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Okay, here it is.
This game will be played in my homebrewed world, in a region called the Wastelands.
The Wastelands
Once a mighty human kingdom of Cymbria, the Wastelands, or more commonly known as the Wastes, are now a desolate land of dead cities and aberrations. Population of Cymbria was almost completely annihilated four centuries ago, in a devastating war against the elves. Militaristic and rich human kingdom sought to expand its territory to the west, thinking that the elves were decimated during the Long War and no more a power to be reckoned with. High Queen of the Elven Court was forced to unleash terrible magic that destroyed the human kingdom and proved to every other human nation on the continent that the wrath of the elves can be swift when provoked.
Wastes are bordered with Kingdom of Aliatar to the north, Kingdom of Karn to the east, Many-Colored Land to the south and Great Elven Forest to the west. This region is approximately the size of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico of our world combined.
What was once a rich and prospering kingdom, with huge advances in arcane arts, alchemy and iountech for the last four centuries is nothing more than a collection of sad remnants of once mighty cities, excavation sites of those who hunt the buried treasure of the ancient magocracy and patchwork tribes of mutated goblinoids, ferrans, trapped demons or even worse things.
Obviously, this region is huge and I can not go into great detail about, since there is really no other option than to write a gazetteer about if I want to present it in any useful way. This is why you will not be able to play the characters who are from the Wastes. You will explore them and in time Waste-specific options will become available to your characters (such as taints, mutations, symbiots and iountech items), but your characters must hail from beyond the Wastes.
The game will start in the shadows of Solitude - a huge castle maintained by the Last Watch, a special part of Aliatar army that watches over the Waste-border and stands as the first line of defense against the mutant and goblinoid hordes that surge from the Wastes once or twice per century.
Anyway, ask what you need for your character background and I'll provide the necessary info on case-by-case basis.
So, character creation rules:
1) Use this array for your abilities:
18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12
1a) Charisma is not a dump stat. You will frequently find yourself in situations when you can get killed if your personality is offensive or if you lack in social skills. Also, Charisma determines your starting Fate Points, which are something like Hero/Action points, only cumulative. They are explained in my house rules.
2) Races and Classes
You can use only races and classes provided in my house rules. The link is provided below, as well as in my profile. Classes are modular and with four base classes presented in the rules you may create most fantasy concepts easily. Also, some classes are rolled into one. For instance, some aspects of the Monk and Assassin classes are rolled into Rogue.
Here is the document:
3) Limited Gestalt
You gain a bonus feat at each character level, in addition to your other feats, bonus or otherwise.
4) Feats presented in my document supplant the feats of the same name from standard PF rules. Some feats are scalable, such as Two Weapon Fighting.
5) You get maximum gold for your class and 10 bonus hit points when you start.
6) Magic works differently. If you want to play a spellcaster, take a look at Channeler class.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them.
How would Alchemists be affected Sir? Being that they dont really cast and can give away their spells. (Infusions)
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@Tin Foil
Sorry, but there are no sorcerers. Channeler is the only spellcasting class, but it is quite modular.
Edit: Yes, those are basic stats before racial modifiers. I'd like at least five posts per week.
@Darius
Depends what you want to achieve. If you're looking at bombs, you can play Rogue and take Bombs talent, which allows you to make bombs like PF alchemist. If you want alchemist discoveries, you play Channeler and take Discoveries talents.
Hey firstly can I just say that the setting sounds fascinating.
Having read through the the document I I am paticularly interested in the Shadarim, Though I am little consfused maybe I have missed something but it mentions in their entry the blandedancer yet I can't find it under classes. I must admit I have had a long day so may just be tiredness making me miss the obvious
Consider my interest officaly piqued.
If it wouldn't be too much of a pain I'd appreciate it.
My current thinking is (if possible) a Shadarim bladedancer.
Anything like monks in your world?
I have arrived. Will begin building character later today.
I probably go with a Shadarim assassin type rogue or maybe natural channeler, or perhaps later a combination of these two classes.
Is the this setting different to the Midnight setting? If so what setting items should we ignored? I do see some items are very Midnight specific, with named entities.
Missing section in Shadarim listing, "Playing a Shadarium"
The Wolfbrother idea sounds interesting to me. Perhaps I am missing something, but i saw mention of it early on in the form of a trait that is required for other "wolfbrother" things, but i saw no other wolfbrother things.
I was thinking of a wolfbrother as something along the lines of a "combat assassin", eying opponents while fighting them to find weakness and striking, perhaps also playing up on pack mentality by having some kind of teamwork setup, or at least being very good at flanking.
