Soooo if your one of my players in Portland. Stay out!
Alright. Well the basic premise of this idea evolved from: Ninjas are awesome.
From there it turned into a game where everyone was ninjas. I thought that would be to restrictive so now its a gestalt game where everyone has to have one half be Ninja, Samurai, or Monk.
On top of that I LOVE the idea of Kingmaker, but I am going to have it be a usurped heir to being an emperor and I think I will randomly determine who is said heir through a dice roll.
AND one of my players has suggested low magic for a grittier feel to surviving in this world, ALSO makes more sense why no one just magically ensured that any heirs were taken out when they usurped the throne.
So my list of questions consists of these:
1. I have players who want to be casters, Would a world work as very low magic if only magical items were EXTREMELY rare and casters were very rare. But PC's were unrestricted in their choice of spell casting class?
2. If multiple players chose to be spell casting classes would they be extremely overpowered since there were not a large number of casters to fight back?
3. If you have any experience running a campaign where one person is the heir to the throne. Were there any pitfalls that I should be aware of?
4. Considering they are gestalt, but will have few to no magic items in their posessions. How will this effect the CR of monsters?
Thank you all for your time! Any general suggestions/comments about this potential game are more than welcome!
1. I have players who want to be casters, Would a world work as very low magic if only magical items were EXTREMELY rare and casters were very rare. But PC's were unrestricted in their choice of spell casting class?
Possibly, though you do need to think about how magic item creation feats work. One thing you could do is say that the necessary materials to make them are not readily available and thus some components must be researched and found.
2. If multiple players chose to be spell casting classes would they be extremely overpowered since there were not a large number of casters to fight back?
At low levels probably not, but as soon as they get into the mid level range they will get some strong tactical advantages against opponents that don’t have access to magic. I’m not sure if it would balance it or not but you might consider tweaking magic a little to help balance it.
For example all spells with duration could have their durations reduced to half and all spell could have their DC’s reduced by 2. Something like this would help reduce the advantage but it would still be viable and fun.
Another possibility is making spell casting slightly risky in some fashion though you’d have to work out why and the mechanics behind the change.
In either case make sure your players know how magic works before choosing their classes.
3. If you have any experience running a campaign where one person is the heir to the throne. Were there any pitfalls that I should be aware of?
I have next to no experience with this myself so I’m afraid I’m not much helps here, sorry. (moving on)
4. Considering they are gestalt, but will have few to no magic items in their possessions. How will this affect the CR of monsters?
Actually that might accidentally balance itself out, especially if magic isn’t quite at full strength. I’d start with normal CR’s and adjust the scale of things as you find necessary. You should have a little elbow room to work with especially early on when magic isn’t a dominant force.
Hope this helps.
Darnit, I was hoping your avatar would be a smurf since that word is in your name :(
Darnit, I was hoping your avatar would be a smurf since that word is in your name :(
Actually, I was wondering if that would happen too, but can you have a smurf avatar when you don't have an avatar to umm... smurf? :)
Alright. Well the basic premise of this idea evolved from: Ninjas are awesome. I thought that would be to restrictive so now its a gestalt game where everyone has to have one half be Ninja, Samurai, or Monk. One of my players has suggested low magic for a grittier feel to surviving in this world, ALSO makes more sense why no one just magically ensured that any heirs were taken out when they usurped the throne.
Thank you all for your time! Any general suggestions/comments about this potential game are more than welcome!
Currently running a low magic, low tech, low metal campaign. Had a player make a cleric, he is exceptionally powerful only because he is being played by a munchkin, and it did force me to change encounter design to maintain an effective threat level. So....
From my experience, if the party is going to have casters then the idea of low magic goes out the window. You can flavor the campaign from a roleplay perspective against casters (they are disliked, components are even more rare), but a DM cannot craft encounters against a magic using party while restricting his own access to magic. So, you can make it feel low magic, but it won't be for long.
However, it feels to me like you have in some ways cornered yourself into allowing it, so let me point a few things out. You are making the game gestalt, and players are already either their choice of cavalier, rogue, or monk. So, let's look at what classes are left and how they fit your concept:
Barbarian (good), Cleric (magic), Bard (magic), Druid (magic), Fighter (good), Paladin (some magic), Ranger (some magic), Sorceror (magic), Wizard (magic), Alchemist (magic-like), Inquisitor (magic), Magus (magic), Oracle (magic), Summoner (magic), Witch (magic), Gunslinger (high tech).
As you can tell from the list, your players only have two classes that still fit the concept easily. So, your choices are to weed out archetypes that still fit low magic, or just allow magic all together. So, frankly I think your in rough waters the way it stands, and I would like to make some suggestions.
Alternate 1 - Drop gestalt, gestalt = magic. There is no real exception to this. Also, limit players to spell-like abilities. Qigong monk comes to mind. Also, encourage (or limit) players to play archetypes without magic, the trap or skirmisher ranger, paladin of holy light, bards limited to only taking masterpieces instead of spells. Pathfinder has a large selection of magic like abilities without necessarily needing a spell list. It could be a great learning experience for you and your players.
Alternate 2 - Might I suggest an alternate form of gestalt? Instead of using two different classes, allow players to gestalt two archetypes of a single class. This would allow the players to have more options and abilities, without guaranteeing you'll be stocked full of spellcasters. You could limit classes like I mentioned above for alternate 1. For most spellcasting classes, archetypes don't affect the sell list, so if you limit the player to choosing one non-spell archetype, all the other archetypes should be easily avilable as options. Players could also choose to just use the base class instead of one of the archetypes.
So, those are my quick suggestions. How you resolve things is up to you, but I hope I could give you some good ideas. Have Fun!
Edit - Also, I have no avatar, but I can have a smurf.