Dot.
About flying airships - Profession (pilot), Fly, or new skill, Pilot?
Dot.
Aye - and it probably would not be difficult to develop similar tricks for other half-casters. What about divine magic? The discussion thus far has been about arcanists - would it also apply to clerics? (I guess I'm sort of thinking of paladins in the same light.)
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I was thinking it would be easiest (and also most appropriate flavour-wise) to combine divine and arcane spellcasting into a single "magician" class. This could be a savage witchdoctor, a gypsy witch or a Catholic pries, all depending on spell selection.
Also, I just looked at the D20 Modern SRD, and I'm not all that sure it offers us all that much. It has very little in the way of new weapons or armour and has nothing on vehicles.
Also, don't forget psionics if they exist. Alienists or Espers.
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I'm assuming Profession (Pilot) for flying an airship - one of the handy things 3e does is give you a mechanism for that. And I hadn't thought about the casting element of rangers, but yes, that probably would be a good approach. I think there are non-casting versions of paladins too - certainly there is one for 3.5.
And I was also thinking along similar lines for magicians, though I was sort of flirting with the idea of eliminating casters all together and making casting based off Spellcraft checks from tomes of forbidden lore (plus it also gives a reason for cabals of casters to get together for ritual purposes, to make assistance) or maybe eliminating Spellcraft as a skill and making it off Knoweldge (Arcana) and Knowledge (Religion). Feats would provide access to spell levels. I.e., a hybrid of 3e, 4e and CoC. Any thoughts or advice?
One of the flip-sides of this is magical healing (or lack thereof). Instead, I was thinking that all classes would get the Second Wind feature, where once a day you can heal half your starting hp as a free action. I was also thinking that there could also be an Extra Second Wind feat (probably predicated on BAB as the entry requirement) so you can do it twice a day instead of just once - useful for more "hands-on" characters. Views?
More work-a-day magic would less be through the immense intellect of casters in towers (though a few of those might exist anyway) and be more of an item creation sort of thing, even a bit industrial for some sorts of things. First off, I'd make item creation a single feat. This being low magic, I don't anticipate anyone getting hold of a +3 vorpal elephant gun, and I may use a variant of the rules (which I'm sure I've seen in 3e, but also in the 4e version of Dark Sun) where item bonuses become inherent to the individual as they level, rather than the items. That doesn't mean you don't get magic items, but they do stuff rather than just give you a bonus. And they would likely be rare. I'm struggling slightly as to how this would work, so would appreciate comments on this. However, the Ketty Jay books by Chris Wooding has a nice system where magic involves the binding of "daemons" into items, which is potentially hazardous as some daemons are powerful entities in their own rights.
Guns. Ah, guns. I haven't looked at the gunslinger, but I will. In the meantime, I'm thinking of making guns really quite deadly (rather than inferior to a crossbow as they seem to be in, for example, Iron Kingdoms). I'm also thinking of allowing DEX bonus as an addition to damage per shot, much like STR is for melee combat. Also, armour is unlikely to work much against guns, which means that people are unlikely to be clunking about in platemail. A balancing factor would be that guns are difficult to load - loading a revolver, for example, would be a full-round action inviting an AoO. But gun-play should be nasty, brutal and short, so I'm moderately relaxed about this for the moment, but would appreciate comments.
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Most of the gun things you describe there are part of the gunslinger playtest.
Dex adds to damage. Guns target Touch AC. They take a long time to load. I think a lot of people have been complaining that they don't do enough damage, and outside of a gunslinger's hands do very little. I know that the PF version of guns are very very expensive- 1000gp per gun and 11gp every time you pull the trigger.
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Healing could be handled through pumping up the amount healed by using the Heal skill - one benefit of the (slightly) improved tech level. The Second Wind mechanic would apply in combat, while Heal and bedrest would quickly restore people to health once combat is over.
As for magic - "spellcaster" is a prestige class in D20 Modern, it is hard to qualify for and the potency of the spells is severely constrained (the highest level of spell is level 5, for example). They still separate them into an arcane Mage and a divine Acolyte, though. With a little tweaking, these classes become quite viable for someone who really really wants to be a magic-user.
