The Black Company (aka Rawr, the Lady)

[Teflon Billy]

As someone mentioned earlier, one thing about the setting that would discourage this is the fact that EVERYONE is gunning for the wizards...

This is exactly what I meant when I mentioned "limiting mechanical advantage with RP limitations".

Can the entire group be wizards if they want? Sure, for the 5 minutes that they will be a viable group before one of them pops off a spell and brings down unwanted attention. That is a fact of life in DnD now, not just in the world of the Black Company. The "almost impossible to kill" wizards seem to be the very high level (Epic?) wizards, not your average joe wizard. Note how fast Tom Tom went down in the first book. He might be considered an average wizard for most groups yet he bought the farm as fast as the rest of the grunts when the forvalaka nailed him.

No, Tom Tom went down under the attack of the Forvalaka (apparently an ass-kicker of immense ability) and still managed to hang on for a long time with incredibly grave wounds. They mention it specifically. Not exactly the "folding like a jouseof cards" I associate with the mid level D&D Wizard in Melee.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Thanks, Doug!

(BTW: Did you see MEG on Queen's Tier's OGC Credits page?)

I'm inclined to think that the "divinities" of TBC aren't truly divinities in the nature of D&D's DDG explainations of them. To say that The Tree was a godling seemed more akin to Arthur C Clarke's take on it: "Any science that is sufficiently advanced will be indistinguishable from magic", or something to that effect. By this, The Tree was such an entity as to seem godlike, although having no priests and no powers outside containing the "thing" beneath it, could it be defined as a god per the DDG?

Also, Kina is also addressed as likely being a sorceress who's might made her appear to be a deity, but was actually quite mortal despite all her power. Also note that the only appearant magic ever used by Singh was, more or less, ceremonial/ritualistic in nature, and never appeared to have an effect. If we assume that magic truly happened, it would likely mirror something along the lines of Qabalah than actually be Divine Spells.

Also, in regards to the Birth Feat, note that the wizards (from the powerful Lady to the dagger-teleporting Raven and even the projecting Murgen) were described as having talent. This seems to suggest that something about the individual seperated them from other people. Even Darling, who's gift was to generate a field of null-magic, shared the same True Name weakness as the casters, suggesting that while her gift was radically different, it's difference was entirely in strength and effect, not source of origin.

For TBC, I'd suggest a Birth Feat to be able to cast, and likely use Feats (with Ability Score and possibly Knowledge ranks) to "open up" new fields of magic (for instance, a Feat for Illusion, a Feat for Divination, a Feat for Necromancy, etc.). This might even be a good way to set up a class that uses Spell Seeds.

For game effect, I'd likely make the class extremely weak at lower levels, rising up about starting around Level 10, near equal at around 15th, and then exploding into high power after 20th Level. This would generally force multiclassing to a degree, especially at lower levels, unless the caster has a group of friends that he trusts completely to cover his rump when things get ugly, just for survivability, which would again delay the aquisition of power.

This would also prevent a party consisting entirely of Spellcasters (at least at Low Levels), since the survivability of 4 1st Level Wizards would be reduced to spit.

Hmmm... Now I half-wish the Spell Seed rules were out a year ago before I wrote up my Channelers and Elementalists.

Oh, well... Next campaign, eh?

 

[Khorod]

In the books, you mostly see the black company. THe black company is probably mostly 2-4th level characters. Between their rather good tactical planning, they are able to take down larger armies of 1st level warriors.

I figure Silent is rather like a Druid 5/Sorcerer 5, One-Eye is an Illusionist 12-13, and Goblin is an Illusionist 11-12 with a higher Charisma, and a shade less Intelligence than One-Eye.

What does this mean? They are so tough because they are essentially 3-4 level warriors with trained minds and perhaps some magical protections (things like Mage Armor might translate to a luck bonus in BC, but I am sure something like it exists).

Then, you have all of those Taken and powerful spellcasters. They are all 17th level+. And, Taken are easily balancable in D&D, they're just balancable against level 2X characters.

Then their is all the enhancements to everything the Taken probably slap on themselves. Boosts to Intelligence, Consitution, etc. So the taken don't fit the typical CR balancing system, since their permanent magics are probably greater than they deserve.

I suppose the question to ask is this: are we trying to make a game where you play on the Taken's level, or where the Taken are horribly powerful villains that you are leading an army against in the slim hope of continuing your own life in a stupid and dangerous world?

If the Taken is supposed to be percieved like a Dark Lord of some sort, then all we need here is a personality description, and a list of favorite spells and magical items.

There have been all kinds of ideas for doing different things with a d20 Black Company. Maybe the first thing to do is to decide a particular thing to design for, like BC in conventional Fantasy, BC for archmage warfare, etc, and go with that. If a translation doesn't go to specialized, it should be pretty easy to expand it for different styles of play.

