Oriental Themed Mystic Game on Saturday - D&D.

[Dracos]

Considering running this.  Sounding out for interested gamers that may be available during that timeslot.  It'd be on IRC, probably for about 4 hours a week sometime during the period between 11 am EST and 5 pm EST.

Possibly alternatively on Sunday 3 pm to 6 pm EST.  If you can make either time and are interested, let me know.

Game Type:
D&D 3.5/3.0.  Some of each.  Primarily 3.5, though if you want something from 3.0 that isn't ruled in, ask.

Basic info:

You'd be part of an elite religious group tasked generally with looking after the spirtual well being of the nation.  What this means?  You don't go out hunting for trouble.  You go out to protect the citizenry, funded and supported by the local nationwide religion, which may or may not be shinto-y.  Often, your challenges will not so much be in killing the bad folks but in protecting the citizens and stopping their neferious acts.  You do not face generally a focused unspeakable evil seeking to destroy your country, but instead handle the fact that the world contains fearsome magical creatures which often cause trouble which your group is uniquely responsible for dealing with.

Also being considered for this is it not being human centric but in fact being in a kingdom of X +ECL beings.  Possibly a mixture of such.

We shall see depending on player interest.

[Jon]

Given the mention of "ECL", I presume this will be a d&d game?

[Dracos]

Yes. =)

[Dracos]

Some more 'nfo:

<Dracos> You are part of a sacred empire.  Not the only one in the world, but a big one, where of course religion plays a fair part.  Name and a bit of the culture will be finalized when we decide what races make up it, but the gist of it is, of the major religious order, the best of the young each year are brought into their special order dedicated to protecting the empire from spiritual threats, ranging from a roaming werewolf to an arm
<Dracos> y of oni.  You are not part of the army or military, but more a separate branch and task force.  Whereas the rest of the religious acolytes tend to the prayers and spiritual wellbeing of the empire, you tend to the "We will not let this foul spirit Naserosa return to this plane" or folks summoning armies  of undead in the graveyards.
<Corwin> It is a game for monks!
<Dracos> And Mikos!
<Dracos> and folks with spiritual blasting powers.

Often, this will happen as short one-two shot quests with the goal generally not so much being "Beat the bad guys" but "prevent the bad guys from doing irrepairable harm to others under your protection".

As soon as we have general races agreement and some concepts I intend to roll out 'country' and religion.

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Corwin and Eb have seats.

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Rough draft for house rules.

House Rules for the game:

Yes, some of these are directly ripped  out of current games, sans any rewriting. :P  I kept them as is as a homage to good rulemaking :)

Splat Books

Things outside of core or OA is avaliable by request and approval only.  I will neither blanket ban or blanket approve books.  That said, things that involve system changes?  Unlikely.  Classes/feats/items/spells?  More likely.

Reputation

The party will all start as part of the same graduating group.  The elite of a given 'class' (Each class ranges consists of about a 5 year range of disciples).  You will be forever bound with your group, complete with a group name/title and a reputation.  Your reputation will begin at zero and will rise and fall based on the quality of your work (Complete with accompanying title :P).  This will come into play in subtle fashions and less subtle rewards.  Basically, being known as successful good guys pays off.

Note, having this drop below -10 will result in the ousting from the order and a need to repent before your brothers and sisters eyes.

XP and Wealth

You will gain levels as plot dictates.  =)  You will gain wealth as either rewards from the

populance or rewards from the kingdom.  In general, most foes will not have particularly lootable

equipment and nor is this game particularly geared about the looting of resources.  Characters will start at level 5.

In order to facilitate some level of customization, I suggest players keep a 'wants' list.  You may or may not get what's on it (much as loot is normally not 'chosen'), but as you often will be paid in items rather than gold, it's a good thing to help hint and avoid  "Here is the staff of Dai-wen, your great ancestor who drove off the seven fiends of Marath" -> Sell Instantly.

For things that would normally cost xp: Item creation, magical traps, etc.  You don't get to create items in this game.  Magical traps only cost the gold amount.

