fuindordm
Adventurer
Here's an interesting question for those of you who submitted to the fantasy setting search:
What rules innovations did you come up with to make your setting unique? This is something that we clearly couldn't showcase in the one-page proposals, but I'm sure we all came up with new rules or interesting interpretations of old rules to give our worlds extra flavor.
I'll start us off:
For my high-magic setting (Anthos: moons of refuge), I tied the source of magic to the heroes' abandoned homeworld. PCs can use all their abilities normally while adventuring on Earth, but on the moons (where everyone lives), there is no native supply to power spells, items and abilities. The idea was that adventurers could hoard the surplus in specially prepared foci for later use or barter at home; for example, a 5th-level wizard who didn't use their 3rd-level spell could at the end of the day store enough magical power to prepare a 3rd-level spell at some later time. The scholars on the moons have also come up with new items powered off of "anthos", this generic magical essence, and new feats that let people enhance their mundane abilities with the raw stuff of magic.
For my low-magic setting, I wanted the study of magic to something for advanced characters. Players would start out as talented but definitely mundane citizens--scholars, mercenaries, crafters, laborers, civil servants, whatever. All spellcasting was available only through 10-level highly specialized prestige classes (each level granting 0-9 level spells), where each level had a prerequisite number of ranks in appropriate skills before it could be taken. The Golem Master, for example, needs 5 ranks in K: Arcana and Craft: sculpture for the first level; in general each additional level requires two more ranks of the key skills so you can advance your magic use only every other level. A truly dedicated scholar might be able to master two styles of magic this way, alternating levels. Each of these magical classes would also grant unique special abilities, in compensation for their limited spell lists. I really liked this approach because it forces all the PCs to have a mundane background in their history, and emphasizes the rarity of magic in the campaign--after all, to enter a prestige class you have to find someone to teach it to you.
I'd really like to hear other people's innovations, no matter how minor--small changes in rules go a long way towards creating a unique mood for a new setting.
--Ben
What rules innovations did you come up with to make your setting unique? This is something that we clearly couldn't showcase in the one-page proposals, but I'm sure we all came up with new rules or interesting interpretations of old rules to give our worlds extra flavor.
I'll start us off:
For my high-magic setting (Anthos: moons of refuge), I tied the source of magic to the heroes' abandoned homeworld. PCs can use all their abilities normally while adventuring on Earth, but on the moons (where everyone lives), there is no native supply to power spells, items and abilities. The idea was that adventurers could hoard the surplus in specially prepared foci for later use or barter at home; for example, a 5th-level wizard who didn't use their 3rd-level spell could at the end of the day store enough magical power to prepare a 3rd-level spell at some later time. The scholars on the moons have also come up with new items powered off of "anthos", this generic magical essence, and new feats that let people enhance their mundane abilities with the raw stuff of magic.
For my low-magic setting, I wanted the study of magic to something for advanced characters. Players would start out as talented but definitely mundane citizens--scholars, mercenaries, crafters, laborers, civil servants, whatever. All spellcasting was available only through 10-level highly specialized prestige classes (each level granting 0-9 level spells), where each level had a prerequisite number of ranks in appropriate skills before it could be taken. The Golem Master, for example, needs 5 ranks in K: Arcana and Craft: sculpture for the first level; in general each additional level requires two more ranks of the key skills so you can advance your magic use only every other level. A truly dedicated scholar might be able to master two styles of magic this way, alternating levels. Each of these magical classes would also grant unique special abilities, in compensation for their limited spell lists. I really liked this approach because it forces all the PCs to have a mundane background in their history, and emphasizes the rarity of magic in the campaign--after all, to enter a prestige class you have to find someone to teach it to you.
I'd really like to hear other people's innovations, no matter how minor--small changes in rules go a long way towards creating a unique mood for a new setting.
--Ben