Planar Overlap Zones House Rule

[JamesIntrocaso]

So I'm thinking in my homebrew world there are places where other planes are so close to the Material Plane that weird magical effects take place. Let me know what you think of my rules for these overlap zones and if you have any suggestions/tweaks.

http://worldbuilderblog.me/2015/02/19/overlap-zones/

[johnbragg]

I like the idea a lot--the thing that interests me most about 5e is Lair Effects. I plan to run a 3X E6 campaign at some point, where the BBEG's strongholds are all influenced by the BBEG's mojo, and take on different properties. (The Flame Princess has lots of minions with a Half-Fire-Elemental template, the Feywild pocket dimension has variable space-time, so your movement rate is basically random, etc.) So I plan on stealing borrowing some of these.

[JamesIntrocaso]

I like the idea a lot--the thing that interests me most about 5e is Lair Effects. I plan to run a 3X E6 campaign at some point, where the BBEG's strongholds are all influenced by the BBEG's mojo, and take on different properties. (The Flame Princess has lots of minions with a Half-Fire-Elemental template, the Feywild pocket dimension has variable space-time, so your movement rate is basically random, etc.) So I plan on stealing borrowing some of these.

Oh that is a cool way to use them! Let me know how it works out. It sounds like a lot of fun.

[johnbragg]

Oh that is a cool way to use them! Let me know how it works out. It sounds like a lot of fun.

Don't konw if I'll ever actually run it.

The idea is that a magical universe responds to minds. That's more or less what magic is--using your mind to shape the world around you.

It's vaguely analogous to gravity and mass. More powerful characters have more mindmass, and shape the world around them. Fighter-types tend to focus this through their swords. Casters focus this through learned, reliable spells. Rogue-types tend to do this through shenanigans of various kinds (option to swap d20 rolls for 3d6, ki pool to add dice or cast low-level, rogue-obsoleting spells).

Ordinary folks, put together, have a lot of mindmass. A major part of the background of the setting is the mechanics of how "political magic" ties the civilized communities together, resisting and sometimes banishing the wild magic of the frontier, untamed areas. (No medusae or hill giants running around in the core provinces around the capital.) So when a million people cry out "Gods Preserve the King, Protector of the Land" on coronation day, it has actual crunch effects (free levels for the king, free bless effect for the army, magical beasts cannot cross into the walled parts of the kingdom).

Major campaign theme is, once the players his Epic 6, can they clean out the home base frontier area of heebies and jeebies and long-leggedy beasties, rally the townsfolks and the local political power-brokers, and get the resources together to turn the frontier area into a walled-off, protected civilized area.

Side question--should they, at the expense of destroying the non-civilized but not necessarily evil denizens of the forest?

Most of the BBEGs are persons or monsters who cracked the 6th level glass ceiling, and started warping the reality around them at the cost of loss of connection to wider society, and loss of freedom to travel.

[JamesIntrocaso]

Don't konw if I'll ever actually run it.

The idea is that a magical universe responds to minds. That's more or less what magic is--using your mind to shape the world around you.

It's vaguely analogous to gravity and mass. More powerful characters have more mindmass, and shape the world around them. Fighter-types tend to focus this through their swords. Casters focus this through learned, reliable spells. Rogue-types tend to do this through shenanigans of various kinds (option to swap d20 rolls for 3d6, ki pool to add dice or cast low-level, rogue-obsoleting spells).

Ordinary folks, put together, have a lot of mindmass. A major part of the background of the setting is the mechanics of how "political magic" ties the civilized communities together, resisting and sometimes banishing the wild magic of the frontier, untamed areas. (No medusae or hill giants running around in the core provinces around the capital.) So when a million people cry out "Gods Preserve the King, Protector of the Land" on coronation day, it has actual crunch effects (free levels for the king, free bless effect for the army, magical beasts cannot cross into the walled parts of the kingdom).

Major campaign theme is, once the players his Epic 6, can they clean out the home base frontier area of heebies and jeebies and long-leggedy beasties, rally the townsfolks and the local political power-brokers, and get the resources together to turn the frontier area into a walled-off, protected civilized area.

Side question--should they, at the expense of destroying the non-civilized but not necessarily evil denizens of the forest?

Most of the BBEGs are persons or monsters who cracked the 6th level glass ceiling, and started warping the reality around them at the cost of loss of connection to wider society, and loss of freedom to travel.

Sounds cool! You should get it out there and play.