SurlyJoe's page

Thanks, thats a good idea!

Hello everyone. I am (again) working on further detailing a campaign setting that I've toyed with for the last 8-9 years or so. I probbably should have abandoned it years ago but I am stubborn I suppose lol. Oh and also it's not like I've worked dilligently on it for the last decade, just an off and on project that is on again. With that in mind I need some advice on my pantheon. First I will explain in very brief terms, the way my pantheon works so far. Then I will describe the two options to fill it in that I am considering. Thank you ahead of time for reading the whole thing (oh and yes, this is influenced heavily by J.R.R. Tolkien's book the Simillarion, which I may like better than even LOTR.

The alpha diety is called Irmendoll. From him were spawned 4 Avatars. These each recieved a part of Iremendoll's vision for creation of the world. They are:

Elonna- Holy, Avatar of light, gave gift of goodness and divine magic.

Winnarow- Nature Avatar, formed the physical world, created divine (druid) magic. Made animals plants and sentient races. All about balance.

Vinar- This one is kinda tough to explain. She is the Avatar of souls. She is the Charon of my world, except that she is also the Hades, but not evil. She created the seas and waters of the world. She also gave souls to the sentient. A portion of the flavor text for her reads, "all souls must in the end travel the seas of death to await the pronouncement of her doom in her ancient halls" (Think Mandos from the Simillarion, for those who've read it). Again though, not evil.

Majel- She is chaotic! When the other Avatars poured their blessings into creation she (the most powerful avatar) created a counter blessing to each of the other avatars blessing, sort of a pervsion of their work. She tainted Ellona's blessing to create evil and tyranny, evil divine magic, and arcane magic (power without needing loyalty to anything). Winnarows she tainted to create Abberations, Unnatural creatures, drought famine ect. Vinar- tainted to create immortality and undead creatures, liches ect. She is not really evil but more of a chaotic spoiler to the others.

Option A: Assign domains from the CRB to these Avatars and leave it be. My concern with this option is that there is not REALLY an evil diety for those campaigns, oh evil exsists to be sure, and Majel and even Winnarow to a point could be worshipped by evil characters. But they are not truly evil dieties. There is conflict still between Avatars, especially Majel and there is no reason two clerics of Ellona for example couldn't diasagree to the point of battle.

Option B: Create another layer of sub-dieties. I will call them paragons, and they will be the courtesans of the avatars if you will. I will make 10 or 12 of them of various alignments, each will have an associated avatar, and I will assign domains as seems appropriate. This will create a lot more options for players, and perhaps add some more options for conflict. I like the idea of no directly evil dieties though; its something different and I think will allow for interesting RP opportunities.

Either way, there will still be evil clerics, and the lovely evil monsters of the Bestiarys will still exsist. I would like to keep the Pantheon relatively simple, as in my world the Avatar chooses you, not the other way around. You are literally called to service in the clergy by one of the Avatars (if the player rolls a cleric). Adding a lot of extra paragons will water down the "power" of this event if you will. But if my idea is totally horrible and un-playable than I will change it and add the paragons.

There is a lot more I could share with you about my pantheon, and this is a very rough sketch. I appreciate your time though, and don't want to take advantage. If you read all this then thanks a lot!

I know this is an old post but it finally came up for my group. Thanks Mr. Jacobs for clearing this up but I got another question about the same monster... The plant grabs and engulfs, then on the next turn succeeds on a -20 check to maintain the grapple. Does it do any actual damage on that second round or do you (the guy in its mouth) just sit there waiting to suffocate? I know in normal grapple you can choose to deal natural weapon damage which would seem to apply but this monster seems to be full of exceptions. Is the acid damage per round or only the intital round you are grabbed by the plant.

There is no definite need to change your encounters based on point buy and loot. It's more about what feeling the players will have about the game. High fantasy means that they play fantastical heroes. Low fantasy means that they will barely scrape by and have their backs against the wall at all times.

Low point buy encourages munchkinism which you have implied that your players enjoy, so I think it would be a good bet. You can alter the CR of encounters of course but that ends up being basically the same as playing low fantasy, as your group will walk a tightrope over a chasm of TPK.

TL;DR Run the monsters as-is and set the point buy and loot based on how much of a challenge your players want.

So, the rules for high fantasy then, are to simply make it easier on the PCs? Make the feel more powerful?

SurlyJoe wrote:

Quote:

But I think the OP is less interested in the philosophical implications, and more so in the mechanical implications of the rules associated with each.

This

But there isn't any. It's purely a term to describe the kind of story that is told.

then why do I have to adjust loot, Npc gear, and point buy allowance??

it is coming up on my turn to run again and I still don't really get this concept. I run for a group of guys who like to exploit the rules to make their characters as powerful as possible. I like to give myself every advantage I can to make it challenging for them within the rules. As I understand it the Core Rulebook mentions "high fantasy" a few times in different chapters...

