Of Dragons and Men(D&D 3.5 seeker thread)

[NicciKotor]

Third times the charm people! Maybe this one I can get players who show up. Oh sure, my first game had a drop since one of the players either died mysteriously or died from zombies. Then the other one, her computer exploded and I haven't heard from her in 5 days. Yearggble indeed!

So here we go with the basic rules:

-Only three of you.
-Level 6
-15000 starting gold
-Most of the books are allowed, just not tome of battle and tome of magic.
- One extra 'personal' item, that you have to justify with a back story. Nothing insane like a ring of invisibility.
- 5d6 rolls, drop lowest two, reroll ones and twos. (I like over powered characters for my party, that way I don't feel bad when I throw weird shit at them.)
- No evil characters. They only serve to annoy the DM and make her have to do things with canes.
- There will be plenty of NC material in this, so if you are not comfortable with the more rough naughty kinks, this is not for you.

I've been reading a lot of the Wheel of Time series, so there is going to be plenty of reference material that I am going to zombify for this game. I run mostly on a first come first serve basis, so if you get your character up here for review the fastest then you stand a far better chance of succeeding in getting in.

[ulthakptah]

Am I to take it that said game is officially dead? And is this story about a large slow man that like the feel of dragon eggs but is too strong for his own good and keeps crushing them?

[who149]

Alright- I'm in

I want to try something new this time around- I find that my characters are either Fighters or Sorcerers. I might go Rouge, or Druid.

[NicciKotor]

Am I to take it that said game is officially dead? And is this story about a large slow man that like the feel of dragon eggs but is too strong for his own good and keeps crushing them?

Nah I am trying to get cults and waypoints up and running once more, but who knows. Still waiting for that one person to get in his sheet that he said would be completed.

Everyone else will have to make sure that this games party actually has a well balance of classes.

[NicciKotor]

Hm, I feel like 'borrowing' more of the Wheel of Time set pieces because it amuses me to see if I can even try to mesh D&D and all of this lore together and come out sane.

More rules! All of this will make instant sense for anyone that has bothered to read the 13 books.

- Spellcasting is a inherent talent, not something you can learn off hand.
- Male spellcasters are mad. Like, "MUwhahahaha, I'm going to burn the WORLD!!!', mad. Oh sure you don't start off like that, but it will creep in on you. So they are rather shunned by civilization, by just a tad.
- Female spellcasters belong to an organization called Aes Sedai, of which have different Ajahs of different colors. Blue, red, green, yellow, brown, gray, and white. The blue strive for a better world through a mixture of diplomacy and show of power when need be. The Red Ajah solely exists to hunt down male spellcasters. Browns focus on historical records and preserving the libraries. Yellow focuses on the advancement of healing powers. Green is the battle ajah and prepares for Tarmon Gai'don. Gray focus solely on diplomacy and are advisers to entire kingdoms. If you are going for a Aes Sedai character, you need to pick a Ajah, and I shall figure out appropriate buffs that correlate to each Ajah.

-Aes Sedai must take a magical oath, of which they cannot break and consist of 3 rules.
1) They shall never lie.
2) They cannot make magical weapons that will allow man to harm others.
3) They cannot use their powers to destroy, unless they are darkfriends or they are within immediate danger. They cannot just blow up a tavern if they feel like it, but seeing a Calvary charge coming down on them would count.

For this game, there shall be some custom rules added onto some classes if the requirements are met. Like a warder, for example. A warder is a man that is bound to a Aes Sedai and is her protector, with there being a magical connection between the two. This allows the warder extended endurance and combat expertise, and the aes sedai and the warder can both 'sense' each other, even over hundreds of miles. The green aes sedai usually have several warders, while the red never have any.

If I think of anything else I'll add it in.

[NicciKotor]

I'd be interested, though I'm not sure what character type.  Maybe a female sorceress if not already taken.  It has been awhile since I read the wheel of time books though, and I never finished them (though I guess the author died?)

I don't think it is, that and there is nothing wrong with having two aes sedai in the group. The blue, green, and red aes sedai are the more prone to go out 'adventuring', so keep that into consideration.

Yeah the author did die before he could finish it, and his wife found herself a ghost writer to finish it all. He left plenty of notes and the entire ending, so things are moving along nicely.

[ulthakptah]

Spike Trakand, 3rd Prince of Andor

History:
Spike is the third son of Morgase Trakand. Yet he spent most of his childhood outside of Caemlyn, though he rarely left the territory of Andor. Spending most of his time around Baerlon, he loved to camp around Lake Somal. During one of his camping trips, he saw a star fall from the sky and crash into the Mountains of Mist. The next day he set out on an expedition to find it. No easy task with all the fog, but he found it anyway. It was larger than him and heavier than steel, no wonder it fell. Wanting to take it with him, he rolled it out of the crater it landed in and down the hill toward Baerlon. Then it was carted of to Caemlyn, where it was made into the sword for his warder training. As an Andoran Prince in line to assume the position of First Prince of the Sword, Spike had customary military training in Tar Valon, among the warders. Being the strong lad he was the training was no problem for him, and breezed through in no time at all.

[Muse]

*Drools!* 

Nicci-chan, you're coolness factor has just gone from high too breaking the meter! 

What you're trying sounds awesome, but have you considered the Wheel of TIme d20? 

Meridy of the BItter Water's Sept of Tardad Aiel dons her Cadin Sor.  The time has come to dance the spears. 

[NicciKotor]

Yeah I looked at it and decided not too. I don't want my players to have to read an entire book for just my game. That and I am not doing 100% Wheel of Time, since if I were it would only be humans for allowable races.

