Primitive world setting, help needed (3.5)

[Picasso007]

So I've had a campaign idea kicking around my head for years, and finding myself with time available to run the game, I want to get the game moving. Thing is, the setting I have in mind is a very primitive, "young" world, and I need some help modifying some of the classes to fit better.

As I have it pictured, societies are basically at a very low-tech, tribal level. Think Pre-Colombian North America, or Pre-Colonial Africa/Australia, or Amazonian tribes. There is no "history" in the world, no lost technology or fallen empires or anything; no sentient creatures have yet reached that point. Also, on a cosmological level, Arcane magic is essentially nonexistant. I mean, there's a little bit, but PCs will not have access to it. "Monsters" in the world reflect this; no abberations, essentially no undead, other creatures might be altered as well. Religion in an organized fashion is also more-or-less out. Shamanism is much more prevalent, centering on ancestor and spirit worship, possibly with certain totem spirits for a tribe or village.

So far with the classes, this is what I've got. I'd love suggestions on specific features, or alternate classes that might fill in for some of the missing roles. I've got UA and a few of the Complete books (Scoundrel, a few others), but I can get access to most of the books

Barbarians - In, essentially unmodified. Might offer some of the UA totem variants if PCs are interested.
Bards - possibly using the UA Divine Bard, with some tweaking on the spell list (suggestions?)
Clerics - Out; no organized religions, no undead to turn, Druids fill their role in society anyway.
Druids - Fill the Cleric's role in society. Might offer on-the-fly swapping for cure instead of summon spells as a character-creation choice. Possibly use the UA Aspect of Nature variant instead of Wild Shape.
Fighters - In, unmodified (although weapons and armor are restricted due to tech levels)
Monk - on the fence, but need would fluff changes at the very least
Paladin - out
Ranger - definitely in, unmodified
Rogue - using the UA Wilderness Rogue, possibly tweaked to lower trap focus.
Sorcerers - Out, no arcane magic
Wizards - out, no arcane magic

I might allow Warlocks with a dvine/spiritual source, to fill at least part of the Sorcerer's role, although they'd be rare in society. Also, I'll probably bring in at least one of the Shaman classes that's floating around out there; suggestions here would be nice.

The other issue is that magic items are also much less prevalent. I was thinking I'd give each of the PCs a "guardian spirit" that would provide some of the same stuff that a PC's stash of magic items would. They'd give static bonuses along the lines of, say, Vow of Poverty or the various UA Bloodlines (although even the major bloodlines are lower-powered than I'd be looking for), and also a selection of one-use or occasional-use abilities to fill the expendable items role, but I guess I'm not sure what a good progression for those would be. There are some magic items floating around, but I doubt the PCs would have more than one or two apiece. Well, I take that back, divine "potions", "wands", and staves will probably be reasonably available, and I'm thinking the characters woudl get what would essentially be a Legacy weapon (minus the legacy),

So, yeah, thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Edited to reflect planned alterations to Rogue.

[Al-Ashrad]

I think using Wounds/Vitality as presented in UA, and a few other games (Star Wars- 3.0 rules version) would help out, especially if you're looking to do a low magic world.

Also, your weapon choices will be quite limited, and will probably not do much damage. I think UA has some rules for Stone Age weapons. However, there could be some really wicked poisons available, especially if this is being done a jungle setting (Amazonian rainforest or South Pacific island-style settings).

The only other thing that i can think of off of the top of my head is that some tribal cultures have various taboos that a tribal member will avoid at all costs. This can include various places, associating with various individuals at various times (menstruating women, for example), not causing harm to a particular creature, etc. These taboos could cause situations where Will saves would have to be made, and could almost be treated as supernatural effects.

[Al-Ashrad]

...

Rogue - In, unmodified

...

Umm... really? With a very limited choice of weapons (and ones that will probably do so-so damage to boot), next to no armor choices, and combining that with the Rogue's Sneak Attack ability, you may find yourself DM-ing a party composed almost entirely of Rogues unless you tweak SA a little.

Also, I would suggest looking at the armor as DR variant in UA, along with increasing AC from class levels variant in UA. Your armor choices are going to be very limited (maybe just Hide Armor), and your players may end up getting hit an awful lot, especially as they progress in levels.

[Picasso007]

I think using Wounds/Vitality as presented in UA, and a few other games (Star Wars- 3.0 rules version) would help out, especially if you're looking to do a low magic world.

