We are in the middle of our current campaign, and I need to start the initial planning for the next. With many level 1-20, and 1-mid teens campaigns to choose from in my library, I am looking for help on deciding what to run next.
I like to give my players at least some choice in the campaign, and also clues on what would be a good party mix. Therefore I am trying to develop a paragraph or so on each of the campaigns and what would be a good party mix for six PCs.
Without giving away the story line, does someone have such a paragraph and what classes might be best for Savage Tide AP?
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As some background: The previous campaign was "Shackled City Adventure Path". The current is running thru many of the GameMastery modules, with a Dungeon magazine adventure thrown in to fill in level "gaps".
Here are the PCs for the previous and current campaign. As you can see they tend to follow a pattern.
PCs for Shackled City:
Fighter (archer)
Fighter/Beserker (Dwarven *tank*)
Cleric (undead killer)
Rogue
Wizard/Cleric/Mystic Thurge
Monk
PCs for current:
Fighter (archer)
Ranger/Barbarian/Fighter (dual longsword wielding death machine)
Cleric
Rogue
Wizard(evoker)
Animal Friend (Druid w/o wildshape, but lots of animals) (diplomat)
-- david
Papa-DRB
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hmm...a paragraph on the STAP?
how about....
A world spanning adventure path that will take you from low level urban adventures to planar-spanning-massive battles. There is something for every class here, with an emphasis on those with extraplanar bent towards the endgame. It should be noted that moral choices and "the lesser of 2 evils" plays quite heavily in many instances, so hard-line clerics, Paladins, and the like are forewarned. In the end, a grand time showcasing urban, travel, wilderness, planar, and dungeon-type adventures, with two of the best designed adventures I have had the pleasure to run (There is no Honor and Tides of Dread)
as far as classes, may i recommend:
Cleric (healer)
Wizard (support/divination/teleportation)
Rogue (traps and social stuff)
Fighter (or Barb, Warblade, Etc...) with a big stick to hit things
Bard (social stuff and inspire courage)
xxxx....cuz if you have the above 5, a 2nd of anything (maybe not bard) will be fantastic!
hope this helped
-the hamster
Cleric (healer)
Wizard (support/divination/teleportation)
Rogue (traps and social stuff)
Fighter (or Barb, Warblade, Etc...) with a big stick to hit things
Bard (social stuff and inspire courage)
xxxx....cuz if you have the above 5, a 2nd of anything (maybe not bard) will be fantastic!
Certainly a 2nd cleric, or wizard would be excellent. I'd generally avoid a 2nd Rogue though as they step on each others toes in the skill department.
However if your going to keep covering bases then a 2nd martial class is very good. One is a melee monster while the other is a ranged weapon specialist. Thus the party is increasingly capable of dealing it when either a hulking brute charges them and when the enemy won't land or is shooting at you from the other side of the chasm.
Once can certianly make a good Eleven Archer but in my experience basic human fighter is the best base upon which to build the range weapon master as its really all about pumping feat after feat into the bow and human fighters have the most feats.
Check out the first post in "Killer GM Runs The Savage Tide". It's more than a paragraph, but a darn good intro.
*Coughs* Sir Austin, I believe that is "A Madman GM's the Savage Tide". ^_^
I've received several posts on that introductory, "Dummies Guide" post - most welcome indeed to hear that it is still well-received after so relatively long. It should serve as a 'good enough' introduction to the STAP.
Lastly, keep in mind that STAP follows about a year after Age of Worms - and that follows a year or so after the campaign just concluded if my information is accurate.
EDIT:
The Hamster's recommends on classes and their orientations are spot-on without giving anything away. Any undead-oriented specialist will be completely disappointed in the Savage Tide, whereas a healing-oriented cleric will do very well, especially with divine feats and/or divine metamagic feats. Two-weapon melee fighters generally should do quite well, especially if they go shield-n-(insert one-handed melee weapon of choice here) with the Shield Specialization/Shield Ward/Improved Shield Bash backing up the Two-Weapon Fighting combination, later to acquire a shield with the bashing enchantment. The ranged weapon specialist might wish to retain maximum possible versality, as being useless in melee is a sure ticket to a plot 6' under. Any class with at least some social graces - which mind can be handled by the cleric rather than the rogue on Diplomacy matters - and the trapfinding ability will handle that particular set of tasks nicely. (Beguilers in particular can do surprisingly well in the AP, so long as one accepts the need to requisition the Use Magic Device skill to become ... scary...)
