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So a few friends of mine were considering doing a homebrewed Pathfinder game set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe (books, not the movie... though Sting was pretty killer in a thong).
We're really going to be hoembrewing a lot of it on the fly but I wanted to get some feedback on some classes we are including.
I whipped up a Bene Gesserit (base) & Mentat (prestige) class real quick and I'd love some feedback. I included a snippet on spice above it so you know what the heck we are talking about with some of the class mechanics.
I left the permissions to comment open on the doc so if you have any ideas or thoughts, please feel free to just comment right then and there.
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Yeah, I can make it more deadly at say stage 3. I didn't want a casual user to suddenly get struck dead by lightning if they didn't get their fix though.
Yeah, but we have people who live for hundreds of years on spice.
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Dot for the boss man
For sure.
Here are the more expanded rules I tossed together.
(Link)
Still working on things. Yes lasguns and shields are op as heck (as they are in the game). Trade off is that if you have interaction between the two game ends.
Yeah, I read that a while back.
It is REALLY sloppy in the later chapters Some sections are just copied from previous sections without edit... I think it was in the Great House Section?
It was a good jumping off point.
Don't know if I'll make a fan conversion rulebook or w/e.
Added fedaykin (prestige) and some other elements.
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Brilliant! Very good work!
I'm just a bit concerned about the water ring rule. In our world (non-desert), not wearing a still suit and not performing strenuous activities, we'd expend on average 12*3 = 36 water rings during the day and 12*2 = 24 water rings during the night, for a total of 60 water rings! We'd have to drink 30 liters of water daily!
An average person (Con 10), wouldn't survive 5 hours of sleep during the night!
Even if 'non-desert' only concerns Arrakis, it seems a bit harsh. In fact, you'd probably die of water intoxication!
People have been known to die from drinking 4 liters of water in 2 hours. You wouldn't survive an attempt to refill your water rings after half a night's sleep.
Actually that touches a bit close to home, I recently had an old friend from uni die from that. :-(
I can tweak that to make it a little less punishing.
Brilliant! Very good work!
I'm just a bit concerned about the water ring rule. In our world (non-desert), not wearing a still suit and not performing strenuous activities, we'd expend on average 12*3 = 36 water rings during the day and 12*2 = 24 water rings during the night, for a total of 60 water rings! We'd have to drink 30 liters of water daily!
An average person (Con 10), wouldn't survive 5 hours of sleep during the night!Even if 'non-desert' only concerns Arrakis, it seems a bit harsh. In fact, you'd probably die of water intoxication!
People have been known to die from drinking 4 liters of water in 2 hours. You wouldn't survive an attempt to refill your water rings after half a night's sleep.
Adjusted it and added a section on worms.
Decided that they shouldn't be encounters but treated more as "forces of nature".
Actually that touches a bit close to home, I recently had an old friend from uni die from that. :-(
I can tweak that to make it a little less punishing.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I like how you ruled spice but I'm a bit concerned about the prices. 100 gp a day is rather prohibitive, it makes Fremen, Bene Gesserit and Mentats impossible to play if you use anything close to standard WBL. This is especially true at low levels. Off world, it's even worse with 10.000 gp per dose!
Consider the price of playing or employing a Mentat or Bene Gesserit, each one would cost a yearly 3,65 million gp off-world or 36.500 on Arrakis (even at level 1)!
I'd either lower those prices by a huge amount or give Fremen (and other people living on Arrakis), Bene Gesserit and Mentats a way to get their daily dose for free. For Fremen and other people on Arrakis it could be just their regular diet and Bene Gesserit might receive spice from the greater organization. Mentats are probably completely restricted to the Houses and other large organizations due to the price of training and dosing them, so they could receive a daily spice allowance from their benefactors.
It's a bit harsh that those with a stage 3 addiction would die within a day or so of being denied their resources (like on an expedition, after being robbed or after being captured).
[Edit]: with the basic costs of survival in water rings and spice, you'd have to give players huge amounts of money to just survive.
Additionally, players who're less dependent on a certain resource, like the non-addicted, are either gonna be immensely annoyed that 99% of the party cash is going into the Fremen/Bene Gesserit/Mentat/other addict, or are gonna have incredibly overpowered gear if you award wealth per person.
