11th Century Europe D&D Campaign

[ferratus]

Maybe I will give them a new paint job and keep some of them in. I think though, if a player decides to make a non human they will have to keep their identity as hidden as possible.

Well, non-humans aren't necessarily that much a problem. Pretty much every non-human race in the PHB can be fit into historical earth, particularly if you have magic and a fairy realm. Even something as exotic as a deva can be explained away as being a Nephalim. Tiefling = Merlin. Shifter? Grandpa was named Kveldulf (evening wolf). Dhampyr? Mom was seduced by a roman aristocrat who still haunts London.

I would however, probably limit one "exotic" race per party. If someone wanted to play non-human race for the stats, you can also reskin most of them reskin as human easily. Half-elf is a cosmopolitan human, Deva an educated and holy human, half-orc a thuggish human, dwarves and goliaths are durable humans.

The only ones I'd outright ban are the Eladrin and the Dragonborn. Teleportation\planewalking and breath weapons are too outright flashily magical.

In theory I want places like the feywilde and such to exist? Just not sure how/if I'll use them yet.

As long as you are open to the possibility, you have a source for magic and monsters that is hidden from the world. What D20 modern called "the shadow" which was the the idea that the supernatural world was cloaked in illusion. Certain places or events rip away the illusion and send you down the rabbit hole.

I want magic to be mostly in the form of Artifacts and Rituals. (The game terms.)

Thats the main reason for cutting the power sources down to martial only. Doing something actually physically impossible, but cinematically cool? Fine... Commonly able to creat a giant fireball... doesn't really fit what I'm going for.

Not sure I want a lot of the other power sources popping up... Even in the form of multiclass feats.

It sounds like magical powers stored in magic items should be enough to get you what you want. If you wanted to have a book of spells like the "grinorum arcanorum" or "the scrolls of merlin" for example just take a random selection of daily wizard spells and allow the PC's to swap out a daily power of their level or lower. Most items in 4e just do one specific thing as an encounter or daily power anyway. Avoid the encounter powers and the flashy effects and you should be able to control how much magic your PC's use.

Sources of arcane magic items might include roman ruins, scholars from arab spain, ancient burial mounds, and the fair folk. Anything that is the relic of a saint (a body part or object owned by the saint) could also be a magical item, with artifacts associated with Jesus or the holy family (true cross, holy grail, Veronica's veil, the spear of Longinus etc) being particularly powerful artifacts.

Julius Caesar visited Britain too.

I think obviously the PCs will have interactions with monsters on a far more common base then the average person.

The only problem you really have to worry about is coincidence. Namely, why do your PC's see the unnatural when nobody else does? There are three ways to solve this

1) Illusion: I mentioned this above, where the supernatural world is hidden from view. Then all you need is an explanation of why they can see it and no one else can. Monstrous bloodlines? Clerical rite? Gift of prophecy?

2) Isolation: Monstrous things stay away from the civilized world. Getting lost is key to monstrous encounters. So adrift ocean voyages (who knows what is out there), lost in deep forests (is my mind playing tricks on me in the dark?) or impossibly deep caverns (the entrance of which collapses or cannot be found again).

3) Agents: The PC's are exorcists of the Church, or scholars of secrets of some sort of secret society. Whatever the reason, they are tasked with going to see what the weird stuff is as soon as the reports come in. Later generations will assume it is simply accounts of the superstitious medieval mind.

 

[awesomeocalypse]

4e probably isn't the ideal system for this, but if you really do want to go that route I have 2 suggestions:

1.) Instead of outright banning all non-human races, allow for substantial reskinning. Certain races like Dragonborn or Gnomes would be difficult and should probably be banned, but there's no reason a "tough human" couldn't be a reskinned dwarf, or an "agile human" couldn't be a reskinned elf. In normal 4e I'm against that sort of thing because it can cause confusion when you have "real" elves and dragnborn calling themselves elves running around at the same time. But if everyone is flavoured human thats not an issue, and it might make the game a little more varied if you allow more than one race. Your players will probably appreciate it and have more fun as well.

