Mechanics of Revived Settings; your thoughts?

Paul Farquhar · Apr 3, 2018

Coroc said:
@Paul Farquhar #34:

On your questions 1. It is different, the PCs are really kings and can draw on the resources of their Domains (countries). There were many official splats, each detailing a Domain which would be Player Background. It is not limiting at all, the PC can go on a dungeon crawl with a Party or a war campaign with his whole army. There were Domain spells i cannot remember if These were connected t othe bloodlines i would have to read it up, they basically were useful in mass combat, e.g. maipulate the Terrain difficulty.

2. There were half a dozen human subraces each with their own Attribute boons and malus and some other characteristic. If i remember correctly rulers were all humans, you could be dwarf or elf as a minor pc eventually, i might be incorrect here.

3. It is unique in a way that here is e.g. 1 Dragon, 1 Medusa, 1 Werewolf or whatever in the setting (Imade the types up atm) but thats it. These Unique Mobs are like rulers with their own armies, or Major bosses. They are not generic but with Goals personalities etc. And they are no easy match and all of them are high Level.

4. So Long since i read this, but i beleive bloodlines could have different strength, it could be a minor Thing like cure wounds 1/day, some 2nd Level spell at will and / or things like Domain Magic, e.g. battlefield Magic or telport inside of ones realm.

1. You aren't really saying what makes Birthright a setting rather than a set of rules for kingdom level resource management that could be used in any setting.

2. Going with most/all PCs are human could work if you where trying to make a low magic gritty setting to cash in on Game of Thrones. But I'm not convinced Birthright adds much on starting from scratch. It's not a type of setting that would particularly interest me anyway.

3. They are known as Paragons. 3rd edition and Pathfinder have them. Again, you can put them in any setting.

4. Sounds too trivial to build a campaign setting around.

AmerginLiath · Apr 3, 2018

Not a point on specific mechanics, but in general mechanics. Describing the various points of developed settings in 5e might mean developing some of the area that we’re stressed more early one but haven’t seen the expansion of races and classes: factions and feats. I don’t play AL, but I know the faction rules for tabletop haven’t been developed as fully as they should (like background, they promised to be a cool way of defining the character outside of race and class with a minimum of mechanics and without interrupting level progression). Likewise, 5e feats never got the point that the play test and designer discussions suggested based around their larger “size,” being a silo for who what used to be some of the old Prestige Classes (remember that these larger feats were actually called Specialties in the early tests). Rather than add a bevy of new subclasses that would in many ways replicate existing ones or call for complicated multiclassing schemes out of tradition, lean heavy into setting-specific factions and create new feats (here’s where I’d be more willing to see more feats with further requirements as well; still not feats chains, simply feats built toward higher level characters and designed as such).

For a specific example, take Dragonlance (my own setting of choice). I wouldn’t make a Knight of Solamnia class/subclass, but rather a faction open to certain classes and characters but only awarding knighthood more narrowly. I’m not certain that any feats are needed here (the faction would define who is eligible for what level of knighthood, but the knighthood wouldn’t confer specific new powers). By comparison, completing the Test of High Sorcery is perfect for having its own feat (the WoHS themselves being a faction of the three sets of robes), including the rules on Moon Magic and perhaps the classic chosen bonus to a school of spells within that feat (the Test usually being taken around third level, so awarding the fourth-level ASI at its completion works).

Parmandur · Apr 3, 2018

Paul Farquhar said:
1. You aren't really saying what makes Birthright a setting rather than a set of rules for kingdom level resource management that could be used in any setting.

2. Going with most/all PCs are human could work if you where trying to make a low magic gritty setting to cash in on Game of Thrones. But I'm not convinced Birthright adds much on starting from scratch. It's not a type of setting that would particularly interest me anyway.

3. They are known as Paragons. 3rd edition and Pathfinder have them. Again, you can put them in any setting.

4. Sounds too trivial to build a campaign setting around.

Birthright is standard fantasy, but with the non-standard for D&D objective fact of Divine Right of Kings: the nobility actually have magical powers derived from their descent from God's. The players have magical nobility powers whether they run a domain or not. It is their...Birthright.

Eltab · Apr 3, 2018

Coroc said:
Defiler: Need a mechanic for this

... which is enough to make a difference from what 'preserving' magic can do. At the same time, the defiler can't kill the rest of the characters, or the campaign is over.

Maybe Defiling will have to be an NPC-only ability?

Sword of Spirit · Apr 4, 2018

AmerginLiath said:
For a specific example, take Dragonlance (my own setting of choice). I wouldn’t make a Knight of Solamnia class/subclass, but rather a faction open to certain classes and characters but only awarding knighthood more narrowly. I’m not certain that any feats are needed here (the faction would define who is eligible for what level of knighthood, but the knighthood wouldn’t confer specific new powers). By comparison, completing the Test of High Sorcery is perfect for having its own feat (the WoHS themselves being a faction of the three sets of robes), including the rules on Moon Magic and perhaps the classic chosen bonus to a school of spells within that feat (the Test usually being taken around third level, so awarding the fourth-level ASI at its completion works).