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Great work on the houses by the way! Is the House Fenring ability completely restricted to prevent the House Atreides ability? It should probably apply to all prescience. A house wouldn't breed an ability specifically to counter another house's ability, especially if the opposing house's ability is unknown to themselves (which raises the question how house Fenring would know about it).
In the shields section, you mention that melee and ranged attacks that aren't made "slow" are completely negated. How do you visualize a ranged attack that has been made "slow"?
Do you use the Pathfinder firearm rules for ranged weapons? Is their damage modified by an ability score? Otherwise the ranged weapons are kinda useless.
Are you planning to feature magic items? In a lot of cases these could be represented by technological gear. You could style +1/+2 etc... weapons as a form of mastercrafted (or Ix-crafted) weapons.
Generally, I'd worry less about being faithful to the books and more about the playability of your rules.
Please don't think I'm just being negative, I love the work you're doing and I'm definitely keeping an eye on this thread. I really, really, really wanna play a Dune universe campaign now :)
And I'm definitely gonna rewatch the Sci-Fi channel miniseries this weekend :P
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Balancing a Dune-based system would be interesting if you had certain classes whose power came entirely from expensive class features (need spice/drugs to empower themselves constantly), and other classes whose power came entirely from expensive equipment (personal shields, lasers, etc.).
Interesting thought.
I'm sort of lost on thread, as I haven't read the books or seen the movie in awhile. I do remember spellcasting classes and a world that was desert-like back in the 90's. I forget what it was called, but magic users would syphon off the life force of the plants to cast their spells. Those who kilt the wildlife were called defilers i think. It ended up with a world that was much like a desert from overuse. I thought the general world description or mechanics might be helpful in your endevor if you can find them. (Plus maybe someone else can shed some more light on the world/mechanics i'm describing).
@The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad
Yeah, the money thing is going to be a bit wonky. One of the big draws of being part of a great house or being a retainer is that they will basically pay for your spice and give you a certain dosage per day/week/month.
A mentat or reverend mother is going to be expensive to maintain without a doubt. Is it worth it for a Duke to pay almost a 4 million gold per year to retain one? Quite possibly. With the ban on computers, Mentats are the difference between a good tactician or an undefeatable one, the difference between survival and assassination, etc. Same with a reverend mother. When I write her up she is going to be able to discern truth/lie at will, but with a stage 3 addict... wow. 8 mill gp (solari) for 2 retainers? Good thing CHOAM is paying the great houses so much!
I reduced the on planet price of spice to 20 gp per dose and the off planet price to 5,000 gp per dose.
I have to write a section on retainers and services. Like what does it mean to be in the service of a Great House? What does that mean in terms of financial support, spice allocation, and services required of that character? That is a real big part of the books and I think it will be a big part of this game. If a reverend mother is spiceless and demanding the party give up the loot they got for raiding that smuggler nest so she can have a month's worth of spice- where does that leave the party dynamics? I'd say it would be more likely that BG would have to supply it for their members. Then again, that would have to be included in any service fees the Sisterhood charged. Fremen (in their race entry) basically get a dose a day for free if partake in typical fremen life.
If you wanna join, we are starting up a Dune play-by-post using these rules.
@The Morphling
Indeed. Characters like mentats, bene gesserit, and fedaykin require more spice then say a fighter.
It actually states that neither House Fenring or Atreides know of their gifts. I am writing this rulebook from the perspective of it being a few years prior to the events of Dune. Fenring's ability doesn't replace anything because it's effectively only really in a miniscule number of situations. If this was taking place during the God Emperor's time, that would be a MASSIVE thing.
Right now the unknown Atreides ability is the only real form of prescience they will come into contact with (Even Guild Navigators wouldn't looking at a specific person in particular).
The ranged attack thing is is meant to indicate that the only thing that penetrates a shield is an attack made slow.
Yeah, Pathfinder version. Ranged weapons are pretty useless in this setting. Lasguns have a chance to just outright kill you though... so that's a thing. Most of the time we see them used to deliver poisons in this setting.
