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Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who kind of liked the 4e Forgotten Realms. Though that's mainly because I find the concept of the Spell Plague and the Spell Scarred to be fascinating. You are not alone. I have some half baked ideas about a sandbox game set in the East Rift/Underchasm area.
I have been running D&D games since 1989, most of them set in the Forgotten realms. Not once have I had an issue with high level npcs stealing the spotlight from the player characters. I haven't even mentioned Elminster in game. If you let npcs ruin your game that is your fault, not the fault of the setting.yeah, I've heard that one before. Didn't buy it then, didn't buy it now. For every fan whon swears this doesn't happen, I have a legion of fans whose every character was a drizzt or elminster clone or kept demanding to know where they were or would not. Shut. Up. About how fast it would take elminster or drizzt to take over the setting they were playing in until the game returned to FR. A couple things, I'm not selling anything, I've played hundreds of games in FR without having issues with high power npcs. Why would you play D&D with players who want to be a Drizzt or Elminster?
I have been running D&D games since 1989, most of them set in the Forgotten realms. Not once have I had an issue with high level npcs stealing the spotlight from the player characters. I haven't even mentioned Elminster in game. If you let npcs ruin your game that is your fault, not the fault of the setting.
Epic Epic is fine, but it is not the only way to have a great game.
Amicably? of course! I'm not sure if we'd be better off not playing together. I'm always willing to give it a try, at least I would if we were talking in person and lived in the same area. Let me explain the type of games I run, it might put my dislike of fudging in perspective. The way I run games is antithetical to the Paizo adventure path model. I rarely create an overarching plot. My games are almost always sandboxes. I simply make sure that their are enough factions, interesting locations, dungeons, rumors of powerful magic items to search for, and so on that the party always has choices to make. A story will always emerge from this organically. It is amazingly fun, I get to be surprised in ways that a predetermined overarching plot can not provide. There is nothing to protect, only a different twist that the emerging story might take. Maybe if you are running an adventure path and have an endgame that has to happen you might need to do some fudging. I don't think so, but I can see why people would do it.
I read your original post, I didn't take it as snarky, I understood your point. I'll expand on my comment that a gm should never cheat. With a few exceptions, like stealth and bluff, I roll all the dice in front of the players. This changes the way the game plays in a huge way. The players don't feel like they are the starring characters in a story I'm trying to protect with dice rolling behind a screen. They KNOW that their actions will not be manipulated by me by trying to steer things in a certain direction. I create the environment, they decide how to interact with it. If they blow it up, kill themselves, refuse to run from overwhelming odds, and so on, I will not save them. The GM remaining transparent and neutral with the dice changes, in a good way, how the players play the game.
Zero gm cheating is acceptable.
They stopped publishing new material for non-FR settings for the most part. If you run a good game the players won't care which setting you use.
They stopped publishing new material for non-FR settings for the most part.What is stopping you from using those settings? Of course, but that doesn't mean you have to stop playing the setting you enjoy. I still use Planescape, nineteen years after the product line came to an end.
What is stopping you from using those settings?
Links for where to get this?
Have you looked at the hirelings from Dungeoneer's Handbook? It has a feat called Torchbearer that is a less powerful version of Leadership.
...their name is Albert Wesker backwards. I thought the implications were pretty clear.Note how the OP never returned to this thread.It had to be a troll. It was a useless question. Thanks to google I now know that Albert Wesker is a character in a series of video games that I have not played.
Note how the OP never returned to this thread. It had to be a troll. It was a useless question.
I'm curious as well. I can't find anything outside of the obvious PHB 2nd printing update. Too bad the The Acaeum stops with AD&D 1e.
My group figured out who Blackjack is toward the end of book one.
Give the creature Frightful Presence. An ancient red dragon has a dc 27, your Linnorm could easily get a DC into the mid 30s, or whatever you want it to be if you aren't one of those people who think that monsters have to be built by the rules. Yes, I know Linnorms do not have this ability, no reason this one can't.
I think your system would be fine for a weekly game. But from what you described, your players might need to be ready next week, or in a month or more. it is difficult to get motivated to work on a character that you may not even play for several weeks.
