Doomed Slayers - A campaign framework justifying roving bands of adventurers

[Derren]

1a) WHY CAN'T THE MILITARY DEAL WITH MONSTERS?

The militia and other military forces are low-level in my campaigns (which are in 3.5e). The setting doesn't "flex" to fit the levels of the PC's, it just is what it is.

Yes, but where you have 4 PCs a large city might send 400 soldiers. Will there be casualties? Sure but they can also get the job done without relying on Slayers.

And considering the wandering nature of Slayers it might be preferable to send your forces instead of hoping that a Slayer strong enough to deal with the threat shows up by chance when you need him.
The overall point is, if civilization is really so threatened as described in the first post it is unreasonable to have your best defenders wander around aimlessly with no sure way of contacting them.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Yes, but where you have 4 PCs a large city might send 400 soldiers. Will there be casualties? Sure but they can also get the job done without relying on Slayers.

And considering the wandering nature of Slayers it might be preferable to send your forces instead of hoping that a Slayer strong enough to deal with the threat shows up by chance when you need him.
The overall point is, if civilization is really so threatened as described in the first post it is unreasonable to have your best defenders wander around aimlessly with no sure way of contacting them.

That's a fundamentally reactive, defensive approach towards dealing with monsters. Slayers are largely about being on the offense - they are supposed to actively search out monsters, not wait until they come nearby. How long can it work if the Slayers manage to keep a certain province clean of monsters - while monsters multiply freely in the next province?

 

[haakon1]

Yes, but where you have 4 PCs a large city might send 400 soldiers. Will there be casualties? Sure but they can also get the job done without relying on Slayers.

The nature of D&D is, 400 basic warriors (0-level in AD&D, Warrior 1 in 3.5e, minions in 4e) against a dragon with Fear capability or monsters with damage resistance (werewolves, for example) will fail. They simply don't have the levels and equipment to have any effect on some types of enemies.

Whereas 4 PC's, they might be able to take on a dragon or a troupe of werewolves.

Or to put it another way, Five Armies couldn't touch old Smaug. But Bard the Bowman took him down with a single Arrow of Slaying.

Slayers are the SEAL Team Six of the D&D world. It makes sense to me that they're more likely to be on the government payroll, but if Slayers insist on being "The Man With No Name", wandering the wilderness, OK, the government can roll with that and still wants the guys who can do the job.

"Give me some men who are stout-hearted men,
Who will fight, for the right they adore,
Start me with ten who are stout-hearted men,
And I'll soon give you ten thousand more."
-- "Stout-hearted Men", Oscar Hammerstein

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Slayers are the SEAL Team Six of the D&D world.

Well, to be fair, some of them are the equivalent of SEAL Team Six. Plenty more are ordinary Joes who picked up a sword to Avenge Their Fathers or something. Most of them don't last long... which is why they are called Doomed Slayers.

It makes sense to me that they're more likely to be on the government payroll, but if Slayers insist on being "The Man With No Name", wandering the wilderness, OK, the government can roll with that and still wants the guys who can do the job.

Slayers can retire to a cushy government job like that, as long as they are seen as "having done their due". At that moment they cease to be Slayers and are just regular government employees... although in a unique role of responsibility.

But to get an offer like that, they need to have racked up some impressive deeds as a Slayer, and that likely means a couple of years on the road. And for many, the lifestyle becomes so ingrained that they have trouble settling down anywhere. Think of all the traumas that war veterans can accumulate, and then some.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Doomed Slayers has reached the Nr. 10 spot among the "hottest Small Press Items" at DriveThruRPG!

Thanks, everyone!

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

So, did anyone here have a chance to read it all the way through yet? And if so, what are your thoughts on it?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

So, did anyone here have a chance to read it all the way through yet? And if so, what are your thoughts on it?

Read all the way through, and since your asking

I love the concept of a Doomed Slayer caste and how you have set it up to provide restrictions and expectations for how others will relate to members of this group.. a perfect explanation for how the world works with roving bands of miscreants. IMC I will be adopting the mock funeral option and a specific branding, much like real life outlaws and slaves were once branded to signify their status.

You have done an excellent job of detailing the caste and the guidelines it lives by.

However....
The second portion of the book in which you provided a setting guide is something I won't be reading again. For a setting to be worth it to me it needs depth and breadth.. with Ebberon hitting the high marks for me. The world needs history, built in conflict, and an encompassing 'feel' to it. Not saying what you wrote isn't useful.. just not useful to me.

Then, I hit the third section of the book. Advertisements in a paid for PDF?
Eh. Glad I didn't do a print on demand option.

So overall, I would rate Doomed Stalkers at a 4 out of 5 based on the first section alone. Drop it to a 2 out of 5 due to the excess material... but wait!

Only $4? hey, I spend more than that on Mt Dew in a day or two. Its worth it. {and I need to cut down on my habit!}

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Read all the way through, and since your asking

I love the concept of a Doomed Slayer caste and how you have set it up to provide restrictions and expectations for how others will relate to members of this group.. a perfect explanation for how the world works with roving bands of miscreants. IMC I will be adopting the mock funeral option and a specific branding, much like real life outlaws and slaves were once branded to signify their status.

You have done an excellent job of detailing the caste and the guidelines it lives by.

However....
The second portion of the book in which you provided a setting guide is something I won't be reading again. For a setting to be worth it to me it needs depth and breadth.. with Ebberon hitting the high marks for me. The world needs history, built in conflict, and an encompassing 'feel' to it. Not saying what you wrote isn't useful.. just not useful to me.

I am contemplating supplements that present this world in further detail (and indeed, I love setting detail - as Urbis shows). However, I felt that expanding the world writeup even further would have taken the focus away from the Slayers, and I wanted them to be at the center of this product.

Consider it as "testing the waters" if people want to see more like this. Cheap enough to work as an impulse buy. If the sales are good and the feedback positive, then maybe this world is investing more writing efforts in.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Forgot to mention...

What I would love to see is more on the various social systems and castes that can beused, similar to how you detailed the slayers. Various methods of moving between the two and diverse 'nation building's options for describing a society in terms of avaliable castes, caste pliability, and treatment of other nations social orders.


For instance, fuedal Japan would have a gaigen casts for all non-japanese while fuedal Germany might accept french folk as if they were in the same caste as in their homeland.

Then of course getting into fuedal vs imperial vs theocrasy..etc.

All with an eye to the unique environment of the rpg world.

And if you had to showcase these ideas by way of your setting, that would not deter me buying for the crunch for adaptation.


Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Forgot to mention...

What I would love to see is more on the various social systems and castes that can beused, similar to how you detailed the slayers. Various methods of moving between the two and diverse 'nation building's options for describing a society in terms of avaliable castes, caste pliability, and treatment of other nations social orders.


For instance, fuedal Japan would have a gaigen casts for all non-japanese while fuedal Germany might accept french folk as if they were in the same caste as in their homeland.

Then of course getting into fuedal vs imperial vs theocrasy..etc.

All with an eye to the unique environment of the rpg world.

And if you had to showcase these ideas by way of your setting, that would not deter me buying for the crunch for adaptation.

That would probably best fit into regional/nation sourcebooks.

Which definitely are an option that's on the table... I'm just not sure with which region to start. Which region sounds the most interesting to people here?



EDIT: Thinking about your words a bit more, it may be rather difficult to write up something describing the "priest class", the "merchant class", the "noble class", or the "serf class" for the entire setting, since there are large regional differences. The Slayers are supposed to be a rather big exception - they exist in all regions, but are outsiders everywhere.

Not saying that sourcebooks describing these classes might not be interesting, or not worth doing. I may have to think about this some more...