I am not planning on listing many examples of technology, only what is needed to play in the setting. The first line of the system changes reads: "Magic doesn’t exist. Some technology mimics the effect of magic items. Weapon enhancements able to be taken, but represent various forms of technology."
I'm sort of lost on thread, as I haven't read the books or seen the movie in awhile. I do remember spellcasting classes and a world that was desert-like back in the 90's. I forget what it was called, but magic users would syphon off the life force of the plants to cast their spells. Those who kilt the wildlife were called defilers i think. It ended up with a world that was much like a desert from overuse. I thought the general world description or mechanics might be helpful in your endevor if you can find them. (Plus maybe someone else can shed some more light on the world/mechanics i'm describing).
Wrong book/setting. You are thinking of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting.
We are talking about the book series by Frank Herbert (and to a lesser extent the books by his son & his son's co-author).| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am not planning on listing many examples of technology, only what is needed to play in the setting. The first line of the system changes reads: "Magic doesn’t exist. Some technology mimics the effect of magic items. Weapon enhancements able to be taken, but represent various forms of technology."
Crap, sorry missed that. Dealing with some sleep deprivation.
No problem. I added rules for being a retainer. I see a lot of people taking advantage of this for their spice.
Thoughts?
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Well done!
My compliments to your writing style btw!
Maybe an idea to add a pre-Duncan Idaho Ghola template that can be used to resurrect characters?
Quick idea: the Ghola template can be applied to any dead character whose cells have been harvested after death. For a (high) fee, the Tleilaxu can clone the character, train and imprint him or her to resemble the original as much as possible. Apply this template and one negative level (representing the loss of memories).
Ability scores +2 Int and -2 Wis: the Tleilaxu have engineered Gholas to be quick learners to make them more easily trainable. Unfortunately, Gholas also have no true memories or experiences (only imprinted ones) and their will is rather malleable due to the mental programming.
Skill bonuses: Gholas receive a +20 bonus to Disguise checks to impersonate the original character.
Skill penalties: Gholas receive a -2 penalty to all social skills involving people who knew the original and are aware of the Ghola's true nature. This penalty is increased to -4 if these people are particularly suspicious of the Tleilaxu.
Mental programming: some Gholas have secretly been imprinted with hidden programming by the Tleilaxu (possibly at the behest of their clients). This programming varies in nature but usually comes down to a certain set of preset commands that become active in response to a specific trigger. If triggered, the Ghola becomes subject to an effect that emulates Dominate Person, in which the Ghola will take any actions necessary to fulfill his goal. This is unknown to the Ghola.
What are the stats for Paul Atreides? ;)
Or the Cheezits Notasnack (not poking fun; this is simpler to spell)
@The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad
Fantastic! I'll clean it up and add it to the document.
(I do write for a few 3rd parties and I run LRGG so I hope I'm at least passable.)
@Kryzbyn
That's a tough one. I'd actually just have him go full bene gesserit with a few levels in mentat? Maybe 8th to 10th level or so? Maybe shift his race over to fremen at some point?
There are a thousand ways to do it. He's more a product of his circumstances, lineage, and grooming then anything so that almost makes me want to say that he is just a low level fighter or ranger who has a lot of love from the GM ;-)
The Kwisatz Haderach?
Lord I don't even want to TRY to stat that up or make rules for that.
Perceiving the shifting nature of all that was and potentially will be?
A class that gains X Wisdom where X is infinity?
A class that can make Sense Motive and Perception checks on the future?
Paul's issue of being locked in the path that he made for himself could also come into play.
Not sure if you also want other kinds of input but anyway:
Ixians/House Richese (both use the same statistics)
Ixian
The Ixians were a society that specialized in the production of complex machinery that often flouted the proscriptions of the Butlerian Jihad which led to a taboo on the constructions of machines that bore the exact human mind's image. Its name was derived from the fact that their home planet that was the ninth planet of the Alkalurops system. Their society was a technocratic confederacy that was a separate entity from the Great Houses of the Landsraad. Their culture originated or was influenced by some oriental culture, probably Chinese. Their symbol was a metallic disc overlaid with a horizontally and vertically symmetrical circuit board-like pattern.
