I've always been fascinated by the idea of artificial worlds like Dyson Spheres or Ringworld. The idea I'm currently working on is a binary planetary system: Two Earth-sized worlds tidally locked. I haven't decided on names for either world yet, so for now I'm calling them Alpha and Beta Alpha was designed by the gods to be a perfect global garden/hunting ground. A massive geodesic sphere has been erected at about 10 miles above sea level. This crystal sphere acts as a literal greenhouse, trapping heat and keeping the lower atmosphere at a constant, warm temperature. However, as gods are always likely to do, they feel into conflict and one of them transported a second planet into the system in hopes of causing the two to collide. The other gods barely managed to avoid the destruction of both worlds, but only by trapping Alpha and Beta into being locked together, spinning around their common centers of massive. As a result, Beta's tilt has been altered, putting it into the beginnings of an ice age while Alpha has begun to experience rising temperatures. Meanwhile, the beings who could fix the problem, the gods, have been stripped of their power and forced to live on one or the other world as immortal wanderers.
I'm working on the background details of a sort "post-Ragnorak" world where a newly ascended god kills off all of the old gods to create a Lawful Evil theocracy. The only ones left to oppose him are the demigods like the Empyreal Lords, Demon Lords, Horsemen, etc, plus a few non-theistic religions. My big concern right now is the lack of diversity in the domains, so I may tweak that a bit.
My impressions is that the Occult classes have a more Victorian/Steampunk feel to them. The names of the classes, occultist, mesmerist, medium, originated in that time period. If you're doing a campaign around gypsy fortune tellers or psychic detectives, then the Occult classes are perfect. On the other hand, if you're looking for classes with a Jedi-like feel, then Dreamscarred's psionic classes are perfect. They aren't incompatible. Not any more than either would be alongside the core classes. They're different flavors, that's all.
It's definitely the heal monkey perception. Last time I played a cleric, every time one of the other characters got so much as a paper cut, they started crying "heal me! heal me!" The other thing is that clerics are too generic. Other than domains, there isn't much to separate a cleric of a god of war from one who worships a god of love.
It's a pretty interesting approach. While Dreamscarred took the 3.5 psionics and "pathfinderized" them, Psionics Transcended reworked psionics to make the classes more like spellcasters. It's a matter of taste, but PT will appeal to GMs who don't like the point system. I don't like PT's psyker class. I never cared for the idea of the soulknife as a psionic character without any psionic powers. I don't know why they call it an alternative to the bard class, though.
Has anyone ever run a campaign where there are no divine spell casters? Has it been a problem? The obvious deficit would be the lack of party healing. As a fix, would you recommend adding the Cure X Wounds spells to the sorcerer/wizard spell list, or would enabling them to cast those spells (as well as use wands and scrolls) be too unbalancing? |
