Rules/Crunch of Eyros

Hi everyone. This new thread is a parallel to Mouseferatu's excellent General RPG Discussion thread "Creative Exercise: The Sovereign Dominion of Eyros," so for any newcomers, please go and read all the great information in that thread before contributing here (There are great topic-based summaries on the beginning of each page to help you jump right in). That being said, this thread is designed as a place to create some crunch to help compliment Eyros's fluff. Here are the rules (slightly different than those of the other thread):

1) You contribute to the setting by posting rules ideas. These could be no longer than a few sentences, or as long as a fully-statted NPC.

2) You may contribute as often as you like.

3) The facts presented should involve the game mechanics, not the setting. They cannot involve the setting's current status, its history, its politics, its geographical features, etc.

4) You may not present a rule that contradicts or "undoes" a previous contribution from either thread (its OK to tweak or expand on previous stuff from this thread, but not the other). Importantly, do not present a rule that forces compensation in the setting: the rules in this thread are derived from the setting, not vice versa.

5) This should be a usable, functional rules-supplement. Please don't post anything goofy or deliberately disruptive or hard to follow-up.

6) Finally, this setting should, for the most part, be playable with D&D as written.

I'll start:

Gnomes in Eyros descend from the apprentices of the mighty necromancer Thanatos. As such, they receive a +1 to DC of necromancy spells instead of illusion, +2 to saves against necromancy instead of illusion, and the following spell-like abilities to replace the usual list: 1/day: deathwatch and, if their Charisma is 10 or higher, 1/day: disrupt undead, touch of fatigue, prestidigitation.

The different races of Eyros and its surroundings approach magic differently, according to culture. Note that the following associations are the norm, but they are not mechanical requirements. You can certainly play a dwarven sorcerer, or an elven psionicist, if you want to. Further, some of the races have sub-groups, for whom the associations may be different.

Race Most Common Magic-Using Class
Human Cleric
Half-Orc Bard (though magic-users of any sort are rare; hence the orcs' use of elven and gnomish magic servants)
Dwarf Psionicist
Elf Wizard (generalist)
Gnome Wizard (specialist, often necromancer)
Halfling Sorcerer
Lizardman Druid

Edit: It occurs to me, that some people may take this as me violating rule #4, and if enough people feel that way, I'll remove this. But it seems to make sense, extrapolating from what's been said so far in the other thread. And as I said, these are not restrictions, just the most common correlations.

Mouseferatu said:

Human Cleric
Half-Orc Druid (often focused on reptiles and the elements)
Dwarf Psionicist
Elf Wizard (generalist)
Gnome Wizard (specialist, often necromancer)
Halfling Sorcerer

Click to expand...

Wot, no Bards?

-- N

Given the seeming rarity of druids, I think we might want to change them from Half-orc to the lizard folk living in the outskirts of the country, rather than one of the most populus species.

If the cha penalty for Orcs and Half-Orcs wasn't so bad, I'd suggest maybe making them the bards, with an oratory emphasis.

domino said:

Given the seeming rarity of druids, I think we might want to change them from Half-orc to the lizard folk living in the outskirts of the country, rather than one of the most populus species.

If the cha penalty for Orcs and Half-Orcs wasn't so bad, I'd suggest maybe making them the bards, with an oratory emphasis.

Click to expand...

I agree that the lizard-folk should be the only usual druids, and perhaps druids should be rare/almost-unknown outside of them to make them more special as the other thread implies (if all half-orcs can be druids, why bother getting into a big competition to coax a lizardfolk druid to Eyros). Based on Eyros's charismatic half-orcs, why don't we move the Charisma penalty to Wisdom and blame it on the effects of the ancient elven magic working on the half-orc race. Then we make them favoured bards as domino suggested. I like the others, although another way to get the favoured bard in is to make them halflings, since we know Darrenback at least is a bard.

Here's a flavourful rule variant: Non-Kohl-'Tass druid aspirants must train with the Kohl'Tass to become druids.

