SO, It's late where I am, and I lack the brainpower to think this all through, but I want to start the thought off. I've been reading Ultimate Campaign and was thinking it might be possible to replace most of the caravan rules with the downtime rules.
According to the maps, a caravan wagon is 6 squares large (Double the size of a car, but ok.)
By the 4th or 5th level, food no longer really matters, so scrap that. Trade goods and money with the caravan was also pretty bad, so scrap that, add in something like an attachable pavilion tent that provides an extra 30 squares to work with.
One pavilion tent will allow Bunks to be installed, then allowing a spare covered wagon to be turned into a workshop or something small. This turns the caravan into a small traveling base for the party, which means they will be more engaged. The random events called for requires NPCs, this could be used to encourage RP.
Caravan combat; just have the caravan make a single attack as a single "character" with the scaling d6 damage scale suggested in other threads to represent to caravan trying to help the PCs out.
Replace all instances of "Party finds 3D6 Trade goods" with "Party Gains Capital" (I need to work out the details on that)
Now for the relationship scores.
Seems that each NPC could stand for one of the capital types
- Ameiko - Influence
- Sandru - Goods
- Shelalu - Labour
- Koya - Magic
So, play relationship as written, only when you enter into book 5...
oh wait, spoiler tabs needed...
Spoiler:
Alright, so when you enter into book 5, the party kicks the bandits' butts, and take over the fortress. Then is supposed to be the "gathering to forces stage." So, the caravan parks in front of the fortress, adding those rooms to the list of what was done by the bandits, then you take the highest relationship scores with each of the 4 main NPCs and add that capital type to the party pool of getting things up and running, Run up some mechanics that can turn that base of operations into victory points and bonuses for the game's finale.
So, I know this is all incredibly rough, but I wasn't going to get any sleep till I shared the idea. Now, I ask this. Is there any interest in this? should I bother fleshing out the thought? Comments, suggestions?
I started this project where I was going to make one spirit per Harrow Card, and time scuttled the project. One of my players picket it up and this was the result. I haven't edited it, but I thought it would be fun to bring you all in on the game balance commentary thing. Also, due to drama I won't get to use most of these, but I hate to see them go to waste.
So as a little add on for my player while we were running Under Frozen Stars, I added in a room where the players had option to have body parts replaced with cybernetic parts. So after all was said and done, I had to write up 4 of the 6 replacements. Eyes, Spine, Arm and Jaw. (The others were Heart and part of the Brain)
I didn't care too much about theoretical Gold costs, I was more interested in giving each of the players a new mechanic to play with.
Details on what I did thus far;
Spoiler:
So the basic rules I have with these is that while they are not fully magical (granting spell like abilities) they are powered by magic, so a successful dispel magic check or rolling a 1 after receiving electric damage causes the part to shut down for 1D6 rounds.
The arm followed pretty closely with the staff mechanic. The character gained a permanent +2 untyped bonus to Str, a d3 slam attack that was considered ghosttouch, 1 charge per day was added to the arm's pool (max 10), and the charges could be spend to increase the bonus to +4 for a round, cast Magic Missiles, or shield.
The spine I borrowed from the Weapons of Legacy book, with the spine attachment slowly replacing the user's nervous system. Eventually granting Bonuses to Dex, Immunity to Stun and Daze, Ability to haste themselves, Evasion and a few other goodies. All of this spread over 15 levels.
The eyes I decided to go a little Preditor-ish. Giving Skill Focus(Perception) for free, and granting the ability to switch between different "sights" granting access to Darkvision, Low Light, Arcane Sight, and Detect Law/Good/Evil/Chaos. Only thing is using any of the other sights effectively blinds you to normal vision. Also, Darkvision was coupled with light blindness as per drows.
Now, here's my problem. I got no clue what to do for the Jaw. My original idea was kinda killed, so I only have the description to work off of. The builders of these parts felt that human biology was inefficient. They attempted to improve upon it. The Jaw was designed to fix the design issue that allowed humans to choke on things like their food, tongue, so forth and so on. The Jaw separates the trachea from the esophagus. So the user essentially breaths and speaks from their neck, and eats normally. I was thinking of tossing "spell like ability - Cast Shout" on there, but I don't seem to be coming up with anything cool. Or at least cool enough to justify the character living through HIS JAW BEING SURGICALLY RIPPED OFF!!!
Oh yeah, the player is a pretty good artist, so I have pics...
Last week I started Jade Regent for my group. This is my second campaign attempt, and the first long term game attempt for this group. I was worried. Two of the players, the ones who usually do the DMing, are also pretty hefty power-gamers with a dash of rules-lawyering. Not in a bad way, mind you, it's just that they know their stuff, and correct you when you are wrong. They also make characters that tend to wipe the floor with EVERYTHING. The only reason I thought I was up to this is because of my personal DM style. I like to think of it as, I don't screw with the character, I mess with the player. I play off of natural metagame senses to get the reactions I want.
