"No Core" game

[the Jester]

Has anyone else ever considered running a "no core books" game?

I am planning on at least a one-off or something, with nothing from the PH, DMG or MM in use. Well, I mean, some of the rules, of course, but no fighters, rods of cancellation, archmagi, magic missile spells, goblins, etc.

Your party might have a xeph psion, a darfellan knight, a warforged dragon shaman and an aarakocra spellthief as pcs. Your big adversaries might be firenewts led by an avatar of elemental evil. I dunno, what do you think?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I had thought of something like this, but a "no core classes" game. Doing nothing core at all would seem like an awful lot of work!

 

[Thurbane]

I had thought of something like this, but a "no core classes" game. Doing nothing core at all would seem like an awful lot of work!

Same here...

 

[the Jester]

I had thought of something like this, but a "no core classes" game. Doing nothing core at all would seem like an awful lot of work!

Well, as long as everyone is willing to accept a pretty vague setting- maybe a 'points of light' style one - it should be fairly easy to wing it as a gm. I mean, you only really need to be familiar with some other monster books, and most gms already have and use a bunch of them. Keep the Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium around; the complete books have new base classes, and so do of the other books (Heroes of Horror, Dungeonscape, etc).

 

[Particle_Man]

Well the "standard" magic items (stat buffers, some AC buffers, etc.) would be gone, which would be interesting. I take it you would still have the "numeric" magic weapons and armor (+1, +2, etc.).

There are certainly enough races and classes out there. I think that the classes outside core are usually (a bit or a lot) weaker than the core classes (exception: Tome of Battle: The Book of 9 Swords!), so you might have to be a bit careful not to overwhelm players.

I take it you would not allow "new" subraces of elves, dwarves, etc., outside the core three?

Would NPC classes (commoner, warrior, etc.) still exist?

 

[wolfpunk]

I have plans to run a psionics underdark/planescape campaign.

The following races will be available.
Blue ( LA +1), Drow (LA +2), Duergar (LA +1), Human (LA +0), Svirfneblin (LA +3)

The following classes will be available.
Non-Player Classes:
Adept (DMG), Aristocrat (DMG), Commoner (DMG), Expert (DMG), Warrior (DMG)

Player Classes:
Monk (PHB), Psion (XPH), Psychic Warrior (XPH), Soulknife (XPH), Wilder (XPH)


That is about as non-core as I have ever gone.

 

[Robert Ranting]

Sure, ditch the core races and classes, that should be no problem. Remember though, that the skill system is in the core books, as is the XP chart. Also, while there are thousands of other feats out there, many of them key off of core PHB feats like Power Attack, Expertise, Combat Reflexes, etc. Running many monsters would also be difficult since they are assumed to have core-rules spells as spell-like abilities. Likewise, many of the alternate spellcasting classes draw their spell lists from the PHB. I really don't think that you can run the game without the DMG or at least the SRD at the table for a few things.

My reccommendation is to just ditch the races (including variants) and core classes from the PHB, and maybe avoid using the first MM. Keep the DMG around, and use the skill system, the feats, and the XP chart from the PHB. Decide if you want to keep Divine and Arcane Magic around. If you do, then you'll need to keep the PHB spells for your Favored Souls, Shugenja, Spirit Shamans, and Wu Jen. If not, see if you can't find a good mix of Psionic, Incarnum, and Tome of Magic classes, as well as "Aura" and invocation using classes to fill your magic needs. The Book of Nine Swords certainly would be a shoe-in for this type of game.

In terms of campaign background, I would set the campaign a thousand years after your standard earth-shaking cataclysm. A major shift in the fabric of magic resulted in the collapse of the ancient empires ruled by a now-mythical race called the Hyu Man, no doubt brought about by their arrogance or some natural cycle beyond their power. In the wake of the cataclysm, new races gifted with unique magical abilities arose to repopulate the planet. A couple of the older races, like the Warforged who served the Hyu-Man and the Aventi, who claim to be their direct descendents, assert that all of the races of the world are derived from Hyu-Man stock, but many maintain their own seperate creation myths. You could build a whole campaign around exploring the ruins of the ancient Hyu Man civilization and determining if this is in fact the case, or if something far more interesting happened.

A neat twist you might include in the setting is using Binders and Vestiges instead of clerics and gods. When the ancient civilization collapsed, so did their gods. Now mere vestiges of their ancient power, these gods are looking for a way to empower themselves and return to prominence.

Robert "I Love These Sorts of Projects" Ranting

 

[palleomortis]

Our group right now has a half-dragon gnoll, and a...thing from Races of the Wild. The classes WERE base, but prestiged now. I personally am trying to get closer to the cores, simply becuase I'm admittadly not the best DM, and I've been a PC too long. I simply flip through all my books for what I would like to make a character out of, and leave it at that. So it's insanely hard for me to DM for them when almost everything they do is from a book I havn't read, and know very little about. Don't get me wrong, it's fun. But it is really hard, both to DM it, and to try to play those type of characters.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

Somebody got high and mighty (and put max ranks in diplomacy) and gave a B5 John Sheratan style "Butt Out!" speech to the Gods, (rolled a nat 20) and ,well, they did. They packed up their toys and substaining influences and left. Some of them were nice enough to leave their portfolios on auto pilot (like death, birth, disease, seasons, gravity...little things like that), but some where not (like metal smithing, weapon skills, continuing fertility of patron races, common magics). They also locked off the PMP from all others except the EP, AP, PEP, NEP, Elemental planes, and the Plane of Shadow.

Their patrons spent a great deal of energy reinventing basic metal working, but for the life of them, no one could remember how to make a dagger or an arrow. Also, most of the common races plain forgot to have sex...(their respective matchmaker goddess and fate spinners having left).

Now the last of the elves are 1000+ and are dieing off....as are the dragons. No more goblins, kobolds, humans, dwarves, horses, cows, sheep, dogs, cats, medium vipers....(thank god the MM wasn't too definitive)...solitary bats and rats but no swarms...

You make make and equip characters as follows:
No races, classes, spells (treat as deleted from class list), weapons, feats, templates, magic items, alchemical items, weapon qualities, special materials, monsters (plants included) or animals from PHP, DMG, or MM. These are the exceptions: weapon and armor feats for items not mentioned in those books; Skill feats for skills introduced in other books; you many select Power attack only in if you can take 2 feats at the same time, and power attack is a prerequisite for the other feat, which must have been introduced in an unbanned book.

WoTC products only.
No half races descended from races in prohibited books (1/2 giant, elan, illumian, whisper/forest/wild/deep/aquatic/desert/jungle/ect templated)

GM rules:
As above, but also No Hazards from those sources. No traps or constructs based on or requiring spells from the Core 3.
Monsters from other books retain spell like abilities, but not "Cast spells as".

I think that advanced groups with decent libraries could actually play this. I go so far as to say that they could do so with XPB barred as well. (and make use of Com Psi even)

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I think you could do that with races, classes, and monsters, but the splat book races and classess assume the skills, feats, equipment, and spells from the PHB and in many cases are built on them. I'd thikn it would be too much of a pain to write those items out of the game.