A complete N00bz first try at world-building...

[Wyntonian]

Ok, moving on.

Next Priorities are either:
Nailing down the mage/mageborn classes.
Doing up some dwarves
Getting my Urgal on.

Which would you prefer?

[SamBurke]

Dwarves or mages.

[Wyntonian]

mages it is then. Expect a class that can handle being both the caster and healer of a party, but is more like a tier 2. I'm tired of wizards existing to print out the "i win" stickers the party slaps on encounters, so I want to make them a little more balanced. I've never homebrewed a class before, so I'll need some help and feedback. I'll get *something* up by saturday.


Oh, and someone please tell me how I did on the Affariata.

[SamBurke]

I like it, one question: how specific does it need to be? Cause we can do each individual city-state if we need.

Also: what is the percentage of control in each of those city-states?

As to mages, you're looking to make them more or less powerful? And I agree about cleric, ya.

NOTE: You may want to amalgamate all the things we've written into the original post, so we can easily find any lists/blurbs/etc. Remember to use a lot of spoilers and headings and organizational whatnot.

[Wyntonian]

Lessee...I was thinking about doing the major defining features of the four major cities, but I'll get to that. And out of these groups, the Trade Guilds make most of decisions through the royalty, making them the most powerful when it comes to economic decisions. Gnomes are slaves, and by definition don't have any political power. The mercenary bands occasionally choose to switch sides in battle for money, and because they are most cities' standing armies, this makes them somewhat influential. The rest of the groups are of negligible interest in politics, although they may add some texture and fluff.


And yeah, once i get the dwarves, urgals and mages done i'll repost this as a real wip peach setting.

[SamBurke]

Um, what's a WIP Peach setting?

[Wyntonian]

Work In Progress/ Please Evaluate And Critique Honestly. It took me a while. too. Does a d6 hd sound balanced for a combo of a d8 cleric and a d4 wizard? i plan to give them some of the Armoured Mage progression to let them cast arcane spells in up to medium armor without penalty. Also, do wisdom-based prepared arcane classes ever work? has anyone ever done one before?

[SamBurke]

I like the d6 (still sounds squishy, but I only play fighters, paladins, rangers and barbarians, so I'm not the expert).

Armor... I dunno. Somehow it seems too fundamental to change. Maybe upgrade the Mage Armor spell or something?

Again, I have not really done magic classes, so I don't know... sorry.

[Wyntonian]

well, from a fluff perspective, these guys are just regular people, and magic isn't really impeded by anything but the heaviest of armors. Light armor is like leather jackets and a chain vest, with almost no more restriction than normal clothes. After a little practice (~3rd/4th level) even medium armor is an ignorable hindrance, as the character has become experienced enough to trigger their half-completed spells while wearing some more serious gear. also, for the armor, these guys are the main healers, taking the place of fully-armored clerics. swapping heavy armor out and dropping a size on their hd in exchange for some new spells (and not even great ones) seems pretty reasonable to me. remember, i'm not remixing the wizard. I'm fundamentally changing how casters are used and rebalancing them to a tier 2-3, not game-breaking tier 1's.

[SamBurke]

You make a good point.

I love this line:

...I'm not remixing the wizard. I'm fundamentally changing how casters are used and rebalancing them.

I understand ya though. This seems to be coming along quite well, actually.

[Wyntonian]

Yeah, at the moment i'm mostly giving them some workable features. I'm thinking animal companions like a ranger rather than familiars, or maybe the spirit guides from the spirit shaman. and at least one or two features unique to each color.

[Valley]

Originally Posted by Wyntonian

. The mercenary bands occasionally choose to switch sides in battle for money, and because they are most cities' standing armies, this makes them somewhat influential.

That is one of the reasons the Italian City-states were always being invade by the other nations of Europe. Mercenary bands would also sell out to a bigger paycheck and the other nations developed the idea of standing armies (in fact I think France was the first to develop the idea - a mistress to a King suggested it or something).

Sometimes a band's captain would use his men to take over a city...and sometimes a band would not get paid.

Best part is many of those bands sometimes did nothing but move their troops around and look like they were doing their jobs. Few battles were ever fought - hey, both sides knew each other, sometimes worked for the same side - why kill a friend over some cows and a barn? Some of those city-states were REALLY tiny.

[Wyntonian]

After starting my first PbP game and losing a notebook...well, I'm behind on my mage/mageborn classes, to say the least. on the upside, i got a stack of DND books, so I can start using a reference aside from the D20 SRD. These new books include:
Complete Mage,
Scoundrel,
Champion,
Adventurer,
Warrior and
Psionic,
3.5 PHB and DMG and MMI,
Oriental Adventures,
Spell Compendium and
Races of the Wild.
If anyone has other suggestions of books that would be appropriate for this setting, or would contribute to making this world more well-rounded, please let me know.

[Wyntonian]

Here's the table for the Mage Class. It appears that you can't copy a word table and have it show up in a post, so I'll give you the basics.

• Casts like a Druid, but arcane spells.
• Proficient with Light and Medium armor and Shields, and simple weapons. 4+INT skill points at the level.
• d6 Hit Die
• Medium BAB, Medium Fort, low Ref, High Will.
• Gets Armored Mage (light) at first level, and medium at fifth.
• All colors but green get familiars, as a wizard of their class levels.
• At first level, the player would choose a color specialty, giving them access to the universal lists as well as the color lists for their level. They also get a specific bonus for each color:

Green: Gains an Animal Companion, as per the druid ability.
Blue: Double INT bonus for purposes of determining skill points at the level.
Black: Gains proficiency with all martial weapons.
Red:Gains Shield Bash as a free feat at 1st level.

