Whirtlestaffs Wizards Academy-Recruiting Now Complete, 7:06am 05/07/08

Command Decisions

Okay, all characters will start out as wizards (specialists of any spell school are permitted). For now, I'm planning to start the characters at third level. The Academy is located in a city/kingdom/world of homebrew origins. One of the players involved here, Scotley, and I created this world for our game, but this game bears little or no resemblance to that game, and I can personally gurantee that Scotley has no advantage over anyone else in this game. (I was going to cut him some slack surreptitiously, but then he beat the living hell out of my precious Gnome in his game! :p ) Following graduation you can follow your whims as far as character classes are concerned, but you will already have some power and contacts established as a wizard, so continuing down that path will be your fastest route to even more power. Also, one of your classes, (as in classes at SCHOOL, not character classes) which all characters will have taken or be taking, is Potion Brewing 101 and/or 201, which will give all characters the first Campaign Bonus: Feat-Brew Potion, at third level, of course. And at least a few of the characters will have contacts with some clerics-in-training with whom you have access to this standing arrangement: your clerical friends will trade one for one any potions that you can brew for potions of cure light wounds or any other clerical potion of equal value that is desired. As you develop higher level potion-making ability, they will do likewise, and everyone's back will be thoroughly scratched. This paragraph gives you a small taste of the environment that I envision for the characters.

Misc. Notes -- 1: I fully expect the entire party to share spells liberally. The more diverse the party's specialties and spell selections are, the greater access everyone will have to a wide variety of spells. Please, talk amongst yourselves. 2: Specialists, choose your prohibited spell schools carefully, those choices will grow teeth later at the most inopportune times!

More to come as it is developed. Now on to gaming rules details:

Allowed Sources: Players Handbook, PHII, DM Guide, Complete Mage, Complete Arcane, Spell Compendium.

For character creation, we'll use invisible castle. Let's try generating 6 scores by rolling 5d6 and discarding lowest 2, scores may be arranged as desired, with the following proviso: no character will have an intelligence of less than 15, and no character will have a strength of greater than 15. Also, if you don't get at least two scores of 17 or higher, you may scrap that character and start over. If everybody (or even almost everybody) submits a character with a 15 strength, then everybody gets to start all over again. Am I a butthole? Hey, I'm the DM, so it's allowed. :p We'll try this system and see how it goes, but this may not be the final word on the subject.

Prestige classes: none allowed at the beginning, as per the class restriction noted above. More specifically, Eldritch Knight and Spell Sword have been mentioned. Elditch Knight is acceptable. Haven't decided yet about Spell Sword. My feeling is that Eldritch Knight and Spell Sword both involve at least one or more levels of a more combat-oriented class, so, since you'll all be starting life as wizards, you will have quite a hole to climb out of if you want to develop your character in that way, but anything is possible, I guess.

Races: The following choices are available: Human, Elf, Half-Elf, Gnome, Dwarf.

Alignment: No evil, but everything else is fair game. Lawful is allowed but not really favored. (Can I require "mischievous lawful"?? :D Is there even such a thing? If not, then there should be!) But, hey, if we've got a party of nothing but chaotics, then there are sure to arise questions of why in the world you put up with each other. Let's all see if we can agree upon a back story for why these characters are together, ok? Additionally, Good characters, or at least characters perceived as good, will probably get the lion's share of the plum assignments and appointments from The Adademy. ;) (FYI: Academy Faculty may very well have means of perceiving such things with uncanny accuracy, too. ;) )

NEWS FLASH: The Precocious Apprentice Feat is unavailable, but the COLLEGIATE WIZARD FEAT IS NOT ONLY AVAILABLE, BUT IS ALSO GRANTED AS AN ADDITIONAL BONUS FEAT AT FIRST LEVEL.

You can make any potions/scrolls on your spell list before we begin; pay only the xp cost for these items; (If you take Craft Wondrous Item as your 3rd level feat you may craft any wondrous item you qualify for but still must pay the full gp amount for these.)

* No construct familiars are allowed

* You may trade potions with your clerical acquantances evenly on a 1 for 1 basis based on potion value; e.g. your 1st level potions for their 1st level potions, 2nd for 2nd, and 3rd for 3rd.

* Variant scroll/potion forms are acceptable and add more flare to the game.

* while everybody gets lots of chances to brew/make magical stuff, you're all cash poor, with only 220 gp to spend. Make a few more potions and/or scrolls to sell/trade. (Just don't make a truckload of the things, or even close to it!)


Okay, that's about enough of this junk for right now. Shoot some opinions back to me, critique my ideas, tell me what you like, what you don't like, and what you think stinks to high heaven, then I'll take all opinions, including my own, into account and we'll see where we stand then. Deal?
 
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Since we'd all be wizards it'd be nice to have access to a wide variety of spells. Is the Complete Spell Compendium available? How about complete Arcane and Mage?
 

Curious:

Why no lawful? Seems like that's a perfectly valid choice for a student, especially in a highly structured academy setting.

What books are you allowing/disallowing? Spell Compendium? Magic Item Compendium? Complete Arcana and Mage? More exotic fare like Dragon Magic, Races of x, etc?

Standard wealth for our level? Magic items acceptable? Do we have any spare exp for scroll crafting?