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To answer your questions:
This is not Midnight campaign setting. This is my own world that I developed over twenty years. The document you downloaded is a set of my house rules that I use over Pathfinder chassis. Those of you who played in my Midnight games are familiar with these rules, but not with the setting. In time, you will discover various aspects of the game world. For now, there are no orcs, halflings, gnomes or any other standard race other than those mentioned in the rules. There are other races, of course, such as tieflings and asimar, but I will introduce them later.
For now, only races available for play are those in the document. You'll see that some races are a combination of two or more races from other settings. For instance, Eldarim are high elves, Eladrin from 4E and Elorgs from my take on Midnight. Shadarim are drow, shadar kai and snow elves from Midnight.
Now, we will not use heroic paths, since that is Midnight-specific set of rules, in a way similar to mythic rules for Pathfinder. Covenant items from Midnight will probably be used in some way, but I'll call them legendary items.
There are monks in the world, but they are more like western monks. Since there is no god that takes active role in the world, true clerics and other divine casters are extremely rare. So, most priests and monks are commoners, experts or sometimes Rogues with specific talents.
If you take the Rogue class, you can create and excellent martial arts combatant, only without the mystical aspect of the Monk class.
Concerning Wolfbrother,
Since you'll begin play at 1st levele, I did not include everything that will become available at higher levels, such as feat trees that build on Wolfbrother trait or Treesinger trait. They will be included in a rules expansion that I'll make available to you before you reach 3rd level. For now, let's just say that feats build on traits, so that Wolfbrother can learn to command and summon wolves, etc. Remember that you'll get 1 bonus feat each level, in addition to all the feats you'll get anyway.
Edit: Bladedancer
I would prefer not to have more than one character of the same sub-race. Right now there are 3 races of elves, 2 races of dwarves, 3 races of humans and 2 undead or semi-undead races.
Since these rules are new to you, feel free to present your concept and I'll try to suggest appropriate race/class combo for you.
Soudns cool! Color me interested. I also cant read the file here at work so I'll check it out this afternoon.
Character I interested, is an acrobatic assassin that sneaks about, get in, do a kill, then retreats. Assassinations attempts can be close up or at distance using silent ranged weapons. Acrobatic would focus on abilities of getting around and evading.
Looking at the Shadarim, they look like the most fitting, though not sure is the Morgals could work well too.
Reading more on Morgrals, they seem interesting race. Think I would like to have a morgral acrobatic assassin (rogue), of elven heritage. See interesting traits and feats to take for morgral, besides the nice collection of rogue talents to build acrobat assassin.
What you elven subrace for mother would you recommended? Also recommended starting location for morgral elf, to help me start the background creation. Would definitely need a subrace that would be a little tolerate to these strange birth individuals. Another fun background to create over the next couple days.
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Well, Morgral Ability Score modifiers are: +4 Charisma, -2 Constitution, -2 Wisdom. Take a note of that when creating your character. I would say that Silvarim-based Morgral is the best choice. Great Elven Forest borders both Aliatar and the Wastes, so your character could've been born on both sides of the border. Perhaps his mother was a scout who explored the Wastes, where she got tainted by some necromantic conflux and gave birth to your character. If that is the case, I think that she would give birth, since all elves value the sanctity of life, but she would give up the baby and give it to the Last Watch in Solitude to raise him or her as a war orphan.
Thanx for the valuable information for basis of character's background. The creation cogs are spinning already...
Did note the ability score modifiers, think I can work with them. Though Dex most likely get the 18 score.
Now where are those necks....
When you would like to see background and stats?
For 1st level HP, do we take max value of the die used for HP when levelling, add the base and 10, plus Con modifier for total?
Start off with 2 traits, 2 feats (PF and gesalted)?
Base and bonus languages for Morgrals, or languages of home territory (Solitude in my character's case).
Persuasion skill replaces Bluff and Intimidate skills?
Ok so wolfbrother summons wolves later? Anything else?
I suppose if im interested in wolfbrother then I should take the mantle of wildlander. Someone else already wants the assassin angle, and im sure a ranger could provide flanking support.
Can a wildlander get some kind of feral abilities? Im envisioning a character that is somewhat feral but in a cunning way. Able to communicate, but sees the world similarly to a wolf. Feral like a barbarian, but cunning instead of rage. Like a ranger that has "gone native".
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Have you read through Borderlanders section? There are some ideas there that you may find interesting.
Wolfbrother can take feats to get Scent ability, Speak with Animals (Wolves) as spell-like ability and improved night vision.
There are a number of feats that allow you to use mental abilities instead of Dexterity to determine your AC, for instance, and I plan to include some Channeler talents that allow transformation into animals. Also, I have a Lycan class that has only 5 levels and allows you to build a were-something character.