As for the 4E stuff I didn't know they'd done anything. Is that stuff that existed prior to 4E or is that something the wrote whole cloth for the setting? I'm pretty sure it first appeared in the 4E Forgotten Realms, but it is expanded on in Bruce Cordell's Abolethic Sovereignty trilogy (which I have not read). It's possible that Cordell invented it for his novels and it was then included in the FR setting book. The release dates are just a few months apart. You can read more on Xxiphu here.
Well, there isn't even a D&D book called Monster Manuel but there should be. Kidding aside, I can't help but see the letters AD&D and think of anything but first edition.
The Pathfinder module... spoiler:
From Shore to Sea features an Aboleth as the main villain. It is also really great. The 4E Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (pg. 173) has Xxiphu- Soaring City, Seat of the Abolethic Sovereignty.
Aboleth was in AD&D Monster Manual 2.
Even earlier then that (1st ed) in Dragon Magazine 131 or 151 (can't recall exactly) they had an Ecology of the Aboleth article. It's been a while since I've read it but could shed some light and it did expend on different, stronger aboleth. It is Dragon #131 from 1988. It introduced the Greater, Noble, Ruler, and Grand Aboleths, the latter being 40 Hit dice. Sunken Empires has an introduction by Zeb Cook that details how the Aboleth made it into the game. Really interesting historical read.
The last four or five pages of Sunken Empires is an article titled The Ecology of the Aboleth. It is a great book, you should buy it. Have you read Lords of Madness? Chapter 2: The Deep Masters is all about aboleths.
These are great. The boy would have been useful recently. One of characters in my Curse of the Crimson Throne game was eaten by Gobblegut. He decided to play one of Lamm's lambs as a rogue, we were stuck using a gnome as his mini. Sadly, the poor bastard just died to the derro in the ossuary. I really love the reclamation infantry figure.
They did smooth their skirts when they grew tired of pulling their braids.
Why not use the 3.5 Warlock from Complete Arcane?
My group has started using 4d6 drop the lowest, in order. We roll 10 sets of scores. Pick a set and cross it off. If a character dies that player rolls one more set and adds it to the pool. Rolling stats in order has been great. I didn't think my players would enjoy it when i pitched the idea, luckily I was very wrong. They have embraced the challenge. Our current Wizard has an 18 strength. He really had his heart set on playing a wizard, his set of scores with the best INT happened to have an 18 STR, so he ran with it. He is a terror with the quarterstaff. This system has worked so well that I doubt we will go back to the old way.
All of the subdomians folks are looking for (including Nivi's and all of the empyreal lords) will be revealed in Inner Sea Gods, due out soon!It's probably in there, but IDK. Which source would I find subdomains for Brigh in, as I have found her domains all over the place in Iron Gods AP pdfs of mine, but never subdomains? Inner Sea Faiths
even if he was good at roll playing i would take some one who doesnt roll play at all but can have a competent character in one or 2 aspects of the game than a really good roll player whos character sucks in every aspect of itIs your game 100% combat? How is the player at the other parts of the game? Does he roleplay?With 12s and 13s for all stats the character would drag the party down on skill rolls during roleplaying. I would never let someone who doesn't roleplay into my roleplaying game sessions, but hey, whatever works for you.
Is your game 100% combat? How is the player at the other parts of the game? Does he roleplay?
Help me balance a setting where the PCs have little / no magic vs. enemies who have 9th level spells
The gm advice from Iron Heroes would apply to what you are doing here.
This
The setting doesn't, and shouldn't, care about the magic item creation rules.
I set Lost City of Barakus in Nirmathis. I replaced Endhome on the Barakus area map with Tamran. The players took a break from the Lost City to head down to Fangwood Keep, which was a lot of fun.
spoiler:
I decided the Book of Korbus from Lost City of Barakus, which is a Book of Infinite Spells, was the same one that powers the arcane engines in Fangwood Keep. We just finished Fangwood Keep and the group is heading back to Tamran. Not sure what is next, I run a very open game. We'll see where the group takes it. I just read through Lands of Conflict. It is good. I was worried it might fill in too many of the open spaces I enjoy, it did not. They added some nice detail without filling the map too much. I'll be using it frequently. I subscribed to the Ironfang Invasion. I plan on running it after this campaign comes to an end. So maybe in 8-12 months, not sure. I have yet to run an adventure path, they are way too linear for my tastes, but I'm going to run this one.
