Divine campaign (supernatural vs. mundane)

[robjh]

I've been contemplating an unusual type of campaign that is based on the ideas of the PCs being specially favored by the gods. They are differentiated from mundane creatures in being more difficult to kill and having access to supernatural abilities. I've jotted down some early notes below. Please let me know what you think:

1. All creatures in the game are either divine in nature or mundane. Undead are supernatural creatures and therefore "divine". Outsiders are always divine, but non-outsider constructs are never divine.

2. Divine creatures possess at least a modicum of the supernatural in their nature, even if it only manifests itself as an unusual degree of luck.

3. Combat for mundane creatures is much more gritty. Attacks have a chance to kill a mundane creature from any blow.

a. Creatures only gain a single dice of hit points, although this dice is at its maximum value. (So a Nd12 HD becomes 12 hit points.)

b. Armor and natural armor is split between AC and DR, with extra points assigned to AC. Thus a +9 natural armor becomes +5 to AC and DR +4/magic. The DR is cumulative with any pre-existing DR points.

4. Divine creatures (including all PCs) have their normal allotment of hit points, and all armor and natural armor is assigned to AC. These represent the supernatural ability of divine creatures to avoid lethal blows, at least until their luck runs out.

5. Each level a PC can gain 1-2 points of Divine Favor. These are points of supernatural ranking that bestow certain special favors of a divine nature. For every five points of Divine Favor, a divine creature can take a level of a Divine class. This is a type of class that grants supernatural powers to the creature. The powers granted improve with each level of the Divine class. The class would have 1d12 hp, fighter BaB, all good saves, a choice of supernatural special abilities, but minimal skills or spells. It would not count against multi-class limits, or the special restrictions of Paladins and Monks against multi-class levels.

 

[Ilium]

I like it. Another option would be to use Vitality/Wound points for mundanes and regular Hit Points for divine creatures. That way you could have a tough mundane with lots of vitality, but still have him taken out with one crit that wipes out his wound points.

 

[Lackhand]

One other suggestion is to use, for mooks, the d20 modern massive damage variant -- where (if I recall right, never having played d20M) the threshold is their con score.

This means a lot of die rolling for the GM. So what you do is just say that when dealt, in one blow, their con or more, they get knocked out or run away or die, your choice, with some equitable probability.

(in other words -- since in base D&D it wouldn't have killed them anyway, the blow does whatever is story-appropriate. I suggest you use "die" a lot, as it's more fun anyway )

So why have all those hit points if you're not going to use them?

Some player is going to get their divinity stripped off, just you wait & see