table of "things in D&D" and roll on it until you have a narrative you like.

[Boci]

Your point that you could get your faction ideas by mad-libs-ing five splat books is true, but that's far from the only way to get factions, and even if you decided to start that way, using it as a hard limit just results in weird restrictions and allowances that don't make thematic sense (for example, this faction of Gnomes can have Spawn of Tiamat but no Gnome Giant Slayers).

Your objections are really wierd. A gnomish arcane academy having something to dragons, but not slaying giants in martial combat? Yeah, that scans.

Also, what do you mean spawn of tiamat? When I said each faction have access to the monster manuals, I kinda meant the monsters live in the world which isn't owned by anyone. I kinda thought that was obvious. Anyone can have spawn of tiamat, if you know how to catck and contain/train them.


By splat isn't even really the best way to do the mad libs. Just make a big table of "things in D&D" and roll on it until you have a narrative you like.

Sure. Do you want to make that table for me? Because I already have a list of sourcebooks.

[NigelWalmsley]

Your objections are really wierd. A gnomish arcane academy having something to dragons, but not slaying giants in martial combat? Yeah, that scans.

But they have access to the Gnome fencer PrC (Blade Bravado). Does it make any sense at all for them to have that racial Gnome martial PrC, but not the other racial Gnome martial PrC? Of course not! Splatbooks are not organized by factional content in either direction.

Imagine for a second that you actually did come up with this faction on its own, without your arbitrary restrictions. Would you really say that the Deepwarden is a better fit than the Incarnate? That it has a more pressing need for Purple Dragon Knights than Planar Touchstone? Maybe this is the best way for you to come up with ideas. But it's patently obvious that the restrictions and allowances it puts on those ideas don't make any sense.

[Boci]

But they have access to the Gnome fencer PrC (Blade Bravado). Does it make any sense at all for them to have that racial Gnome martial PrC, but not the other racial Gnome martial PrC? Of course not!

No, it absolutly does. Why would a mage guild come up with every racial martial PrC? They're not the only gnomes in the world. As I said, your objections are really wierd.

[NigelWalmsley]

No, it absolutly does. Why would a mage guild come up with every racial martial PrC? They're not the only gnomes in the world. As I said, your objections are really wierd.

But why would they come up with Purple Dragon Knights, and Cragtop Archers, and Witch Hunters, and I could go on, but not the Gnome Giant Slayer when they are literally gnomes. If they're so into weird magic, why don't they have Incarnates? They don't need to have Gnome Giant Slayers, but if they are going to have an extra martial PrC, why is it Monk of the Long Death instead of that? How does that make more sense?

[Boci]

But why would they come up with Purple Dragon Knights, and Cragtop Archers, and Witch Hunters, and I could go on, but not the Gnome Giant Slayer when they are literally gnomes. If they're so into weird magic, why don't they have Incarnates? They don't need to have Gnome Giant Slayers, but if they are going to have an extra martial PrC, why is it Monk of the Long Death instead of that? How does that make more sense?

Why did China invent paper and gunpowder but not the microscope and the tooth brush? Why is the salsa Cuban and the waltz not? The way societies and civilizations develop is often wierd and seemingly random.

Also, you're assuming every PrC in the books will see play. There are plenty of games where Purple Dragon Knights will never see play, on either side of the DM screen, or be refereced in lore or fluff, even though the book they are in is being used. There's 0% reason to assume that wouldn't be the case for some content in this game too.

[Fizban]

@Fizban You seems to be confusing the intent here, since you're talking about making a character. This is about making a faction
And the major difference is? Players will want to be involved in faction creation (pre-game, out of game, in-game, whenever) specifically because it will obviously impact their character creation and leveling. And putting hard limits on what a faction can use from a top down sorucebook list, rather than a bottom up list based on what they do, means that the definition is most pronounced when you optimize from that set the same way a player would. A book based list will have its most incongruent (and thus most interesting) bits when you get to why a faction that does X is missing something that is clearly X, but not on their official book list. Unless you intend to make something of that, there's no reason to use a book based list for this other than convenience, which will then immediately run into those problems.

[Boci]

And the major difference is?

Factions and PCs are not the same, nor will they be designed at the same time (or neccissarily by the same people), nor will PCs neccissarily be as restricted as factions, since just because a faction is famous for having shadow hand swordsages does mean they are literally the only ones who have them, since members will leave, secrets will get out, ect.