I have a cleric in our party that mainly heals but took the planar banishment option to replace turn undead. He doesn't attack a whole lot but when he fires up the bolt of glory he turns into a demon wrecking machine.
The planar banishment option is in Unearthed Arcana if you are interested.
My players are playing the following:
Human fighter/master thrower (Complete Warrior)
Half-orc crusader (Tome of Battle)
Human warlock (Complete Arcane)
Human artificer (Eberron Campaign Setting)
Killoren wizard/druid/arcane hierophant (Races of the Wild/Comp. Arc?)
So far, the group lacks some useful spells and abilities used by clerics, but not many. The artificer is good at "faking" and crafting scrolls and more to emulate cleric spells, as well as curative items. This group is damage-heavy, especially the fighter and crusader. The warlock is good for dishing out status-ailments, like nauseated, but is prone to damage himself, as is the arcane hierophant.
If I had to pick the ideal group for utility, I would choose:
Cleric or Favored Soul
Wizard or Sorcerer/Warlock
Bard or Scout/Rogue
Ranger or Fighter
For flourish, classes I would recommend dipping into include Swashbuckler or Swordsage, Binder (Tome of Magic), or Factotum (Dungeonscape).
Maybe someone put this in already and I missed it, but there is a free players guide pdf download (and I think the hard copy is still available) that set's the stage and has some bonus feats and possible affiliations. I'm about to DM STAP, so far we have:
Human Monk LG
Gnome Bard
Some kind of Archer (Ranger or Fighter)
An Elven Fighter (May change and come back to fighter)
Cleric (details forthcoming)
And the last is an elven Wizard (lot's of flip floppery going on for her.
I'm going to check the above thread ("Madman") just so I don't miss anything
*also testing the backward compatability using PRPG and, will update the classes (Monk, Bard) as the rules are released
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The first group of players I ran through this were a carnival freak assortment of every class, race, and feat imaginable. It single handedly resulted in me banning the Tome of Broken (I mean Battle) from all future campaigns, and also resulted in an inronclad houserule that you can take no more than 3 base classes when multiclassing and not including prestige classes unless you explain exactly why and how you want and can be a ranger 2/fighter 4/Barbarian 2/ Bard 1/Cleric 2/Drow Paragon 3/Scout 2/Socerer 2/Ninja 1 with the half fiend, tauric, feral, and legendary templates who has 647 feats by taking flaws, traits etc. I am exaggerating a little on the combos, but yeah...
Anyway, my current group (who has had to take an extended break about 3/4 through HtBM) is far more basic and actually is having a much easier time of it with the STAP than the freak show did. That group consists of:
Human Ranger 2/Scout 4/Order of the Bow Intiate 2 (ranged specialist who lives to move 10 ft and fire a single arrow adding on skirmish and bow initiate precision damage)
Female Human Sorcerer 8 (Most effective arcane caster I have ever had play in my games as a PC by far because she uses her head. She has used strictly the PHB for her character design with the exception of one feat, Sudden Empower from complete arcane)
Dwarf Fighter 8 (Very vanilla fighter who fights with a dwarven waraxe and shield with heavy plate armor. She has been built strictly using the PHB and PHB II and has an AC of 27 and 95 hp at 8th level. Very definition of "tank")
Dwarf Druid 8 (Summoner, healer, and wilderness expert. She has a giant crocodile animal companion who she usually bolsters in combat by summoning another one. Built strictly with PHB except for the spontaneous healing feat from complete divine.)