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I have the tiny nugget of an idea forming, an attractive (female) private eye. High int, bard type if going the D20 route, so she knows a lot, and gets all hidden knives if it comes to rough and tumble.
The question is do bardic performances work as "magic" or as using her knowledge to help and direct her allies......
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I haven't quite understood what tech level society is going to be at?
Is the British empire roughly Industrial Age in a albeit in an alternate reality? I'm guessing around that era because it supplies the steam for steampunk.
I've got a weird mix of top hats and chainmail going on so I don't know exactly what to plan for.
For something as rare as it sounds like spellcasting will be, spellcraft would be a very expensive use of skill points. That might be your intent, but I think it would make more sense for Knowledge (Arcana) to be the basis, I think.
I think the idea of Heal skill checks being used for longer-term healing makes a lot of sense -- perhaps even providing a bonus if used in conjunction with Second Wind based on the skill of the healer.
Just tossing things out as the conversation spurs them...
Guns. Ah, guns. I haven't looked at the gunslinger, but I will. In the meantime, I'm thinking of making guns really quite deadly (rather than inferior to a crossbow as they seem to be in, for example, Iron Kingdoms). I'm also thinking of allowing DEX bonus as an addition to damage per shot, much like STR is for melee combat. Also, armour is unlikely to work much against guns, which means that people are unlikely to be clunking about in platemail. A balancing factor would be that guns are difficult to load - loading a revolver, for example, would be a full-round action inviting an AoO. But gun-play should be nasty, brutal and short, so I'm moderately relaxed about this for the moment, but would appreciate comments.
Speaking of guns brings up the issue of proficiency. Simple, Martial, Exotic, or a mix of all three (ie some guns are simple to use, others are Martial, and some are Exotic)?
I also like Vattnisse's and AinvarG's suggestion of boosting the Heal check.
Vattnisse suggestion of using the mage and acolyte PrCs is a good idea as well except for the fact of what are characters are going to be doing before they qualify. Unless we start the campaign at a high level, say at the level where we qualify for those prestige classes.
re: gunplay and armor;.....
a long time ago I was cobbling together a Pirates of the Caribbean thing; it was just going to use the Forgotten Realms as the "old world" and I was going to use......hell, the Americas as the "new world," with a change here and there at my whimsy
(Panama canal, dug by iron golems, controlled by a cabal of wizards...that sort of thing....oh, yeah; New York would be Newaterdeep or somesuch....I wanted to do Gangs of New York if the mood hit me)
My idea was to have drow made spider silk armor be somewhat lousy for "low kinetic energy weaponry" like bludgeoning/slashing/melee/arrows/what have you, and yet, mysteriously,.....it performed like magic kevlar, able to give a reasonable if not impervious a.c. against "high kinetic energy weaponry" like bullets; not much use against a grenade, though, or a massive ogre's blunderbuss. Grapeshot and chainshot would wreak havoc on the poor bastich dressed in the stuff, but that's okay because, well....toting around a big ass cannon that can blast the s!*~ out of scads of people is sort of a limiting factor of itsself.
Hell; Dr Pepper's Impressive Potion of Wound Closure would do for a cleric......
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Vattnisse suggestion of using the mage and acolyte PrCs is a good idea as well except for the fact of what are characters are going to be doing before they qualify. Unless we start the campaign at a high level, say at the level where we qualify for those prestige classes.
In the baseline d20 Modern game the basic assumption is that pretty much no-one has any sort of magic or supernatural powers until / unless they take one of these prestige classes – until the point comes where a character can take this prestige class they will have a different (and more mundane) party role.
In that sort of setting, finally being able to cast first level spells when you hit character level 6 (or whatever) might be somewhat impressive – in a world with (virtually) no magic, a little bit of magic becomes quite powerful.
In a setting where you might have alchemists and quasi-magical steampunk devices and characters with various extraordinary or supernatural abilities (even if they can’t cast spells per se), being able to cast magic missile and sleep at 6th level is far less impressive...
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Speaking of guns brings up the issue of proficiency. Simple, Martial, Exotic, or a mix of all three (ie some guns are simple to use, others are Martial, and some are Exotic)?
