Grim Tales- Magic with 3.5ed classes

[Nalfien]

Just bought Grim Tales a week or so ago, and I love the spell system. The d20 class system (strong fighter, smart fighter, etc.) is going to be a little different for my players who are familliar with 3.5ed, but I like it as a DM.

I plan on using the Grim Tales magic system with spell burn, but I was wondering if there was a way I could use that as a blanket rule for 3.5ed D&D.

What is the best way to use the spell burn rules with the 3.5ed class leveling system?

Thanks a million,
Nalfien

 

[Henry]

I plan on using the Grim Tales magic system with spell burn, but I was wondering if there was a way I could use that as a blanket rule for 3.5ed D&D.

What is the best way to use the spell burn rules with the 3.5ed class leveling system?

One word of warning - any pure sorcerers or wizards will feel very hurt by this - their main power comes from spellcasting, and this system as-is acts as a natural inhibitor to excessive spell casting; they would need some other advantages to compensate (extra feats, maybe a hit dice raise, etc.) Clerics and Druids I think are robust enough to handle the drawbacks that this spell system would introduce - their role is not always spellcasting, anyway.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I think that the GT spell burn rules are wholly inappropriate for 3.5 D&D spellcasting classes.

However, for more thoughts on the matter, please look in Psion's "Grim Tales High Magic" thread in this forum.


Wulf

 

[Nalfien]

Low Magic

I want magic to be a useable but dangerous option for every hero, so a pure sorcerer or wizard would actually be discouraged. I would like magic to be a rare occurance on the party side, but worth it when it works.

Would this idea work: everyone starts out with a base class (even wizard or sorcerer) and once they get one level of sorcerer, wizard or cleric they can cast spells with some spell burn reduction. Each class gainied in the same magic class would increase the spell burn resistance.

What would I do about any class and their magic like powers? Bards use magic, as well as druids and other classes. Its tough to incoperate spell burn when you think about it, thats why I need some help on this.

If this can work out somehow though, I could see Grim Tales being used a lot more by many 3.5ed fans.

 

[Henry]

If this can work out somehow though, I could see Grim Tales being used a lot more by many 3.5ed fans.

Actually, I think more D&D players who want to go lower-magic would be better served by checking out the whole of Grim Tales, because speaking from limited experience it does D&D type fantasy VERY well by itself. You could easily make fighters/rangers/barbarians/monks/etc. using the classes as-is, and only one or two minor changes to make rogue-types more viable.

 

[Turanil]

I want magic to be a useable but dangerous option for every hero, so a pure sorcerer or wizard would actually be discouraged.

A while ago I had begun to work on this concept as well. I was doing this: all Grim Tales classes as normal, plus all NON-spellcasting classes from D&D 3.5. You may include rangers and paladins, but they lose spells and don't get any compensation. Don't mix D&D and GT, and don't give Defense bonus per level or action points to D&D classes. So, if a D&D group of a fighter, rogue, and barbarian wants to also include a wizard, the latter is only done using GT rules (I guess a Smart with feats and talents geared at spellcasting).

 

[GlassJaw]

Actually, I think more D&D players who want to go lower-magic would be better served by checking out the whole of Grim Tales, because speaking from limited experience it does D&D type fantasy VERY well by itself. You could easily make fighters/rangers/barbarians/monks/etc. using the classes as-is, and only one or two minor changes to make rogue-types more viable.

I couldn't agree more. I had the chance to play in Wulf's Seven Saxons game at the last Game Day and it was a blast. It was full-on fantasy; we even fought a dragon at the end.

The caster of the group (a Dedicated Hero), while did suffer some burn damage here and there, could certainly hold his own. He didn't have as many spells as compared to a traditional D&D caster but it proved that a caster-specific character can work just fine in a fantasy GT game.

The core D&D classes can also be modeled very easily using the GT class system.

My advice: if this is your first foray into low-magic, just use GT as a whole. Everything you need is right there and will require very little house-ruling on your part.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

My real question is "why?". It seems like alot more trouble than it's worth.

If you're worried about your players taking to the new class system, then create a one-shot with pre-generated characters for them to see how the new classes can handle.

Unfortunately, if you stip out spellcasting from D&D, then Barbarian/Rogue/Fighter builds rule the day. You've limited yourself to 3 real classes. Druid/Ranger/Paladin are still there, but magic is built into their balance and so they'll start to fall behind pretty sharply in power, especially at 5th level and beyond when the Rng/Pal were getting spells to compensate for some of their lacks and the Druid has been suffering since the gate.

If you gave Wizard a Caster Level increase every level and spaced out Magical Adept and Master the Eldritch Flow across several levels, he'd still bite. If you increased the hit die to d6 and gave him 2 more skill points per level, maybe, but I still probably wouldn't play it.

If you want some more D&D "Higher Fantasy" flavor I'd tweak some of the Talents a little. Make Sneak Attack a pure Fast (Advanced) talent available at 3rd. It only ups the max Sneak Attack dice at 20th by +1d6, but it means you can get to it by 3rd level. (Though with MDTs and such, I'm going to be capping sneak attack at 5 dice, myself).

Make Wild Empathy either an advanced Dedicated talent or a standard Dedicated talent. It's not THAT useful of a power to make a wonky-weird build around just to get to it, and Wulf said he made it that way mostly because he didn't like the mystical talents in the first place. This will let the Druid/Ranger types grab something at 1st level they can put toward a class concept.

I'd still like to find another Smart basic talent somewhere. Savant is THE most often-taken Smart talent and it's both way too useful and way too unattractive, in equal ammounts. Smart characters quickly get to the point where they cannot fail a particular type of skill roll, while having rather little to suggest a strong archetype outside of a pretty pre-concieved Egghead role. (Unless, oddly, it's a pure Theif and you take Disable Device and Search as Savant skills. Yeowzers.)

I'm running sort of a D&D flavored, strong archetypes game next tuesday. I've built a Barbarian (Tough 4, Second Wind and Rage), a Ranger/Druid Elf(Fast1/Ded3, Increased Speed, Wild Empathy, Magical Adept), a Wizard (Smart 4, Savant and Magical Adept), a theif (Fast 4, Evasion and Sneak Attack), and a Ranger/Hero Fighter (Strong 4, Melee Smash x 2, a few ranks in Spellcraft and some cantrips).

I've changed magic around a little for my game: Spell Drain is lethal damage, die is 1d8, Adept changes it to Nonlethal, Caster Level = Level, Spellcraft roll to cast a spell successfully. Every spell has a Will or Fort save tied to it against Fatigue/Exhaustion/Unconciousness. There's a cumulative -1 penalty to the save for each spell cast between 1 hour rest periods.

I'll see how it goes on Tuesday, but the archetypal characters seem very cool. And because it's GT, I categorized them as a group of temple robbers and general ne'er-do-wells so everybody has at least Move Silently as a core skill.

--fje