It seems to me that your concept is something like Wolverine from X-Men, combined with fantasy ranger. That can work with Wildlander in several ways. For instance, I can allow you to burn your 1st level talent to gain ability to rage as PF Barbarian and with further talents you can modify that rage in a way you want it to develop.
close, but my inspiration was more from the Followers of Romulus
You're probably right.
I suppose Varyag makes the most sense for a borderlander wildlander.
can wildlanders become lycans? or would i have to multiclass?
Ah. is it like a prestige class? That is the impression that i am getting.
Hey this is Gortech from the other wastelands game checking in :)
60 pages of homebrew! Oh, sweet I got some reading to do...
Looking forward to this!!!
Edit: you have only had the thing up for 12 hours or so, give it a bit of time! I think you will get your 6 players :)
No, it's a base class. But it has only 5 levels. You can start the game playing a lycan, if you want. I'll post the class tomorrow.
oh ok, cool. I'd like to take a look at it. I just wanted to make sure I didnt have to be some kind of spellcaster to be one, I dont really see anything other than minor magic being a part of this character. More along the lines of the magical things that are (Ex) in your homebrew, those seem more fitting and make more sense.
lycan looks great.
one note: savagery states you get it at 6th level, and the levels only go to 5.
also, as far as party makeup goes, would the lycan fulfill your desire for there to be a wildlander in the group? i am planning on taking wildlander after lycan.
EDIT: yeah, really cool stuff. i can see the lycan as just a really scary beast-man, basically exactly what i was looking for. strong but also smart. and with wildlander levels afterward to round out the "smart" part with some nice skills.
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Thanks, I've changed it to 5th level. You can start with the Lycan. I'd still prefer for someone to play the Wildlander, but that is in no way a game-breaker.
@All
Languages:
There are 2 forms of Elvish, High and Low.
There is only one Dwarvish tongue, but it is not spoken on the surface/amongst non-dwarves, All dwarves learn to speak Low Imperial as their 2nd language, as well as the languages of their human neighbors.
Humans: High Imperial (roots in Latin), Low Imperial (basically - common tongue, English), Laosian (similar to Japanese), Varyag (proto-Slavic/proto-Germanic mix), Carcosan (basis in Aramaic)
Humans in this world are descendants of slaves from ancient times, taken from Earth by the Ancient Masters.
do you have a sort of primer as far as the place we come from? i saw that you said you werent going to compile the info for the area we were going to be going into, but maybe some more info about racial/other heritage could be good to give us a better idea of what our characters would be like. sorta like the "a day in the life" or "______ in (world name)" entries in most of the books.
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For the Borderlanders there is a great deal of info in their racial description. I will provide some information about Aliatar (the country that borders the Wastes and where you'll begin the game) and Solitude (a large castle, central to Aliatar's defense against Waster hordes, goblinoid raids and abominations coming from the Deep Waste), but not before tomorrow.
It would help if you have specific questions that I may answer, rather than general ones.
Take a break, please. :)
I always eager for your excellent adventures. I try to slow down. Though I continue, as picking feats is always a long process for me, especially when their numbers grow all the time.
@Tenro, nice find. Lync class going with Wildlander will definitely make interesting character. Could at first level in Wildlander next to get the character developing in interesting ways.
With Versys White Dove interested in making the Shadarim Bladedancer which is highly melee combatant, I will make my assassin more ranged base with melee backup. The Assassin talents are almost exactly what I had in mind when I decided to go with an assassin character.
No rush, I'll be happy to read what you write when you write it.
If you are looking for questions as to what might interest me and aid in making a background (for inclusion into your writing tomorrow, i'm not asking for an answer this instant or anything):
- What kind of government do they have?
- What sort of other organizations do they have? (merchant, religious, etc.)
- What sort of military? (elite defense force, irregular militia, mandatory male conscription, etc.)
- What sort of goods to they import/export?
- what sort of goods are commonly available? what goods might be rare?
- do they trade with other nations/races?
- general education level?
- is there a caste system or any other interesting social system?
- Maybe some info explaining why we are going into this terrible place. not really asking for plot here, but is it common for groups to head into the Wastes? What sort of people get sent there? Criminals? Elite scouting forces? do merchants ever go through there?
For the Borderlanders there is a great deal of info in their racial description. I will provide some information about Aliatar (the country that borders the Wastes and where you'll begin the game) and Solitude (a large castle, central to Aliatar's defense against Waster hordes, goblinoid raids and abominations coming from the Deep Waste), but not before tomorrow.
It would help if you have specific questions that I may answer, rather than general ones.
This will be great, it will help me deciding on taking racial trait as a background feature, as she would have grown up in Solitude instead of the darker Great Elven forest and jungle.
Thanx for the languages too. Considering she was rejected by elven parents at birth, she would take up the human culture, even though elven, and always have a fascination of learning about her race.