 

[Mystic Eye]

Thanks, Doug!

(BTW: Did you see MEG on Queen's Tier's OGC Credits page?)

I'm inclined to think that the "divinities" of TBC aren't truly divinities in the nature of D&D's DDG explainations of them.

Also, Kina is also addressed as likely being a sorceress who's might made her appear to be a deity, but was actually quite mortal despite all her power. Also note that the only appearant magic ever used by Singh was, more or less, ceremonial/ritualistic in nature, and never appeared to have an effect. If we assume that magic truly happened, it would likely mirror something along the lines of Qabalah than actually be Divine Spells.

Also, in regards to the Birth Feat, note that the wizards (from the powerful Lady to the dagger-teleporting Raven and even the projecting Murgen) were described as having talent. This seems to suggest that something about the individual seperated them from other people. Even Darling, who's gift was to generate a field of null-magic, shared the same True Name weakness as the casters, suggesting that while her gift was radically different, it's difference was entirely in strength and effect, not source of origin.

For TBC, I'd suggest a Birth Feat to be able to cast, and likely use Feats (with Ability Score and possibly Knowledge ranks) to "open up" new fields of magic (for instance, a Feat for Illusion, a Feat for Divination, a Feat for Necromancy, etc.). This might even be a good way to set up a class that uses Spell Seeds.

HEy, I did not see MEG on Queen's Tier's OGC Credits page. I will look that up! Thanks buddy.

I don't know, I still think there were deities in TBC. I think it was just in the nature of the gritty story telling that they were not entirely immortal. Or, maybe your right. Maybe all of the "godlike" creatures were just those that were even more powerful than the Lady or Dominator in their day.
Singh though (thanks for the name reminder) used to be able to hide he and the girl using Kina's power. It seemed a lot like some evil clerical power to me.
The big guy on the plain that watched over it was refered to as a Demon several times, so, are they demons in the traditional sense or more like ultra-powerful dimensional travelers of some sort?

So, with taking the birth feat that allows you to be a spell caster, perhaps in BC there would be a second factor where you had to take a gift of some sort (like Murgen) or a focus on a certain type of magic. Goblin and One-Eye were definately illusionists.
If you take the position that the power is inherent I think there would then be some sort of randomizing factor to see just how powerful you could potentially be. It seems that Goblin and One-Eye had no ability to ever reach the level of the Taken but good old Silent seemed too be able to get closer.
The kid of Murgen's wife was pretty fricken powerful too. He had tremendous power over shadow creatures. It seemed that he could reach the same power level as the Taken could.
Raven only seems to have some very limited talents. and Bomanz appeared to be a wizard, with more studied knowledge than inherent talent.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

HEy, I did not see MEG on Queen's Tier's OGC Credits page. I will look that up! Thanks buddy.

No problem. So far, only MEG and S&SS are on it, but you have some idea how long that list will get on the next update.

I don't know, I still think there were deities in TBC. I think it was just in the nature of the gritty story telling that they were not entirely immortal. Or, maybe your right. Maybe all of the "godlike" creatures were just those that were even more powerful than the Lady or Dominator in their day.
Singh though (thanks for the name reminder) used to be able to hide he and the girl using Kina's power. It seemed a lot like some evil clerical power to me.

I would agree, except this was also the same manner in which Kina had granted Lady powers as well, and Lady was far from a priestly-type. If anything, Kina granted him some powers for his service, but it seemed that he knew that when Booboo took the reigns of The Deceivers, he would likely be reduced to just another henchman with a choke-rag.

The big guy on the plain that watched over it was refered to as a Demon several times, so, are they demons in the traditional sense or more like ultra-powerful dimensional travelers of some sort?

That's an interesting question. One perhaps only Mr. Cook would be able to answer.

So, with taking the birth feat that allows you to be a spell caster, perhaps in BC there would be a second factor where you had to take a gift of some sort (like Murgen) or a focus on a certain type of magic. Goblin and One-Eye were definately illusionists.

Agreed, although One-Eye possibly had some Transmutation going as well. And One-Eye and Lady were undoubtably alchemists as well (ex: the firerods).

If you take the position that the power is inherent I think there would then be some sort of randomizing factor to see just how powerful you could potentially be. It seems that Goblin and One-Eye had no ability to ever reach the level of the Taken but good old Silent seemed too be able to get closer.
The kid of Murgen's wife was pretty fricken powerful too. He had tremendous power over shadow creatures. It seemed that he could reach the same power level as the Taken could.
Raven only seems to have some very limited talents. and Bomanz appeared to be a wizard, with more studied knowledge than inherent talent.

Well, Lady comments on Tobo's potential, so I'd agree that inborn ability is likely somewhat related to potential. However, it was commented that the universities of the Empire had a "secret college" and that this was likely where Raven picked up his training. Bomaz would likely have come from a pre-Empire version of this same school.

