System: D&D 3.5 with a some houserules.
Number of players: 3-5
Power level: Medium with gestalt.
Starting level: 8
Times: Early afternoons EST several times per week. Exact days and times TBA.
The Lost Realm is a game based around a strange, mysterious demiplane. Those sucked into it lose all memories of the outside world and are left to fend for themselves. It is an otherworldly realm where pockets of people struggle to stay together and survive. The game's themes will be surviving with nothing left, dealing with wildly different races and finding a way to travel amid the demiplane.
I have three players lined up already: Ebiris, Corwin and Nephrite. I'm open to picking up 1-2 more. The starting date will be in late September to early October, so there's plenty of time before then.
Style
The start of the game will focus on survival and dealing with the amnesia that comes with entering the demiplane. From there things will develop into world building and then figuring out what you want to do. Any class should find a niche here as well as any skills. In the short term, survival and related skills may be more useful than others.
Rules
- Character generation will be the best of two sets from Hatbot in #elysium. Make sure I'm in there to witness the rolls. There will be a topic on the game board for you to post your rolls and choose which set you take. Rerolls may be allowed at my discretion and any set will be rerolled if the total ability score modifiers are +1 or less.
- We will be using the gestalt rules, as seen here. You are allowed as many classes as you please, though I prefer if you don't get too insane with dipping. Base attack bonus and saves will be calculated by choosing the progression from one side and staying with it. Ergo, there isn't as much save inflation and you can't manipulate full BAB at all times. If you want to be a warrior, you'll likely want one side of your gestalt to have full BAB classes.
- Keep the cheese out and try not to powergame too much. Keep things on the middle of the optimization scale. I can keep up but I prefer not to get into an arms race with the PCs.
- No particular magic is banned (except for spells banned in houserules for balance reasons), though be aware you won't be able to plane shift or teleport out of the demiplane. Generally, if something would allow you to escape the demiplane, you should assume it will fail.
- You are required to choose one of the two options.
1. Take a powerful race and/or templates that equal +4 LA.
2. You work out something with Savage Species and a monster class. As a savage progression is spread out, it doesn't have to worry about the +4 LA limit. If you're interested into this, we'll need to talk since I'll be tweaking how Savage Species works a little bit. This is mostly to fix issues with empty levels with no hit dice gain.
- Clerics, druids, paladins and other divine classes will face difficulties at first due to the premise. If you're interested in one, talk to me. Deity choices will be non-conventional and local to the demiplane. Special adjustments will be allowed to help divine classes transition without penalty, but it will take a bit of time IC.
- Race selection should be considered wide open. Bear this in mind and talk to me if you have any questions.
- The starting level is 8. Experience points will not be used and level ups will be at my discretion.
- I allow in all material with the following exceptions and provisions. The Tome of Battle is banned (no arguments about this, please). Unusual systems I lack experience with, such as incarnum or truenaming, I'll want to talk to you about before letting it in. I probably will let it in, but I do need to understand what you're doing first. All other books are allowed as well as campaign settings. Dragon magazine is allowed, but I will be screening it. Homebrew will be dutifully examined and allowed in if it is reasonable.
- We will be using CMB/CMD from Pathfinder. See the combat section of houserules for more information. Likewise, we'll be using skills from Pathfinder. Again, see skills in houserules. Everything else is 3.5, but these are some of the worst parts of 3.5 and are worth revising.
- The amnesia works as follows: You'll forget everything about the outside world. This includes family, lore and everything else. You do retain class skills and abilities, as well as the ability to speak, perform normal functions and so on and so forth. Talk to me if you have any questions.
- Due to the premise, the following four knowledge skills are banned: Local, Nobility and Royalty, Planes and Religion. This ban only extends to character creation. Once you gain a level in game, you'll be able to select these skills. If you need these skills as a prerequisite to something, talk to me and we'll make a substitution. In a related note, Knowledge (Local) will cover the entire demiplane.
- The houserules in play will come from here (http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=103071.msg1049903#msg1049903), expanded and streamlined for this game. Information in this post supersedes anything in that topic. Once we have a game board, I'll port over a cleaned up and customized version of those rules.
If you're interested or have any questions, post away.
I'm playing a tibbit psion(telepath)/rogue.
I'll post my interest. Class concepts I'm interested in are Rogue/Mindspy/Invisible Blade or something Horizon Walker-ish.
Added a bit about the amnesia I forgot to include. Whoops.
Pixie Bard/Marshal, with emphasis on motivational speaking and buffing.
Quote from: Iron Dragoon on August 27, 2014, 01:38:48 PM
I'll post my interest. Class concepts I'm interested in are Rogue/Mindspy/Invisible Blade or something Horizon Walker-ish.
