New campaign anyone?

Annette · Post by **Annette** » Mon May 09, 2011 8:16 pm

Syberis: Absolutely, we'd love to have you on board! As Moogleman said, most of the answers are on page one, and he reiterated them correctly. 32 point-buy, max hit points EACH level (trust me, you'll need it. I'm not a nice DM.), average starting gold is acceptable (though you can roll it if you prefer), and any 3.5 supplement except for UA is legal, provided your backstory can justify it. Please cite which ones you're using, though.

Glad to hear that you like desert settings! I've never tried one before, but we've been studying ancient Egypt in my archaeology class lately, and while looking at the layouts of the pyramids I was instantly reminded of a D&D dungeon. I guess I should study Sandstorm to prepare for this...

EDIT: Oh, and what time zone are you in? I like to know when to look for replies.

Moogleman: No, I never remember to use Knowledge checks. I prefer to supply that sort of information in-game, anyway. The reason I recommended getting rid of arcana and planes, however, was that your character seemed to have no interaction with either of those elements.

malinzaro · Post by **malinzaro** » Tue May 10, 2011 2:13 am

I will also post some character once we get a more detailed background story and the mission so I won't make a character that doesn't fit the campaign. I tend to avoid meat-shields since I am more naturally attracted towards wizards and even rogues, though if I get the picture right squishy might be bad with such a DM

There are other supplements viable. Just something that comes first in mind ... Complete Arcane or Unearthed Arcana (more for gestalt characters actually)?

Other questions related to the setting:
- how are the races described in Sandstorm accepted in Karnakiid?
- should I understand that if you don't use magic or swords in the city unprovoked (only for self-defense) you are fine or any magic/sword wielding person is automatically arrested?

Annette · Post by **Annette** » Tue May 10, 2011 5:56 am

Avoiding shquishables might be a wise course of action... though as I keep trying to convince myself, I will TRY to go easier this time. So far as I know, none of you is my ex-boyfriend who deserved to be slaughtered by a spellsword.

As I said above, Unearthed Arcana is the only one I'm not allowing. I personally felt that, other than gestalt characters and buying off XP penatlies (I am using htat one rule, but nothing else from the book), it didn't add much that I like. Anything in the Complete series is fair game, of course.

Karnakiid's ruling class is exclusively human, but the asherati are often held in high regard due to their experience with the wastelands. The bukha on the other hand, are considered monsters to be killed on isight. Any other races are a vast minority in the lowest class.

If the guards have any reason to believe you are even capable of casting a spell, or if they see a weapon on your person, you will be heavily fined and arrested for 30 days. Since it's illegal to even carry weapons, using them in self-defense is still forbidden.

Moogleman · Post by **Moogleman** » Tue May 10, 2011 8:19 am

Ok, so I've dropped knowledge plains and arcana to increase heal and diplomacy. Changed alertness to quicken spell instead. I just want to make sure I've understood meta magic: If I prepeared the level1 spell Cure Light Wounds with meta magic, it would require a level2 spell slot correct? Also where can I find Divine Meta Magic in the PH? Or is there a good explanation on the web somewhere?

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue May 10, 2011 8:23 am

Name-Shar'ra Agamemnon
Race-Asherati
Racial Features-
~Medium
~+1 Natural Armor
~Natural Dryness- Consume only 1/4th water humans do
~Sandswimming- Swim through sand as if water at normal speed with light load. 5ft if medium or heavier load. Breath normally in sand, ash, and dust.
~Body Lamp- Illuminate up to 60ft away, shadowy illumination 120ft away. Notice solid objects on or in sand up to 60ft away. Once per day as free action, dazzle all creatures with brightness of this ability (DC 10 + 1/2 level + Cha mod, 12)
~Heat Endurance Bonus Feat
~Weapon Familiarity- Eagle Claw is martial.
~+2 hide and move silently. Cannot hide with glowing skin. +2 to hide when in sandy areas.

Class-Dragonfire Adept
Class Features-
~Breath Weapon +1D6 30ft Cone- Deals Fire Damage, at will as a standard action, DC 10 + 1/2 level + con mod (13)
~Dragontouched Bonus Feat
~Least Invocations- Use draconic invocations as a warlock. All invocations known are at will use.