Critical Hits

If you roll a 20 on the threat check after a critical, it increases the damage multiple by one step, and you get to make a 2nd threat check. If it comes up as another 20, you get to increase the multiple again and roll again, until you roll something that isn't a 20.

This bonus is only available to player characters. It's meant to be something fun and exceedingly random, and having an NPC instagib you is not fun.

Example

Dracos the fighter rolls 19 with his longsword against the Troll - awesome! On his threat roll, he comes up with a 20. His longsword will now do x3 damage rather than x2 and gets another roll. This one gets a 4 - a clear miss, but he retains the multipliers accrued up until then, hitting the troll for 3x damage.

Critical Misses

If you roll a 1, that's an automatic miss. You can roll again to confirm the fumble - a hit after that means you just miss. A second miss means it is a critical miss and bad things happen, as determined by a 1d100 roll on the following table:

01-09 : Provoke an immediate Attack of Opportunity from your target.
10-19: Target gets an immediate free trip attack - does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity and defender cannot make a trip attack if the attacker fails.
20-24: Fall prone.
25-34: Lose Dex bonus to AC for one round.
35-39: Hit yourself. Roll weapon damage with no positive strength mod (negative one still applies) or weapon specialisation bonus.
40-49: Strain yourself. Lose Str bonuses to hit and damage for 1d4 rounds.
50-59: Strain yourself. Lose Dex bonuses to hit for 1d4 rounds.
60-69: Target gets an immediate free disarm attack - does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity.
70-74: Drop weapon.
75-79: Make a second attack roll at the same bonus as the botched attack. Random roll determines target within range.
80-89: Lose next action.
90-94: Fall into pattern. Target of attack gains +2 circumstance bonus to AC and to hit vs attacker for 1d4 rounds.
95-99: Target gets an immediate free sunder attack vs weapon - does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity.
100: Stunned for one round.

Keen

Keen stacks with improved crit.  Enough of this Craziness.

Toughness

While tempting to some, fact is that by level 10, those 3hp are going to seem like a waste of a feat. To remedy this, Toughness will now provide 1 bonus HP per level. This balances it better with other feats that act as an effective +2 to a stat for one single purpose. This also means the feat can only be taken once, however.

Energy Drain

Energy Drain will never result in actual lost levels. However, if the fort save made after 24 hours fails, the negative level condition becomes permanent until removed via a Restoration spell or similar.

As healing is readily avaliable from your backing group, I don't expect this to come up much.

HP Rolling

Roll once, no redos.  Average acceptable.  HP bloat is really hard to keep up with enemy side.

Summon Monster and Templates

Any creature on the Summon Monster spell list that has either the Celestial or Fiendish template can actually be summoned with either template. What this means in practice is that Summon Monster III could summon a Fiendish Hippogriff or a Celestial Ape.

Furthermore, two new templates are available that are interchangable with the above two, as detailed below.

Axiomatic: Creatures with this template are resistant to Cold, Electricity, and Fire according to their Hit Dice in the same manner as Celestial creatures, and gain a Smite Chaos Su ability usable once per day. They have the Lawful subtype and in all other respects are identical to the

Fiendish/Celestial template.
In appearance they tend to look almost artifical and construct-like, yet are still clearly living beings.

Anarchic: Creatures with this template are resistant to Acid and Sonic according to their Hit Dice in the same manner as Celestial creatures, and gain a Smite Law Su ability usable once per day.

They have the Chaotic subtype and in all other respects are identical to the Fiendish/Celestial template.
In appearance they tend to look somewhat abberant, although not nearly as much as Pseudoanatural creatures.

Skills

There are no cross class skills.  All skills count as class skills.  I find in general, this makes little difference as far as going outside archetype, especially with mature RPers.

Skill boosting and focus feats are changed such:

Acrobatic [General]
Benefit

You get a +2 bonus on all Jump checks and Tumble checks. Once per day you may choose to reroll any roll for these two feats, the second roll always taken

Skill Focus [General]

Choose a skill.