2.) Instead of banning every non-martial class from the get-go, tell your players to come up with ways to justify their characters within the setting and themes, and encourage them to do a little historical research (obviously not a whole paper's worth, maybe just a little googling). That might well rule out certain classes, but it might also drive that player who wants to play a warlock to do some research into the history of devil worship in the dark and middle ages and to come up with a character that is (apart from actually having powers) right in line with a relevant historical archetype. Same for druids, barbarians, bards, and definitely some divine classes. If you make it clear to your players that a character will not fly if it doesn't mesh with the setting's themes and history, I think you might be pleasantly surprised at how far they'll go to integrate their characters in an interesting and believable way.

In general, I would encourage you to remember that while building a world you want to game in and tell stories in is important, your players will have more fun if they can play concepts that they actually want to play. If that means a traditional knight (fighter) or english longbowman (ranger) or lord (warlord), great. But if it their desired concept doesn't fall within that range they will probably be a lot happier if you work with them to find a way to rework their concept so it meshes with the setting, rather than simply banning it outright.

 

[Scribble]

4e probably isn't the ideal system for this

Maybe not- but it's been brewijg in my mind since first reading the rules, so I'm thinking there must be something there. I think it's important to remember I;m not out for textbook 11th century.

In general, I would encourage you to remember that while building a world you want to game in and tell stories in is important, your players will have more fun if they can play concepts that they actually want to play. If that means a traditional knight (fighter) or english longbowman (ranger) or lord (warlord), great. But if it their desired concept doesn't fall within that range they will probably be a lot happier if you work with them to find a way to rework their concept so it meshes with the setting, rather than simply banning it outright.

As I said above this is pretty much how I run every one of my campaigns.

A "Ban" in my game means it's not in the game- unless theres something you REALLY want to play, and can envision in the setting and adding to the game.

Essentially a ban means you can't be that class simply because it gives you X bonus.

 

[Derren]

How historic do you want it? Just the history or would you also implement weapon and armour restrictions (a lot of them weren't invented at that time period).

 

[Scribble]

How historic do you want it? Just the history or would you also implement weapon and armour restrictions (a lot of them weren't invented at that time period).

I haven't really decided on that one yet... My first "hunch" would be to redo the equipment list, but I'm not 100% on that.

 

[Derren]

You could probably just rename the heavy armours as there are quite some historic armours missing in D&D, so there should be enough replacements for things like Full Plate which was invented later.

It would get harder with weapons. I am no expert but many polearms would be missing as would things like rapiers. And finding replacements for them might be a bit harder as most of them have rather unique properties.

 

[vagabundo]

It might be fun to have some house rules like:

* If a character falls unconscious and has to make a death save then they are open to infection (use the disease rules).
* Slow the recovery time down for recovering HP. There was a couple of threads in the house rules forum for grittier healing.
* Design a few historical diseases, without easy access to magical healing they could be good plot hooks.

I think it would fit the period for combat to be a touch more dangerous than the 4e default.

Truth is I've been looking through some of the old historical 2e green source books and I've been thinking of converting them to 4e.

 

[Andor]

It would get harder with weapons. I am no expert but many polearms would be missing as would things like rapiers. And finding replacements for them might be a bit harder as most of them have rather unique properties.

A rapier would be out of place, but most other things would be okay. Historically a polearm was really any random bit of iron the local blacksmith thought looked good on the end of a stick, it's really modern museam curators who insist on classifying everything to death. Only items which were used in tourneys (like pole axes) were anything like standardized.

 

[ferratus]

Polearms were generally cheap to make and locally produced, but generally they had a specific purpose to their design.

I would probably take the easy way out. Restructure weapon damage based on class rather than on individual weapons, the way that implements are done now. Then the PC's won't suffer for having specialized weapons (which are usually equated with superior-higher damage weapons) restricted from their weapon list. You can also use a "superior damage" feat instead of a "superior weapon" feat to basically allow you to do rapier damage with a short sword, so the rogue isn't screwed out that option.

Frankly, that's really how weapon damage should have been done anyway. All weapons are lethal, you only need 2 inches of steel to kill a man. The only reason to have one weapon over another is for specific applications your style of fighting, the weak points in the defenses of your enemies, ease of use at your level of training, and what you are able to afford.

 

[Filcher]

Sounds like a fun game to me. Beowulf fits nicely into 4E, imho.

"Step aside, thane, I'm gong to rip the arm off that monster!"