I think the idea of factions to represent those groups has merit (hopefully there's a WotC lurker here, because that's the sort of think I see Mike Mearls latching on to).

However, I really think we do need some mechanics for the Knights of Solamina. The different editions represented the mechanical differences amongst the orders differently, but what they all agreed on was that there were differences. Knights of the Sword cast spells, for instance. The problem is that Knights of Solamnia were the proto-prestige classes of 1e (along with the bard). We need some way of modeling the fact that the orders are different and you have to move up through them in sequence, such that a player can start with a Knight of the Crown (or Squire of the Crown) and then progress the way a knight would, choosing whether to advance orders or not.

Parmandur said:
Birthright is standard fantasy, but with the non-standard for D&D objective fact of Divine Right of Kings: the nobility actually have magical powers derived from their descent from God's. The players have magical nobility powers whether they run a domain or not. It is their...Birthright.

That's the sales pitch, but the setting itself--independent of the whole divine rulers assumed play mode--is pretty cool. It's hard to express exactly what the feel of it is, but it's different from Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, while still feeling like it hits a "core fantasy" niche. It's kind of like a stew made of Celtic, Arthurian, Germanic, and various other flavors, topped with a brooding, mystical, gritty sauce.

It definitely is well worth experiencing just as a regular adventurer. The divine bloodlines and stuff are essential to the setting details, but their inclusion in your character creation or adventuring really aren't.

Coroc · Apr 4, 2018

[MENTION=6677017]Sword of Spirit[/MENTION] #45

The Knights of solamnia could be solved with figther mulcticlass to Paladin multiclass to cleric for Knight of crown-> sword-> rose

This would reflect the longer path and increased spellcasting ability.

Another way would be feats granting a fighter additional spellcasting.

GreyLord · Apr 4, 2018

Dragonlance...Dragonlance...Dragonlance!!!

Races -

Well...for the most part we already have them...

Silvanesti and Qualinesti are High Elves (PHB)
Kagonesti could be Wood Elves (PHB)

We already have Hill and Mountain Dwarves in the PHB as well

Kender could be a tweaked Halfling Similar to the Playtest

We would need a new subrace of Gnome (the Tinker Gnome)

In the Sword Coast Adventurer's guide we already have the templates for the Solamnic Knights...though the terminology could be confusing...

Knights originally are of different orders...sooo..

A Knight of the Crown could be a Fighter subclass and be similar to the Purple Dragon Knight subclass in SCAG.

The Sword and Rose Knights could be a Paladin subclass and be similar to the Oath of the Crown order in SCAG.

OR if we wanted to divide the Sword Knights and Rose Knights even more...

Rose Knights could be the Paladin subclass with the oath of the Crown order from SCAG

While Sword Knights are even more clerical and follow the Clerical Domain of WAR from the PHB.

In the novels, it appeared that many Knights started as Sword or Rose Knights and many were stuck at being Crown Knights. In 5e, to reflect the huge numbers of each, would could require one who wishes to move into another order to multi-class. This probably would work better if we combined the Sword Knights and rose Knights into a single group though (Oath of the Crown from SCAG) making it easier to meet the multiclass requirements.

I believe Wizards of High Sorcery would require three new subclasses for Wizards of the White, Red, and Black Robes to reflect their specializations appropriately. It works because you don't have to select one at first level, so you can play that quest or adventure while you decide first.

Dragonlance should be easy because a LOT of what could be the groundwork for various things have already been laid out in prior books in 5e.

Coroc · Apr 4, 2018

[MENTION=4348]GreyLord[/MENTION] #47 One Moment ... Isn't it that rose is the highest order with the most spellcasting ability? Should they not be the clerics and sword Knights the Paladins instead?

I don't like multiclassing either but i see no easy way to roleplay the ascension from one of the three orders to the next in any other way.

Coroc · Apr 4, 2018

Double post

Dausuul · Apr 4, 2018

QuietBrowser said:
I want to ask folks exactly what settings they want to see 5e revive, and what mechanical additions to 5e's library those settings would bring with them. Races, subclasses, new subsystems, iconic spells or magic items, just anything you really want to see 5e bring back so you no longer have to deal with DMs going "no homebrew allowed".

The Dark Sun setting (based on the original boxed set, none of that revised garbage).

For mechanical elements, I'd like to see races for thri-kreen, half-giants, and muls; a mystic class; feats for psionic wild talents; elemental domains for clerics; a sorcerer-king patron for warlocks; and a defiler tradition for wizards.