In the books, you mostly see the black company. THe black company is probably mostly 2-4th level characters. Between their rather good tactical planning, they are able to take down larger armies of 1st level warriors.

I'd say they're 2-4th if put against Core standards. However, in a world shy of magical trinkets, they could easily have been well above this (Otto, for instance, didn't strike me as a slouch). And while we didn't see him "in action", we know Captain gave Lady and her crew a hard-time at the end of Shadows Linger (enough to "take over" the flying carpet they were all on and smash them into a cliff). I'd up that level a bit, and not likely Warrior classed (although something more geared for formation-based combat than Fighter, for sure). Raven I'd also put in a few levels of Fighter in addition to his minor spell-casting; It seemed that Limper was concerned when he didn't know where Raven was, although relax somewhat when he did know (thus less likely for Raven to catch him off-guard).

I suppose the question to ask is this: are we trying to make a game where you play on the Taken's level, or where the Taken are horribly powerful villains that you are leading an army against in the slim hope of continuing your own life in a stupid and dangerous world?

 

[Khorod]

Shivetya was called a 'Demon' because that was his evolved place in the southern mythos.

Their might be odd cults that worship him as a god, and maybe their is even a small desert people that think of him as the Golem, placed where it is to prevent their slave masters from pursuing them from another world.

There are god-like, or at least vastly superior beings in this universe. They extend beyond their physical forms to the point where the material is either an afterthought, a prison, or a means at communication. Maybe those are all from the Uber Dimensional of Supreme Beings, and maybe those are beings who have been purified in a Hindu/Bhuddist style cycle, and have risen to a higher state.

Shivetya is probably something akin to an insanely powerful psion for whom the plane is an extension of his conscious will and biological functioning.

Agreed, although One-Eye possibly had some Transmutation going as well. And One-Eye and Lady were undoubtably alchemists as well (ex: the firerods).

Very few of the magic-users seemed to be pinned to this or that school. In Core terms, One-Eye was an Illusionist. In BC terms, divinations which are enhancements to the mind and sight, or the ephemeral energies of illusion are easiest. So One-Eye concentrated his studies on illusion, as he could fire off lots of those to good effect in a battlefield.

Genuine Conjuration and Evocation type magic would be more difficult. Probably these guys used a mana system.

If you take the position that the power is inherent I think there would then be some sort of randomizing factor to see just how powerful you could potentially be. It seems that Goblin and One-Eye had no ability to ever reach the level of the Taken but good old Silent seemed too be able to get closer.

In D&D, the limits of one's magical gift are left to the DM and player to decide. If you have 5 levels of mage-gift, you stop leveling as a mage after 5th level.

For worlds like BC I once considered a 'Mystic' ability score. I was playing around with it being the DC modification for all spellcasters and, depending on the world, the score being the Maximum level you can attain in any one spellcasting thingy (wizard + loremaster, or whatever). The average Joe would just not have this score, as it would be irrelevant to his life.

Since none of my current projects needed that sort of thing very much, I decided to drop it. Maybe it would have a purpose here?

 

[derverdammte]

Not to chime in as though I know what I'm talking about, of course, but...

What about a "Spell Ability" feat that allows you to take levels as a spellcaster (or better yet, cast spells of certain levels), and then a "Potential" feat that allows you a higher maximum than the default, which could be, say, 3rd level spells?

If you disconnected spellcasting from the class system, this could work even better. You could have fuzzier level requirements, where the more powerful spells exacted a higher price, and then you could use feats to mitigate this.

Using a few feat paths and a disconnected spell system, you might be better off. In that case, it would just be a matter of making spell lists and determining general casting requirements. In fact, if you modeled the classes after Call of Cthulhu (to some extent), you might be able to to a pretty fair representation of the books.

My apologies if this ground has been covered before. I may have missed some of the earlier posts.

 

[Khorod]

I think an entrance feat, followed by skill-based growth in magical knowledge and power, with a few more feats to play with the skill-based rules might not be a bad idea. I have been experimenting with that sort of thing.

Then you get a sort of Expert SPellcaster class together, and the Spellcaster can choose which of the magic skills are class skills, and which are cross class. And then, maybe later on he can get at exclusive magic skills.

And maybe fighters can take a feat to get cross-class access to Fire Magic.

(But then, I am not sure if this concept belongs in BC. This is how I would do it if I were to make such a system though.)

 

[Beckett]

Or consider Bonegnasher. Could he cast any spells? Who knows? Even Shapeshifter never showed much magical hoo hah -- he just had a permanent change self spell on the go. Just because the Taken were called wizards doesn't mean they had any levels in the D&D class "wizard".