House Richese
House Richese was a Great House during the time of the Faufreluches. They were onetime allies of House Atreides. House Richese was known throughout the Imperium for the manufacture of machines. A rivalry existed between House Richese and the Ixians for the honour of being a major supplier of technology to the Imperium. The symbol of House Richese is the Lamp of Knowledge. It is based on the world of Richese and is headed by a Count. In the original Dune novel, House Richese is mentioned in passing as a technological house, similar to Ix.
• +2 Int: Ixians and members of House Richese are highly intelligent. They are analytic and critical thinkers with a knack for science, technology and artifice. Although their natural talents rarely extend beyond those used in laboratories and workshops, they are quite capable of expanding their skillset. This replaces the typical human ability score racial trait.
• Technologically Talented: Ixians and members of House Richese receive Skill Focus: Use Magic (Technological) Device device as a bonus feat at level 1. This replaces the typical human bonus feat racial trait.
• Artificers: Ixians and members of House Richese always treat the Appraise, Craft and Use Magic (Technological) Device as class skills.
• Physical Characteristics: ...? (Ixians probably have Asian heritage and both would probably be pale from spending a lot of time inside)
• Alignment: Ixians tend towards neutral alignments while members of House Richese do not lean any particular way.
See I am debating on including prequel material. (I actually just started the House trilogy after finishing all the Herbert books.) I kind of wanted to set this campaign in the time of the book "Dune" rather than farther back or forward (though Fishspeakers would be fun to do).
Richese is only mentioned vaguely in the original Dune. We don't meet any Richese characters until Helena in the House Trilogy. I would actually stat them diffrently.
Also, Herbert describes Ix as a "confederacy" but Anderson assigns it a Great House (Vernius) and implies later that it converted to a confederacy after Vernius loses clout.
Are we going to include Houses like Ginaz and Moritani? I don't wanna do anything non-canon like Ordos.
On a note of Ix, the Bene Tleilax, and the Guild, I was actually going to keep them as NPCs. They are the backdrop making the universe run (at least in the original book). As cool as it would be to write up a "Guild Navigator" class, I think it would be rather boring to play. (I move a highliner here. I move it there.)
Fair enough, these are just suggestions since I simply enjoy brainstorming. Throw them away if you don't like them, I just like thinking about it :)
On the prequels: I'm close to being a Dune purist. From what I've heard about the Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson novels I suspect that almost everything I loved about Frank Herbert (the depth of the philosophical, mystical and cultural themes) was not conserved by them. I read one unrelated book by Kevin J. Anderson and that was enough to convince me that the prequels were not worth it (to me he feels like the McDonalds of writing).
Anyway, here's my concept of the Spacing Guild. Apparently Guild Navigators are an incredibly small minority of the Guild. Which makes sense, as a highliner has only one navigator and enough crew to man a ship that could transport the entire Atreides household in one trip. The organization structure was apparently detailed quite thoroughly in the 1984's Dune Encyclopedia (sanctioned by Frank Herbert as the 'official' reference text, although he later contradicted some of the stuff in it and the BH/KJA duo declared them non-canon). According to the Dune Encyclopedia, the Guild seems to include several branches, including bureaucracy, operations and security. The following stats could refer to non-Navigator Guildsmen, such as covert operatives, negotiators, scholars, crewhands etc...
Spacing Guild
The Spacing Guild, also known as the Guild of Navigators, or more simply the Guild, was an organization which held exclusive rights to faster than light space travel. The Guild monopoly on space travel and transport and upon interstellar banking is taken as the beginning point of the Imperial Calendar. The Spacing Guild is split up into several different branches, of which shipping was but one. While the (in)famous Guild Navigators have been mutated beyond recognition by continuous exposure to the spice mélange, most Spacing Guildsmen remain recognizably human. Nevertheless, millennia of inhabiting space vessels have resulted in physical changes.
• +2 Dex, -2 Con, +2 Wis: Members of the Spacing Guild have become physically frail due to the varying but generally low gravity in space vessels. On the other hand, they are quite dexterous and possess good reflexes. They also have formidable willpower, awareness and almost supernatural intuition.
