Fresh Blood, New Frontiers (3.5 D&D)

[BigBlackGamer]

You've been confined for at least most of your life to Stonybrook, a medium-sized town on the East Winding River.  But you've outgrown it.  You're feeling your oats.  No, you don't want to marry the merchant's son your upper-class family selected for you.  You don't want to follow in your father's footsteps and become a blacksmith.  No, politics was a fine career for your father, but it's not for you.  Whatever your family or your peers or whoever has in mind for you, is not for you.

Time to choose your own destiny.  Time for you to test your mettle against the wilds outside, to pit yourself against the world and take whatever you can from it.  You'll decide how high your station will be in life, not some noble or guildmaster.  Yes, someday you'll return, but only to go to the tavern, buy rounds of drinks for everyone, and see the looks on peoples' faces when they see that you are now a successful adventurer with stories to tell and gold to spend!

It's not like you just decided this today.  The wanderlust has been building for many months now...maybe even years.  As time went on, you thought less of the town and the mundane life, and more of the forests and mountains beyond.  Less of what was, and more of what could be.  Until one day, you began your plans to leave...and then did it.

But on that dewy, misty morning that is the fabled first day of the rest of your life, you discover something.  You're not the only one to decide this.  Others have had the same thoughts, the same dillemmas, the same aspiration: to leave.  And you all decided to do it on the same day...and to meet in the same place.  Coincidence?  The will of the gods?  Or something else...

[indarkestknight]

Hmmm... 1st level, from the sound of it. I'm up for it- is this going to be a set up for one-on-ones, or is it going to be a campaign style game? General rule outlines?

[BigBlackGamer]

Hmmm... 1st level, from the sound of it. I'm up for it- is this going to be a set up for one-on-ones, or is it going to be a campaign style game? General rule outlines?

Mostly campaign, I think.  There might be a couple solo threads, at least at times, but this is going to be much more of a traditional RPG than, say, Town Under the Shadow.  I'll write up house rules over the next couple days.  The focus is going to be that these characters are utter newbies.  I'm also going to control some of 3.5's more munchkinish tendencies.

[indarkestknight]

Duly noted. Count me in.

[BigBlackGamer]

The game is open to good as well as evil characters.  I'm even going to provide the possibility of players RPing monsters hunting the party (though I'm going to temper that somewhat to keep this from turning into an arena-type scenario).

[indarkestknight]

Probably a player, though I'm not sure what I might want to play just yet. A good, old fashioned fighter-type, probably.

[Muse]

I have a guy I'd like to play, but he's a good guy, and this is an elliquiy game, would I have more fun playing a gal whom the monsters can do more too than just eat? 

[Idachan]

o.O Muse, sweetest, you forget that there are female monsters too.

And I would be happy to partake in this game.

[Muse]

::Chortles::  Ah, yes, the joys of female monsters.   

[BigBlackGamer]

I probably won't be bringing any female monsters into the mix myself (at least not for sexual purposes).  Now if someone wants to bring one in, feel free.  And who knows...I might change my mind...

[BigBlackGamer]

Now for character creation...

I'm going to use a point-buy system as follows:

Start with 76 points.

Scores up to 14 are available on a point-by-point basis.

15s costs 16
16s costs 18
17s costs 21
18s costs 25

After all scores are bought and paid for, you may take one point from any score, and move it to another score.  Arrange the scores as you wish.  Don't be overly concerned with min-maxing, as your scores may well change over the course of the game.

Remember your characters are newbies, with little or no adventuring experience.  (Maybe your character has been hunting a few times, got involved in a couple of bar-brawls, spent a few days working with the priest at the temple, etc.)  Thus, no prestige classes.  Just your basic classes.

You get max hit points at first and second level.  Third level, you throw three dice and take the highest.  Fourth and fifth, two dice.  Beyond that, one die.  Of course you're all first-level, so for now it doesn't matter.

