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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Soulmage" data-source="post: 355127" data-attributes="member: 5403">The Black Company CampaignAs 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 BearerandThe 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:<a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~blackcompanydnd" target="_blank">The Black Company Campaign</a></blockquote>

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