...pg 16 table 1-2 (PCs should get 20 pts to spend in high fantasy)

...pg 400 second paragraph says that the amount of expected treasure per level could be as much as DOUBLE!! what the 12-4 chart says if it is a "high fantasy" campaign.

...pg 453-454 Under the "step 6" entry I am supposed to double the value of gear I give an NPC character if it is a high fantasy game..

So the book tells me how to beef up the characters, how to make my "home-made" NPCs beefier to meet the challenge and what to do in terms of rewarding the PCs. I still don't understand what is MECHANICALLY meant by "High Fantasy" though... Yes I get that there are more magic items and creatures and the world is more fantastic. Those are very abstract concepts though to apply to something as concrete as "double the amount of treasure you expect a PC to have".

The issue is that the CRB doesn't tell me how to adjust encounters (im talking chapter 12 page 397 here) to make it a high fantasy game. It doesnt say for example "use the Hard encounter on chart 12-1 as the norm for high fantasy campaigns". Is there some rule like that that I am missing somewhere?

I don't want to "accidentally" run a high fantasy campaign and not reward my PCs enough, nor make it to easy on them. I get how to make NPCs appropriate for my PCs, double their gear and then adjust other treasure rewards as needed to satisfy the "double 12-4" rule I mentioned earlier, BUT the real questions is How do I adjust the encounter level of the monsters themselves in the bestiary to high fantasy level?

I did find on page 15 where it says that average player gets 15 points in the point buy system and average NPCs get 3 (under the purchase section). I assume that the monsters in the Bestiary are average and use 3 points. Following that ratio, a High Fantasy PC with 20 pt. buy, should face monsters built using 4 pt buy right?

Is the simple solution then to only run a standard 15 pt. buy and use monsters straight out of the Bestiary? Are the monsters in the Bestiary geared towards 15 pt buy PCs? Is the the only way to technically and mathmatically for certain run a high fantasy campaign to home make every NPC the PCs fight as per pg 453?

I'm not afraid to guesstimate, or settle for "close enough" but I like to make sure I have a hard as rock grasp on the RAW before I start dancing around them. If you read this whole thing thanks for your attention and any help you can offer.

TL;DR How do I adjust monsters out the Bestiary and/or encounters to make sure they are "high fantasy".-

But I think the OP is less interested in the philosophical implications, and more so in the mechanical implications of the rules associated with each.

This

Help Please??

Ya as a old 3.5 player, the Attack and Full Attack entries were on two different lines in a monsters entry, thanks for the clarification!

I am trying to understand the ins and outs of high fantasy, as opposed to normal games. I know that the players get more points for the point buy system, and they get more treasure, and the NPC characters get a little more loot. Is there something I'm missing? It would have been nice if all this was put in one place instead of spread all over the book. Assuming my list is comprehensive, I have a few issues...

All the changes seem to benefit the PCs, but I see nothing in the "Designing Encounters" section that tells me to adjust the difficulty of the monster fights. So is high fantasy just a way to make the game easier for the players? They get all this extra gold and higher abilities, but fight the same old goblins that "regular" 15 point buy characters get? That doesn't sound right.

Now, I know that NPCs get double the gear value on 14-9, which makes them tougher. Fine, fair enough if you are making your own NPC's, but what if you are using a monster out of the Bestiary(s)? They are designed for standard fantasy right? How do you adjust them? I appreciate your "here's how I do it" advice I REALLY do, but I'm looking for a rule or something in the published materials. Thanks a lot guys.

The rule is: There are no real player races in the Bestiary but as DM, you can fudge it for the players if you feel you can work it out appropriately.

lol ok, i suppose i was overthinking it, I'm one of those weird guys who likes the minutia and rules technicalities.

"There are a number of monsters in this book that do not possess racial Hit Dice. Such creatures are the best options for player characters, but a few of them are so powerful that they count as having 1 class level, even without a racial Hit Die. Such characters should only be allowed in a group that is 2nd-level or higher."

This is from page 313-314 of the beastiary. I am in a group of rules-lawyerish folks. What does it mean "they count as having 1 class level, even without a racial hit die"? which ones? how do I know which ones from looking at a beastiary entry? Neither drow seems to have any racial hit die, therefore, by the rule on 313-314, they are both fine as starting races with no adjustment.

There seems to be no hard fast rule to indicate that the two different drow are different at all as far as "legal playability". In fact taking the rules on page 313-314 verbatim, they are balanced to each other.

I realize this is obviously not the case, the noble drow is far more powerful. But shouldn't there BE a rule thats a little more cut and dry? Or is there and I'm not seeing it?

If the answer is "we didnt make a rule so that you as a DM could make one" then okay, but that seems to leave me hanging a bit as a DM, with no rules to back me up or affirm my decision. What if I'm a dm who doesn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of monster abilities and balance (what IF i was ;-P ). Both drow have one HD from their class (or classes in the noble's case), just like the Elf from the core rule book gets one HD from its class. So if I didn't know better as a DM the book would seem to encourage me to allow it, and the book would be wrong..