• Limited Prescience: Once per day a Guidsman can re-roll a dice roll and take the better result. This replaces the typical bonus skill point of a human.
• Spice-Fueled Foresight: Not all members of the Spacing Guild have access to the spice mélange. This valuable substance is generally restricted to those in training to become Guild Navigators or those who fulfill specific functions (examples include planners, directors and spymasters), although there are exceptions. This is an optional racial trait. Characters that possess this trait begin play with stage 3 spice addiction but gain 3 higher spice tolerance than typical humans. Additionally, they gain Improved Initiative as a bonus feat as long as they have at least 1 spice point.
• Natural Pilots: Guildsmen always treat the Fly and Perception skills as class skills
• Physical Characteristics: Spacing Guildsmen are universally pale, thin and tall. They often have a vaguely unhealthy pallor and seem rather fragile.
• Alignment: Members of the Spacing Guild tend towards the neutral and lawful alignments. They are highly conservative, fearful of change and are almost always completely neutral in all political matters, as long as the spice keeps flowing.
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Well, to be honest I'm trying really hard to hate Anderson's work... but I don't. Like it's not Frank, but it's not terrible. If his works were to exist outside the original books they would probably not be AS big of a hit, but they are not outright terrible.
I recall there being no guild "military" in any capacity (as the Corrino Sardaukar take that role) and I was under the impression that they were paid by the guild, not really members. But yeah, navigators are only like 1 per ship. Then again, we only really meet Edric.
I think we can enter those into the book. I can't see why not. More material is more material. I'll add some notes on how/why you'd play one and what sort of restrictions they might have to deal with. Also, they could be useful for NPCs.
Well, to be honest I'm trying really hard to hate Anderson's work... but I don't. Like it's not Frank, but it's not terrible. If his works were to exist outside the original books they would probably not be AS big of a hit, but they are not outright terrible.
This is actually the first thing ever that makes me reconsider reading their works.
I read the first one-and-a-half books of Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns. There were some interesting and original ideas in there but they were so..... cheaply done (four uber-races that somehow exactly and inexplicably correspond to the mythological elements??).
Heh... something I remember vividly was my facepalm when some archeologist had a groundbreaking realization (she deduced that an extinct alien race could fly based on the fact that they built towers with 'windows' on each level that were wider than the ground entrance). This was supposed to be a revolutionary and brilliant insight.
Of course this was the first thing that popped into my head as rather obvious when Anderson described the structure, 10 pages previously...
The whole book just felt like junk food. Vaguely enjoyable and easily 'chewable' but derivative, unappetizing and rather artificial.
I might pick up one of the prequels at your recommendation, they might be better.
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Love what you're doing here. I was thinking, and I may be way off in left field here. Have you thought of having a dose of spice last 1 day, granting the user X spice points to perform various things, similar to how a Ki pool or Arcane pool functions? You could then lower dose costs, the number of doses that qualify for your 3 stages of addition, and you would still have those requiring doses need to have it to gain the benefits of the spice. This reduces it to a daily "fix" approach, which would be easy for certain races or classes/PrCs (ei Fremen or the Bene Gesserit).
Then you could include in the racial traits/class features/houses the number of doses granted to them. Then any does in excess of those must be purchased.
Obviously, spice has to innundate almost every aspect of the setting, with varying degrees of easyor difficulty of access, whether by race, class, PrC, house, location, etc. This is just from a cusory lookover, so if this is totally out in left field, just ignore my suggestion.
You can really see him straining to keep to Frank's style and tone sometimes. He had a lot of help though. He had notes, the previous books, and his son Brian to help him out. A lot of it is simply Anderson expanding on things Frank already talked about or implied.
Like I said, they are not like the original. However, with Frank there was this gradual swing away from action and to political machinations. Like Heretics was DRY and God Emperor was pretty much a textbook on philosophy and socioeconomics. I did enjoy them, but for a different reason then I enjoyed the original book.
Anderson kind of swings it back towards action. I listen to them as audio books (great cast btw) and I'm about 6 hours into the first Anderson book and I'm not hating it.