Again, going back to d20 Modern (and I’m not really sure how much, if at all Aubrey wants to draw from that game), firearms kind of had their own proficiency ‘sets’. Something along the lines of Simple Firearms Proficiency (which covered pistols etc), Advanced Firearms Proficiency (which covered rifles etc) and something like Heavy Weapons Proficiency (which covered rocket launchers and stuff).
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In a setting where you might have alchemists and quasi-magical steampunk devices and characters with various extraordinary or supernatural abilities (even if they can’t cast spells per se), being able to cast magic missile and sleep at 6th level is far less impressive...
Agreed. I was thinking of moving it down to level 3. Qualifiers could be 3 ranks in two Knowledge skills (arcana/planes/religion/nature, depending on flavour), Spellcraft and maybe a Craft skill related to your magical focus (wand/holy symbol/whatzit - which you need to make yourself). In addition, you need a good background story, and off you go.
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Here's some stuff you all might find interesting.
Potentially some mineable stuff for ideas and general info about the genre here:
This one is a collection of steampunk shortstories sold in various e-reader formats. $2 for 8 stories looks like. I might get it out of curiosity, but it looks like most of the stories are written in serial format so every issue contains incomplete stories. Ah- I see now there is a single free issue at the bottom of the page which has one story parts 1-4, but it looks like that story keeps running and is up to part 8 now in the magazine.
Just some sweet steampunk images/creations:
Leather Gas Mask
Potential Villain image
Steampunk interpretation of a Beholder
Steampunk character portraits: (these are amazing)
One
And just for a laugh, if you haven't seen this: Steampunk Palin Comic
I haven't put a lot of thought into it, but a "security expert" might be a good way for me to get my feet wet in the setting.
Wow. Can't wait to see this get off the ground. Ya got your first lurker.
Do you havea setting in mind, Aubrey?
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I’m thinking I’ll either go for an explorer type – probably a ranger and/or rogue as base. If we are using action points I might look at the Extreme Explorer PrC from Eberron if Aubrey allows it.
Other idea is a Gunslinger, depending on how it all turns out with the playtest. A sort of 'air pirate' type maybe.
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You can check out casting system from Midnight Campaign Setting by FFG. It is designed for low-level casting, that uses spell points instead of spell slots, it can be boosted by rituals - in fact, rituals are needed for almost all major effects and high-level spells to be cast - and there are feats that allow non-dedicated spellcasters to pick up a spell or two.
By the way, is there any more room in this game?
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Thanks, Nightflier. I suspect that (a) this game may never get off the ground anyway and (b) it has a fairly high level of interest already. So I can't really make any promises about letting anyone else in at this stage. But if there seem to be spare places if and when it happens, keep an eye on this thread.
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Fair enough. I never had an opportunity to play in Eberron, although I have all the books, and I have created several character concepts over the years, so I am itching to test them. Also, I've been reading a lot of steampunk novels lately, so my steam pressure is up, so to speak. :) Anyway, check out the magic system I mentioned. I highly recommend it.
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With the activity on here, I rechecked my d20 Modern rules. There's stuff there I like a lot that could be applicable - new skills, and professional backgrounds. The character classes are.... somewhat lacking in flavour to say the least (and only go to level 10), although the application of professions ameliorates that somewhat. So I think I will see if I can adapt the PF stuff I like to d20 Modern (or vica versa) to get the sort of classes I want.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Hey, so, while we're all thinking about hypothetical games here.... now that I'm finally settled into my new job and about to get settled into our new apartment, I'm wanting to get a WoD PbP started. I want to keep it small, no more than 4 players, so that I won't run into the issues I've had previously with long stretches of inactivity.
The theme of the game will very much be modern supernatural horror. Vaguely Cthulhu-esque with some good old-fashioned mysticism thrown in for flavor. Player characters would be ordinary mortals throughout the game, but I have devised a system by which your characters will eventually be able to obtain a small selection of supernatural abilities... often with something of a drawback or sacrifice involved.
I didn't want to create an "open enrollment" thread in Gamer Connection about it because, well, I wouldn't trust just anyone to do a game like this justice. As far as rulebooks are concerned, you really shouldn't need one, but the core WoD book will be sufficient for character creation and general rules familiarity. If you don't have that book but are still interested, I'm pretty sure we can still make it work. WoD rules are pretty fantastically simple and intuitive.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I've never played WoD, or owned it, but I have heard it mentioned plenty. Sounds cool.
