Oriental Gestalt 3.5 Campaign Help! <3.5>

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

Yes, I'm making a 3.5 only Oriental Adventures campaign loosely themed on Jade Empire by Bioware to give my DMs the next few weeks off. (because its stressful to have the same old same old, right?)

So they start as 1st lv gestalt with the following:

Races Allowed: Human (with a bonus Ancestry feat on top of standard instead of bonus to skills), Half-Elf (with human's bonus to skills), Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Spiritfolk, Vanara, Kalashtar, and other 0la to DM's descression

Classes Allowed: Fighter, Barbarian, Soulknife (redone to one of 2 versions: One gets SA, the other a full BAB), Warlock, Sorcerer, Wu Jen(instead of Wizard), Shugenja(instead of cleric), Ninja(with a flurry of blows instead of Ki), Rogue, Samurai (homebrewed to be WIS focused), Monk(with a full BAB), Battledancer, Ronin(Homebrewed off of the PrC as a foil to samurai, is CHA-Based), Shaman(instead of druid), Sohei(instead of Paladin, can be any "extreme alignment"), Hexblade(minus the "nongood", which is "any but LG or NG), Warmage, and Archivist

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So, any ideas on improvements/fights the PCs should go against, based on the Pseudo-Jade Empire theme?

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

any1 want to give me a hand here???

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

Can someone please help?!

[Kylarra]

Lots of NPCs drawn from your class pool and a few constructs.

Done.

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

Lots of NPCs drawn from your class pool and a few constructs.

Done.

Really? What about keeping the PCs in the zone, making challenging encounters that make them think as much as just A-B move-kill through dungeons?

[Pluto]

What about keeping the PCs in the zone, making challenging encounters that make them think as much as just A-B move-kill through dungeons?

I have no idea how this relates to humanoid villains.

Also, you should probably know that Sohei's a pretty dreadful class. And that Shaman is a pretty ridiculous one.
This may or may not affect your gameplay; I only mention it because it looks like you're trying to boost the weaker classes.

And no Ranger or Scout?

[Kylarra]

Really? What about keeping the PCs in the zone, making challenging encounters that make them think as much as just A-B move-kill through dungeons?

That's basic DM skills, not campaign specific assistance. You asked what you need to make your campaign pseudo-jade empire. The majority of enemies you fight in Jade empire are either humans (NPCs), zombies or demons. Humans (NPCs) form the vast majority so that should be your primary focus, with zombies and demons in appropriate areas.

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

I have no idea how this relates to humanoid villains.

Also, you should probably know that Sohei's a pretty dreadful class. And that Shaman is a pretty ridiculous one.
This may or may not affect your gameplay; I only mention it because it looks like you're trying to boost the weaker classes.

And no Ranger or Scout?

Ranger was allowed. Just forgot to add it. my bad folks!

[nedz]

I thought that Ronin were just masterless Samurai ?

Do you not have rogues ?
What about Spirit Shamen or Favoured Souls ?

[~LuckyBoneDice~]

I thought that Ronin were just masterless Samurai ?

Do you not have rogues ?
What about Spirit Shamen or Favoured Souls ?

1. made it into a separate class

2. yes

3. no and no

[Hawk7915]

With the Jade Empire vibe, I'm shocked you aren't doing Tome of Battle. Different forms, including "magic" forms, of combat. The party are masters of some, and the enemies are masters of others (some homebrewed and quite nasty). It just seems to fit perfectly in terms of making fighting forms that "feel" like Jade Empire.

Meh, oh well. It's been a long, long time since I played Jade Empire, but here's a few random ideas/plot hooks:

1) Adventurers from a far off kingdom have brought "powder cannons" and are causing serious trouble with them (there's that one mini-boss dude voiced by John Cleese that is a combination of a "game of wit" and a sword versus gunfight, right? Go with that).

2) Demonic possession in a local village. It's of a young girl, bringing in all sorts of troubling ethical questions (you get that one party member if I recall correctly who is a little dead girl possessed by a "good" demon and a "bad" demon, so there's some inspiration on how to handle it. Doing her as a Champion would be appropriate, perhaps.

3) Bandits and thieves raiding the countryside.

4) The heroes have to venture into the spirit world for some McGuffin, or go explore the ruins of the old Spirit Monk kingdom (or whatever it was. Seriously, it feels like its been 7 or 8 years ). To go further, the reason is that ghosts are filling the world up and not going on to the afterlife (is that actually the plot of the game, or am I confusing it with the storyline of a Magic: the Gathering expansion?)

[Draz74]

Can someone please help?!

Wow. Yesterday, you only waited an hour before bumping this? These things take more time, man.

In general, I'm not sure there's enough information here for people to really judge (your homebrewed Samurai could be awesome or could really suck; there's just no way for a reader to know). And your questions being very vague don't help, either. You're not asking whether something is balanced, or whether enough classes are allowed to give the party sufficient variety; you're just saying "What should I do to improve this?" Way too open-ended.

Doesn't help that a large segment of the community, such as myself, have probably never played Jade Empire and know nothing about it. Requests like that, you really have to be patient for responses.

I do have one comment: why on earth are you switching out all of the Ninja's ki abilities for Flurry of Blows? This is the Complete Adventurer Ninja? If so, it already stinks, and Flurry of Blows ... blows. You could give the class Flurry of Blows without taking away anything, and it wouldn't be overpowered. But if I've understood correctly, you're thinking of taking away a myriad of cool abilities that, as far as I'm concerned, are the main point of the class.

(And btw, I second the recommendation of Tome of Battle ... heck, allow Swordsage, and now you don't really need any other Ninja class.)

[Jyokage]

I would look at throwing in the Chaos Monk from Dragon mag. It fits the flavor of one of the actual fighting styles from Jade empire. (Unreadable attack patterns and a propensity for not being where someone thought you were) Just make sure to give it full bab! *Go Monks!*