Also... wow. This started out as like a... 5 page doc and now it's like 31? I just tossed in the Richese and Spacing Guild (nixed Ix). I'll probably add Vernius at some point. I want to do a Sardukar and Revrend Mother prestige classes too. I'll mull them over for a while before working on them.
Hahahaha... I know the feeling of seeing a cool idea get completely out of hand. It's so easy to just spend hours expanding on this one simple idea that popped into your head.
Cool that you put Richese and Guildsmen in :)
Concerning the Sardaukar: their heritage, harsh environment and intense training from young age are a big part of their combat abilities, just like the Fremen. They'd probably be a separate ethnicity with enhanced physical characteristics and willpower. The prestige class could be restricted to their 'race'.
[Edit]: in the original Dune book and the Sci-Fi mini series, smugglers are mentioned. I'm not sure how they operate, since they're dependent on the Guild for interstellar travel (maybe they smuggle spice and contraband with shuttles from the planet to orbiting merchant craft, which dock with Guild highliners for interstellar travel). Anyway, they and other cultures/ethnicities that spend the majority of their time offworld could also use the Guildsman 'race' (although they couldn't take the Guild Spice trait).
This interpretation is not canon of course, it's just that in the long and rather static history of the Duniverse prior to Paul Atreides a lot of organizations and such seem to have become rather entrenched and eventually separated from the rest of society. It seems logical that many professions and other groups have their own ethnicities (like Roma-esque merchants or Ancient Greek-esque philosophers).
This is pretty much the coolest.
What book/era are you planning on playing in? Because you can literaly have an Offspring of Duncan as some type of warrior class.
-MD
@The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad
Just added sardaukar in. More ment like the anti-paladin is; either for enemies or evil games. Not that I expect anyone to listen lol.
I'll be working on the Reverend Mother later.
@Muad'Dib
We are doing just before Paul's arrival on Dune. The current two options are:
Game Concept 1: You are playing retainers of House Atreides clearing out Harkonen spies and other threats before the Duke and his family arrives.
Game Concept 2: You are playing a band of fremen who are trying to survive in the desert under Harkonen rule. Your guerrilla warfare efforts are directed towards the goal of destroying Glossu Rabban and the Harkonen scum who oversee Arrakis.
Waiting on players to decide and come up with characters.
We still have a few spots if you are interested.
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Yeah I couldn't help noticing it said Dune PbP at the top of the googledoc.
Yeah, that's what it is meant to be. A guide for that. But I might change the title or something at some point.
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Another two quick ideas (after watching Dune yesterday :P)
Feat: Fast on Defense, Slow on Attack
Prerequisite: Weapon Finesse
The character has been trained in the art of shield dueling as practiced by the Swordmasters of Ginaz. As long as the character wields one or two melee weapons that qualify for the Weapon Finesse feat, he or she receives a +1 Dodge bonus to AC and only takes a -2 penalty when making 'slow' attacks against shielded foes.
House: House Ginaz
House Ginaz was a Great House of the Landsraad during the time of the Faufreluches. House Ginaz was renowned throughout the Imperium for its Swordmaster School. Anyone who graduated from the Ginaz School was awarded the title Swordmaster of the Ginaz.
• +2 Dex: Members of House Ginaz possess good reflexes and are dexterous, agile and limber. They have a natural talent for athletics and receive vigorous physical training. This replaces the typical human ability score racial trait.
• Trained in the Arts of War and Dueling: Members of House Ginaz are trained in the ways of the Swordmasters of Ginaz, which are said to be more than mere soldiers. They are capable duelists, warmasters and tutors. Members of House Ginaz gain a +2 racial bonus on Acrobatics and Knowledge (Warfare) and always treat these skills as class skills. This replaces the typical bonus skill point of a human.
• Swordmastery: Members of House Ginaz gain the Fast on Defense, Slow on Attack feat as a bonus feat at level 1, even if they do not meet the prerequisites. Additionally, they are proficient with all simple and martial dagger- and sword-like melee weapons that qualify for the Weapon Finesse feat. This replaces the typical bonus feat of a human.
• Physical Characteristics: ...?
• Alignment: ...?
