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View Full Version : Custom Setting rules, seeking advice/feedback [3.5(ish)]



DodgerH2O
2011-09-02, 01:47 AM
Alright, so brief background: I've been working on a custom Low-magic campaign setting for several years now. I'm currently on my... 3rd iteration (give or take) of the system, it started out in 2nd edition, and had a good run after my original conversion to 3.x but it wasn't quite what I wanted, so I overhauled it.

I attempted to create a comprehensive build-your-own class system and while interesting, it's far more work than I really care to do at this point in my life. So I set it on the back burner and decided to go with the generic classes from the DMG with some modifications. For this post I'm putting fluff aside, going for rules primarily.

Magic rule changes are: No spontaneous arcane casters. Divine casters are intended to be limited to domain and "domain-like" spells (meaning for instance a priest with the Plant domain would have access to not only Entangle, but Goodberry, Pass Without Trace (in vegetation), Detect Plants (but not animals), etc. with the ability to spontaneously cast any spell within their chosen domain(s) rather than praying for spells at the beginning of the day. Magical item creation will be more or less the province of NPCs or the reason for a quest, "For a wand of fireball, you must find a dragon's whisker and douse it in the fires of a volcano while chanting words found in an ancient tomb" etc. Arcane casters must be specialists and can only research spells of their own school. As a low magic setting, new spells will be rather hard to find, and an arcane spellcaster cannot rely on anything close to a full spellbook.

To simplify things, I intend to use a skill system of "choose x skills: you have these skills at lvl+3 ranks" instead of skill points, with the option to choose 2 cross-class skills at full (cross-class) ranks instead of a single class skill.

Also I intend for multiclassing to be limited to a single prestige class, which will probably add a certain skill or number of skills to the character's repertoire upon attainment of the prestige class. I may spin it into "career pathways" for the generic classes, where at say, level 5 a Warrior can become a Weaponmaster, Berserker, Paladin, etc. with different progressions for each.

Maximum level is intended to be 10. (Although if the PCs reach that point, I do have a storyline in mind to allow them to "unlock" higher levels, for the purposes of design we'll say max 10.)

I have tentatively created the following "Generic" base classes, with the templates for them in parentheses: Armsman (Warrior), Professional (Expert), Chosen (Cleric/Favored Soul), Arcanist (Spellcaster)


Now, given the somewhat heavy modification of core rules, what sort of things should I do to try to balance the classes out? What sort of HD, BAB, Skills and Saves would you give each class based on the general outlines I've given? I know fighter-types are heavily reliant on magical gear in core rules, I do intend for far less magical enemies, but what should I do given the fact that, say a level 5 party will probably have mostly +1 items and few if any potions or other magical equipment? Are there any glaring oversights I've made? Would you even want to play in such a campaign?

Mostly, I've worked on this in a vacuum. In my own mind it all sounds great, I'm looking for feedback from a variety of points of view. Thanks in advance for your help.

Altair_the_Vexed
2011-09-02, 02:30 AM
Are you familiar with the Generic Classes system from Unearthed Arcana (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm)? It has the four classes that you've described, with class features of the classic classes turned into feats. It's highly customisable.
You can find the material in the online SRDs. The skills are selectable by the player, but HD and BAB are set by class.

Also, are you familiar with the concept of E6 D&D (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/206323-e6-game-inside-d-d.html)? That limits progression to 6th level, but allows you to take feats for XP after that. Everyone in the setting is restricted in this way - so the nastiest monsters you should see, and the highest level magic you'll find is restricted to that appropriate for 6th level characters.
There are variants for E8 and E10, which are just different level version of the same concept.

Both of these souind like what you're planning / doing - and may help you out with selection of rulings, if nothing else.

Adamantrue
2011-09-02, 07:42 AM
Speaking of the Unearthed Arcana & the SRD...you might want to check out the Defense Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm). With maybe a variation, you could have it pick up the slack that Magic Items would normally cover.

DodgerH2O
2011-09-02, 11:09 AM
Thanks for those! So far so good, no need to reinvent the wheel. I'll probably see what I can do with the UA stuff and E6 might go well with my "single prestige class" philosophy for levels 7-10...

Fitz10019
2011-09-02, 03:13 PM
Magical item creation will be more or less the province of NPCs or the reason for a quest, "For a wand of fireball, you must find a dragon's whisker and douse it in the fires of a volcano while chanting words found in an ancient tomb" etc.

I'm curious if you've done this before. I've been in campaigns with lots of character downtime, where this would make sense, and in ones where we had no downtime and it would derail the plot to chase after any such thing.


Would you even want to play in such a campaign?
I'd give it a shot, but as a player I'd definitely want to know all these restrictions before I created my character.

DodgerH2O
2011-09-02, 06:33 PM
I'm curious if you've done this before. I've been in campaigns with lots of character downtime, where this would make sense, and in ones where we had no downtime and it would derail the plot to chase after any such thing.

I tend to run extreme sandbox style games, usually with a "railroad" intro quest to get the PCs together and introduced to the setting and from then on I just let them wander with a bunch of plot hooks, some pre-scripted, some improvised. I've never used this system for magic item creation but I have used a similar one for spell components in my previous (2nd ed) iteration of the setting. When you don't have the option to just go buy a spell component pouch and wizards are few and far between it can be difficult to find things like bat guano, amber rods, or large gemstones.

The primary purpose of this system is to "say yes" to item creation while keeping such items rare. If I was running a plot where a wand of fireball was key to the PCs victory and they didn't have time to chase after a dragon, volcano, and such I'd find a way to fudge it. If the party chooses to forego my plotline to get a fireball, then I obviously didn't interest them sufficiently.