I'll have to disagree with your assessment of the Taken's magic abilities. It's been a couple years since I read the books, but the impression I had was that all the Taken could and did throw around some massive destructive spells. They just did it off camera. The BC would be off ambushing one group of rebels or another, and at the same time a Taken would be demolishing another group with traditional evocation spells.

For the BC's wizards, the sorcerer class seems the most fitting. Each one knew only a small number of spells, but they knew how to get the most out of each spell. They also weren't sharing spells; Goblin's claim to fame, as I recall, was his sleep spell. Insanely useful spell, and it probably would have helped if One-Eye could also cast it, but he never seemed to pick up that trick.

Perhaps the best way to manage PC spellcasters is with the spell list? Goblin and One-Eye stuck mainly to Charms, Illusions, and Divination.

 

[Soulmage]

The Black Company Campaign

As the only person on this thread who seems to ACTUALLY be running a Black Company campaign, I'd like to interject a couple comments here: (with apologies for what has turned into a rant)

There's been a lot of discussion on how things ought to work to stay as close to the source material as possible. In six years of running The Black Company campaign, I've discovered that the world doesn't translate well to an ongoing D&D campaign.

1. There are almost no monsters in the world. So just about everything the PCs do will be NPC related. This is not really conducive to maintaining player interest in the game.

2. As many have pointed out, there is a complete and utter lack of divine healing available. Shifter displays some healing ability in the first book, but it's definitely arcane in nature and tough to do since nobody else seems to do it throughout the rest of the series.

This has the result of making a continuous campaign very difficult to run as the ability to recover HPs (or other damage) is integral to D&D. Somebody mentioned a WP/VP system. I'm not familiar with how that one works, so it might be a possibility. Or, it might be beneficial to take a page from Neverwinter nights and make it possible to use a Heal check to actually cure damage. This makes Croaker's status as physician a lot more meaninful, assuming he has a bunch of ranks in heal.

3. True spellcasting ability is incredibly rare. I'd go so far as to say there probably ought not to be any spellcasters in the party. Even if there are, there shouldn't be more that one and his magic should be limited to illusion and shadow, rather than actual hard-core spell slinging.

Again, this is not helpful in running a game that everybody is going to enjoy for the long term.

4. The Black Company Campaign is military fiction. The opportunities for dungeon crawling are fairly limited in a campaign that stays completely true to the source material. Mostly you're looking at politics/covert ops type stuff. Almost more of a spy-like game than a D&D game.

So what are we left with by sticking close to the core material:

A game in which the players play fighters, rogues, and rangers (minus spellcasting abilities), have virtually no access to magic and spend their time fighting and politicking with other fighters, rogues, and rangers while avoiding being stomped by any of the true powers in the world.

I have great difficulty believing that any campaign based strictly on the core material would last very long. There's just not enough variety. Thus, while I may draw some indirect criticisim on this thread for not being absolutely true to the sourcebooks, I think I've done an excellent job of making an actual PLAYABLE, ONGOING campaign out of the Black Company concept, while maintaining the flavor of the books.

Throwing around ideas of "how things ought to be" is fine, but if you don't actually pay some attention to whether things will be enjoyable for the players, then you're not really generating campaign ideas, you're just yakking on a messageboard.

With my mini-rant over, there are a few things I can actually contribute:

1. Glen Cook sold the rights to a Black Company RPG to some game company quite a while ago. (During the 80's, I think.) That company ultimately folder and/or decided not to pursue them. So until somebody goes to the effort and expense of tracking down and accquiring those rights, we'll never see any BC material published "officially."

2. The Taken should definitely be a template. I'd say one that provides a big bump to Str and Con, as well as requires special rules for killing one of them (similar to a Tarrasque or something). The Limper and Soulcatcher had incredible physical combat abilities, especially when augmented by spells. This means a high str, and a lot of HPs. (see Shadows Linger/The Black Company).

The process of Taking should probably be an Epic spell. Not really any need to stat it out since the players will never cast it, or probably even see it cast.

3. I'd guess most of the Taken are wizards in their mid 20s since they actually studfy magic, rather than just grabbing arcane power and hurling it about. Limper and Soulcatcher are definitely the most powerful (30 or so?), while Bonegnasher has the least magical ability, but tremendous physical capabilities.

4. Bomanz I would put on par with the most powerful of the Taken (28th to 30th).

5. The Lady is probably somewhere in the range of 40th level or so, while the Dominator might be up as high as 60.

6. Silent is actually a true wizard, as opposed to Goblin and One-Eye who are primarily illusionists. (Silent is actually taught some magic by the Taken in Shadows Linger).


Anyway, gotta run. For those of you who are BC fans who haven't read any of this other work, you might want to check out:

The Sword Bearer
and
The Dread Empire Trilogy (a BC precursor)

If you get a chance, stop by my site and see what you think. Somebody posted the link above, but I'll re-post it here:

The Black Company Campaign