I wanted to point out how effective these guys are because they have been successful not because they use 90 splat books. Instead they make smart gear and character creation choices. They work very hard as a team. And they stick to the fundementals. I get insanely frustrated with groups that forget every basic aspect of being an effective group because their splat books make them so powerful they don't think they have to bother. Turin's post really touches on those sorts of basics. For example, everyone in this group I am running for has a ranged weapon, even if it is just a crossbow. They all donate 10% of their loot to a "party fund" used to by potions, wands of cure light wounds, sun rods, rope etc. that everyone needs and uses. All of them carry at least one light melee weapon.
Anyway, the STAP is a tough AP. That said, your players don't have to use a lot of fancy stuff to be successful. They just have to play smart, make solid choices for their characters, and WORK TOGETHER.
Best of luck running the STAP. It is one fun AP.
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Without giving away the story line, does someone have such a paragraph and what classes might be best for Savage Tide AP?
I know this is more than a paragraph, but I couldn't bring myself to pick just one. I made this up and printed off copies as a handout to everyone that was playing when we started the game. There's lots in there about character creation notes. Hope you find it useful:
Avast, you sea dogs, and welcome to the Savage Tide Campaign!
Before we weigh anchor and make way into uncharted seas, here be some things ye should know about the campaign. First of all, I cannot make any guarantees about bein¡¦ able to maintain this ¡¥ere pirate voice throughout the entire campaign, but I¡¦ll give it me best, at least whiles I¡¦m speakin¡¦ in character. For the rest of this note, though, I¡¦ll stick to proper King¡¦s English, so you don¡¦t all throttle me next time you see me.
The Campaign will take much of its material from the ¡§Savage Tide¡¨ series in Dungeon Magazine, so unless you want to spoil some of the story, it¡¦s best you keep your nose out of Dungeon for a while. I will throw in a lot of my own ideas that I¡¦ve been developing over the past few months, but Savage Tide will help a lot in setting the backdrop and keeping the story moving between my mostly unconnected ideas, so you¡¦ve been warned.
I am converting the adventure path as written in Dungeon to the Forgotten Realms for lots of reasons, but primarily because I own a lot of Realms source material that I don¡¦t wish to go to waste.
Character Creation:
You will begin as 2nd level characters aboard the ¡§Ravaged Pride¡¨, a small merchant vessel that runs between the cities of Sasserine, and the city-state of Sammarash. Sasserine replaces Tashluta in official Forgotten Realms supplements as the capital of Tashalar. Both lie on the Shining Sea, in the southern areas of Faerun.
The route between the two cities runs along the coast, as such the ¡§Ravaged Pride¡¨ is never out of sight of land, making it a safe route for a small vessel such as the ones you find yourselves on.
As such, you may create a character from anywhere in the Forgotten Realms, but given the nature of the campaign, it would make sense for your character to hail from a region with a seafaring culture, or at the very least, some coastal areas where ships are known to pass. If you are from a faraway land in the Realms, such as Mulhorand or the Moonsea area, you will want to include in your character creation some reason why you¡¦d be in the South. Naturally, the life of a sailor is one of travel, so such a story should not be terribly difficult. I accept and appreciate written character concepts and back stories detailing the life of your character up to level 2, but it is not required.
If, on the other hand, you would like to be from Sasserine itself, that would be fine, and in fact very easy to write into the story, since it is a regular destination of the ¡§Ravaged Pride¡¨. I will be providing each such player with a ¡§Savage Tide Player¡¦s Guide¡¨ outlining the city and its many districts. A player who hails from this city will automatically know all (or at least the vast majority ¡V if you have to roll I will let you know) of the information within it as ¡§Area Knowledge ¡V Sasserine¡¨, while the rest of you will need to take that as a skill if you want to succeed on such a check. Area Knowledge ¡V Sasserine will also allow a synergy bonus to Gather Information checks made within the city as well. This would be useful information for creating said back story, if indeed you choose to be from Sasserine. Note that the Player¡¦s Guide references the Greyhawk pantheon, for conversion information ask me. The two most important are Kord=Talona, and Wee Jas=Savras.