Sounds good, welcome aboard. If you go Horizon Walker, you may want to look at the revision of it I did.
http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,103074.msg1050879.html#msg1050879
It boosts the class up some.
A sorceress succubus with metamagic focus, eventually branching out into battle dancer and summoning.
Cool. Two things.
1. We have a board now. Go on down and take a gander at it.
2. We still have one more potential slot open. If anyone else is interested, feel free to speak up.
YES. So much yes.
Quote from: Rukatin on August 29, 2014, 01:33:36 PM
YES. So much yes.
Cool. That's our last slot, then. A few quick questions to get the ball rolling.
1. Are you on IRC at all, in particular irc.lunarnet.org?
2. Are you familiar with D&D 3.5 at all? If you are, are you familiar with the gestalt rules?
3. Are the early afternoon EST times good for you? Just want to make sure here, since early afternoons aren't a good time for a lot of people.
Quote from: Anastasia on August 29, 2014, 01:39:41 PM
Quote from: Rukatin on August 29, 2014, 01:33:36 PM
YES. So much yes.
Cool. That's our last slot, then. A few quick questions to get the ball rolling.
1. Are you on IRC at all, in particular irc.lunarnet.org?
2. Are you familiar with D&D 3.5 at all? If you are, are you familiar with the gestalt rules?
3. Are the early afternoon EST times good for you? Just want to make sure here, since early afternoons aren't a good time for a lot of people.
No. I thought this would be play by post.
I have played D&D, but not in a long while and not to level 8, much less starting at one. I might need a whole refresher. Plus this sounds a whole mess of complicated.
I live in the Central Time Zone. How would that translate?
Quote from: Rukatin on August 29, 2014, 01:45:45 PMNo. I thought this would be play by post.
No, this one's IRC-based. I can walk you through using IRC if you aren't familiar with it.
QuoteI have played D&D, but not in a long while and not to level 8, much less starting at one. I might need a whole refresher. Plus this sounds a whole mess of complicated.
It is. We don't mind teaching new players, so don't worry about that, but it is complicated.
QuoteI live in the Central Time Zone. How would that translate?
You're one hour behind EST. So if game sessions started at 1 EST, it would be noon CST for you.
What does +4 LA mean?
Level adjustment. It means we're playing more powerful than usual creatures.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm
This goes into it a little bit. In addition, templates cost LA and can be used for this. For example, the half celestial template below is +4 LA and grants a variety of powers.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/halfCelestial.htm
Alright. I'll play as a Half-Celestial Duskblade.
Duskblade can be found in the player's 2 handbook.
Sure, I'm familiar with them and it's a solid class. What about the other side of the gestalt?
I don't know what gestalt means. Also, where do I roll my ability scores?
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm
- Character generation will be the best of two sets from Hatbot in #elysium. Make sure I'm in there to witness the rolls. There will be a topic on the game board for you to post your rolls and choose which set you take. Rerolls may be allowed at my discretion and any set will be rerolled if the total ability score modifiers are +1 or less.
- We will be using the gestalt rules, as seen here. You are allowed as many classes as you please, though I prefer if you don't get too insane with dipping. Base attack bonus and saves will be calculated by choosing the progression from one side and staying with it. Ergo, there isn't as much save inflation and you can't manipulate full BAB at all times. If you want to be a warrior, you'll likely want one side of your gestalt to have full BAB classes.
So on IRC when I'm around. I'm here for another hour before work if you want to get them done now.
...So i can't just be a Duskblade?
Quote from: Rukatin on August 29, 2014, 03:56:16 PM
...So i can't just be a Duskblade?
Gestalt means you get two sets of classes, basically. So yes, you can be a duskblade. You also have another side that can be something else. If you don't want to greatly alter that, I'd take something simple like fighter to fill out the other side of the gestalt.
You'd pick two classes minimum. You treat one side as duskblade the other side is some other class. One of the two sides needs to be the half-celestial.
As an example, say you want one side to be Duskblade 8. The other side you want to be Half-Celestial 4 / Rogue 4.
Then on the duskblade 8 side, you get BAB+8, Fort+6, Ref+2, Will+6, and a bunch of class abilities.
On the other side, you get the half celestial template stuff, and then rogue 4 stuff which is BAB+3, Fort+1, Ref+4, Will+1, and rogue class abilities.
Putting gestalt together, you get BAB+8 (best BAB of two sides), Fort+6, Ref+4, Will+6, and class abilities of both duskblade 8 and rogue 4.
(Thanks Merc, I'm trying to do this and tech support at the same time. I'm being slow on typing out longer answer than that.)
Not a problem!
