Headfirst |
Has anyone ever run a game where the players only had access to the NPC classes (adept, aristocrat, commoner, expert, and warrior)? If so, what was your experience like? Obviously, something like this would be best for a low-power game; what other rules did you use? Character creation and starting wealth? What kinds of challenges did the players have, aside from simply not having all the fun class powers we've come to rely on from the "real" classes? Did anything actually turn out to be much more fun than you expected? I'd love to hear from someone who actually ran or participated in a game like this.
Mbertorch |
I've actually been wanting to run a 4 player game where each person chose a different NPC class (minus the commoner). The warrior was going to be a two handed weapon tank, the Adept was going to focus on spells, the expert on archery and UMD, and the aristocrat on critical hits and intimidating. Haven't done it yet, but still want to...
Headfirst |
So, ulterior motive explanation time:
I'm tinkering with a project that revamps the NPC classes. Not to make them more powerful, but to simply do an internal balance pass so that they're all about equal in effectiveness. I'm also making the following changes:
Acolyte: divine caster (adept spell progression, cleric skill list)
Apprentice: arcane caster (adept spell progression, wizard skill list)
Expert: no changes
Socialite: as aristocrat, but with different proficiencies
Warrior: no changes
None of these classes have any "class features," either. Casters have spells, experts and socialites have skills, and warriors have good BAB and all the weapons and armor.
My ultimate goal is to eventually run an "other guys" style campaign, where all the "real" heroes are either dead, retired, or turned evil, and now it's up to "ordinary" people to save the realm.
Thoughts?
Avaricious |
Story time!
NPC campaign became the unofficial Player's Revolt.
Now, we love our DM, but just to pull some fine hairs we like to mess with him periodically.
The idea stemmed from a portion of the group deciding to do a side-campaign because the main effort involved a lot of players who weren't on our schedules enough to keep running this grand campaign constantly.
DM disagreed with the way me and my friend were trying to optimize off the SRD. We were not to munchkin in a side campaign away from the casual players... Okey-dokey! We are then going the MOST non-munchie route ever:
We would take exactly ONE regular class level to represent us becoming adventurers at one point in our youth. All our subsequent levels would be NPC (the campaign was seeded at L3 launch). Why? Because we tried adventuring, got our wings clipped, and decided to move on with our lives rather than continue on as burnout has-beens.
We proposed that we would roleplay, in effect, adventurers where we chose the easier life of actually looking out for our interests, like settling down, having a community, and raising a family.
I would be a Monk who saw the beauty and order in Agriculture (Expert), and my friend would have been a Paladin who saw the flock he was meant to protect was... an actual flock, so a Warrior with a penchance for livestock. Between us, we would raise our two families on our shared homestead. If the other players came in, we were already designing the backdrops for an Adept and an Aristocrat to drop in as other brothers from the same failed Adventurer -but successful Agrarian family.
Orcs rampaging across the lands? Guess we'll just migrate, in the forest, or try to ride something out... make sure you bring dem seeds with us Jebediah, yep-yep so we can reseed -we are not abandoning our families to selfishly go raiding out there like dem fool adventurer murder-hobos. Our former employers want to go on another adventure? Well... the yearlings need watching, and what would our spouses say?
"Adventure... ha! Pillage is more like it, say. In those dark days Sarenrae just became an abstract figure, intangible." Reaches down, picks up, and sifts soil. "Now this. This is real. This is living."
L3 resources thrown at the farm... Magical swords make for poor plowshares btw, so none of that. We were supposed to be ashamed of what we could have been but have been nothing but successful in this new life of ours. Everything towards farm life. We know the evils and temptation of adventuring, and have found true happiness on this here, our humble farm.
I think the DM wanted to choke us over the phone and someone else ended up running their homebrew setting using PF rules instead. Shame, we were this close to running a guerrilla Harvest Moon campaign.
Dragonchess Player |
Has anyone ever run a game where the players only had access to the NPC classes (adept, aristocrat, commoner, expert, and warrior)? If so, what was your experience like? Obviously, something like this would be best for a low-power game; what other rules did you use? Character creation and starting wealth? What kinds of challenges did the players have, aside from simply not having all the fun class powers we've come to rely on from the "real" classes? Did anything actually turn out to be much more fun than you expected? I'd love to hear from someone who actually ran or participated in a game like this.
Depending on the set-up, this can be a pretty enjoyable campaign. I've done a variation on the old 1st Ed AD&D N4 Treasure Hunt, starting the PCs as 1st level commoners who "grow into" a PC class over the course of the first adventure (based on their actions/choices during the adventure itself). I've also had the PCs start off as an NPC class, to simulate a "rags-to-riches" or "farm-boy saves the world [galaxy]" type of campaign.
You can also use the rules for Young Characters in Ultimate Campaign and/or the Generic Classes (possibly with the Prestige Class Bard, Paladin, and Ranger variants) from the 3.x Unearthed Arcana as a basis for a campaign.
By the nature of the system, restricting the PCs to only NPC classes requires the GM to rebalance things. The CR system expects that the PCs have access to certain abilities/spells at certain levels; the NPC classes will gain those abilities/spells at a later point (if they are gained at all).
Headfirst |
Good stuff, everyone! I'll definitely check out the links, Dragonchess Player.
However, I'm kind of on the fence as to whether or not using only NPC classes would require rebalancing the system. In fact, I'm thinking of billing this as a hardcore type of game, where players only get 15-point-buy and NPC classes, but have to go up against all the standard threats.
To be honest, I don't think it would be as difficult as people think. Remember, as has been pointed out many times before, over the years, PCs have gotten TONS more powerful (new feats, spells, equipment, traits, etc), yet the monsters really haven't. Sure, the campaign would be challenging, but not as much as we might think.
Would any of you play in a game like that?