starfalconkd wrote:This is excellent work. Personally, I would love to use these as written but I think my players would faint at the ability score array.
That's just for this campaign as I've never done it before and the idea of being "NPCs" is fun. My current campaign (one session left) was the Dragonlance War of the Lance modules, starting at level 6 with the party now being level 14, so going to crazy low-power is a pallet cleanser.
starfalconkd wrote:The magic system seems open to some abuse but I imagine you will be keeping your pcs on a tight leash in that respect.
It will require some playtesting and will make buff spells and summoning spells more potent. But a lot of those durations were reduced from 3.0 to 3.5 anyway. I prefer the idea of buffs lasting multiple combats as it means fewer adjustments to character sheets.
starfalconkd wrote:How will you handle people taking item creation feats? That would work against the rarity of magic.
Good question.
Mostly I'll be asking them not to and keeping a tight rein on gold. If they don't have hundreds of gp they won't be able to make tonnes of items.
I'll be trying to give out unique items. Magic will be rare but after level 3 or 4 the players are the types of characters that will being doing rare things and getting that one or two magical items.
starfalconkd wrote:I'm very curious to hear how the play test works out, especially the ritualistic magic system and the critical hit rules.
More than any other system, the critical hit rules will need to be playtested.
I was unhappy with the Pathfinder version from
Ultimate Combat as it removed the confirmation roll from the player to the opponent. And confirmation rolls take much of the drama away from 20s.
I wanted a 20 = crit system (ala 4th edition) but also wanted to keep the various options for weapons (high crit weapons, improved threat range weapons, etc). High crit was easy but finesse weapons with a higher crit range proved difficult. I'm still not 100% happy with those rules.
starfalconkd wrote:One last question: How are you handling fear, horror and madness checks? I was considering these when my group discussed Ravenloft and didn't want to make them all Will saves. It would make Will saves far too important and encourage optimizing towards that end while penalizing anyone without a good Will save. My first thought was to make Fear and Madness Will saves and Horror save Fortitude based.
I'll be using the Madness rules from the Pathfinder
Gamemastery Guide as that seams easiest.
For fear and horror, I'm going for something more rules light.
Sometimes, I'll be calling for fear checks, which would be the standard Will save vs. fear, if only to let fighters and related classes get class bonuses. This will generally be any time I want there to be a mechanical penalty for fear in combat, when I want them to be shaken or panniced.
The rest of the time I'm leaving it for role-playing. So if the player role-plays being frightened or horrified I can give them a little reward.
When you get down to brass tacks, Fear and Horror checks really a mechanical beat stick to enforce role-playing. "No, your character IS frightened. They failed. Suck it up and take the penalty." I'm going to try the carrot and reward players who act afraid at reasonable times.
I picked-up some skull beads from a Michael's craft store last Halloween and have them in an old dice bag. I'll hand them out for acting frightened and (as mentioned in the document) let them be cashed in to let the player do a little story manipulation. So good role-playing grants story-based rewards.