Also, your weapon choices will be quite limited, and will probably not do much damage. I think UA has some rules for Stone Age weapons. However, there could be some really wicked poisons available, especially if this is being done a jungle setting (Amazonian rainforest or South Pacific island-style settings).
----------- 2nd post ----------------
Umm... really? With a very limited choice of weapons (and ones that will probably do so-so damage to boot), next to no armor choices, and combining that with the Rogue's Sneak Attack ability, you may find yourself DM-ing a party composed almost entirely of Rogues unless you tweak SA a little.

Also, I would suggest looking at the armor as DR variant in UA, along with increasing AC from class levels variant in UA. Your armor choices are going to be very limited (maybe just Hide Armor), and your players may end up getting hit an awful lot, especially as they progress in levels.

Regarding Armor and HP, I was planning on sticking with the standard systems for a couple of reasons. For one, I've been using them for years, and thus know them well enough to be able to adjust on the fly if problems come up. For another, I'm making enough major system changes even before revamping the HP and Armor systems; the less work required, the better :smallbiggrin:, especially given that I'll have to then convey all the changes to the PCs. Finally, the artificially low AC was something i was looking to compensate for with the "guardian spirit" bonus. I did forget about the AC-bonus-by-class rules; I'll definitely check them out. And I'll take another look at the wound/vitality rules, too; it's been a while since I've paged through that part of UA.

As far as weapons go, I should have mentioned, but I was planning on hand-waving the "stone/bronze weapons = lower damage/accuracy". Partially because everyone is using stone and bronze weapons, and thus the baseline is just lower, and partially because, even though they're only using stone and bronze, after a couple hundred years of surviving by them on a daily basis, they've gotten pretty good at making them effective :smallwink:. Not to mention that the bulk of the opponents are going to be wearing leather and hide, or their equivalents as well, so it's not like we'll be seeing flint weapons vs. metal plate armor. Steel weapons, if there are any at all, would be exceedingly rare, and if the PCs ran into them, they'd probably give a bonus over what everyone else is using, rather than penalizing everyone just because I chose to run a low-tech game.
There will be a restricted weapon list, partially broken down by culture and race, but I expect that there will be a workable enough mix that even the fighters and barbarians will find something suitable despite what's missing. War-hammers, axes, and picks can be deliciously brutal even when they're made of wood, stone, horn, and bone. As far as "wicked poisons" go, I can neither confirm nor deny their existence in the setting at this time, as some of my potential players occasionally browse this forum. I will suggest, however, that Great Fortitude might be a bad feat for my PCs to take, if they really want to optimize their builds. :smallbiggrin:

Oh, and I lied about the Rogue being unmodified. I'd be swapping in the Wilderness Rogue out of UA. Skills and special abilities might also be further adjusted to reflect the lower prevalence of locks and traps; will have to think about this. Thanks for catching that; it's what I get for posting as I'm running out the door. I'll edit the OP to reflect this.


The only other thing that i can think of off of the top of my head is that some tribal cultures have various taboos that a tribal member will avoid at all costs. This can include various places, associating with various individuals at various times (menstruating women, for example), not causing harm to a particular creature, etc. These taboos could cause situations where Will saves would have to be made, and could almost be treated as supernatural effects.
It's a thought, but at this point I've got most of the "fluff" worked out; the setting's been percolating in my head for literally about five years now. I just haven't really sat down and gotten the "crunch" worked out, which is mostly what I'm looking for here. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

[StormingMarcus]

Binder (Tome of Magic) has some similarities with a primitive shaman...
You could ditch the rogue in favor of the scout (CAdv) or the wilderness rogue (UA).

[Picasso007]

Binder (Tome of Magic) has some similarities with a primitive shaman...
You could ditch the rogue in favor of the scout (CAdv) or the wilderness rogue (UA).
Huh, never really checked out the Tome of Magic; I'll take a look. I'm definitely swapping the Wilderness Rogue for the standard, but I'll give the Scout a look too.

Did the 3.0 Shaman from OA ever get updated to 3.5? I thought I saw a conversion floating around once, but I forget where. And which book has the Spirit Shaman in it?

[Darth Stabber]

Spirit shaman was reprinted in complete divine.

Another things to consider: dragon shaman from phbII (with or without reflavor).