And what's the new job?
Network Administrator. Been here since December but have now been officially vetted (got through my 90 day probationary period). I thought I mentioned that somewhere before?
If you're interested in signing up for WoD, I'd love to have you. Character creation and mechanics are rather simple and it's a classless system, so you can play any concept you want. Setting would be modern day America (haven't decided which city yet). Ideally characters will all be affiliated with an institution of higher education in some way, whether they be students or faculty. This will provide an easy way to promote familiarity between PCs rather than just being "a bunch of random people who HAPPEN to get caught up in the same weirdness together."
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Yeah, D20 Modern is sort of the anti-PF in that regard, as it is assumed that the PCs will multiclass like crazy...
Yeah, I get the impression that multi-classing, whether between base classes or into prestige classes / advanced classes is very much encouraged.
The d20 Modern base classes are very generic, including their names (I?m going to play a Strong Hero, yay!) to accommodate a wide range of settings and genres. It wouldn?t make much sense to call a Fast Hero something like a Rogue or a Thief for example when a Fast Hero might be a sprinter or a gymnast or an airline pilot or a race car driver or a martial artist or an archer or a cat burglar or a duelist or a starship gunner or whatever else. I quite like the talent tree thing the classes have going, I think between that and the whole ?multi-classing is good? thing you get a wide range of customisation in the classes.
Given that we are playing in a specific genre, more specific classes (whether based off the Pathfinder classes, the d20 Modern classes, some combination or something else) may be appropriate.
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I’m pretty much full to the gills with pbp right now Fatespinner. I could probably afford to take on another low level 3.5 or Pathfinder pbp, given that I’m very familiar with the systems and that I have easy and legal access to all the essential rules online. A WoD pbp would stretch me at this point (plus, as I think I’ve mentioned before when you were starting up WoD pbps, I’m not that into the system, admittedly it was a different edition when I last looked at it).
I’m somewhat counting on the probability that at least one of the games I’m currently in will die an ignoble death before Aubrey gets his Steampunk game up and running ...
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OK, resurrecting the thread.
Ultimate Combat has some interesting stuff in it that might be useful in the context of this putative game.
First off: guns. The rules look alright to me, but they seem to lack a certain.... deadliness. I think a revolver does something like 1d8 damage. Alright, you get a X4 modifier on a crit, but generally speaking getting shot really hurts and it requires more than a fluke to kill someone with a single shot. I like that they target touch AC, though.
Second: a variant hit point system. The one in the book breaks down into two categories: Wounds and Vitality. Vitality is kind of a "luck reserve" - hits diminish the reserve until it goes to zero. After that, damage goes to Wounds. Wounds is actual hurt, and when half of it is lost you are unconscious and when all of it is lost you are dead. In the basic rules as presented, Wounds is equal to twice your CON score, and Vitality is equal to you hit dice rolls (but unmodified for CON bonus).
I quite like this as I can see a way of making guns deadlier, by having them do damage directly to Wounds on a hit. In fact, deadly force generally could go to wounds, with Vitality being used for more knockabout stuff in melee. I'd modify the rules slightly to allow a bit more progression, so:
Vitality = hit dice (unmodified by CON bonus)
Wounds = CON plus CON bonus per level
You'd be staggered at 0 Wounds and unconcious on negative Wounds, with death occurring when Wounds reached minus-CON score as now with PF. How this would work with monster hit points I haven't quite decided yet. Also, tentatively, a bludgeoning weapon would do 1/3 Wounds damage and 2/3 Vitality damage, a slashing weapon 2/3 Wounds damage and 1/3 Vitality damage, and a piercing weapon all Wounds damage. Subdual damage would simply go to Vitality.
I'm also flirting with the idea that magic costs Vitality to cast, with one point per level of spell. Steampunk is not a setting with seriously magic-toting wizards, so significant displays of magic would be rare and exhausting to pull off.
Third: armour as DR. Clearly, guns are nasty and one would look for some protection. I can't really see kevlar being available in a steampunk setting, but of course magic is available. The armour-as-DR rules basically state that you attack touch AC (or something similarly calculated anyway) but AC counts as DR instead.