Alignment-N

XP-0
Level-1

HP-12/12

AC-13 (+1 Natural, +2 dex)
Touch- 12
Flat Footed-11

Initiative-2

Speed-6 squares (30 ft)

Str-8
Dex-14
Con-16
Int-12
Wis-14
Cha-14

Base Attack/Grapple-0/-1

Attack-
-1 Morningstar
1D8-1
20/x2

Saves-
Fortitude--2+3=5
Reflex-----0+2=2
Willpower--2+2=4

Skills-
Bluff------------4+2=6(12)
Concentration----2+3=5
Diplomacy--------4+2=6(12)
Hide-------------0+4=4
Intimidate-------4+2=6(12)
Knowledge Arcana-4+2=6
Listen-----------0+5=5
Move Silently----0+4=4
Search-----------0+5=5
Spellcraft-------2+2=4
Spot-------------0+5=5

Feats-
A-Heat Endurance- Protection level 1, exist comfortably in 120* weather, +2 saves vs fire effects.
D-Dragontouched- Gain 1 hit point, +1 listen/search/spot, +1 saves vs paralysis and sleep. Can select draconic feats as if sorcerer of my character level.
1-Draconic senses- Gain low light vision, bonus to listen/search/spot equal to number of draconic feats (+2). Gain Dark vision 60ft if I possess 3 draconic feats. Gain blindsense 20ft if I possess 4 draconic feats.

Invocation-
Beguiling Influence- Gain +6 to Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate for 24 hours (Always active)

Equipment-21Gp
Morningstar (8 GP)
Adventuring Gear (20 GP)(Tent, blanket, bedroll, flint & steel, Hemp rope, sack, backpack, belt pouch, Oil, Torch, waterskin, Rations x6)
Travelers outfit (1 GP)

Backstory-

Every few decades the sands of the desert shift and the powers that be fluctuate. As such, the self proclaimed king of the sands, an extremely old Sand dragon, often blesses a nomadic warrior with his gifts, and sends him or her on a pilgrimage through the sands to investigate such powers.

It is not always known if the fluctuation bodes well or spells doom for the ancient dragon, and so this dragons pupils are trained both in steel and in tongue.

Shar'ra, a surprisingly adept and intuitive nomad of Clan Hakuh, set off on her own pilgrimage to the ancient dragon in order to pray for good fortunes for her family such as bountiful crops, lighter rain, and the health of all her people. A humble request for an isolationist, the sand dragon granted said request in exchange for her services.

"I shall grant your request," the booming dragon's voice echoed through the sands. "In return, you must forsake your family for me and me alone." Disheartening to be sure, but for the general health and welfare of her family, she reluctantly agreed.

"From this day forward, you are not Shar'ra Hakuh of the Hakuh clan. You are Shar'ra of the dragon king Agamemnon! Go now, go to the west and search for the source of these arcane fluctuations in the sands."

(to DM- I did my best to keep my backstory as vague as possible, you are free to use the information in any way you like).

My time zone is EST New York - Canandaigua time. GMT - 4.

EDIT: Oh and the two major books I'm using are Sandstorm and Dragon Magic.

malinzaro · Post by **malinzaro** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:05 am

Annette wrote:Avoiding shquishables might be a wise course of action... though as I keep trying to convince myself, I will TRY to go easier this time. So far as I know, none of you is my ex-boyfriend who deserved to be slaughtered by a spellsword.

As I said above, Unearthed Arcana is the only one I'm not allowing. I personally felt that, other than gestalt characters and buying off XP penatlies (I am using htat one rule, but nothing else from the book), it didn't add much that I like. Anything in the Complete series is fair game, of course.

Karnakiid's ruling class is exclusively human, but the asherati are often held in high regard due to their experience with the wastelands. The bukha on the other hand, are considered monsters to be killed on isight. Any other races are a vast minority in the lowest class.

If the guards have any reason to believe you are even capable of casting a spell, or if they see a weapon on your person, you will be heavily fined and arrested for 30 days. Since it's illegal to even carry weapons, using them in self-defense is still forbidden.

Hehe ... thanks for clearing all up

I'll try to remember this advices, especially the first one!

Annette · Post by **Annette** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:31 am

Syberis: You clearly know what you're doing. I commend your choice of dragonfire adept, it's always been one of my favorite classes. I definitely welcome the vague backstory as well; it'll be easier to implement that way. You seem to have left out your alignment, though.

Moogleman: Yes, you're exactly correct about Quicken Spell. On your level, all you can use it with are orisons, but grabbing it now will let you qualify the amazing Divine Metamagic on level 3. What that lets you do is use your turn undead attempts in exchange for the change in spell level. I don't think I explained that very well, so here's a wiki article on it: Divine Metamagic - AaronWiki
It's from Complete Divine, if I remember correctly. I THINK it'll only apply to a certain metamagic feat of your choosing, though, so be sure Quicken Spell is the one you want. If you'd rather apply it to one that you can't use quite yet, then I suggest grabbing Extra Turning now (that'll let you get more use out of DMM.)