[Falontani]

It is a good idea for a general idea for where you want the faction to go. Like the planar shadow gnomes. But what do you do after that? For example, the Dark Moon Disciple monks will want access to this academy. The faction has already accepted their goddess Shar Lady of Loss and master of the Shadow Weave and their more powerful counterparts, the Swordsage. As an example.

Perhaps once you have the idea of the faction the faction can trade some of the knowledge they have gained away for other knowledge they would want access to. Something like 2 prestige classes for one prestige class from an allied faction. The planar shadow gnomes could trade away Earth Dreamer and Peregrine Runner for access to Warrior of Darkness from the evil zealots that purchased The Book of Vile Darkness. The evil faction would neither lose access to their Warrior of Darkness, nor gain access to the Earth Dreamer, or peregine runner.

But I think it most definitely needs to be allied factions.

Heroes of horror, oriental adventures, libris mortis, book of Vile Darkness, and lost empires of faerun.
Tainted scholars who's goal is to collect and safeguard all of the evil and forbidden magic. Devils and demons seem paltry compared to the depths these scholars of sunk to. Maho Tsukai, Tainted Scholars, and Ur Priests. Dread Necromancer + Ur Priest + Mystic Theurge as well as trained minion + blackguard + corrupt avenger.

Dragon magic + races of the Dragon + draconimonicon + dragons of Eberron + dragons of faerun
(Seemed like it needed to be done)

Savage Species + Serpent Kingdoms + Stormwrack + tob (crusader) + moi; Yuan Ti slavemasters running a pirate faction focusing on innate sorcery, magic of the soul, and strength of conviction

[Boci]

Perhaps once you have the idea of the faction the faction can trade some of the knowledge they have gained away for other knowledge they would want access to. Something like 2 prestige classes for one prestige class from an allied faction. The planar shadow gnomes could trade away Earth Dreamer and Peregrine Runner for access to Warrior of Darkness from the evil zealots that purchased The Book of Vile Darkness. The evil faction would neither lose access to their Warrior of Darkness, nor gain access to the Earth Dreamer, or peregine runner.

I like this idea, though how do you imagine the trade working in game? The gnomes gain access to the warrior of darkness, what do the evil zealots get in return? You say they don't access to either of the prestige classes. Was the trade for gold? A favour? But yes this could certainly happen, and would give a methods for dealing with the unwanted prestige classes aside from just ignoring them.

Plus as I mentioned a few posts ago, its unreasonable to assume a faction can keep an iron grip on all its secrets. Between members leaving, being captured, espionage and reverse engineering, some secrets are going to end up in the hands of over factions.


Heroes of horror, oriental adventures, libris mortis, book of Vile Darkness, and lost empires of faerun.
Tainted scholars who's goal is to collect and safeguard all of the evil and forbidden magic. Devils and demons seem paltry compared to the depths these scholars of sunk to. Maho Tsukai, Tainted Scholars, and Ur Priests. Dread Necromancer + Ur Priest + Mystic Theurge as well as trained minion + blackguard + corrupt avenger.

I like this idea. A little focused, but it really works for this faction. And they would definitly have some secrets stolen from other factions locked up in their archives.


Dragon magic + races of the Dragon + draconimonicon + dragons of Eberron + dragons of faerun
(Seemed like it needed to be done)

Maybe a bit too specific might want to break those books up, but it could work. Draconium as the focus is certainly a good way to fluff that, for me at least.


Savage Species + Serpent Kingdoms + Stormwrack + tob (crusader) + moi; Yuan Ti slavemasters running a pirate faction focusing on innate sorcery, magic of the soul, and strength of conviction

Ooh, I like this. MoI was also used by Particle_Man's psionic faction, and they weren't fully sold on it, they just mentioned they liked the book, so it could be replaced, or

The two factions could be fighting eachover, hence why they both have access to MoI, one had it and the other has fought them long enough to have gained access to it. I was already thinking the psionic faction could be an island seperated from the mainland, and that fits with the pirates.

[Saintheart]

I like the concept of it, even if the execution might need some work.

You could create the archetypical Magocracy faction by targeting sourcebooks with broken magic feats: Complete Arcane/Players Guide to Faerun + Lost Empires of Faerun + Faiths and Pantheons gives you Persistent Spell, Greenbound Summoning, and the whole Faerunian pantheon.

