What Would a 4e Mystara Look Like?

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm somewhat amused and glad that my Age of Discovery idea is being well recieved, seeing as how it's 75% my homebrewed setting and 25% me making things up.

The only thing I know about Mystara is that it had two kicking rad arcade games, and that thief was always the best character

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I'm somewhat amused and glad that my Age of Discovery idea is being well recieved, seeing as how it's 75% my homebrewed setting and 25% me making things up.

Well, something of that effect was hardwired into the BECMI rules upon which Mystara ran on for many many years. Fighters became landed knights, clerics acquired a temple to head, thieves could become the master of a guild, wizards built towers to contemplate or dungeons to lure and trap idiot adventurers. Dwarves, elves, and halflings you could go settle a new location and start a new clan.

Even the regional maps as hexboards seemed to favor this, go pick out your hex and tame it!

An optimistic theme of an Age of Discovery are just one themes that really go over well.

 

[Hussar]

The system I'm working on treats units much like characters. The number of troops in them determines thier size, which is the level-equivalent term. The equivalent to a Class is unit type, like shock troops, skirmishers, etc. Defences and characteristics are named differently, but the system basically works the same way. When interacting with characters, a unit is treated like a swarm; if you're within it's combat radius then it attacks you automatically at the start of your turn and it's turn. I'm not sure it's the way to go, tbh; I've an idea for treating 'domains' a similar way, which might make warfare more abstract.

In 4e terms, I would hope they would silo off domain stuff separate from everything else. Perhaps performing certain tasks related to your domain would raise your Domain score. I'm totally spitballing here, so, heh.

Eric Anondson - I agree. That was totally the vibe I got from Mystara as well.

 

[Markn]

The more we talk about Mystara, the more I think it could be done. Especially, if you include add on systems like simplified mass combat and domain/kingdom ruling.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

One thing I liked about the Eberron and Dark Sun books is that they summarized the setting in 10 and 8 Facts each.

So what would be the "N Facts about Mystara"? Basically it's Mystara in a nutshell.

1. Most of the Immortals were once mortal.
- Mystara seems prime for Epic tier play

2. The World is Hollow.

3. It is an Age of Exploration.
- the Hollow World
- Exploration more in the Marco Polo frame of mind rather than the Lost World frame.

Any others?
3.

 

[JohnBiles]

1. There are neither gods nor primordials in Mystara; this is the world where men become the divine, ruled by the Immortals, who once were mortals (be they human, dragon or even elemental). And even the Immortals strive to find the secrets to rise to the state of being rumored to lie beyond them...
2. In Mystara, the war of Law and Chaos is more important than Good vs. Evil. Law isn't necessarily good and Chaos isn't necessarily evil...
3. Mystara is a world where fantasy and science fantasy meet; the crash of an alien spaceship turned Blackmoor into the greatest civilization until it blew itself up, changing the world in the Great Rain of Colorless Fire. Yet some of the legacy of Blackmoor survives even today.
4. Yet that disaster is far behind now, and the nations of the new era stand ready to carve out their own legends as the inhabitants of the Known World spread out across the whole world in an Age of Exploration. Much of the world is only thinly defined to allow the DM plenty of room to create his or her own vision of the world.
5. Mystara is hollow; inside it is a miniature sun and lands where the fallen nations of the past survive, preserved by the Immortals.
6. The Mystaran Underdark is thus sandwiched inbetween the Hollow World and the surface world; it has a different set of inhabitants than the standard Underdark, most especially the Shadowelves, who are albino underground Elves who worship a now-immortal nuclear physicist and are building a giant magical nuclear reactor without knowing it (see point 3.)
7. Mystara has several unique sentient races of its own (lupin, rakasta, tortles) and plenty of room for any of the standard 4E races, though some are more common (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings) and others are not.
8. Mystara turns it up to 11. It is unafraid to follow the consequences of a high magic world to their logical end points. This connects to...
9. This is a world well suited for epic play, whether through planar exploration or the quest for immortality.
10. It's also a world designed to be a place where PCs can become leaders, monarchs, or even founders of entirely new kingdoms.

 

[JohnBiles]

Domain rulership in a 4E model would revolve around skill challenges. You'd have one challenge every year to run your basic functions competently, which would earn you a treasure packet (your revenues from your lands) and then you'd be able to pursue various possibilities for improving your land / politicking/ etc, which would be skill challenges and you'd have various plots which would probably be pretty heavily skill-challenge based.

An idea which comes to me for mass combat:

Basically, treat military units as a creature and increase the map scale (1 square = 25 feet square, which is to say 5 by 5 regular squares). All military units are swarms with the swarm properties. A phalanx of spearmen might be Military size Large (2 by 2 military squares) and represent 100 spearmen. Add 5 to the normal level of the creature type and level it up to get stats.

And add a set of morale rules; I'd suggest--

Units have a morale rating which determines how often they check morale:
Raw: Every time it's injured, it checks morale
Green: Every time it loses a quarter of its HP.
Average: When bloodied and when down to 1/4th of HP
Veteran: When down to 1/4th of HP
Fanatical: What's a fear check, precious?

The unit attacking gets a free Intimidation attempt at morale trigger times and if they succeed, the unit retreats and they get a second check, if that work, it breaks completely.