Military Academy Design (was Open Question for Wulf Ratbane on "Lazy Days")

[blargney the second]

I am thinking of starting a new 3-player campaign using the same setup as Wulf used in Lazy Days.

This is to be my first attempt at DMing, with the PCs enrolled as apprentices in an adventurer's school. (It's a complete coincidence that the idea resembles the Wizard School discussed a year ago! *grin*)

Wulf, did the campaign work out as well as you or your players had hoped? If you had to do it over again, would you do anything differently?

Thank you!
-blarg

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Wulf, did the campaign work out as well as you or your players had hoped? If you had to do it over again, would you do anything differently?

If you're talking about character creation, yeah, I think it worked out well.

The campaign eventually evolved (as most do) beyond the contraints of that set. Players came and went, levels were gained, they moved on past the environs of their early adventures.

But as far as chargen and their early adventuring careers went, yeah, I think it worked great. There's still a player or two from that campaign around here, they may want to offer their own opinions.

Wulf

 

[blargney the second]

Players came and went, levels were gained, they moved on past the environs of their early adventures.

Thanks for the reply, Wulf! It's always nice to know how things went during playtesting.

I'd be curious to know how you handled replacing characters once the game had already started. Were they stuck using the same set of ability cards that they had with their last character? What degree of flexibility were they allowed when customizing new PCs?

-blarg

 

[Shallown]

I used the same system for ability generation as Wulf used.

What I did for replacement characters was generate 2 additional sets of 6 character stats for players to choose from. I more or less took the cards and traded back and forth as if I was a player. So some sets are good and some not so good depeneding on what you want. Of course some scream make me a wizard or make me a rogue etc. But since the players knew what they wanted to play when they started they did try to trade for the best things for that class. If you compare the stats available to the players they are evenly balanced.

I liked using that system as my players have a fair share of average stats and some 9-7's but I don't think I will do it again. There was some small disstafisfaction when people realized some players had hoarded cards they didn't need as much like the wizard who started with a 14 con and played a dwarf. He still had a 18 Int to start just hoarded and traded for more con. this left some other players hurting in con like the more frontline fighters and the rogue who is moving into a con based PrC now.

I think next time I'll go old school and just roll. Letting some players choose to do stat buy. well actually one player who is notorious for bad luck. I may throw a twist in not sure as of yet since that game is some time away.

later

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

As a player in that game, I can say that we did us the ability cards all the way through to the end. Some of the "special ability" cards were of little value, however - the "you start with a masterwork weapon" card was obviously not terribly useful if you're creating a new 12th level character. A nice modification might be to make some of those ability cards scalable - a value rather than a particular item, for example.

 

[Shallown]

The special cards I used where +1 feat, X5 skill points instead of X 4 at 1st, +1 to two lowest scores, +2 to lowest score, +1 to highest score, and start 2nd level. I think the start at 2nd level was the least useful becuase after a while everyone caught up enough so that extra exp didn't matter. Did allow characters to start multiclassed to fit a concept so can sometimes be useful.

Later

 

[blargney the second]

There was some small disstafisfaction when people realized some players had hoarded cards they didn't need as much [...]

I'll take that as fair warning! I'd like to encourage my players to work together. My hope is that by making them create PCs that take each other into account, it will foster better teamwork than we've known in the past. Doubled-up party roles and high stats around the table seem to lead to uncomfortable situations where they step on each others' toes.

Some of the "special ability" cards were of little value [...]

I'll have to reexamine their utility once the game gets underway. I don't intend for there to be high levels of mortality to start off - I'd like for them to develop their characters a bit before I start killing them off! ;>

I think the start at 2nd level was the least useful becuase after a while everyone caught up enough so that extra exp didn't matter. Did allow characters to start multiclassed to fit a concept so can sometimes be useful.

It hadn't occured to me to consider the Ringleader ability as a simple 1000 xp bonus. As such, it doesn't seem nearly as huge. The multi-class point is well taken!

I actually just made the Special cards, and merely wrote the name of each ability on them. That gives me some flexibility as to what it actually means when they get handed out. They're exactly the same as Wulf's, except I called the bonus feat card "Talented". I also like the idea that only one PC at a time can have Monstrous Influence - it prevents the group from becoming a travelling sideshow, while keeping the one PC that has it special.

I'm going to allow the PCs to start the game with 6 bonus skill ranks that they can put into Knowledge: Local (Min 1), Craft, Profession, Speak Language and any two skills, with a max of 2 ranks in any one skill. I want to encourage the players to make detailed backgrounds that are tied to specific places - I've never seen anybody in our games take Knowledge: Local!

I'm also going to allow them to have one schtick. ie: always has perfect hair even when getting out of the water, or the wind always flutters their cloak at dramatic moments, people always stutter when they pronounce his name, etc. There's just too much potential for fun! It also means I can take similar liberties with my NPCs.

Here's hoping that all this is in line with what my players are looking for in a game - I'll have to talk to them about it!
-blarg

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I didn't have any trouble with my players, they worked together with the stat cards pretty well. Just make it clear up front that this is a pool of resources they all have to share and that it's in their best interests to build a strong party.

With respect to "Character Turnover," I just kept track of all the cards that were used, and made sure to have one pool of cards (one of each stat, one special) that I kept in reserve. When a character dies, his cards go back into the pool, but he then gets to pick from all of those plus the existing set.

For the +1 level card-- how about a card that grants a +20% XP bonus? He won't be higher level when he starts, but he could use that increase to gain a lead pretty quickly, or he could use it to offset a multiclass penalty (if folks still adhere to such a thing).

Wulf

 

[Eridanis]

I think it worked out pretty well. Besides what Kid Char said about the ability cards, another thing to keep in mind is that if a player leaves, and returns the cards to the pool, any new characters using the cards from the pool are somewhat constrained by the choices made by their predecessor. In practice, it worked out OK; I don't know what the previous character had been, but when I joined, I made up a paladin based on those cards, and I know there wasn't a paladin there before. Rodrigo (the character) would probably have flipped out if I had been the second paladin to join the group.

As for the campaign, I miss playing with these guys a lot. I got really lucky falling in with Wulf & the guys as my first 3rd edition campaign, and I wish we were all still in the same area so we could still be playing every other week!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I play in Shallown's game, and really enjoyed the Lazy Days setup. Some of our players did hoard, but, on the whole, we did split it up well. The only problem that could come up is the system isn't well suited to some of the secondary classes like bards and monks. These classes do well with decent scores across the board, and that is something lazy days does do well.