That set also gives you the Spell domain with Anyspell, meaning your Magocracy could instead be a funky Theocracy with CoDzillas who worship Mystra and can still cast lots of arcane spells with lots of arcane options.

Another thought is the Summon-ocracy, where the faction gets most of its work done by pulling unfortunate creatures from other places to do their stuff for them. All the MMs are available, so it comes down to the sourcebooks that have the best summoning options. Complete Scoundrel for Malconvoker, Complete Divine for Spirit Shaman and Favoured Soul, Complete Arcane for the Summon Elemental Monolith spell.

[Clementx]

Assigning spells, PrCs, and magic items to organizations can be a good idea, but no need to use artificial publishing divisions to do it. X church has Crusaders and this list of PrCs/spells to represent its tactics, while the undead hunters train Sacred Exorcists and know how to craft undead armors. Y college of magic teaches Reserve feats to its members, and Z bloodline of sorcerers/druids become Mystic Theurges.

Flavor and setting restrictions are mentioned in many places in 3.5 products, but they are ignored by CharOp because why not take four base classes and three PrCs? Well, for one, it is assumed your DM is going to make a lot of it mutually exclusive. So dig down into your setting, and assign homes for thematic groups of classes and abilities. Your players will care a lot more about your Temple of X'dri'ch'xcthal when they find out they are the only source of some cool ability.

[Falontani]

I like this idea, though how do you imagine the trade working in game? The gnomes gain access to the warrior of darkness, what do the evil zealots get in return? You say they don't access to either of the prestige classes. Was the trade for gold? A favour? But yes this could certainly happen, and would give a methods for dealing with the unwanted prestige classes aside from just ignoring them.


They purchase it for favors, gold, deals, etc. The big thing is that the faction must also give up twice what it's purchasing, otherwise everyone would have everything they want and nothing more.

[Boci]

They purchase it for favors, gold, deals, etc. The big thing is that the faction must also give up twice what it's purchasing, otherwise everyone would have everything they want and nothing more.

Possibly, though that is assuming they get to make the trade, not all factions will be allies, and even those who are might not want another getting too powerful, alliances shift after all. Also the example you gave, do you think the shadow gnomes would be interested in Warrior of Darkness? Between shadow adept, shadow hand and shadow caster it seems they're interested in literal shadow magic, whilst the warrior of darkness is more a metaphorical darkness of the soul. Maybe the beguiler though as NigelWalmsley origionally wanted? I'm not too sure how much they are related to shadow though, sure they have illusions, but thats a tenous link.

Anything the other factions want? There's probably some other eberron stuff the psionic factions would want, but no faction currently has that. Anything your Yuan-ti slaver/pirate lord would be interested in?


You could create the archetypical Magocracy faction by targeting sourcebooks with broken magic feats: Complete Arcane/Players Guide to Faerun + Lost Empires of Faerun + Faiths and Pantheons gives you Persistent Spell, Greenbound Summoning, and the whole Faerunian pantheon.

That set also gives you the Spell domain with Anyspell, meaning your Magocracy could instead be a funky Theocracy with CoDzillas who worship Mystra and can still cast lots of arcane spells with lots of arcane options.

Another thought is the Summon-ocracy, where the faction gets most of its work done by pulling unfortunate creatures from other places to do their stuff for them. All the MMs are available, so it comes down to the sourcebooks that have the best summoning options. Complete Scoundrel for Malconvoker, Complete Divine for Spirit Shaman and Favoured Soul, Complete Arcane for the Summon Elemental Monolith spell.

These two factions aren't bad, but they're a bit too focused on intent. I don't mind a few factions like that, the shadow gnomes turned out cool, but I wouldn't like all the factions to be like that.


So dig down into your setting, and assign homes for thematic groups of classes and abilities.

I've already done it that way, this is a chance to try doing it in a new manner.

[Falontani]

Possibly, though that is assuming they get to make the trade, not all factions will be allies, and even those who are might not want another getting too powerful, alliances shift after all. Also the example you gave, do you think the shadow gnomes would be interested in Warrior of Darkness? Between shadow adept, shadow hand and shadow caster it seems they're interested in literal shadow magic, whilst the warrior of darkness is more a metaphorical darkness of the soul. Maybe the beguiler though as NigelWalmsley origionally wanted? I'm not too sure how much they are related to shadow though, sure they have illusions, but thats a tenous link.

