Midnight with different rules?

[ruleslawyer]

Dear All,

Recently purchased Midnight and am quite hooked; this setting seems perfect for a quasi-Middle Earth-style campaign, and it's right up my alley. My issue with it is in the wealth of new rules it incorporates; specifically, the magic system and some of the classes (notably the wildlander and defender, with which I'm not too enthralled). So here's my question: What problems would those of you who play Midnight see with using, say, the standard PHB classes other than the cleric and paladin (or, perhaps better still, the classes from Arcana Unearthed); assuming, of course, that Midnight's spell restrictions and item creation rules were retained? Is there a serious problem with such a thing? Any input is welcome...

 

[Crothian]

You want to talk to StalkingBlue. She is running a Midnight campaign but has, from what I understand, heavily modified it. I have no idea if the things you want to change she has, but she's the best person to ask that I know.

 

[d20Dwarf]

You could also check www.againsttheshadow.org , it's the best place to find fan-created Midnight stuff, including rules adaptations like "Riddle of Midnight." I'm not familiar enough with AU to speak on it, but I think using core classes like sorcerer and bard really change the feel of Midnight. Some people like that, though, and just want to use the setting, and more power to them.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Thanks so much, Cro and Wil!

So, Wil, you do think that using a class like the sorcerer, base wizard, or base druid (or AU's magister and greenbond) does substantively impact on the flavor of Midnight, hmm? I'll give that some thought.

My main reason for thinking about doing Midnight with standard PHB/AU mechanics is that my players know them, and I'm a little leery of taking the time to learn the new mechanics simply to play in the setting. No clerics, paladins, teleportation, planar magic, or standard item creation will weird out my group enough, really!

 

[wizofice]

Hm. I can definitely see playing it with standard classes minus the divine deity-based (clerics and paladins). AU could definitely work as well. Seems like there was one or more threads about that idea over at Monte Cook's board. The idea was that the BBEG had helped the Merrow (sp?) take over.

I think what you're suggesting could work. Part of the idea behind the Midnight items are that they don't attract unwanted attention. Your Sorcerors and Wizards are going to be better casters than the standard Midnight caster probably, but that shouldn't be a problem in most situations. The downside would be they would cast more often and probably get seen and caught under normal circumstances, but that's something you can change as well.

 

[d20Dwarf]

The lack of non-spellcasting abilities for sorcerers and wizards might frustrate some players. Channelers have so much more to do for precisely this reason.

 

[Nifft]

Yeah -- Channeler is a strong class (compared to Sor/Wiz). Don't sell Midnight short until you've tried it. Make up some nice pre-gen characters for your players and run a one-shot in the Midnight world before you decide to change too much.

-- N, also a big fan of Midnight

 

[Emiricol]

I'd say don't use Wizard/Sorcerer. They do only one thing well, and that thing when used extensively will get the party slaughtered. In other words, traditional casters will find themselves with little to do, unless you tweak the setting so much that it isn't Midnight anymore.

Now, the 3.5 books have some guidelines for magic-free Rangers, Paladins and so on. I'd suggest bringing the idea up in AgainstTheShadow.org though - wonderful resource!

 

[d20Dwarf]

Make up some nice pre-gen characters.

Eventually I need to upload my pregens from the Into the Garden of Good and Evil playtest.

 

[S'mon]

Dear All,

Recently purchased Midnight and am quite hooked; this setting seems perfect for a quasi-Middle Earth-style campaign, and it's right up my alley. My issue with it is in the wealth of new rules it incorporates; specifically, the magic system and some of the classes (notably the wildlander and defender, with which I'm not too enthralled). So here's my question: What problems would those of you who play Midnight see with using, say, the standard PHB classes other than the cleric and paladin (or, perhaps better still, the classes from Arcana Unearthed); assuming, of course, that Midnight's spell restrictions and item creation rules were retained? Is there a serious problem with such a thing? Any input is welcome...

I'm in StalkingBlue's game (great game!) and have had some discussions w her re the magic system, so maybe I can help a little.

Midnight of course uses the Fighter, Barbarian & Rogue classes unchanged; these are good choices for players who don't want to do much adapting, you could run a good campaign with just these, except for the lack of healing magic. You could get around that by having plenty of cure potions available from friendly Adepts, but expect a lot of healing-up time after battles. Midnight PCs tend to have low ACs, too, and be facing much tougher opponents than standard - SB's use of the Ftr-2 AC 17 hp 17 Att +7 dam 1d12+4 orc veterans from a Midnight supplement as the orc regulars making up 99% of the Shadow forces hugely changes the tone of the campaign from what it would be if we were fighting Monster Manual-standard War-1 orcs.

Defenders and Wildlanders seem to me to be rather weak Monks & Rangers. The standard Ranger would probably work ok; so might the Monk - minus dimension-door powers of course since the Veil prevents teleportation. The magic-poor setting would make Monks rather powerful at high levels, perhaps, but as long as the PCs' points-value isn't too high (SB uses 32-PB, I'd say 35 or less) I doubt they'd overshadow Fighters with a couple of decent Covenant items. Rangers' spellcasting might attract Astiraxes, of course.

Channelers & spellcasters - we've found that as written the Channelers' access to all non-Cleric spell lists makes them overpowered, unless the player is so scared of astiraxes that they never cast any spells. And Channelers are much better able to escape astirax attaclk (w Fly, Invisibility etc) than their non-spellcasting comrades. I can see a pretty good case for replacing them with the regular classes, especially Sorcerer - Wizards in Midnight would have a hell of a time creating and maintaining their spell books. If you want to keep the Midnight flavour though you should fiddle with their spell lists, I'd recommend adding the Cure spells and either deleting the Invocation spells or doubling their level - eg magic missile 2nd, fireball 6th. Spells like Web & Entangle seem overpowered in this setting.
Druids would likely be overpowered in this largely-wilderness setting. If you do allow them (which I'd recommend against), I'd say at least make their spellcasting spontaneous, from a limited spell list (IMC I use number divine spells known equal to regular spells/day list). SB bumped Entangle up to 2nd level, again I'd say at least double the level of all Invocation-type spells. Of course all spells involving contact with other planes are disallowed.