OOOOOHHHHHH......
But then I get only half of my racial abilities right? I think?
I am so confused.
No, you get all things from both classes, as long as they're not same type of bonus (hence why BAB, Fort, Ref, and Will saves you pick the best of).
So what would you recommend for another class besides Rogue? A duskblade is already basically a Fighter/Sorcerer.
I'm sorry if I'm frustrating you guys. I haven't done something like this before!
Quote from: Rukatin on August 29, 2014, 04:12:30 PM
So what would you recommend for another class besides Rogue? A duskblade is already basically a Fighter/Sorcerer.
I'm sorry if I'm frustrating you guys. I haven't done something like this before!
I've attached an excel sheet that's set up for gestalt. The skills are still set for the traditional D&D 3.5 set, so you'll have to add/subtract them to match Pathfinder (http://paizo.com/PRD/skillDescriptions.html).
Hopefully helps at least a little.
Going by the example above, we'll say side A is Duskblade level 8, and side B is Half-Celestial Rogue 4.
The character would have:
BAB+8 (side A)
Fort+6 (side A)
Ref+4 (side B)
Will+6 (side A)
All racial abilities from Half-Celestial (side B): natural armor, flight, Daylight (Su), Smite Evil (Su), various SLAs, darkvision, ability modifiers of Str +4, Dex +2, Con +4, Int +2, Wis +4, Cha +4, etc.
Duskblade 8 abilities and spells
Rogue 4 abilities and spells.
You'd also get whatever normal racial traits your half-celestial belongs to, so if you're a dwarf, you'd get +2 con, -2 cha, for example.
***
And as for classes that go well with duskblade, if you want to semi-optimize, then rogue goes well simply for the skill points and boosting reflex save. If you did a combat rogue (feats instead of sneak attack), you can improve your melee combat options. If you go to the Balmuria 3 board, my character Ithea is an example of a Duskblade/Rogue gestalt at epic levels.
Other classes that work well are those that also use Int since that's the duskblade spellcasting or something that boosts reflex save since that's where duskblades can be weak, or something that gives you skill points. Hence why rogue works well. Factotum also fits that well. For a mix of stuff then various psychic classes, swashbuckler, bard, wizard, etc, all work.
I would probably recommend against another caster class or psychic classes just because you're asking yourself to track too much stuff in something you're unfamiliar with.
You can also just pick some melee class if you want to get something that will give you abilities that will support your combat capabilities as a duskblade like fighter.
And don't worry about questions. I'm not even playing! So clearly I'm just volunteering with answers =p
Dune's just busy with some other stuff due to his tech support stuff, or he'd be helping you more.
One quick correction, Merc.
As far as saves and BAB go, you choose one side and get that side. You don't pick the best.
For example, if you're a fighter 8//rogue 8, you could choose between BAB+8, Fort+6, Ref+2 and Will+2 OR BAB+6, Fort+2, Ref+6 and Will+2.
In any case, I'll sit down and talk to you about all this once I have a chance to on IRC. Today's just a crappy day for me.
Dune: Ah, fair enough. Didn't realize that was how you were doing gestalt. I've seen so many variations on that, really.
Could you link me to where we're going to be chatting, and whatever the hell this Hatbot thing is? I tried searching it and all I got was TF2...
Do you have mIRC or some other IRC program? If not, you can go to www.mibbit.com for a web browser version (not recommended, but a quick alternative).
Server: irc.lunarnet.org
Channel: #elysium
If you need commands for program, then:
/server irc.lunarnet.org
/join #elysium
Quote from: Anastasia on August 29, 2014, 04:22:52 PM
One quick correction, Merc.
As far as saves and BAB go, you choose one side and get that side. You don't pick the best.
For example, if you're a fighter 8//rogue 8, you could choose between BAB+8, Fort+6, Ref+2 and Will+2 OR BAB+6, Fort+2, Ref+6 and Will+2.
So is that 1 side for everything, not picking a side for hp/saves/bab/skills on an individual basis?
Quote from: Merc on August 29, 2014, 04:33:31 PM
Do you have mIRC or some other IRC program? If not, you can go to www.mibbit.com for a web browser version (not recommended, but a quick alternative).
Server: irc.lunarnet.org
Channel: #elysium
If you need commands for program, then:
/server irc.lunarnet.org
/join #elysium
...Da? It's a program? I thought it was a webpage!
mibbit is a webpage! So you were half right? =p
MIRC's a program. You can use that or mibbit, whichever. Just hop on and join us in there so we can chat.
Okay, we are at capacity. Thanks to everyone for interest. If any players have questions, please post on the game board's DM nagging thread. If anyone else has questions or comments, toss me a PM.