You get average for starting gold.  (Add the min and max and divide by two, for example if your class gets 10d10 gold, that would be 10-100, average 55.)

Skills count...if you can forge weapons, you can get your metal weapons for half-price, and I'll give you a 20% chance that the weapons are masterwork quality.  If you are a bowyer, same principle.  Background counts too...if you come from a family of farmers, you can have free rations.  And so on.

[Idachan]

Are classes from the new books like complete divine etc allowed? And if we have an idea about a future prestige class should we mention it to you from the start? And how about races? *is feeling like the spanish inquisition*

[BigBlackGamer]

Are classes from the new books like complete divine etc allowed? And if we have an idea about a future prestige class should we mention it to you from the start? And how about races? *is feeling like the spanish inquisition*

For now, I'm going to stick with the basics.  Certainly there is room to add more specialized, sexier classes down the road.  If you have a direction you'd like your character to take, by all means share it with me and I'll definitely keep it in mind as I plot out the adventure.

The biggest gripe by far I have with 3.5 is it has much more potential to be munchkinized than Second Edition.  The level of magic is significantly higher, for starters.  Something I'm going to be watching carefully.

Races...all the standard races are allowed.  If you have something else in mind, feel free to discuss it.

[indarkestknight]

Define "forge." The best we can get without busting a feat on skill focus won't be very high...

[BigBlackGamer]

Define "forge." The best we can get without busting a feat on skill focus won't be very high...

I'm going to be a little liberal on interpreting the weaponsmithing skill, and say that if you are a weaponsmith, you can create your weapon.  I figure that your character possessing the weaponsmithing skill implies said character had access to a forge and raw materials...and, being young, probably a fair amount of time to invest in the project.

[indarkestknight]

Excellent... fits perfectly, as I was going to take some ranks in Craft (weaponsmithing) anyway.

[BigBlackGamer]

Excellent... fits perfectly, as I was going to take some ranks in Craft (weaponsmithing) anyway.

Yeah...like I said, skills count (at least the way I DM).  Another feature of my Dungeon Mastering style is I will assign quirks to your character based on his or her actions and background.  Quirks are fun little characteristics that go beyond the rules and give some flavor to a character.  You can go up "levels" in quirks.  Some quirks are good, some bad, some are mixed.  For example, if your character customarily charges into battle, he might get the quirk "Hard Charger," which would enable him to add 1 to his attack roll on his first strike in a battle, but result in an additional -1 penalty to his AC if he were attacked from behind during that first charge.

[indarkestknight]

Sounds like the traits from Unearthed Arcana.

[BigBlackGamer]

Could be...I haven't seen any of the gazillion plug-ins and expansions and sourcebooks for 3.5.

[Jefepato]

The biggest gripe by far I have with 3.5 is it has much more potential to be munchkinized than Second Edition.

I don't mean to turn this into a huge argument, but I feel the need to point out that second edition was no slouch in the munchkin department.

I wouldn't mind playing a monster, though.  An aranea could be eminently suitable.

[BigBlackGamer]

I don't mean to turn this into a huge argument, but I feel the need to point out that second edition was no slouch in the munchkin department.

I wouldn't mind playing a monster, though.  An aranea could be eminently suitable.

True...as a DM, I fight munchkinism in all its guises.

Arena...while this is not an arena game per se, we could feature some arena-type action.

[Jefepato]

I didn't say arena, I said aranea.  The spidery monsters that take human form.

[BigBlackGamer]

Ooops...my bad.

3.5 seems to have a much larger bestiary than Second Edition.  Hell, I still remember the First Edition Monster Manual.  Sounds intriguing...you'll have to send me the specs on that species.

[Jefepato]

I thought 2e had those, but I've been wrong before.

Do you have the Monster Manual?  They're in there.  If not, I can send you the specs.  How will you be handling monster characters?  By the normal ECL rules, or otherwise?

[Natalie C. Barney]

Have any problem with a basic little bard?