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The Occult Adventures playtest has me revisiting Carrion Crown in me head, and considering running it as a Victorian era horror adventure, rolling across most of Europe. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions.
The basic idea would be that the heroes are either agents of the young queen, appointed to investigate and resolve superstition and unseen dangers from her kingdom, or else locals hired in the small English town of Harrowstone.
From there, they'd be hunting a terrible monster in rural France and tackling its creator in Switzerland.
By book three, they're hunting werewolves in Germany.
Book four becomes Cthulhu cults in Venice.
After that, the trail leads them to either Greece or Cairo, to stop a war between vampires and witches.
And finally the adventure ends in Jerusalem, stopping a new age of darkness from spreading out from the Holy Land and consuming three continents.
Races would be limited to human, though I'm considering allowing Half-elves to represent high-born and educated nobles, and half-orcs to reflect hard-living, low-born commonfolk.
Magic--both arcane and divine--is generally the prospect of old, superstitious entities or people who've struck dark deals with inhuman powers, so classes would be limited to Alchemists, Brawlers, Fighters, Gunslingers, Investigators, Rangers, Rogues, Slayers, Swashbucklers, and anything from Occult Adventures
The rules wouldn't need too much tweaking, besides limiting races and classes. I would use the "Commonplace Guns" rules, and probably treat natural AC (at least for supernatural creatures) as part of the touch AC for firearms attacks. Also considering adding a dodge bonus to AC for each class based on their BAB, since armor will probably be uncommon (what with it being ineffective against guns).
Any other thoughts or suggestions?
Interesting! I'm too invested in the Ustalav setting to help much, I fear, but I'd love to hear how it goes.
One big advantage would be that you could give certain NPCs more emotional heft for the players simply by making them historical figures. I'm thinking primarily of Count Galdana and Adivion Adrissant here, but Luvick Siervage and Auren Vrood would be good choices too.
I would set book five in Prague, or if that's not familiar enough for you, London.
Good luck.
Did you ever play d20 modern? They had the same problem (firearms versus unarmoured characters). I think they had a class bonus to AC based on level, which sounds similar to your BAB proposal. Anyone remember how that worked?
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Well, I do have D20 Modern :)
The Defense bonuses always seemed a bit haphazard to me. Not badly done, they just didn't seem to reflect a character's BAB or likelihood to be engaged in combat. The Fast hero has the highest bonus, which makes sense, but the Strong hero and Tough hero (the primary front-liners) had average bonuses.
Maybe grant each class a dodge bonus to AC equal to their class bonus to Reflex saves, and bonus hit points equal to twice their class bonus to Fortitude saves? That shouldn't be game-breakingly high, and helps balance out the lack of armor. Maybe grant magic or blessed items that grant armor special abilities while worn instead of magic armor.
I think the big problem might be finding the big bad.
Not sure there is an historical analogue.
I read a book ages ago about a sinister group trying to bring back King Arthur, just like prophecy said would happen. It turned out that it wasn't the great idea they hoped it would be. I like Constantine, too. Would their symbol be Chi-Rho, or do you want to minimize the real-world-religion aspect?
I hope you'll have a campaign log. This sounds like a really fun game!
This shouldn't need modern d20, the rules for the firearms of the Victorian period, as they are available in "Rasputin Must Die".
Sorry for the miscommunication. I was just bringing up d20 Modern as a model for extra armour class bonuses that can help against firearms. (To no one's shock, Crystal was already way ahead of me.)