[Another_Poet]

Barbarians - In, essentially unmodified. Might offer some of the UA totem variants if PCs are interested.
Bards - possibly using the UA Divine Bard, with some tweaking on the spell list (suggestions?)
Clerics - Out; no organized religions, no undead to turn, Druids fill their role in society anyway.
Druids - Fill the Cleric's role in society. Might offer on-the-fly swapping for cure instead of summon spells as a character-creation choice. Possibly use the UA Aspect of Nature variant instead of Wild Shape.
Fighters - In, unmodified (although weapons and armor are restricted due to tech levels)
Monk - on the fence, but need would fluff changes at the very least
Paladin - out
Ranger - definitely in, unmodified
Rogue - using the UA Wilderness Rogue, possibly tweaked to lower trap focus.
Sorcerers - Out, no arcane magic
Wizards - out, no arcane magic

I might allow Warlocks with a dvine/spiritual source, to fill at least part of the Sorcerer's role, although they'd be rare in society. Also, I'll probably bring in at least one of the Shaman classes that's floating around out there; suggestions here would be nice.


I would beg, beg, beg you (for the sake of your players) to use the revised Barbarian class from the new Pathfinder remake of 3.5. It is so much more fun then the ol' "rage and collapse" barbarian, but keeps the same flavour. Pathfinder can be had for free here (http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/p/paizoPublishingLLC/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG). You might also like what they do with ranger and druid.

In such a low-power world I would strongly suggest modifying the druid abilities. I think either wildshape OR animal companion, not both. You could even make Wildshaper its own separate class.

Conider Favoured Soul as a replacement for cleric instead of druid.

Do something for the fighter to make it a more desirable class - maybe add some monk abilities (unarmed fighting would be much more common in such a world). Then you don't have to feel bad about ditching the monk, either.

When I ran a Bronze Age setting I decided the best thing to do is not to change the weapon and armour stats at all. I disallowed certain weapons that cannot be made (greatsword, bastard sword) and left all the other stats unchanged. For armour I kept all the stats but renamed some of the armour so it was bronze age level. You can see the result here:

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/5062/bronzeagearmorrx1.jpg[/URL]

Remember, weapon and armour stats are tied nto a number of things, including how much dex fighters can have, how sneaky characters can be, the AC available to druids, cost-to-damage ratio, cost-to-AC ratio, etc. You don't want to tinker with it. Allow a little bit of bronze working and use the chart I just provided, or reflavour it for a truly Stone Age world, but don't go sticking -1's on all weapon damage or anything like that. Just assume a bone/stone/bronze/whatever weapon is a basic +0 weapon (or +1 if masterwork).

Just my advice, from having done it. Players don't like penalties.

ap

[Picasso007]

I would beg, beg, beg you (for the sake of your players) to use the revised Barbarian class from the new Pathfinder remake of 3.5. It is so much more fun then the ol' "rage and collapse" barbarian, but keeps the same flavour. Pathfinder can be had for free here (http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/p/paizoPublishingLLC/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG). You might also like what they do with ranger and druid.

In such a low-power world I would strongly suggest modifying the druid abilities. I think either wildshape OR animal companion, not both. You could even make Wildshaper its own separate class.

Conider Favoured Soul as a replacement for cleric instead of druid.

Do something for the fighter to make it a more desirable class - maybe add some monk abilities (unarmed fighting would be much more common in such a world). Then you don't have to feel bad about ditching the monk, either.

When I ran a Bronze Age setting I decided the best thing to do is not to change the weapon and armour stats at all. I disallowed certain weapons that cannot be made (greatsword, bastard sword) and left all the other stats unchanged. For armour I kept all the stats but renamed some of the armour so it was bronze age level. You can see the result here:

<Image Snipped>

Remember, weapon and armour stats are tied nto a number of things, including how much dex fighters can have, how sneaky characters can be, the AC available to druids, cost-to-damage ratio, cost-to-AC ratio, etc. You don't want to tinker with it. Allow a little bit of bronze working and use the chart I just provided, or reflavour it for a truly Stone Age world, but don't go sticking -1's on all weapon damage or anything like that. Just assume a bone/stone/bronze/whatever weapon is a basic +0 weapon (or +1 if masterwork).

Just my advice, from having done it. Players don't like penalties.

ap
Yeah, like I mentioned in my second post, I wasn't going to penalize weapon damage, just restrict the available weapons. I'm not sure about the armors, most will probably just be out, and players will have to stat accordingly.

I was looking at the UA Aspect of Nature Druid, anyone know how those play? Fighters will at the very least probably go up to 4 skill points/lvl and get a few more skills on the class list (Survival, for one)

Hmm, it looks like I'll have to add Complete Divine to my reading list, along with the Pathfinder stuff.

Thanks!