Serious Mucking With The Standard Game Options: Advice?

[Ashtal]

Not to side-track too much into Bard-Good/Bard-Bad, I've always found the bard interesting as a Player, but confounding as a DM. It's always had this mishmashy feel to it ... I sing, and it's magical. I've always prefered Bards to be people who just sing, so they end up being Rogues (or whatever) with the Perform skill.

However, the Celtic thing could work ... that could be a tweak. I'm also pondering letting half-elves in. I'm stealing Frigga from Deities and Demigods, and I have decided that her Owl and Cat companions take human form and walk the earth on occasion, sometimes siring children. These children would be odd ... but then perhaps I should make an alternate outsider race like the assimar or teifling (or assign A to the Owl children, and T to the Cat children. Hmmm ....) I had also pondered having elves be an extinct race, with the occasional ruin and fabled magical artifacts floating around.

But, yeah, Billy .. now that you mention it, it is getting a side-vibe of the Martin trilogy ... very people oriented, very low magic.

I've emailed the group ... I hope they like the ideas!

 

[Blood Jester]

Ashtal:

Re: Bards

Ditch - spell casting
Add - level-based bonuses to heal and possibly knowledge.

Keep - Inspiring song, make it more vocal, less lute-y

Add - A feat or two aimed at light weapon skills.


And whatever else suits, the above is just a general starter for transforming the bard to a less magic, more 'primative' type. Depending on how much you end up toning down magic in the whole world you could give more for the loss of spell casting (if it seems a bigger hit proportionately than magic as a whole takes). Like fighter bab, or another mobility/light weapon-based feat.

 

[Conaill]

Go Ashtal! Sounds like a great campaign to me.

Way too many DMs and players seem to think it's not possible to tell a great story unless you have all the "bells and whistles", all the magic being flung about constantly, every single monster from every single monster supplement, horrendously convoluted prestige class combinations, magic items out the wazoo, and so on.

 

[Ace]

if the number of magic items is low you may wish to consider using a level based bonus to AC

Make it stack with armor (at least for fighter types) and make it a "class" named bonus not a dodge bonus

This will help keep AC in line with BAB at higher levels

Another option is to allow "cultural skills" to be added to the list ala Wheel of Time

Good resources to check out include Wheel of Time, Slaine (the magic system is really good) Swashbuckling Adventures (the Bard varient is good) and

this site http://www.nineshadoweyes.com/harn.html

for its really good D20 low magic Harn (Mideval low magic at its best)

If you are willing to bend the rules a tad I also suggest 2 bonus skill points per class (background skill stuff) and an accelerated feat progression (I like 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19)

As for spells -- Just disallow flashy spells, quick summons and wierd spells

Call lightning is OK as it can pass for coincidence -- Cone of Cold, probably not

 

[Ashtal]

Well, all three of my players have responded with go-aheads. They are a pretty laid back bunch ... I think my worries were needless.

Thanks for the advice, though my next issue will be whether to wait until I get my hands on Arcana Unearthed and incorporate some of those classes into my campaign world. Nah, I'll go standard ... use it for the one afterwards.

 

[Dreeble]

Heya:

Just a quick question: Will you allow clerics to be clerics of "No Specific Diety" so that they can get around the subversion of the gods later in the campaign?

Take care,
Dreeble

 

[Gothmog]

Well Ashtal, I have done what you are proposing doing in a campaign, and that game has been running for 11 years, and still going stong! Rather than dying gods, my game forcused more on the temptation of seduction of humanity by demonic forces opposed to the gods, but its similar. Anyway, my world has similar cultures to medieval Eurpore, but twisted around due to the effects of magic and supernatural forces. There are roughly 15 different cultural groups so far in my world, each with some stat and skill bonuses, and culture-specific feats, PrCs, and magical traditions. The players have never complained about lack of choices- in fact, I usually have the opposite trouble- they want me to simplify and put into a short document the character cultures and classes available to them! I will say it is the best campaign I have ever run, and the players are more easily able to identify with their characters since they are human.

 

[Gothmog]

Whoah, quadruple post! Sorry about that.

Is that some kind of a record? Is there a prize?

 

[Ashtal]

Wow, that is a lot of extra posts.

I've never been a fan of goddless clerics, but depending on how the story shakes out, I may have to have some sort of alternative. I don't plan on all the gods going out at once ... but I do hope that I'll at last have cleric characters tat aren't taken to just fill the role of band-aid applicators. With all the undead, they'll be crazy not to take a cleric!

 

[cildarith]

Wow! A quadruple post followed by double post. Well-played Gothmog.