Anything the other factions want? There's probably some other eberron stuff the psionic factions would want, but no faction currently has that. Anything your Yuan-ti slaver/pirate lord would be interested in?


Ohhhkay I gotcha now! Your actually using these in your campaign rather than metaphorically (or perhaps merely thinking as if you will?)

A warrior of Darkness stripped of their fluff, looking entirely mechanically are:
Evil alchemist warriors that can through tattooing and scarring themselves infuse themselves with power, and grant additional bonuses to a weapon they wield. There isn't anything to do with shadow here, however our shadow gnomes are still better alchemists than they are archers, mountain ragers, or even peregrine runners. And having a warrior out in front is nice for the Shadowcasters. You know what base class may be perfect for every into Warrior of Darkness? Binder.

I can see it now, Goliath Binders with Tenebrous and Savnok bound, with heavy lithoderms, markings of the warrior, and black magic. Brutal frontline. With the enemy spellcasters getting garroted with Silencing Strike Whisper Gnomes with collars of umbral metamorphosis popping out of the shadows that are coming alive beneath the enemy's feet.

The Slavers will want the Neogi from Lords of Madness, and possibly feats from other books. And maybe Kobold stuff from races of the Dragon.

[Quertus]

Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed gives generic Spellcaster, spell points, Tainted Sorcerer, flaws. We've already got Lichdom from MM, spell research from PH/DMG, all the most broken spells from the PH, and lots of monsters for summons/slaves/sources of undead from the MM line. Thanks to Tainted Sorcerer, my undead can be created for free, my troops can be resurrected for free… oh, and Arcana Unearthed even suggests that alternate forms of "Taint" could exist - so it could even be a society of (Law) Tainted Sorcerers or some such.

I'm not sure what other sources I'd need, unless I wanted Beholder Mage or Illithid Savant craziness added to the mix. Or… custom races from Savage Species, maybe, getting the Feral and Multi-Headed templates, and Illithid Savant, ½-Ogre, and various rituals and anthropomorphic animals along the way, maybe?

OK, 2 books down, 3 to go.

(EDIT: as placeholders, for the full TO "evil empire" vibe, let's say that criminals get Mindrape, turned into Elan, then into Beholder, then into Beholder Mage. So, take BoVD for Mindrape… although I'd really like Arms & Equipment Guide for Rod of Construct Control & training cool mountsl)

[Sepultra]

An isolated Northern soceity of humans who live in the frost across the sea from other lands with a great internal division between the barbarian raider and magical trader.
The internal division could either cause direct conflict within the soceity or they could support one another's traditions and have allies far away and enemies close as a result of the different perspectives created by the raiders and traders.

Books:
Stormwrack
Frostburn
SpC (Arcane)
Complete Champion
Magic of Faerun

Stormwrack and Frostburn are the obvious thematic choices, giving access to loads of cool stuff from naval mechanics to frostragers.
SpC Arcane makes sense given that the magical traders would obviously be collecting spells from around the world as they venture away from the lands the barbarians raid in order to find places with which to trade.
Complete Champion gives access to Spirit Totems which would make for some interesting factions within the barbarians. Perhaps there's internal competition for the best fighters, raiders, etc? Leaders for different Spirit Totems tribes could exist too. Above them, a single barbarian leader. Perhaps one for the mages too, creating a dualistic monarchy as a system of rule with the wizard/sorcerer and barbarian half chosen in different ways. Or a single wizard could have ruled for centuries with multiple barbarians coming and going in that time, etc etc.
Magic of Faerun as the last book for a load of fluff reasons:
- The Mystic Wanderer as their religious core. Rather than organized churches, the priests of this society choose to join the Traders or the Raiders based on the God they worship
- A core of Incantatrix exists as the highest echelon of wizard in the nation
- Spelldancer combines with Stormsinger to create a culture of dance and magic built around the environment they live in with all the energy and ferocity of a storm, the mystery of the Arctic lands, and the beauty of the snow covered hills.
- Spellfire Channelers still exist as an honoured tradition to this day, having been some of the earliest people in the country to conquer the frost using Spellfire to keep their people alive as civilization and society was born

They'd likely want to trade for the Runescarred Berserker, giving up parts of CC to do so.

They'd trade away the Gnome Artificer, having discovered it while at war in ages past with the gnomes of the area for the little resources that were available. The gnomes either fled or were wiped out.

Secrets cults worshipping Iborighu exist and want to extend the winter South, travelling with the raiders to do so.

