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View Full Version : Need Help Improving/Fleshing out a Campaign Idea



PlasticSoldier
2007-11-17, 12:19 PM
First off I'd like to say a few things.
1. This would be my first time DMing
2. If this is in the wrong forum please tell me
3. I really don't want to put it on alot of rails
4. The BBEG is smart his INT is >40 and he's a Factotum//Wizard he's also God of Strategy and Tactics.(He's supposed to be very challenging normally but poor in a direct fight.)

Okay here's an idea for a campaign I came up with.

An arbitrary amount of time ago The BBEG was the LE God Of Strategy and Tactics and was fighting a Holy War against a CG God. On the verge of losing and being destroyed The BBEG took his strongest allies and used all of his energy to create a universe with a Massive Protection From Good/Anti-Scrying spell keeping out the CG god. Once there his allies started a civilization and waited for him to get back to his former power. After a few thousand years everyone forgot about him and all the Gods that witnessed it died off. After a few hundred thousand years the magical Barriers seperating the two universes is weakening. The party is somehow friends/assistants whatever they can fit in there backstory of a powerful wizard who discovers this and researches an Epic Spell to send them into the other universe to explore for a few hours. Unfortunately the other universe has time flow much faster in order to speed up the god's regeneration, and the few hours that the wizard gave them to explore before poofing them back is a very long time in this universe. So the PC's will inevitably explore and after they don't get poofed back they'll think something is wrong, and in a world populated solely with Evil Humanoids and outsiders they will somehow come to the attention of the BBEG's allies. So basically they'll have to sneak around for
(because I don't want to put them on rails)

1. Epic Level Wizards willing to go against the orders of their society's Gods.
(Hardest)
2. Information on the Universe thing in order to allow them to research an epic spell home. (Easiest)
3. Somehow defeat the BBEG and use the artifacts he created to break the barrier, and then use these either carefully to prevent all Hell literally breaking loose or as intended to allow the Good Universe's Gods to kick his butt again. (Pretty Hard but I think would make the best campaign.)
4. Notify the good gods and fight a Holy War.

So any advice/suggestions for improving/fleshing out this campaign?

Notes:
The BBEG at his current point in Regeneration is about 1/2 as strong as the Good Universe God's but being The God of Strategy and such he can still beat them in a straight out Holy War.

VerdugoExplode
2007-11-17, 12:37 PM
Er, if this is your first time DMing you may not want to make an epic campaign. Epic levels add a degree of complexity to the game that is going to be definitely hazardous to a first time DM. This is made worse by the inclusion of numerous wizards, all epic level, which means that they all can derail your campaign in a surprising amount of time. Also, why is the BBEGod still alive while all the other gods died, especially given the time trait of his self created universe. Also, the PC's don't need to worry about the inhabitants of the evil universe, they're epic wizards and could probably destroy said universe if they felt like it, unless everyone there is epic as well but that doesn't really make any sense.

I suggest something simpler for your first time DMing. Something with level 1 or 2 characters and kobolds. Maybe a few orcs.

PlasticSoldier
2007-11-17, 12:55 PM
Er, if this is your first time DMing you may not want to make an epic campaign. Epic levels add a degree of complexity to the game that is going to be definitely hazardous to a first time DM. This is made worse by the inclusion of numerous wizards, all epic level, which means that they all can derail your campaign in a surprising amount of time. Also, why is the BBEGod still alive while all the other gods died, especially given the time trait of his self created universe. Also, the PC's don't need to worry about the inhabitants of the evil universe, they're epic wizards and could probably destroy said universe if they felt like it, unless everyone there is epic as well but that doesn't really make any sense.

I suggest something simpler for your first time DMing. Something with level 1 or 2 characters and kobolds. Maybe a few orcs.

Well,
1. BBEG survived because the Universe express purpose is to make him Regenerate and give him power, the Good Gods died from lack of worshippers that they got there power from whereas EvilGod gets his power from the Universe itself.
2. It won't have that many Epic Wizards maybe 2 or so from G.U. and a few high-ranking commanders in the E.U. which is why I wrote "convince the Epic Wizards to poof you home" as the hardest.
3. If I did this campaign I'd start them as lvl 10 I'd Rule 0 that no more than 2/3 could be casters.
4. Evil Humanoids includes some pretty tough creatues like Mindflayers, if I feel they dominate everything on their ECL I'll decrease the CR of everything by 2 or something.