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Yeah I was gonna do a slow attack feat, though I think I'm gonna toss a few more prerequisites on it.
And I actually am gonna skip on Ginza. By the time period we are writing for they have already been destroyed. The only mention of them, Duncan, is actually from Gamu (the Harkonnen homeworld).
It's conceivable that I could do a Swordmaster class, but I feel like we've already got that covered with like Duelist, Fencer (LRGG), and/or Student of War.
Edit:
It now reads,
Shield Duelist
Prerequisites: BAB +5, Weapon Finesse, Proficient in Personal Shields, Weapon Focus (any)
Benefit: The penalty for making a slow attack is only at a -2 with melee weapons. The penalty is reduced to -0 if you have Weapon Focus in the weapon you are using and that weapon is finessable.
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Was sick today so I did a PDF of it real quick.
~Dune Pathfinder Fan Campaign Setting~.
I also added prices for things like stillsuits, Guild transport, and healing by Suk Doctors.
We probably need a few more feats, but really only things that are super setting specific.
Thoughts?
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Wow! And this when you were sick! You should be this sick more often!
Amazing!!! Looks beautiful!!!
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Looks good!
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Again, brilliant work!
I love the aesthetics on the booklet!
Some things I've noticed:
1) In the original Dune there was mention of stilltents, as part of the Fremkit, which is a Fremen desert survival kit (including a paracompass, a stilltent, maker hooks, a thumper and a fremkit manual).
Might also be cool to include a ruling on how to extract water from a corpse.
2) In the weapons section, the size of the weapons (light, one-handed, two-handed), the necessary proficiency (simple, martial, exotic, firearm and maybe Fremen) and the weapon group (for fighters' weapon training) are not included. It might also be good to mention which ones are firearms and which ones are not.
Dune is also a mishmash of cultures, are you allowing Eastern weapons?
3) In Dune, the Maula pistol was used to fire poison darts. In the current rules of Pathfinder, you can only apply poison to one 'attack', even in the case of ammunition. In general, it's a bit weird that magic or other enhancements apply to 50 pieces of ammo in one go, while poison applies to only one. This also makes it rather useless to use Maula pistols for poison. Maybe an idea to have them include a poison reservoir or something similar that allows ~10 projectiles to be poisoned at once?
Also, you mentioned that you're using the firearm rules of Pathfinder. The Maula pistol seems more like a crossbow (spring-loaded darts that are reloaded like a crossbow), so the firearm rules (like ignoring armor) might not fit so well.
4) The Stunner and Kindjal are not included in the weapons list, which were used in the original Dune: the Sardaukar used them in the assault on the Atreides on Arrakis. The stunner shoots a ('slow pellet') drug- or poison-tipped dart. I'd probably rule them as either a weapon that deals massive nonlethal damage or something with an inbuilt stunning, paralyzing or sleep-inducing poison-like effect. The kindjal was a large knife with a slightly curved double-blade approximately 20cm long. It was also classed as a short sword, so you could use those rules or maybe use reskinned wakizashis, falcatas or something similar.
5) The Pulse Sword seems rather expensive for what you get. It's the same price as a +4 melee weapon! Since Dune is a human-centric setting with little magic and thus little energy resistances or damage reduction, the partial sonic damage probably won't be that useful. I can't imagine anybody choosing a Pulse Sword over a +4 Falchion or a +4 Rapier (if they wanna use Weapon Finesse). At least the Lasgun gets an almost 5% instant death effect (if you wanna confirm, it'll probably 2.5%, also not sure if that's worth the equivalent of a +2 enhancement).
6) The Gom Jabbar seems massively overpowered (crit 19-20/x4), since damage in PF mostly comes from other bonuses (Str, magic, feats) instead of the damage die. It's especially overpowered if it is a light weapon (which seems logical for needle on a thimble).
Can you imagine a Str 20 fighter with two of those things?
At level 4, a fighter would have at least the TWF and weapon spec feats and +1 weapons. They've got 10% chance of a crit, let's say at least 50% chance of confirming (probably higher with the general low amount of armor in Dune), so in at least 5% of their attacks they'll have a confirmed critical hit.