As mentioned, characters will begin play at 2nd level. Allowable source material for character creation, in terms of feats, spells known, races, and so on include all Forgotten Realms sources, as well as all core D&D material produced by WotC, with the exception of psionics, please; it doesn¡¦t mesh with my notion of magic, and I don¡¦t like messing with it. A special warning when going through Realms stuff: a lot of it, notably the basic campaign setting book, was written under 3.0 rules, and lots of the feats/spells/prestige classes were re-written for 3.5 in later supplements. Make sure you¡¦re using the 3.5-based stuff, if you have questions ask. I might also specifically point you in the direction of the ¡§Stormwrack¡¨ supplement, specifically created for seafaring adventures. It has some races that may interest people looking to play something which ordinarily would not be a very useful race.
Having said that, I would recommend AGAINST creating a truly aquatic character, in other words one which can not function well outside of water, at least at first. We will be spending significant time in this campaign at sea, but we will also be spending significant time, in stretches of months at a time, on land as well, although always coastal I think (no promises there though). In those cases, obviously, an all-aquatic creature will have difficulty being involved in these adventures. If you are dead-set on playing an all-aquatic creature, discuss it with me, and we¡¦ll work out something. You¡¦ll probably need to create two characters, one for land time and one for sea-time. However, I will need to penalize this extra flexibility in some way, so expect to have your two characters each be a level behind the rest of the party, or some similar negative assignment on my part. I¡¦m not trying to punish you, but again as I said, it wouldn¡¦t be fair to the players who are putting all their effort into one character to let others have two equally powerful characters, giving them the advantage of ¡§customizing¡¨ themselves to the environment. Again, if you have issues with this, discuss it with me and I¡¦m sure we¡¦ll work something out.
Character creation will involve rolling your stats as follows: roll 4D6, reroll 1¡¦s, take 3 best. Repeat 7 times, take 6 best and distribute as you wish. Yes, this will make powerful characters, with an average stat above 13. Trust me, you will need it. This adventure path is not for the feint of heart, and I will not pull punches on player deaths. It cheapens the story to do so, in my opinion, because then the victories mean less.
A note on alignment: The overall theme of the campaign is fighting evil for a noble cause, but that certainly does not mean that everyone should be LG, or even G. Neutral and even Evil alignments are accepted, but be forewarned that this is not a campaign where all the players are evil, bloodthirsty pirates. Obviously, as DM I only have some control over player¡¦s actions, and I will not ¡§forbid¡¨ players from doing evil acts. But that¡¦s not the expectation of the game as a whole. May your character lie, steal, cheat, and so on? Absolutely. May he/she openly kill innocent villagers or sailors and not expect repercussions? Unlikely. Also, there will be times when an opponent will be beyond your skill to kill directly; in such cases it will be necessary to confront them in other ways. Subtle warnings of such will be given if necessary in such cases.
A few other minor points on character creation: There are some unique challenges and opportunities to be had with a Seafaring game. That¡¦s honestly one of my primary motivations for choosing this as the setting. It¡¦s always great to be able to really branch out and look at some of the ¡§standard¡¨ gaming preconceptions, and have to start from scratch with them. But at the same time, there are some specific challenges I want to warn you about before you make your characters, as well. For one thing, some prestige classes have specific pre-requisites that are impossible to fulfill when your character is at sea for three months. You aren¡¦t going to be initiated into any guilds or clubs or secret orders during that time (most likely). As such, if you are the type that plans your character¡¦s level progression out from the beginning, this is important to keep in mind. Likewise, new equipment is tough to come by at sea as well. It doesn¡¦t matter how many gp you have, if nobody on your boat has a +3 flaming long sword they want to sell you, you aren¡¦t going to be able to buy one. Now, item creation feats and such are an answer, and honestly, I expect that they will be a bit more useful in this campaign for that very reason. Just don¡¦t forget to stow those raw materials on board before you set sail¡K I¡¦ll let your own minds think of other general guidelines to consider when making your characters, just remember that heavy armor is no longer a good thing when your 3rd level fighter goes overboard. I don¡¦t care if he DOES have 5 ranks in swim and 18ST. Even regular clothes and leather get pretty heavy when you¡¦re trying to swim in them. And feather fall slowly takes you straight down, whether your ¡§ground¡¨ is a moving target or not¡K
There are also some special rules for fighting on ships, and underwater combat, and so on. I will produce a separate handout for those. For the purposes of character creation, just know that there are lots of reasons to take Balance, Climb, Jump, and Tumble. And no character should think they can safely tube their Dex stat.