[SamBurke]

Something about shield use, perhaps, or a familiar? Who has familiars in this version?

[Wyntonian]

Well greens have an animal companion, but nobody has a true wizard-style familiar. Or should I add that in? And it seems like a fire-based caster would be more on the two-weapons-crazy-offense side of the spectrum than a slow and patient shield-user.

[SamBurke]

True. But you could use the Shield Bash feat path.

And yes, I think that there should be familiars.

[Wyntonian]

Done and done. Does anything else seem completely borked?

[SamBurke]

Seems good to me... not too much change, except for the spell lists. Some players might find that a little bit off/hard to use. Although, I do like that it bumps wizards and sorcerers down to Tier 2-3.

[Wyntonian]

The idea behind this change is that magic in this world is not too uncommon. Pretty much every chief of the Vallheim, for example, has at least a couple of ranks in some casting class. If someone works outdoors a lot, or is a hunter, farmer, wilderness guide, etc, they probably have a level or two of Green Mage. An architect or guard might have a couple levels in Black Mage, as would a battlefield commander. The idea is that magic is pervasive but limited in its power, hence only high-level pure Mages getting decent damaging spells.

[Wyntonian]

Now that I'm more or less done with the mage class, I'll start on one or two other things. the choices are:

Urgals and their structure
Dwarves
and
What the hell's going on in the Caribbean.

[SamBurke]

The Caribbean. One note: let's not make this a complete crib of PotC.

[Wyntonian]

PotC? Oh. Pirates of the Caribbean. I plan on having some pirate-like people, yes, but nothing like as ridonkulous as that blight on cinema. I'm leaning towards some pretty heavy Afro-Caribbean themes, probably involving the "pirates" as hexblades, raiding around and harassing the mostly peaceful islands.

EDIT: I just realized that getting about a dozen new D&D books also added to my list of available spells, beyond what's on the SRD. If you check over the spell lists over the next couple days, expect to see some new stuff. I'll put in a key so you can tell what spell is from what book.

[SamBurke]

Ok, good. And I agree, PotC is not useful for any serious exploration of piracy and the world.

[Wyntonian]

Yeah, they'll be actual pirates (as in, actually bad guys), who raid Dotze Affariata ships and local Caribbean settlements for supplies and gear. The PC's might be tasked by a Dotze Affariata merchant to guard their ships, or to burn out some of the pirates' nests in the smaller islands. Or perhaps they could be shipwrecked and taken in by an island tribe, and help defend them from a upcoming pirate raid.

[SamBurke]

Ooh. I love ships and sea-fighting. This should be fun. What are you looking for? Pirate nations, or gangs, or leaders, or what?

Note: We can't use cannons and maneuvering. That will make things soooooo complicated. Go read a Hornblower novel to know what I'm saying.

[Wyntonian]

I'm trying to decide how organized everything should be. Are these pirates little random gangs, one or two ships large? or is there a piracy guild, with safehouses (well, islands) and leadership? Also, are the islands little isolated bands of afro-caribbeans, with a political structure that spans from on beach to the next, or are they part of a larger empire? I'm leaning towards the first and second strategies, personally. I plan to take some inspiration from the Hawaiian government (pre-european, that is), and have exiles and criminals from that nation be marooned on deserted islands, where they might be picked up by a pirate crew or simply left to die.

[SamBurke]

My thought is this: order always appears. There will inevitably be some who create leagues. The pirates of our world didn't really, but they were at sea most of the time. However, they didn't really fight each other, (except if they were on the same ship, then no holds barred), and sometimes they'd come together to take out large targets, so you could say they were all loosely allied.

[Wyntonian]

i like that idea. They probably have some sort of gentleman's agreement (no kill-stealing, don't mess with us and we won't mess with you), and might band together to take out a larger fleet of merchant vessels, or a medium-sized settlement. These guys can kind of write themselves, so for now I'm looking into Hawaiian history to see what I can do with the islanders.... Maybe riding boars? Hawaiians love them some pig. They also had some level of military discipline, enough to form phalanxes, and had bronze weapons and armor. I could work something out with that easily enough. If you want to design a political structure for the pirates, go ahead.

[SamBurke]

AOK, I'll try my hand at it...

Pirates are banded together loosely, in many ways connected by only their trade. But, like any good trade, they have a guild. Of course, guild meetings are... slightly more, shall we say, dangerous, but still they come. Sometimes, if they're feeling good, the extremely famous pirates might even get to start a lecture. Given the pride of the members of the guild, the finishing is not guaranteed in any way shape or form.

Despite the roughhousing, bragging, in-fighting, and general ruffianism of the pirates, they manage to move mountains. Smarter pirates sometimes are delegated with the task of drawing up and presenting treaties (usually better known as the Agreements of Tribute). Then, the stronger pirates enforce it, while stealthy pirates use their crews as gigantic recon/spec ops teams for carrying out secret manuevers like capturing high ranking hostages and so on.

Usually, though, people are not forced to submit to this mass villainy, as pirates rarely band together except with promise of extreme wealth, satisfied instead to sit back on their islands and debauch for a while, take short trips to refill the coffers, and stay hidden.

Nevertheless, a pirate attack, though considered by some rare, is almost always deadly. If you aren't killed outright in the fighting, you're enslaved or, worse, taken back to a pirate island to serve there.