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Have you ever read the novels from the Malazan book of the Fallen and wondered what it would be like to be a squad mage, a heavy or an engineer fighting in a war? I'm thinking of episodic squad based special forces action, sometimes fighting alongside the regulars, other times on secret missions behind enemy lines.
The world I have in mind isn't the Malazan world (although that would be cool), rather a homebrew world loosely inspired by The Elvenbane trilogy by Mercedes lackey and Andre Norton where the elves have invaded and humanity is fighting a desperate rearguard action to avoid slavery and the destruction of their homeworld. The players would be all human from any background (although they must be able to work together as a team), press ganged or volunteered into the army, probably starting around lvl 3.
Does this sound interesting?
To manage expectation I'll need to do a lot of preparation if I go for this which will take a few months.
Definitely sounds interesting (getting some suicide squad vibes). What system were you thinking PF1 or something else?
Yes, it's sounds fun. I think homebrew games are a better fit for PbP than APs, so that's another reason I'd be interested.
I love the Malazan setting, but I've never read the Elvenbane trilogy. Any thoughts on how the setting would affect build rules?
I thinking PF1, 20 pt build, any paizo, elephant in the room, only humans. I'll have to think if anything else make sense for the setting.
In some ways it might be interesting to restrict what sorts of magic the humans have access to, but I'm not sure I care for sorting out the balance issues that'll bring up.
I played in a game with a similar premise about 10 years ago but all halflings instead of humans. One of the rules were no classes with 9 levels of casting. The halfling thing was cool as got to ride a giant raven (or another bird, I can’t remember) to some of our missions.
I thinking PF1, 20 pt build, any paizo, elephant in the room, only humans. I'll have to think if anything else make sense for the setting.
In some ways it might be interesting to restrict what sorts of magic the humans have access to, but I'm not sure I care for sorting out the balance issues that'll bring up.
One option I've heard discussed (but I've never played) is to not allow 9th level casters. No oracles, wizards, sorcerers, clerics, witches, etc. But 6th and lower spell level casters would be fine, such as Hunters, Inquisitors, Magi, Skald, Summoners, etc. If comparing to the Malazan setting, this "low magic" system would be thematically appropriate for a squad mage. That wouldn't be appropriate for things like High Mages and Ascendants, however, but I'm not sure if your setting has something similar.
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(And I just repeated what Smile-a-lot suggested. I'm so great at reading comprehension.)
Dot. I love special forces in this milieu.
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Great seems there's some interest in this area :) I'll need a month or two to develop things. There's some great tools out there for generating maps for entire worlds which is cool, since there's no way I'd have time to do that the old fashioned way.
As you know, DM FD, I'm getting a little burned out on Golarion, but this sounds fresh and intriguing.
Seems like an interesting idea. I'd be interested.
Did you decide yet whether to move forward with it?