Benefit

You get a +3 bonus on all checks involving that skill. Once per day you make take 10 on any roll related to this skill, regardless of circumstances.
Special

You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new skill.

Feats

Special abilities, on request, can be traded for a feat.  Must be approved.

Everyone gets an extra feat every 4th level in addition to the normal.

I have some revisions in mind for many standard fighter abilities, but those will wait on interest in playing one.

Stat gen

Everyone gets 80 points to start with, from 0, min 3, max 18, pay one to one.  Start at level 1 and level up from there to your start level.

Races

This is being determined and will be seen based on player interest.

Humans:

Will get an extra skill and feat.  Normal races other than humans will get an extra skill and possibly more.  +ECL races we'll see.

Classes

multiclassing Bears no xp penalties.  I think it is actually kind of neat when folks pull some mixture together.  It's different at least than the '1 class the whole way' route.

Monks  I will allow monks to dualclass, only because them being the ONLY class having such a restriction is 'meh'.

Wizards: Wizards are allowed (even though Wujen is there) with the intent that if you play one, you theme it up lots. =)

Clerics:

Clergy in this game are an npc only class, as are cleric prestige classes.  Ask if you're unsure of whether one is allowed.  In general, you'll be able to retreat at any point not directly prevented by enemies and have accessible healing to you as part

Paladins:

Paladins are out of setting for this adventure.  BUT... their abilities will be avaliable as feats to fighters of equal level on request.  Sohei's may also get it.  Other classes may ask, but probably not.

Sorcerors

Get Eschew Materials for free at first level. Do I even have to explain this one?

Druids and Rangers

Animal Companion progression is swapped between these two classes - ie, Rangers get full progression and Druids get half.

Wizard Spells at Level Up

When a Wizard levels up, rather than being able to put 2 new spells in her spellbook for free, she can instead get any number of spells so long as the combined level of those spells is equal to 2 times the highest level she can cast.

Example

Alveria the Wizard hits level 9, gaining the ability to cast 5th level spells. She can now immediately add two 5th level spells to her spellbook. Alternatively, she could add one 2nd level, one 3rd level, and one 5th level spell. Or ten 1st level spells if that took her fancy.

Wizard Schools avaliable:

Scrying and teleportation type spells are banned.  Divination is restricted solely to things explainable via a divine or spiritual medium.  So yeah, most divination spells are allowed and will be a solid part of the game.  Others are avaliable.  Generally, spiritualize the descriptions and theming of any magic used.  Send a holy wave of flame brought by a prayer to amaratesu versus 'fireball'.

Edit: Benign short range teleport spell effects are allowed.  Basically, you can't go city hoping.  You can dive through the fabric of the world and land 30 feet away.

3.0 hangovers

More avaliable if poked for request.

Monks get leap of the clouds at level 6.
OA monk schools are avaliable.  These are monk only.  By that I mean they require at least one level of monk per prereq they have or five levels of monk, whatever is lesser.  Basically, don't dip just to have a school, they should be part of your overall character style.
OA races are avaliable.
OA Classes are avaliable.
Prestige classes are by approval only.
Iajitsu and Iajitsu duels are NPC only, it exists, it is something samurai or army folk go and do.  You are not samurai.

Loot

Loot when given will be distributed according to party plan.  I don't care what this is only that it is something that doesn't end up with lots of arguments :)

[JusticeFishy]

Hmm, well Dracos, sounds fun...I was thinking about playing an Aasimar Wilder or Warlock :D if...well that's okay with people?

[Sierra]

Tentative interest if the day is something other than Saturday (I have heard it is Sunday now?)

[Dracos]

It's looking more and more like it has to be sunday as nobody can actually make the original time offer but me.  I wish that had come up during earlier discussions but yeah =P

[Sierra]

Okay, I'll bite. Assuming there's still an open space and you don't mind lots of newbie questions about D&D (since you are purportedly a kind fearless leader, this is probably fine >.>).