Game Mechanics:
There are some game world ¡§physics¡¨ things I need to set out before play starts; issues that may be unique to this sort of setting that I¡¦ve put some thought into. In my fantasy world, there is no distinction between fresh water creatures, and sea water creatures. I¡¦m not saying I will, but if I want a dragon turtle in a large fresh water lake, then that¡¦s where he is. We will worry about water pressure, if your characters dive to extreme depths, but we will NOT worry about ¡§the bends¡¨ or decompression. You can¡¦t just swim down to the bottom of a deep sea trench without some kind of protection, magical or otherwise, but if you do swim that deep and survive, I will let you swim directly to the surface with no penalties. I don¡¦t want to have to pause the story for 2 days downtime while everyone sits in some de-compression chamber I have to create rules for or something. The nitrogen bubbles that occur in Earth divers at deep undersea depths magically dissipate somehow in Faerun.
More specifics, including notes on underwater combat, underwater skill modifiers, and so on, will be forthcoming. (See sources below)
Recommended Reading:
None is required, but I would recommend that if you are interested in the campaign, and have the funds to spare, that you look into picking up a copy of Stormwrack, particularly if you plan on playing one of the races, or taking one or more of the feats or spells out of it. I have a copy, but it may be getting passed around quite a bit, and of course DM always has dibs on his books. ƒº Additionally, I came across a REALLY great supplement from Legends and Lairs called the Seafarer¡¦s Handbook. It¡¦s available here: http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/ and elsewhere. It has a lot of mechanics for how skills work differently underwater, and ship-ship combat, and tons of other fun. Obviously, again, I will share mine for public use, but having more at the table is never a bad thing.
Beyond that, I am working on a list of nautical terms, and while I don¡¦t expect anyone to memorize them, I do hope all us landlubbers can at least learn port from starboard. (Port is left). My NPC¡¦s will also occasionally use them, hopefully more and more as the game goes on, but I will print the lists so you can all look it up if necessary.
In short, having a sea-based campaign presents a lot of challenges. It¡¦s a chance to try something different, which, again, is the whole point. Try a different race, class, spell, or prestige class than you ordinarily would. If you¡¦re thinking of playing a Halfling, consider the ¡§Shoal Halfling¡¨ from Stormwrack, which exchanges some of the halfling¡¦s racial sneakiness and +1 with slings and thrown weapons for having both gills and lungs. If you want to play a Cleric, perhaps a cleric of a Sea God with an Ocean domain? Everyone will appreciate a cleric who can call wind on a calm day on the open sea. Also, remember that in general, fire spells do not work underwater¡K
Most importantly, let¡¦s jump into this and have some fun!
Just my 2-cents' worth about PC-creation for the Adventure Path ...
If you have access to "Lords of Madness" (and like using splat books), then there are some interesting feats therein.
Aquatic Spellcasting: lets you overcome some of the pesky problems with casting spells into water, as well as using Fire descriptor spells.
Banemagic/Bane Magic: originally was only focused against Aberrations, but in "Heroes of Horror" it was extended/changed so that (when choosing the feat) one could choose to focus its effects on any one specific monster type. In general terms, ones' spells become a bit more effective against that one particular monster type, but the feat is no help vs. Spell Resistance. Note that there seems to be a slight discrepancy between the two feat descriptions with regard to how they work.
If you have a taste for the exotic, consider making/allowing a character who uses Aberrant feats. Waterspawn (one of the later ones) is very useful in a seagoing/sort-of-aquatic campaign. Just imagine a PC whose bloodline descends from the Far Realm fighting the horrors of the Abyss!