Rules for a Stone-Age campaign

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm currently looking for my Encyclopedia of Weapons (Diagram Group) for more accurate weapon availability info, but its in a box somewhere in the house. I may be some time.

In the meantime, I found this under the Wiki entry for "Prehistoric Warfare":

Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_warfare

Beginning around 12,000 BC, combat was transformed by the development of bows, maces, and slings. The bow seems to have been the most important weapon in the development of early warfare, in that it enabled attacks to be launched with far less risk to the attacker when compared to the risk involved in the use of mêlée combat weaponry. While there are no cave paintings of battles between men armed with clubs, the development of the bow is concurrent with the first known depictions of organized warfare consisting of clear illustrations of two or more groups of men attacking each other. These figures are arrayed in lines and columns with a distinctly garbed leader at the front. Some paintings even portray still-recognizable tactics like flankings and envelopments

The bow- at least simple ones like self bows- have been around a LONG time.

 

[Phaezen]

Class wise this is what I would suggest:

Martial: take out the fighter and rogue, keep the ranger and possibly the warlord. The fighter and rogue classes in 4e suggest a medieval style of technology, while the rnager can quite easily by reflavoured as a primitive hunter. Warlord I am not 100% sure about, but could make do as a warleader.

Divine: Cleric and paladin must go. Invoker will be your most common type of divine class. Avenger I am on the fence about, but I would most likely cut it from my game uunless a player can sell me on the character concept.

Arcane: No wizards, swordmage or artificers. Sorcerers and bards make very good fits for the stoneage type campaign as would warlocks.

Primal: Unsurprisingly all these classes are good fits as written for the genre.

The major problem here is it leaves you with 1 defender class - the warden. So reflavour the swordmage to using a spear and possibly looking at some kind of ac buff to fighters, similar to what the warden gets to counteract the lack of heavy armour to give players some options when it comes to defenders.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm building a setting set in roughly 5,000 - 4,000 BC europe (exact year is unneeded as it is a fantasy) and I'm coming up with restrictions. Most of these are edition neutral, but it is being held in 4e.

I am asking for help with the setting, not the mechanics, if you please.

So far -
No bows.
No horses.
No metal (but weapons retain mechanical value for simplicity).
Wolves for pets.

What else to I need to consider?

Primitive arrowheads have been found dating back as far as 16,000 BCE, so no need to rule out bows. Also, 4K-5K BCE is edging into the Copper Age in Mesopotamia, so you could have some "magic" copper weapons imported from the distant south if you want.

Obviously, no writing, and hence no books or scrolls, which means wizards will need a bit of tweaking if you want to include the class. Weapons would be limited to spears/javelins, clubs and maces, daggers, quarterstaves, one-handed axes and hammers, bows, darts, slings. Armor would be limited to cloth, leather, and hide.

According to Wikipedia, by the time you mention, dogs, sheep, goats, pigs, cows, cats, and chickens had been domesticated in one place or another, though many of them probably hadn't gotten to Europe yet.

Agriculture was reaching northwestern Europe around this time, so you could have a mix of primitive agrarian and hunter-gatherer societies.

I'm curious: Why did you pick that specific time period? Is there a particular "feel" you're shooting for here?

 

[Chaoszero]

I'm curious: Why did you pick that specific time period? Is there a particular "feel" you're shooting for here?

The Neolithic era is basically a late stone age right before the bronze age where metalurgy is working its way into Europe, dwellings are common and writing has just sprung into use (via the Vinca symbols). It is the time when people are not "cavemen" and are making their first steps into a civilization. Wars begin brewing and as such, adventure is to be had. This way players can play primitive but not be frustrated with what they cannot do.

The actual plot is that all the (human) tribes are rules by individual dragons worshipped as gods and the dragon of the player's tribe dies. Now the players must deal with other tribes, orcs, gnolls and thier own ability to survive without their god to guide them.

Ok, so I guess bows are back in. And I do like the idea of foreign copper weaons and items.

The classes with heavy armor will recieve a bonus to AC equal to the heaviest armor normally available. So fighters are in. I'm also keeping rogues, 'cause even in primitive societies, there were thieves. And every class will have survival as a class skill.

 

[C_M2008]

I don't think you need to give a free bonus to AC to some classes, just shift the armor materials.

chainmail=bonemail
scale = scaly animal hide (crocodiles or something else exotic)
plate = carapace (giant turtle shells or the like)


What are you doing with races? Human only? reflavour them to human varients? As is?

 

[ferratus]

I'd agree that you're probably better off finding equivalents to weapons in the PHB and using PHB equipment stats, rather than coming up with new stats. Most medieval weapons had stone age counterparts in function, though made with different materials. A Mayan war club looks like a paddle with small blades of obsidian wedged around the outside. Why not just use longsword stats for that? The Maori have a weapon that kind of looks like a glaive which is made from shaped wood. There were also weapons that were intricately carved out of Jade which could take the shape similar to those of later metal weapons. A spiked chain could be a represented by a wooden head imbedded with shark teeth on the end of a long rope.

Where history does not provide, keep in mind that the Monster Manual is full of exotic materials. Bulete teeth, the sabre-toothed tusks of dire animals (particularly the dire boar) could be used for various thrusting weapons. Any claw or paw could be reinforced to make a trident. Juvenile hook horrors hooks could be deadly weapons for a strong warrior. The club of a macetail behemoth makes a good mace, the plates of a bloodspike behemoth would make an excellent greataxe. A grell's mummified tentacle could be a spiked chain as well.

Finding equivelants will spare you from having to convert all the fantasy monsters that use weapons, and will allow you to keep the game's assumptions for amour class intact. To simulate that stone age weapons are more fragile, simply have them break on a natural 1, and allow them to buy/make weapons between adventures.

I'd probably stop the campaign at about level 10, simply because high paragon and epic level monsters don't really have the stone age feel that you're probably going for.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Two things:

1. From what I've heard, Iron Heroes does a great job of making nonmagical play viable. It might be a good addition to your setting, especially regarding the AC stuff.

2. Why bump up AC at all? It might be nice for everyone to have cruddy ACs. It would really add a lot of reality to the setting, including making monsters (mammoths, etc) that much scarier and having ranged combat and stealth hunting be more emphasized (as they would have been).


I run a Midnight setting game, where armor is a no-no. It really changes a lot flavorwise. Just something to consider.

 

[ferratus]

If you don't allow for higher AC's, and it is a 4e game, you might as well remove the paladin, cleric, warlord, and fighter classes. I certainly wouldn't play one.

 

[roguerouge]

Actually, Nyambe has a no-heavy-armor setting as well. Try taking a look at that.

 

[Particle_Man]

4e or 3e or other e?

I would assume for 4e, for instance, that Tieflings don't exist yet.

Also, traditionally some races have been more advanced than others. So do you have cave-humans and advanced elven fantastic cities? Or cave-humans and cave-elves?

How big a role do devils play (as in "Deal with a devil"? Warlocks could exist, if the role is there.

I would assume Barbarian to be the most common class, although Ranger could be common too.