Yeah Epic campaign would probably be to much for me, how would you feel about maybe starting them as lvl 5 and introducing this after they become mid-level which should be enough time to get that hang of it and could help set up the story arc.

VerdugoExplode
2007-11-17, 01:01 PM
If you're going to have them fight a god eventually you know they're going to have to be at least a somewhat comparable level. Which means that they're going to have to go from their starting level of 10 to something 20+ which could take months. You may want to replace god with "evil wizard." A lich would work wonderfully for this purpose, especially as they're immortal and wouldn't instantly kill the party.

Honestly, I'd just try running a group of fairly low level people through a published campaign while you work on fleshing out the other campaign in your off time. DMing can be more complicated than it appears, especially when you have a few very creative people playing.

PlasticSoldier
2007-11-17, 01:11 PM
How about "Wizard that tried to achieve Godhood... and failed miserably"?

Yeah I won't start this campaign until atleast next spring.

Also the only thing that would prevent me from making him level 15 is the prerequisites for Epic Spellcasting, although given that he has atleast a 30 for Int I could easily say "he's just that smart". If you know any non-broken builds that get Epic Spellcasting early I want to know.

Edit: Besides the Inevitables is there anything that would be pissed at someone trying to become God Of Strategy? Because that sounds like something a God would have claimed a while ago.

VerdugoExplode
2007-11-17, 01:16 PM
Why does he need epic spellcasting? Its easy enough to say the good god at the time imprisoned him for obvious crimes against humanity, burning down orphanages, kicking puppies etc. I'm just saying as a first time DM you do not want to start and epic campaign. As has been stated things start to get a little wonky after 15, and past that you get into some dangerously convoluted territory, especially given the very dangerous level of encounters. Most things at that level have very powerful save-or-die abilities and those that don't do enough damage or have enough negative effects to make up for it.

PlasticSoldier
2007-11-17, 01:22 PM
Being imprisoned might work, although the Good God would probably be smart enough to put him in an anti-magic field instead of giving him his own sealed off universe to toy with. Although if he was exiled instead of imprisoned it would make sense for him to have spellcasting and explain all the other evil creatures.

Leicontis
2007-11-17, 01:31 PM
Why do they necessarily have to defeat him to go home? If they can even just get a message to the good universe, they could probably get the good gods to show up. Even being at a disadvantage (evil god's home turf), a group of powerful good deities should be able to rapidly find and smash the evil god. The only reasons they haven't done so already are ignorance of the evil god's existence (because all of the gods he originally opposed are dead) and ignorance of his plane's location. Once they know that he's there, how to get onto his plane, and that he intends to come back and wipe them out, expect him to suffer some serious smacking.

Meanwhile, after the PCs manage to send word to the good plane, they can begin trying to set up stuff that weakens the evil god and/or strengthens the good gods - destroying or converting evil artifact-type stuff, eroding people's loyalty to the evil god, etc. Plenty of challenges available that could theoretically be accomplished by even mid-level characters.

One thing to remember is that the PCs don't have to be powerful enough to defeat the ultimate villain themselves - they just have to be able to apply the correct force at the correct point to turn the tide. As an example, in the last campaign I ran, the PCs were relatively low-level, and were essentially trying to prevent a war of aggression by a large evil city, against whose troops and/or leaders they wouldn't have survived for more than a few seconds. However, they managed to avert the war by finding and capturing the evil city's agent, that had been feeding information and valuable supplies (such as magic item enchantment materials) to the evil city.

PlasticSoldier
2007-11-17, 01:40 PM
Leicontis, I wrote a few other options (Plus the one you posted) that would allow them to go home without fighting his agents, but now that I think about your suggestion that could be fun. Some problems with that are that presumably there are some Evil humanoids that would take the oppurtunity to try to take over, also due to the difficulty of poofing away a barrier designed to keep out Good Gods combined with the time difference in the week or more that it would take a God to poof it away the evil universe would experience years and would probably find out and spend lots of time preparing.

Your comments about not having to be powerful enough to defeat a BBEG is good advice.