Now, per the gun rules, guns attack touch AC anyway (within certain range increments) effectively rendering armour of all kinds ineffective. Since we know that platemail is pretty useless against bullets, which is why soldiers stopped wearing it, I would want to keep it so armour-DR doesn't work within certain range increments either. However, I can envisage there could maybe be a masterwork light armour providing maybe a point of DR protection, and magical enchantments would also always count against bullet damage irrespective of range.
I'd be curious for your views.
Re-dotting… not sure why I lost it.
I realize you're probably not asking for thoughts from the peanut gallery, but I'll toss them in anyway. (I hope you don't mind… ignore them if you're not interested in my opinion/thoughts.)
You keep saying you want guns to be deadly, and you're working to line up rules to make them so. How does this work in conjunction with the thematic move away from magic? Are healers remaining more or less as-is (minus the Vitality damage per spell)? The few steam-punk books or games i've seen have an intentional lack of most magics, and some seem to have almost no emphasis on religions or healing magic. I really love the dangerous, gritty feel conceptually, but I wanted to know how you were gonna keep players alive when things get bad.
Possibly use a limited Healing Surge mechanic? Seems very "heroic" to me. Just a thought. But if you're leaving divine healing in place, I guess this probably isn't as needed.
I see you're using armor as DR and gun touch attacks, so are you thinking Class Defense bonuses? Or is the idea just to not get shot at? (I didn't see mention of Class defense bonuses in the thread, and was curious.)
Also, what tech level of guns are common? Are we talking mostly muskets, muzzle-loaders, and what-not? Or more advanced revolvers and rifles? And secondary to that what level of proficiency is required to do that? Are guns still all exotic? That seems strange if the game has an emphasis on them.
Maybe do proficiencies based on weapon group? Simple Melee, Martial Melee, Pistols, Rifles, etc.?
I've always been intrigued by a Vitality/Wounds system but have never gotten to play in one. I'm interested to see how this plays out - especially given the lethal edge that firearms are receiving.
Oh, and finally, I'd love anything you're willing to share on the themes and specifics of the setting you're running this in. You've touched on a few - low magic and steam-punky. But how gritty? What role does religion play? Any specific cultural concepts you're thinking about? Or is it too early to spill these types of beans?
Hope you guys end up running this game. I'm excited to see it come together.
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A healing surge mechanic is something we were toying with before - I think something like that would be appropriate. Magical healing wouldn't be totally absent but it would be much rarer.
I'm not aware of class defence bonus - what's that? Broadly, yes, the idea is to try to not have someone shoot you, though. I'm thinking the more advanced guns, like revolvers, rather than the earlier stuff. Guns would be martial weapons, but a lot of other weapon proficiencies would get swapped around - a lot or more medieval weaponry would be exotic, for example. And I'm thinking of bringing in some firearms requiring Exotic Weapon Proficiency too - elephant gun, anyone?
As for themes - low magic, steam-punky set is a fantasy Victorian world. Religion would be around but I'm thinking of lumping all magic into a single "Scholar" class, with maybe a separate class for making magic items ("Golemeer"?), and no distinction between arcane and divine magic. The changes to the Wounds and Vitality, and how gun interplay, will need some thinking about too - as it stands a rogue sneak attacking with a gun is the epitome of lethal, so that might need to be toned down.
Back in the old UA wound/vigor system, didn't sneak attack damage - when applied to Wound points directly - simply deal 1 additional point of damage per sneak attack die?
Seems like a decent solution considering the value of Wound Points. I mean, a 6th level rogue would do an additional 3 wound points if he crit with his sneak attack.
OH, and class defense bonus was another old UA system that favored going unarmored as much as armored. Basically, based on what armor proficiencies given by your class (and how many levels you have in that class) you gain a bonus to defense that applies to all attacks - even touch.
The problem is that it would mean people are more effectively dodging bullets - which you don't seem to be going for with your game. But without this or something like it high level gunslingers often are looking at auto-hits against most targets.
Maybe a compromise would be taking the UA class defense bonus and dropping it in half?
Oh, HA! Sorry, I meant that as a general term for any full BAB gun-wielding combatant. Not the class.