On the main hand, the damage of a confirmed critical would be 9,5 (1.5 (damage die) + 5 (Str) + 2 (weapon specialization) + 1 (magic)) x4 = 38 damage!
The Falcata is considered the best melee weapon for exactly this reason :)
I'd probably rule the Gom Jabbar as a 1d1 damage weapon that does not allow an ability modifier on damage but increases the DC of a delivered poison by a small amount but a very large amount on a critical hit or called shot (+5 to +10 on the DC).
7) A bit of a side note: poisons are awful in Pathfinder. Overpriced, long crafting times (unless you take one specific feat, even then you can only make like ~20 doses of the weakest poison per week), inconsistently ruled, no ways to make them more effective and generally completely useless for PCs (1 Dex damage over 5 rounds, whoopdeedoo), although they're nice against PCs.
This is a shame since poisons feature very heavily in the Duniverse. Everyone and their grandmother use them for everything.
It'd be cool to include a poison creation system (there are a few out there on the internet) to invent a few new ones (like Chaumurky from Dune), include feats that improve poisons (higher DC with poisons you deliver or increased damage) and maybe even revisit some of the rules of poisons.
Admittedly, this might be a lot of work.
8) Since there is no magic and the only healing comes from doctors (5 hp/hour) or Suk doctors (20 hp/hour), PCs have no way of healing in combat or in the middle of adventures. Maybe an idea to include discounts on healing potions or wands of healing (reskinned as hypodermic injectors or something)?
9) Rangers can cast spells but there is no magic in the setting. Are their spells reskinned as special skills or equipment? If so, you could easily include some spellcasting classes (not primary casters of course). Alchemists, bards, inquisitors, ninjas (especially since some abilities resemble the Weirding Way) and maybe even maguses/magi could be used after some adjustments (no summoning spells for instance).
Whew, sorry for the long post. I had some time to mill over your setting in public transport yesterday.
No, no. Keep 'em coming :-)
1) Yeah, we can add those.
2) They are indicated under the weapon’s entry. There would be some really small charts if I broke them up into their own charts.
3) That’s PF rules really. A maula pistol is listed as being a crossbow, not a firearm in its entry. They are basically just small tightly sprung crossbows. No poison reserve or w/e. That is all in the dart so we are gonna have to rely on PF rules.
4) Kindjal is totally on the list. I totally missed it’s entry though. I can add a stunner.
5) In traditional PF that would be way too expensive. However, this is a place where magic doesn’t exist. Keep in mind that “+4 weapons” doesn’t exist (unless the GM adds a specific technological equivalent). So supply and demand- something that isn’t mundane costs a LOT.
6) Yeah. I can reduce it to 1 dmg, 20 x4.
7) I agree. I am not rewriting a whole sub system for this. There are plenty of 3pp versions out there that work well.
8) Up to the GM really. I could sidebar that.
9) Ranger has the skirmisher archetype which lacks spells (and is pretty cool!). There are lots of 3pp alts that lack spells as well. Classes that have spells shouldn’t be played. The only one I could see fluffed correctly would be the alchemist. I kind of want to do a fremen ranger archetype but I dunno, skirmisher would work pretty well for them. And if I made it, I would be concerned that it would imply that it is the ONLY class a fremen could/would take. I see them as a mix of like rogues, rangers, fighters, bene gesserit (for Reverend Mothers), etc.
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Change Log:
The two new feats help the poison issues.
House Assassin reduces the time to craft from 1 week per check to 1 day per check (pre-req is master alchemist).
Chaumurky increases the DC by a LOT (+4) on ingested poisons.
No changes were made to the PDF, however in the GoogleDoc has all the changes noted in dark grey (most so I will remember to add the changes to the PDF).
Updated PDF with that stuff. I'll be re-uploading it this week.
Added reverend mother.
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Great job you are doing here. As a fellow dune fan I aloud your progress. Will continue to watch and hopefully, maybe, provide some input. Might make a few of my buds try this home brew too.
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I went through and left comments. I didn't really have a problem with any of the abilities, it's mostly formatting tips. There are a couple of things missing, such as caster level and dc for spell effects.
Only got through the adept so far.