I had a stray thought regarding running a 4E game. Probably nothing will come of it, but I thought I'd run it by you people since you're all well-versed in this sort of thing.
It would be intended to be different from the way 4E usually plays (I tried it and didn't like it). I would be Reffing... assume for the purposes of discussion that I'm not a doofus (most trainwrecks of gaming happen almost entirely due to Ref Doofosity) and am smart enough to avoid obvious problems. What would potentially get me are the hidden beartraps... those mechanical traps that get sprung on you when you don't expect it, and you didn't see coming.
The premises would be as follows:
1. Sword and Sorcery, like Conan.
2. PCs limited to Martial classes only, human race only.
3. Monsters (non-humanoid) would be quite rare, non-Minions, hopefully custom.
4. Human/oid adversaries would be @90% Minions.
5. Magic items would be rare.
6. Magic spells would be limited to Rituals.
7. Assume that I'd just handwave XP; maybe only up to Level 10.
So the idea is that Conanic types (or think Homeric types from the Iliad) lawnmower their way through mooks until the heroes come to blows, then it's regular (heroes vs heroes) combat. I hate long combats... if we have 1+ hour to do a boardgame, let's play an actual wargame that I enjoy. I'm shooting more for like @20 minute combats except for really important ones.
My main questions (in addition to any issues you would kindly point out) are these:
1. I don't know from Rituals. In the 4E game I played, I only saw 1. How cool can they be? How S&Sy?
2. Are there guidelines for making my own monsters? I'd rather not use the stock models.
Especially on Rituals - how much mileage could a campaign get out of only those? Keeping with the Conan theme... spells are not for blasting, though they may be for summoning tentacled monstrosities or commanding legions of ravening man-apes. Some magician's tricks are really caused by rare and powerful magic items.
It would be intended to be different from the way 4E usually plays (I tried it and didn't like it). I would be Reffing... assume for the purposes of discussion that I'm not a doofus (most trainwrecks of gaming happen almost entirely due to Ref Doofosity) and am smart enough to avoid obvious problems. What would potentially get me are the hidden beartraps... those mechanical traps that get sprung on you when you don't expect it, and you didn't see coming.
The premises would be as follows:
1. Sword and Sorcery, like Conan.
2. PCs limited to Martial classes only, human race only.
3. Monsters (non-humanoid) would be quite rare, non-Minions, hopefully custom.
4. Human/oid adversaries would be @90% Minions.
5. Magic items would be rare.
6. Magic spells would be limited to Rituals.
7. Assume that I'd just handwave XP; maybe only up to Level 10.
So the idea is that Conanic types (or think Homeric types from the Iliad) lawnmower their way through mooks until the heroes come to blows, then it's regular (heroes vs heroes) combat. I hate long combats... if we have 1+ hour to do a boardgame, let's play an actual wargame that I enjoy. I'm shooting more for like @20 minute combats except for really important ones.
My main questions (in addition to any issues you would kindly point out) are these:
1. I don't know from Rituals. In the 4E game I played, I only saw 1. How cool can they be? How S&Sy?
2. Are there guidelines for making my own monsters? I'd rather not use the stock models.
Especially on Rituals - how much mileage could a campaign get out of only those? Keeping with the Conan theme... spells are not for blasting, though they may be for summoning tentacled monstrosities or commanding legions of ravening man-apes. Some magician's tricks are really caused by rare and powerful magic items.