Greetings. I was inspired today to come up with a concept for a campaign that will hopefully intrigue my players and capture their attention.
Disclaimer: I took a little inspiration from The Avatar movie (the blue space monkey one, haha)
Group of 3-5 players start at 13th level. They can use pre-existing characters if they want. They are summoned by the king/country leader to assist with a growing threat with an unknown enemy, but they do know the Aboleths are behind some of it. Deep in their hidden lairs, hidden from the touch of most deity supplied divine magic, they are summoning something really nasty. Something with enough power to cause another shattering, and possibly free Rovagug.
The plan is to use some newly developed technology from Numeria to send the player's consciousness into newly cloned bodies suited for an aquatic environment. The distance is too far to travel in time, the environments deadly, enemy presence too well fortified, and teleportation magic has been rendered useless going in. The plan is to sabotage the defenses enough to allow their combine troops to flood the place, which is deep in the Darklands, and stop the ritual.
Needless to say, things go wrong. The player's avatar bodies are destroyed before they can get to them and they have to inhabit weaker forms. Effectively they become level 2 gestalt (one side their choice, the second their original class limited to the same level). They have to survive the facility being torn apart and find a way to accomplish their mission while growing stronger. They'll have support from rebels in the Darklands and can report to the surface when they sleep in their Avatar bodies, waking up in their originals.
Also, they will have to face encounters both as the Avatars and themselves as things happen simultaneously. In addition, after 5th level or so their Avatar bodies start to develop their own cognitive functions and personalities that are similar to their 'Riders', allowing them to take independent actions while not being piloted (though without the benefit of their Rider's gestalt levels).
As an added challenge, no spells above 6th level work in the Avatar bodies and divine magic/abilities derived from deities will not function (so Paladin, Oracle, Hunter, Ranger should be fine). Players will be warned beforehand.
So, thoughts and opinions?
Given how long some people take to change their mind's track, you might want to let them know they'll be doing the level 2 gestalt thing (as well as the 13th level characters) in advance. I know a couple of people who would be stuck on how to make the second character for ages. If your friends are different never mind that.
I recommend not having the independent avatars change their stats. Having to keep 3 related but different character sheets up to date will definitely be a problem.
But yeah, the general idea seems cool.