Basically, my recommendation boils down to:
1- Improved Initiative, either a metamagic feat or Extra turning
3- Divine Metamagic (If you chose a metamagic feat), a metamagic feat (if you went with Extra Turning instead)
6- Divine Metamagic (if you don't already have it), Extra Turning (if you took DMM at level 3)

malinzaro: No problem! By the way, I apologize for the multitude of typos in that post. I wrote it in about three minutes while getting ready for school.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:35 am

Nah, alignment is Neutral. I just labeled it N above my hit points, XP and level.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:43 am

Oh and Moogleman.

Metamagic feats vary in terms of the level adjustment to spells.

Extend spell treat the spell as one level higher, for instance. Thus, casting an extended mage armor would require a level 2 slot instead of the normal level 1 slot.

However, quicken spell treats the spell level as 4 higher, not one higher. And so mage armor would instead take a level 5 slot.

With divine metamagic, you sacrifice a number of turn undead uses equal to 1 + the level adjustment of the spell. So, if you were a cleric of level 3, you would have to sacrifice all 3 turn undead uses to use an "empower spell" metamagic feat on a spell because empower spell increases the level by 2.

If you get Divine Metamagic, -definitely- invest in [url="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#extraTurning"]Extra turning[/url] too.

malinzaro · Post by **malinzaro** » Tue May 10, 2011 11:06 am

If I understand correctly you would allow gestalt characters. If I would choose to make one what rules you would impose? Or how about prestige classes? Any additional specific house rules in this cases?

Annette · Post by **Annette** » Tue May 10, 2011 2:57 pm

malinzaro: You misunderstood me. I said that I do like the idea of gestalt characters, but the only rule I'm legalizing from UA is the option to buy off level adjustments.

Moogleman: Siberys is correct, sorry about that. I know there is at least one MM feat that only raises the spell's level by one, though I'm afraid I can't remember which.

Siberys: Thanks for correcting me. I really shouldn't have made that mistake. And sorry I didn't notice your alignment! I'm used to seeing it as "TN", so it went right over my head.

If you guys want, I could potentially prepare the beginning of the campaign over the weekend so we could start the following week.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue May 10, 2011 7:09 pm

Extend spell, enlarge spell, still spell and silent spell all heighten the spells level by 1.

And no worries, my character sheet is fairly cluttered so it's easy to overlook various things. Hell, sometimes even I catch myself constantly hitting that edit button to fix things

.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue May 10, 2011 7:24 pm

Oh, btw, my roommate is wanting to join this campaign. She knows D20 very well, just not 3.5 quite yet (obviously though since she's my roommate I can very easily help her get the hang of rules).

Just wanted to run that by you all, see if that was okay.

Annette · Post by **Annette** » Tue May 10, 2011 8:42 pm

Sure, we'd be glad to have her. The more players involved, the less bad I have to feel when one of you dies and the rest of you have to pay for a resurrection!

malinzaro · Post by **malinzaro** » Tue May 10, 2011 11:59 pm

Annette wrote:malinzaro: You misunderstood me. I said that I do like the idea of gestalt characters, but the only rule I'm legalizing from UA is the option to buy off level adjustments.

...

If you guys want, I could potentially prepare the beginning of the campaign over the weekend so we could start the following week.

Oh! I apologize for that. My bad!

By the way I will be away the middle of the next week (travel for work) and I don't have a notebook yet so I won't be able to access internet. I will try to prepare a character end of this week though, so if you decide to start anyway I can be introduced later in the campaign.

In other news I was looking at either hexblade, duskblade or favored soul as potential characters. These are basically a few examples of classes that blend magic (either arcane or divine) with swords. Any of more experienced of you (yes Annette and Siberys I am looking at you!) can provide with either advices on how to play this characters (what skills to choose, how to play them effectively, what to use in a potential dungeon/battle, if and how they fit the theme and party etc.) or other potential builds I could take similar with those (that mix spells with swords). Thanks in advance!

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Wed May 11, 2011 12:04 am

Swordsage and Elemental based maneuvers make for great arcane/sword combos.

If you have tome of battle, I definitely recommend that book.

Also, if you can understand it and play it effectively, Magic of Incarnum is REALLY good so long as you know what your doing.

malinzaro · Post by **malinzaro** » Wed May 11, 2011 2:06 am

Siberys wrote:Swordsage and Elemental based maneuvers make for great arcane/sword combos.

