D&D General Neolithic D&D

So does 4e really. More so even. I didn't play 3e, but that is definitely the assumption we had in 1e too. Though I don't know that it was anything specific from the rulebooks, just the fantasy stories we grew up on.

PS - I miss the lich!
In 1st edition assassin is presented as an NPC class, since they are required to be evil, and Gygax could not imagine anyone wanting to play an evil PC.
 

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my feeling is that survival, although clearly top of the agenda for real Stone Age people, would not be interesting enough to sustain a campaign for very long. Eat sleep hunt repeat. You could throw in elements of climate change to force migration and make things more challenging.

Something I think my players would find more engaging would be a conflict between the noble hunter-gatherer PCs (yay!) and evil city builders with their cruel gods (boo!)
 

In 1st edition assassin is presented as an NPC class, since they are required to be evil, and Gygax could not imagine anyone wanting to play an evil PC.
It's described in the PH right next to the thief. I don't recall seeing anything in the entry suggesting only NPCs should take it.

I'd check it myself, but I'm on vacation in Japan and away from my books.
 

my feeling is that survival, although clearly top of the agenda for real Stone Age people, would not be interesting enough to sustain a campaign for very long. Eat sleep hunt repeat. You could throw in elements of climate change to force migration and make things more challenging.

Something I think my players would find more engaging would be a conflict between the noble hunter-gatherer PCs (yay!) and evil city builders with their cruel gods (boo!)
I don't know...isn't survival the whole point of the Ice Age franchise?
 




You absolutely could do that, but I find re-skinning as a matter of course deeply unsatisfying. I'd want some new mechanics to make it worth it. Deeper rules for equipment damage and materials would be a good start.
It is not about reskinning. There is nothing in the rules of D&D that is specifically medieval, outside some items in the arm and armour lists.
There is nothing in core D&D that enforces medievalism and if there is could you point it out, please.
 


My current setting Artra is not strictly Neolithic, as it is a fanciful fantasy world where tech levels of societies range from Palaeolithic to early bronze age, but it definitely has this "the dawn of civilisation" vibe, so it is pretty similar.

Most of it is about presentation, but I made some actual rule changes too, most notable probably redoing the armour.
I was not satisfied with just a reskin, as I wanted wearing armour to be rarer. So there are just two categories or armour, light and heavy. Classes that normally have light armour proficiency have no armour proficiency, and classes that have medium have now light. The chart below shows how the ACs are calculated.

Armour​

NameCostArmour Class (AC)MobilityStealth & AcrobaticsWeight
No Armour
No armour10 + ½ proficiency bonus + dex modifier
Unarmoured Defence Feature10 + proficiency bonus + dex modifier
Light Armour
Leather armour50 sp12 + ½ proficiency bonus + dex modifier (max 2)10
Composite armour200 sp13 + ½ proficiency bonus + dex modifier (max 2)Disadvantage30
Heavy Armour
Scale armour350 sp15 + ½ proficiency bonusDisadvantage50
War panoply1500 sp16 + ½ proficiency bonus-5Disadvantage70
Shield
Shield20 sp+26

I have also altered weapons and some other equipment, but that is more minor. But there are surprising number of stuff that is not available at the early bronze age tech level Artra caps at, and for pure Neolithic that would increase quite a bit.

I have wizards in the setting, but they're rare and their magic is new magic, based on writing, sometimes called scribe magic. Most people in the setting obviously cannot read or write. But for actual Neolithic, the idea of making wizardry to be weaver magic was really good one.

Also the size and scope of societies is important. There are no empires, people live either as nomadic tribes or at the high end in city states. For Artra I emphasised this, as I wanted POL feel, where there are vast stretches of wilderness between the cities, with all sorts of fantastic perils and beasts.

For metaphysics, I have tried make things to feel shamanistic or early polytheistic, with all sort of rites and sacrifices and communing with spirits, and avoid the weird Christian vibes the D&D polytheism often has, as that feels very medieval.
 
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