Looking For A Campaign Setting

[ruemere]

Settings of choice:
Scarred Lands

The Good:
- Only three to four books at bargain price required to get you started. Some of the books are/were offered as free downloads at DriveThruRPG.
- Setting's is of high power, low magic item count (as per Relics & Rituals, items of up to 10 thousand GP have their value tripled, items of higher value are not available unless found/stolen/etc) variety, with very few strong NPCs willing to ally with you, and hundreds of enemies.
- Setting concept is pretty original. It's 150 years after apocalyptic war between gods and their parents. Everyone's trying to recover... and, while the previous conflict has basically shattered world into pieces, there are great power struggles emerging.
- Dragons are extinct (there is one baby dragon in a zoo... and there may or may be not a legendary land to which all dragons fled to avoid genocide, by both gods and titans).
- Moral ambiguity. Good vs Evil. Good and Evil vs Alien. Good and Evil and Alien vs Something Else. Every major city needs to have altars devoted to all gods, since it's the Evil guy's mercy you need to be able to appeal to.
- Flavorful NPCs. Likable evil tyrant. Fanatics who aid widows and orphans and, sometimes, burn villages.
- Places you just need your party pay visit to.

The Bad:
- The setting is dead. There is a fan driven support though.
- The setting hasn't been really made 3.5 compatible. _Some_ stuff has been corrected in final publications.
- There are numerous errors and balance problems.

The Ugly:
- GM does need to work with material sometimes.
- Watch out for new feats and prestige classes.
- Be wary of items and monster statblocks.
- Don't agree to any spell from Relics & Rituals II without careful and thorough analysis.

Still, it's damn good.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Treebore]

Given THE major difference between AE and standard D&D is that it does NOT use the default D&D magic, are you sure we are talking about the same book?

As for it being so different that it's difficult to keep track of, I guess we have to agree to disagree. It's not very different at all if you play a non-spell-caster (the different core classes all have very direct parallels to regular core classes, and use the same mechanics, and fill the same niches for the most part). IF you are playing a spellcaster, the only real differences are that every spell has a low power, medium power, and high power version, and all spellcasters CAN cast all spells, if built to do so, or instead they can focus on just some spells. That's it. Not too complicated really, and I have never heard (in 5 years) a single person over at Monte's board say "wow this is so complicated I might as well play a non-D&D game".

It's surely not for everyone, and I am not pimping it as my personal end all and be all of game settings. But anyone who actually read the setting and claims it is DRASTICALLY different from standard D&D so as to be nearly a different game entirely from D&D is either fibbing or has forgotten what they read. It's actually in many ways a simplier version of D&D, not more complex. And since the OP seemed to be interested in a system that furthers the thinking of players over the use of magic and abilities to power through things, I thought that setting might interest him as it does in fact focus on those concepts more than most settings do.

Sorry. I have the book, read the book, even studied it for running a campaign. There are a lot of things done differently. Sounds to me like you need to re-read the book. Since things are so similiar I guess that is why they put out a book converting all the spells in the SRD to the AE system? No, they are hugely different. 500 spells worth of different is just the start.

Like I said, I like AE, was even going to run an AE camapign before I quit 3E period to go with C&C. There are a lot of differences. The OP is not asking for something like AE to figure out.

 

[Treebore]

Goods and Gear. It's not actually published under the Kalamar name as it's useful for any setting, but it does use Kalamar references and has additional info for Kalamar players in it. It's also the best equipment book I've seen for D&D.

Yes, It is an excellent book. I even reference it for my C&C game. Anyone who says it isn't at least good didn't give it a good read. At best they read occassional paragraphs and headings and skipped over most of the content.

 

[Treebore]

Yeah, I have to join in with the people saying the OP has a totally skewed idea of Eberron. The "high-powered" things mentioned are almost all things *you can't get* as a player character. Sure, there's a train powered by magic, and there are streetlights powered by magic, and so on. Big deal. It's still a setting where a 15th-level character has achieved a degree of power unheard of for generations, where the spell _resurrection_ is likely to be seen as a bizarre, dangerous, ancient secret, and where half the recommended adventure hooks involve wandering around a city solving murders as a detective or somesuch (and the biggest bad guys are organizations that make it impossible to march into someone's office and slice their head off).

FR-on-PCP is the *opposite* of the stereotypical view of Eberron. Stereotypical Eberron fans hate FR because FR is too high-power, has too many powerful spellcaster NPCs running around and seems more geared for epic than low-level play. Eberron is supposed to be the opposite of that.