If you have tome of battle, I definitely recommend that book.

Also, if you can understand it and play it effectively, Magic of Incarnum is REALLY good so long as you know what your doing.

Thank you for your suggestions, but I am afraid I cannot fully grasp them. Swordsage and elemental warrior both look closer to a fighter to me. Actually they don't get any spells whatsoever unless you count their special abilities as such. Plus the elemental warrior is a prestige class and I am not sure how this will work in the long run. Of course they are very durable and this might be their biggest bonus.

How about my ideas of a playing character? I am looking forward in gathering as much feedback as possible, both to better support the party and to know beforehand if I would enjoy the style.

Talking about HP I noticed some strange numbers for both Moogleman and Siberys in regard with their base dice and CON bonus though since I am quite the beginner I might have made an error in my calculations. Since we get maximum HP at each level (you get maximum at first level anyway) the final HP=D+C (where D is the base dice - I think for both is D8 and C is the CON bonus) or so I understand.

Moogleman · Post by **Moogleman** » Wed May 11, 2011 6:18 am

OK, my second feat is gona be Empower spell. It increases the spell level by 2 so when I get DMM at character level 3 it will only take 3 turn attempts to restore a metamagic spell to it's original spell level, right? I'll get the extra turns at level6

Malinzaro: I'm not sure what you mean by strange numbers but hopefully this will clear it up:
I rolled an 8(max) on my Cleric level1 hit die. Add +2 from my constitution mod and that brings me to 10hp. If we get max hp every level then I'll get 10hp every level.
Siberys rolled an 8(max) on his Dragon Adept level1 hit die. Add +3 from the constitution mod and +1 from the Dragon Touched perk and that makes 12hp. If we get max hp every level then Siberys will get 11hp every level, not 12hp, since the perk was a one off. Hopefully that was right.
Also I don't mind waiting until your'e back from your business trip before we start.

malinzaro · Post by **malinzaro** » Wed May 11, 2011 8:57 am

Moogleman wrote:...
Malinzaro: I'm not sure what you mean by strange numbers but hopefully this will clear it up:
I rolled an 8(max) on my Cleric level1 hit die. Add +2 from my constitution mod and that brings me to 10hp. If we get max hp every level then I'll get 10hp every level.
Siberys rolled an 8(max) on his Dragon Adept level1 hit die. Add +3 from the constitution mod and +1 from the Dragon Touched perk and that makes 12hp. If we get max hp every level then Siberys will get 11hp every level, not 12hp, since the perk was a one off. Hopefully that was right.
Also I don't mind waiting until your'e back from your business trip before we start.

Sorry about that, I thought you only put 8 HP (because it says in your sheet: Class HP rolled / Level 1: Cleric 8) and I didn't know that Dragon Touched feat gives 1 HP. Thanks for clearing this up!

Annette · Post by **Annette** » Wed May 11, 2011 9:31 am

Siberys: "Elemental Warrior" isn't ringing any bells. Which book had that, again?

malinzaro: Gotta agree with you on this one, at least regarding the swordsage. Maneuvers really aren't on the same level as spells. Whay Siberys might have meant was a swordsage/arcane magic-using class/elemental warrior, though as I can't remember what an elemental warrior is, I can't be sure of this.

I'm not as familiar with the hexblade as I'd like to be, but duskblades are fun. Not the most powerful class out there, but quite cool in their own right. They're kind of squishy on early levels though, since they can't cast in decent armor at that point, but that's easy enough to fix with a good DEX score. I imagine this is similar with the hexblade, but if I remember correctly they get even fewer spells than a duskblade.

Favored Souls are divine casters, basically the divine equivalent of the sorcerer. Since Moogleman is already playing a cleric, I don't know if you want to be a divine caster too (then again, that means more resurrections, once you hit caster level 7.)

Personally, I'd go with duskblade. With AC in mind, you might want to take Weapon Finesse (and possibly dip one level into swordsage for Shadow Blade) so you can disregard STR. To do that on first level, though, you'd have to start as a human swordsage. Other than that, a high INT and a moderate CON should keep you in business. Taking Knowledge Devotion at some point could augment your skill in combat, so I'd recommend taking some knowledge skills. Then, of course, there's the ever-useful Expertise and Power Attack/Cleave. At the moment it looks as though you'll be the party's melee combatant, so investing in combat feats could be wise.

And we have no problem waiting for you to get back, don't worry.

Moogleman: Correct. And thanks for explaining the HP oddities, I had trouble figuring that out at first myself.