Scarlett O'Hara
Human Fighter
How would people feel about a game where the GM said "No 9-level casters"? A lot of the conceptual niches filled by the 9 level casters could be filled with 6 level ones (especially factoring in archetypes), and the 6-level casters are some really strong, interesting, and powerful classes. So if the GM said "For this campaign, nobody play a full caster" would that be unreasonably limiting to the point where it breeds resentment? I've actually had a player ask me to run a game with only 6 level casters. I find the backlash to tinkering with the game absurd. The thousands of books from the d20 era are all hacks of 3.0 D&D. Pathfinder is a hack of D&D 3.5 which was a hack of 3.0. Your home brew hack of Pathfinder is no less valid than Pathfinder itself. It is simple to play a different setting with Pathfinder. You just have to be willing to leave out most of the books. Is the resistance to this really the level of magic? or does it have more to do with people on these boards playing Pathfinder with all the books and all the options? I'm curious. You can make a real world Viking Pathfinder game by just leaving out anyone who can cast spells. It would work just fine. You don't need a different system if Pathfinder is the system your table enjoys and has rules familiarity, or even mastery, with.
Or, instead of putting in the effort to finagle the rules to do something they weren't designed to do, you could just play a different game more suitable to what you're trying to do. You really never hack games? Why not? It is easy to do and can make the game much more fun for your group.
Nonsense. Iron Heroes was low-magic and it is basically compatible with Pathfinder. The Advanced Gamemaster Guide by Green Ronin had some nice suggestions on how to change the magic level of your setting. Such as only allowing casters to put 1/2 of their levels into a casting class. So a 8th level character could be 4wizard/4fighter for example.
This is similar to a point buy system from a Brilliantgameologist.com thread several years ago. Of course you could ONLY MULTI CLASS WITHIN YOUR TIER. It works really well if that is the sort of thing you are looking for. I ran a 3.5 game using this system from level 1-17 or 18.
Are we going to be seeing a third printing of this, given it's unavailable once again? I hope so. I've been wanting to buy a copy, but they are going for $60 used.
did the first GM not think through the whole resurrection magic being higher level than healing magic thing or... He thought we wouldn't care since he 'gave' us our characters back.
Back in 1992 or so we were playing 2e Forgotten Realms. Our party was beat up and just made it back to town. We went to a temple of Lathander and offered plenty of gold for healing. The DM told us that no one in the temple was high enough level to cast any healing. No big deal, we went about our business. Later that day we come upon two high level wizards fighting over some artifact, can't remember what, they snap it in half and it explodes. Everyone dies. We all look at the DM and he seems nervous. Then he says that all of us are Resurrected by the priests of Lathander. We ask if these are the same priests who were not high enough level to cast Cure Light Wounds an hour earlier. The DM says yes. One of the guys in the group claps his hands and says 'OK, I'll DM, you guys ready to roll up new characters?' First, and only, time I've seen a DM get fired mid game.
Plus, some of the rules have become outdated in the game. Care to clarify?
A Everburning torch does the same thing.I don't like at will cantrips. Especially with Detect Magic and Light.I find it good that a low level caster can do at least something magical all day. Detect Magic and Light are situationally powerful, but then look at what other party members can do at level 1.. You are correct. But it is easier to say there are no Everburning torches for sale than it is to change certain cantrips to first level spells.
I don't like at will cantrips. Especially with Detect Magic and Light.I find it good that a low level caster can do at least something magical all day. Detect Magic and Light are situationally powerful, but then look at what other party members can do at level 1.. It is mostly light and detect magic that I have the issue with. But I liked Cure Minor Wounds as well. Which was dropped for obvious reasons.
I don't like at will cantrips. Especially with Detect Magic and Light.I find it good that a low level caster can do at least something magical all day. Detect Magic and Light are situationally powerful, but then look at what other party members can do at level 1.. It has zero to do with game balance. I almost exclusively run hex crawls and dungeons. Infinite light spells mostly eliminates the need to cary torches. Infinite Detect magic takes away interesting decisions from the players. I always run games where resource management matters.
I forgot the most important one. No Immediate or Swift actions on 3.0 (or 3.5 core). |