Are there any campaign specific feats/skills/etc? Like school positions, perhaps? Boarding schools often have student organizations and students who enjoy some authority in exchange for policing the students (see: Prefects).
 


Alright, alright, I'll bite! :lol:

I think I'd like to play a specialist Abjurer. Havn't decided on race yet.

Stats: Character generation for Wizard Academy game, post #15 (5d6.takeHighest(3)=15, 5d6.takeHighest(3)=16, 5d6.takeHighest(3)=10, 5d6.takeHighest(3)=17, 5d6.takeHighest(3)=12, 5d6.takeHighest(3)=15)

EDIT: Actually, I missed that we get to reroll if we don't have two 17's or higher. Here's the next set! Character generation for Wizard Academy game (second try)) ... still only one 17... Character generation for Wizard Academy game (third try) ... Character generation for Wizard Academy game (fourth try) there we go. It's overall "worse", but it's more polarized which makes for a more fun character anyway :p

Probable stats:
Code:
Str 10
Dex 15
Con 13
Int 18
Wis 17
Cha 10

I might switch Wis and Con or Wis and Cha, depending on how the character strikes me.
 
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Complete Arcane, yes!
Complete Mage, yes!
Spell Compendium, yes!
Dragon Magic, no.
Races of ___, no.

Precocious Apprentice is OUT. Collegiate Wizard (Complete Arcane, p. 181) is a bonus feat at 1st level.

Prefects, etc. is a possibility, and very good point about lawful alignments (Shayuri). Can't make those decisions right now, need more mull time. Spare xp for scrolls, probably. This will be tied to the whole caracter wealth question (because scrolls also take parchment and ink, not just xp), which I am not prepared to answer at this moment, likewise with standard magic items.

Thanks for the input, all!
 
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Prestige classes: none allowed at the beginning, as per the class restriction noted above. More specifically, Eldritch Knight and Spell Sword have been mentioned. I can't find either one of those in the books that I have. Eldritch Disciple, yes, Eldritch Theurge, yes, but I can't find Eldritch Knight. My feeling is that Eldritch Knight and Spell Sword both involve at least one or more levels of a more combat-oriented class, so, since you'll all be starting life as wizards, you will have quite a hole to climb out of if you want to develop your character in that way, but anything is possible, I guess.

Eldrich knight is found in the dmg pp187-188
spell sword in in complete warrior, pp79 - 80

as the spell sword is in compl warrior i can see that it may be a no go, but the other is in the dmg. both prc give an advancement of arcane spell casting as a prestige class. the eldrich knight will require 5 levels of spell casting as it requires the pc to have 3rd level of spell casting ability...and would only require 1 level of fighter.

[sblock=rolls]
Rolls

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 1 (1d6=6, 1d6=2, 1d6=6, 1d6=4, 1d6=1)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 2 (1d6=1, 1d6=2, 1d6=2, 1d6=6, 1d6=3)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 3 (1d6=1, 1d6=1, 1d6=6, 1d6=2, 1d6=5)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 4 (1d6=3, 1d6=5, 1d6=3, 1d6=6, 1d6=3)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 5 (1d6=5, 1d6=6, 1d6=3, 1d6=3, 1d6=2)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 6 (1d6=4, 1d6=6, 1d6=5, 1d6=4, 1d6=3)

16
11
13
14
14
15
this set scrapped

set 2
Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 1, set 2 (1d6=4, 1d6=2, 1d6=3, 1d6=5, 1d6=2)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 2, set 2 (1d6=3, 1d6=1, 1d6=4, 1d6=6, 1d6=1)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 3, set 2 (1d6=5, 1d6=1, 1d6=3, 1d6=4, 1d6=6)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 4, set 2 (1d6=6, 1d6=6, 1d6=1, 1d6=3, 1d6=6)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 5, set 2 (1d6=1, 1d6=3, 1d6=5, 1d6=2, 1d6=6)

Leif's wizard acadamy pbp roll 6, set 2 (1d6=4, 1d6=5, 1d6=2, 1d6=3, 1d6=2)

12
13
15
18
14
12
[/sblock]

here is what i got so far:
str 12
dex 15
con 12
int 18
wis 13
chr 14

wizard (2) generalist human
hp by level: 4+2,1+2 ( Leif's wizard acadamy pbp hitpoints, level 2 (1d4=1) )
 
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Scott DeWar said:
Eldrich knight is found in the dmg pp187-188
spell sword in in complete warrior, pp79 - 80

as the spell sword is in compl warrior i can see that it may be a no go, but the other is in the dmg. both prc give an advancement of arcane spell casting as a prestige class. the eldrich knight will require 5 levels of spell casting as it requires the pc to have 3rd level of spell casting ability...and would only require 1 level of fighter.

I KNEW I had seen Eldritch Knight somewhere before! duh. As regards prestige classes, see post #11 above. Doesn't that answer your questions?
 

Leif said:
Note, I don't see any "precocious apprentice" in my Complete Arcane. Got a page number for me? (Nac Mac)

It's in the "Arcane Campaigns" chapter near the end of the book in a sidebar, along with the Collegiate Wizard feat. Precocious Apprentice allows a 1st level wizard to cast a low-%-chance 2nd level spell. Collegiate Wizard gives double the "free" spells upon leveling up (6+int at 1st level and 4 at every subsequent level).
 


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