Saying Eberron is a high-power setting is like saying d20 Modern is a high-power setting because it exists in a world where Abrams tanks, nuclear weapons and anthrax exist, regardless of the fact that the average d20 Modern character is an ordinary twentysomething guy with an apartment, a car and a pistol.

I think your too busy with your "system defense system" to see why people don't like Eberron. IT isn't my definition of Dungeons and Dragons, to start with. If I want cyborg type creatures I'll play Shadowrun.

Maybe they didn't write up high powered NPC's for Eberron (yet, give WOTC time), but for a lot of stuff in there to be happening they have to exist, if you want a "working world" that is.

If you like Eberron that is great. I don't. Others don't. I like FR, Erde, Kalamar, Wilderlands, Rokugan, Scarred Lands, Oathbound, Dungeon World, and others. Other people like them too.
Many others don't. Get used to it.

 

[MonsterMash]

I'm going to add another vote for the Wilderlands of High Fantasy

Fairly low magic
Varied setting with classic S&S feel
Easy to use Dungeon adventures, Goodman's DCC, or Necromancer's adventures with it (or any other published modules
Psionics are part of the setting

 

[Nightfall]

Sorry. I have the book, read the book, even studied it for running a campaign. There are a lot of things done differently. Sounds to me like you need to re-read the book. Since things are so similiar I guess that is why they put out a book converting all the spells in the SRD to the AE system? No, they are hugely different. 500 spells worth of different is just the start.

Like I said, I like AE, was even going to run an AE camapign before I quit 3E period to go with C&C. There are a lot of differences. The OP is not asking for something like AE to figure out.

500 spells, racial levels, no D&D races, new core classes that have vastly differening BAB and Saves...yeah that's not D&D. While the spells are simplied (in a sense) I don't see this poster wanting to use this, especially given how much he's already skewered Eberron and Forgotten Realms.

Sorry Mist but while I might be biased, you're just being completely clueless.

And Tree, good for you for explaining maybe why the OP might not want to do Eberron. It's not for everyone. (Yes I've played in Eberron. It was fine for me. May not work for everyone.)

Rue,

As the Repositor, you rock man.

 

[The Cardinal]

Wilderlands of High Fantasy

- psionics included
- very well fitted for low- to medium-powered "sword & sorcery" games
- it's *very* easy to use any or all published Necromancer or Dungeon Crawl Classics modules in this setting
- the boxed set provides so many brilliant plot hooks that the campaign practically writes itself

 

[Nightfall]

Well glad to see the Necro crew getting props. Especially since Bard's Gate rocks.

RAR here we come!

 

[Mistwell]

Sorry. I have the book, read the book, even studied it for running a campaign. There are a lot of things done differently. Sounds to me like you need to re-read the book. Since things are so similiar I guess that is why they put out a book converting all the spells in the SRD to the AE system? No, they are hugely different. 500 spells worth of different is just the start.

Like I said, I like AE, was even going to run an AE camapign before I quit 3E period to go with C&C. There are a lot of differences. The OP is not asking for something like AE to figure out.

I think we are miscommunicating.

You seem to think that renaming all the spells (and that is what was done with most of them, renaming them) is "hugely different".

I play in AE by the way. No need for me to re-read it. At first people were talking like you were about the game. Once people play in it, they don't talk like you are. The game is the same, just the names of some things are changed to protect the OGL

Seriously, if you have not even played in the setting, how can you be so adamant that it's so hard to figure out? I can point you to literally hundreds and hundreds of people who had no trouble at all "figuring it out". What was so complicated in your mind about that setting?

Or, from a different perspective, why do you care that I think the setting will work for the OP and you don't? Why do you feel the need to go on about it defending your disagreement?

 

[Mistwell]

500 spells, racial levels, no D&D races, new core classes that have vastly differening BAB and Saves...yeah that's not D&D. While the spells are simplied (in a sense) I don't see this poster wanting to use this, especially given how much he's already skewered Eberron and Forgotten Realms.

Sorry Mist but while I might be biased, you're just being completely clueless.

And Tree, good for you for explaining maybe why the OP might not want to do Eberron. It's not for everyone. (Yes I've played in Eberron. It was fine for me. May not work for everyone.)

Rue,

As the Repositor, you rock man.

You have not played AE apparently, as much of what you just said isn't accurate. Vastly differening BAB and saves? Doesn't allow for the standard races? Racial levels are not "D&D"? Are we talking about Monte Cooks Arcana Evolved?

But given you made it a personal attack with that clueless comment, I suppose we will just leave it there.