Well, I will post the events of the nights game below, but I have to say, I feel like that the Licktoad Village encounter was you personally turning to me and saying, "Hey, DM, here is my gift to you." I cannot conceive of any encounter that I would enjoy running more then what has transpired tonight. The party, while a group of goblin munching machines, were held at bay and baffled by the goblin's tactics and the players were just frustrated enough at Gutwad that it gave me time to really dig into the insanity that is the Goblin mindset. Mechanically, it was great. The fight lasted 3 hours and never got boring, Pacing was perfect, they party enjoyed it, and I had the best time I have ever had running it.
Thank you for loving me, the DM, Mr Jacobs. I receive your gift gratefully.
Now for the play by play. Hidden by spoiler tags.
Spoiler:
Quick point of order here. My party consists of a ronin samurai (Ameiko's younger brother), a ninja (from a family of bodyguards that came over with the Kaijitsu's), an aasimar cleric of desna, and a Taldain noblewoman summoner (who's eidolon is God's gift to DMs, as she's letting me play his personality, and both of them have an ego the size of the sun!)
This brings me to tonight's game. We ran the Licktoad Village encounter.
Suffice to say, it went pretty textbook. They went in the front gates, and I noted that the party was almost taller then the walls. They started to look around and noticed the goblins who are in the huts.
The samurai decides to check it out, pokes his head in, which triggers the fight. He wins initiative and kills a goblin right off, the other two try to swarm him. The rest of the party finish them off with no trouble. Then came the one round beat. The party knew something was going to happen, they player's knew it. Then I opened the flood gates and had the goblins come out.
The two closest ones ran right into the party for a kill, then one of the other goblins scored a critical hit against the fighter with a desnan candle, blinding him. As per the tactics I had them all drop what they were doing and watch, Oooooo-ing and Awwwwe-ing. The two closet ones died. I had two goblins climb up on the roof, one failed his climb check and landed in front of the fighter, nearly dead from the fall.
I started to see the looks of "Wow, the DM has bad dice skills and these goblins are bad at tactics." Then in the next round, the next glorious round, it started to go right. The next wave of goblins tried daring attempts to defeat their foes. One Goblin dove at the rogue to disarm her, another one dove from the roof, one attempted to grapple the cleric. Each time I did this, I saw a flash of excitement in their eyes as they asked me "You know that provokes, right?" I say, "Yes, go to it." They then shrug and take the shot. Then they discovered that goblins have a halfway descent AC, and that crossbows aren't good for attacks of opportunity. Well, those goblins didn't last, neither did the Desnan Candle shooters (when they died I had the fireworks shoot in random directions, adding to the chaos.) One goblin, that glorious goblin, did manage to get a grapple against the cleric. So, I did what came naturally. Next round the goblin bit him. We figured out the appropriate damage and modifiers, and it rolled max damage. This took the cleric into half damage, and the player had the character flip the f*ck out! While the party dispatched and peeled the biter off of the clerics leg, the rest ran away to the door of the chiefs "Impenetrable Fortress".
Here is where it gets delicious. The party is now outside Gutwad's door, the chief is inside yelling, not able to comprehend why the party is still standing after hearing the AWESOMENESS of his voice. (Yes we played "We Be Goblins." and no, none of them spoke Goblin) The summoner looks around the building. She's the one that finds the latter to the secret entrance. She fails the perception check. Her eidolon makes it. He's supposed to be playing dumb (as the character is posing as a bard with an exotic pet foo dog), so he pulls her back and I have it do this entire scooby doo routine to get her to go up and find the secret entrance.
After alerted to it, the party goes to ambush the chief from two sides. I loved the concept of the goblins reaction to watching the doors open from such a simple disable device check, and again, I play it up as they are horrified at the diabolical skills of the person able to bypass the very secure door. As soon as combat begins, I have Gutwad flip out about the DOG IN HIS ROOM, and start firing animal bane arrows at the outsider. Everyone piles in the room. Everyone takes a shot at the chief. Everyone except the eidolon misses (of course, cause no one it as awesome as Mipsy!). The second round, Gutwad lights the skyrocket. Again, the players inform me this provokes, expecting me to take back the action, I say go ahead. Again, they mostly miss. In they next round they do a little more damage, and almost bring him down. The summoner pulls her eidolon, Mipsy, out of the fight as she thinks it's all wrapped up and wants to let others get the kill, and also to check and heal up any damage. No one hits Gutwad after that. His turn comes round. Everyone is now in the room, except the summoner and her eidolon. He goes to fire, again they jump on me that this provokes. They take the shot, and one of them hits. They roll damage... and bring Gutwad to 2HP. The skyrocket goes off.
Half the party gets dropped to 0, Gutwad dies, everyone in the room gets deafened. Forever more I will remember the mental image of the summoner walking outside of the fight, looking at her giant freaking multicoloured foo dog and saying "Awe, Mipsy, are you okay, did the mean goblin hurt you?" Then from behind her you hear "BOOM!!!" Whistling and sparks flying out of the door, shocked look on her face, she turns around, sees the carnage and says "Oh shi-"