There's probably loads more that can be done with this, but I think it's a cool concept.

A lot of people are criticizing the way this is done, but I think it's interesting and allows for a different way to get inspiration for factions.

EDIT: Went away for a bit and was thinking about the fundamental question of why a society like this would remain cohesive and balanced between the barbarian and the magician (and also why something as powerful as the Incantatrix would need to be developed to begin with), but I realized I had the answer all along: Looking at Frostburn and Stormwrack, there's hundreds of races and monsters native to the cold and the ocean that are actually quite terrifying. Gnomes, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and even Yeti are just the humanoid races nevermind monsters. In a frozen wasteland, resources will be scarce, so it became obvious why these different traditions developed: Two different methods of survival and achieving prosperity that, while existing as rivals, remain in harmony because of a bond of kinship developed by the conflict that's inevitable between all these different folk in a land with very few resources. They fought gnome, dwarf, elf, orc, yeti, have to tackle with spiders when they try to roam, fishing is perilous because of dire animals like polar bears, sharks, and even some genuine monsters like krakens from time to time.
This also explains why they have enemies near and allies far: Every few centuries, the peoples to the South, during the harshest of winters, would find refugees coming across the ocean from the North. Women and children of a variety of races - all adapted to the snow - and all speaking of a terrifying people to the North that, thankfully, had no mastery of the ocean and so would never reach them, but the message was clear: Do not venture North. All peoples spoke of this, claiming that after a long and vicious war, they were forced from their former homelands. Even the giants were reported to have been beaten back - and after this, the refugees stopped. No more humanoids came across the waves for almost a century until, once again, there came a particularly harsh winter and on the Northern Horizon sails were spotted. The first raiding party
Those far away from them, however, either don't know of this or don't care as they have no reason to feel threatened by the raiders and the merchants are honest folk.
So, basically, they're an ethnocentric people who value their own survival above all else - as they had to in the environment they developed. Their motto could be something simple like "Survival and Prosperity" as that's why they developed their traditions. They're not a racist folk and they don't feel any particular ill will towards anyone, but they made the decision long ago that the strong survive and therefore, they would be the strong. They have no history of slavery, but not out of benevolence. There simply was never enough food to justify keeping slaves.

This could also mean that there isn't much of a tradition of the schools Illusion or Enchantment given that they preferred to alter what's real in order to survive rather than manipulate people and create illusions which, while useful in many ways, gave the general population little to increase their odds of survival.

They also might want to trade for Mystic Theurge, as it would allow their priests to join the magical traditions in the country, while Ordained Champions would probably join their raiding parties and come from their barbarian traditions.

Also a list of the PrCs from the books they'd likely find while raiding, warring, or that would have developed from parts of society that found no place in their harsh, cold reality. I think this is useful because it gives an idea of what they value and what they would be willing to trade:

CC: they'd give up everything except Fist of the Forest. Perhaps there'd be some among the wizards who joined the Paragnostic Order, but I'm not sure.
MoF: Harpers would have no place, nor would the Gnome Artificer. Guild Wizards and War Wizards likely wouldn't exist in a homebrew setting, but the former could take root and the latter always be open for trade.
Frostburn: The traditions of the Disciples of Thyrm would be discovered in war and would find no root in this culture given its connections to the giants. All other prestige classes would likely have a home in this faction, even if things such as the Knights of the Iron Glacier, Cloud Anchorites, and Cryokineticists would likely be far smaller groups within it. Primevals would almost certainly exist in number among several of the barbarian traditions and Rimefire Witches may have found allies who hope to root out the cultists that would turn even conquered lands into eternal frost.
Stormwrack: The Knight of the Pearl would be discovered at war and, as the Disciples of Thyrm, would be traded off. Sea Witches would possibly be incorporated if the traditions were discovered through trade, but if found by war they would likely be discarded as there would be no attempt at learning the Aquan language necessary for it. Druidic traditions would not be common in a land where nature has to be tamed for survival rather than preserved and so Wavekeepers would be cast aside.

Also, something I realized while looking through the PrC lists: Leviathan Hunters and Legendary Captains would be well respected within this society, providing a great amount of value in protecting lands from vicious beasts, maintaining a navy that can protect them from any retaliation from across the sea, and helping raiding parties and traders.

Anyways, that's a bit of a text wall but this was fun. Really liked the idea for this thread.