That and magical items were not as common place as it is in standard D&D as they are in the wheel of time. It would just be boring if only aes sedai got to have magical items and fun things. Aes Sedai cannot make magical weapons, but that doesn't stop them from making other utility and defensive items. What magical weapons there are, are relics from a previous age.

You are going to have a fun time trying to explain why a Aiel is down in the wetlands in your characters plot.

Ah yes, something else I wanted to inject. You pretty much have to go either sorceress or wizardess for Aes Sedai, which means no divine magic or healing. In the Wheel of Time books, the two schools of magic are the same, so I can make a compromise. Even as a 'arcane' spellcaster, you can do essentially the same thing that clerics do, which is spontaneous healing. You can swap out any of your spell slots for an appropriate cure spell of that level.

Also bump up that d4 hit die into a d6. I never understood why arcane casters get such shitty hit die.

[NicciKotor]

Excellent looking warder there. If things keep up, Muse is going to do the Aes Sedai, which means you can be that characters Warder. I still need to think up some bonus's for you being a warder, which means more research.

One item you will get as a warder is a color changing cloak, which does wonders for hide checks.

[Crovonovin]

Question:  What do you mean by roll 5d6 and drop the lowest two to determine stats?  Is that to determine the modifiers that we add to each stat, or am I missing something?

[NicciKotor]

Your ability scores. Normally it is 4d6 and drop the lowest, my rules state 5d6 and drop the lowest two. So no matter what, you can still only get a max of 18. I like doing it this way, since it is more exciting for the players, since more dice rolled at the same time is great fun.

[Crovonovin]

Ah, I get what you mean!  Thanks.

[ulthakptah]

The color changing cloak does it count as my extra personal item?

[Crovonovin]

I think I'm leaning towards a male spellcaster now.  Sort of an...Anti-Mage Mage, you might say, with ties to the underbellies that all cities have but prefer not to discuss except in bars or brothels. 

[NicciKotor]

The color changing cloak does it count as my extra personal item?

No, those are given to warders when they become one. Your Aes Sedai just casts a special weave onto you, and then bam! you are a warder. It isn't just a oath you take.

Going to stick with this for now for the warders abilities:
- Endurance as a feat.
- +2 str and con.
- You only need 4 hours of sleep for a full recovery, compared to 8.
- You can sense shadowspawn when they come within a mile of your personal self.
- You can 'smell' out when a Fade was in an area.
- Due to the warders bond, you can emphatically feel what your aes sedai feels, and vise versa. Kinda of a low level telepathy. If your Aes Sedai dies, you must go on a qeas and avenge her death, even if it means your own. Warders seldom live if their Aes Sedai die.

So you get a rather nice list of buffs, but you are rather committed to your job.

I think I'm leaning towards a male spellcaster now.  Sort of an...Anti-Mage Mage, you might say, with ties to the underbellies that all cities have but prefer not to discuss except in bars or brothels. 

See previous rule over male spellcasters being mad. They are routinely hunted down by the red ajah and stilled, which is a fancy way of disconnecting any spellcaster from the True Source.

[ulthakptah]

- Due to the warders bond, you can emphatically feel what your aes sedai feels, and vise versa. Kinda of a low level telepathy. If your Aes Sedai dies, you must go on a qeas and avenge her death, even if it means your own. Warders seldom live if their Aes Sedai die.

So it's like the Empathic Link between spellcasters and their familiars, but I'm the familiar. Also what is a qeas? Is it a combination of a quest and a geas? Because those are already the same thing :P

[NicciKotor]

So it's like the Empathic Link between spellcasters and their familiars, but I'm the familiar. Also what is a qeas? Is it a combination of a quest and a geas? Because those are already the same thing :P

Yeah I don't know how to spell that word.

I found a nice table of different ranks of trollocs, so I am very happy. I don't agree with how they made the Myrddraal though, so I will have to work on that. They have them as being CR 11, which I guess is correct. For you guys, running from one of those would be wise.

The Myrddraal are like the black riders from lord of the rings, but there are several hundred of them and they have more awesome abilities.

[Crovonovin]

Trust me, I don't think I'm ballsy enough to see this and think fighting it is a good idea.

[NicciKotor]

Trust me, I don't think I'm ballsy enough to see this and think fighting it is a good idea.

That's the rub though. The myrddraal are the ones that control the trollocs, up to 100 trollocs per myrddraal. If the myrddraal is killed, however, then the link is severed and the trollocs go mad and kill themselves. So you have the fun option of either getting swarmed by beastmen or having to try to kill something as creepy as that.

[Crovonovin]

The best strategy for dealing with anything that looks that evil and grumpy is clearly to pepper it with sunshine and rainbows and love-beams.

That or throw Kender at it until it's dead, or we run out of Kender.  It's a win/win situation!

[NicciKotor]

The best strategy for dealing with anything that looks that evil and grumpy is clearly to pepper it with sunshine and rainbows and love-beams.

This isn't slayers where you can defeat demons by singing at it.

[Crovonovin]

Well, it is if you're a particularly gifted bard with the right prestige classes!   ;D

[NicciKotor]

Here is a freaking huge map of the region:



And here is a description of the various regions and their people:

http://www.grey-tower.net/demographics/wotview.html#tarabon

Feel free to browse and figure out your home region and background off of that.

[Muse]

*grins* 

"The look of the eyeless is fear." 

One of the best things in the wheel of time RPG is the stats for Myrdraal armor.  :D