In parallel with making druids rare outside of the Kohl'Tass, here's the Kohl'Tass as a base race with no LA (I may be breaking our rules with this too, so let me know, but I figure its fair game since noone has detailed these guys yet):

Kohl'Tass characters possess the following racial traits.

--+2 Wisdom, -2 Intelligence, -2 Dexterity: The Kohl'Tass are highly in tune with nature, but they tend to ignore the progress and trappings of the world outside the Kohoal delta. Also, the scaled Kohl'Tass are not quite as agile as the younger races.
--Medium Size
--A Kohl'Tass's base land speed is 30 feet
--+2 natural armour bonus: The Kohl'Tass offset their lack of agility with a protective hide
--Illiterate: The Kohl'Tass transmit much of their culture orally, and the rest is recorded in shell-necklaces that create sounds when placed in windy caves that dot the Kuhual delta. They can become literate by spending 2 skill points, but most choose not to do so out of disdain for written words as an attempt to control the past.
--+2 to Balance, Jump, and Swim
--Natural Weapon: bite 1d3: The Kohl'Tass can make a bite attack in addition to any full-attack, but in that case, treat it as a secondary weapon
--Special Qualities: Hold Breath: A Kohl'Tass can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to four times its Constitution score before it risks drowning.
--Automatic Languages: Kohl'Tass, Draconic (the Kohl'Tass preserve the ancient draconic language). Bonus Languages: Aquan, Orc, Human, Vulgar Eyrosian
--Favoured Class: Druid

And other thing is to consider what we want to be the general power level. I suggest going with a low level for NPCs, with the rank and file of soldiers being Warrior 1, Captains being War5 or even Aristiocrat1/Warrior 4, and the leaders of the houses being say, Aristiocrat 8, and the king Aristocrat 10. It makes things simpler, for one.

We could also go and make the king a level 20 something, and scale everything else up to match, but I think it would be a good idea to decide that ahead of time, so we don't get a weird balance of NPC power. As is discussed in another thread the rulers don't necessarily need to be very high level to be effective at what they do.

*slaps forehead*

I can't believe I forgot about the lizardmen druids. Teaches me to participate in this while also distracted by other things.

Fixed above.

And I agree, I think a low- to moderate-level average for even the important NPCs is the way to go.

Here's some racial paragon levels for the Kohl'Tass. This should be a fun way to play up the primal aspect of the race:

Code:

Hit Dice: d8
Skill Points: 2 + Int modifier, Kohl'Tass Paragon class skills are Balance, Jump, Knowledge [nature], Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Swim.

Weapon and Armour Proficiencies: A Kohl'Tass Paragon is proficient with all druid weapons and armour. If she has no levels in druid, she may still use other weapons and armour without penalty.

Wild Synergy: Kohl'Tass Paragon levels stack with druid levels for purposes of Wild Empathy, Wild Shape, and Animal Companion features

Skill Bonus: The Kohl'Tass Paragon's racial bonuses to Swim, Jump, and Balance increase to +4

Improved Bite: The Kohl'Tass Paragon's Bite attack increases to 1d4 damage

Claw Attacks: The Kohl'Tass Paragon gains two claw attacks for 1d3 damage each

Improved Claw Attacks: The Kohl'Tass Paragon's claw attacks increase to 1d4 damage each

I agree with low-to-moderate level for important NPCs (especially in Eyros, with its high king turnover, the monarch could be low-level indeed), but at the risk of sounding obvious, I think we do want high level for high level NPCs. For instance, Felra would probably be low-level, but Alivia would be high level, even though Felra is a contender for the crown and Alivia is a child-minded slave. The Eberronish idea of keeping high-level locals at mid-levels, which has the intent of making the PCs special, has the annoying side-effect of making the PCs cocky and making the (in my opinion) best battles, which are between similarly-levelled mixed groups of NPCs and PCs, seem contrived by the DM ("But I thought there are only 5 NPCs in the whole world at our level, so how did we fight 4 of them in that last battle?").