Author Topic: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.  (Read 5751 times)

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Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« on: January 07, 2011, 10:32:12 AM »
My usual DM is a dedicated homebrewer, and after a few years of gaming with the Dragonlance setting, he has come up with this homebrew setting. I know that he has spent a very long time preparing this setting for us, so I want to give it a shot and play nice without breaking the game, but as is absolutely ignorant to the concepts of game design I will need to maintain a very high level of optimization in order to survive in the first place. He has told us 6 things that we need to know about the setting, and plans to reveal everything else during play. These things are:

1)
Humans and dwarves are the only playable races. Period. Elves have existed, but went extinct for a so far unknown reason. Humans and dwarves keep to themselves, and racial tensions are likely to occur where the two races are forced to live closely together.

2)
There is no gods, and the only divine magic available are the magic of druids and rangers, that is powered by nature. Humans generally worships the wizard king as a mortal god, and dwarves worship their ancestors. Both societies have banned druids, and hunt them down as witches. I don't know why dwarves hate druids, but the humans hate druids because they are mortal enemies with wizards, because druids view arcane magic as an unnatural force that has to be exterminated at all costs. Furthermore, arcane and divine magic does not mix at all, meaning no Arcane Devotee or anything like it. The DMs idea is that a party would have to choose between having arcane or divine magic on their side.

3)
Because there is no gods to direct the cosmic energy flows, souls are utterly destroyed once they leave their protective bodies. Enough essence remains for undead to be created, but there is no way of ever bring a dead back to life. The elves are rumored to have been able to cast Raise Dead, but they are extinct, so.. Yeah. I need to simply not die.

4)
There is no arcane casting classes but wizards. If you want to learn civilized magic, you go to wizard school. There is no alternatives.

5)
Magical items are very rare, and difficult to come by. Wizards keep magic to themselves, and will only create magic items for other wizards. Druids are outcasts, and not likely to make items for anyone but themselves either. This means that unless you are a druid or a wizard, MW items are likely the best you will ever get.

6)
Metallic dragons does not exist. I don't know why this is important, but I suspect that I will know if I live long enough to ever see a dragon.

To me, these rules makes it impossible to play anything except druids, and I have a strong feeling that the DM will want to discourage us from making a pure druid party.

What CO tricks would you apply in order to survive this campaign world? All books are allowed, unless they are specific to another campaign setting, or the DM vetos them for some reason.

Help!

veekie

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2011, 10:44:04 AM »
Easier to get along with divine magic than without I think.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

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[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
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[/spoiler]

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2011, 11:08:25 AM »
Yeah, but the problem is that if we go with having druids in our party, we will all be shunned from society and thereby unable to purchase equipment, gather information, or even get in contact with plot hooks. Of course, a party consisting of nothing but druids could just ignore the society that hates them, and go and live in the wild for as long as they liked, but that would make for an extremely dull adventure.

A party consisting ow wizards however, would be extremely polarized. Wizards has some means of self healing (Vampiric Touch, Energy Absorption ect.), but non-wizard civilized adventurers would have no way of replenishing lost HP. Furthermore, I am not sure that wizards and druids can even make the Nice Things (tm) that martial characters will need in order to contribute meaningfully. Most magical arms and armor has cleric spells as prereqs, right?

Sigh.. I think you are right, the lesser evil is to go with divine spells.

weenog

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2011, 11:18:48 AM »
Speaking of lesser evil, have you considered being a malconvoker? Ablative armor is nice for protecting your hp, and if all your front liners are disposable, you don't have to worry about them not getting nice things.

If you'd like to avoid evil altogether, VoP druid might be amusing.
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veekie

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2011, 01:10:05 PM »
Not much a party of druids won't be self sufficient for!
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

BruceLeeroy

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2011, 01:58:08 PM »
Druids with a dip into master of many forms, for humanoid wild shape. Yes, MoMF is a trap, but I think in the case of this specific campaign it might be worth it. At low levels, keep to the woods and craft your own gear.

All Druid parties are pretty damn awesome.

Gods_Trick

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2011, 04:48:51 PM »

So that guy riding a horse and wearing leather armour is ... a barbarian? Druids don't hold signs saying druid, and in the medieval setting animals were used in a lot of different ways. So it means no fleshraker dinasaurs or bears, until you're able to pick up some spells to disguise them. Or a portable hole.

Also depends on the RP in your group. You can hide from NPCs, but not from PCs. If your fellow players go arcane, will they accept a druid in the group, or follow the cultural script and gank you?

Would your GM accept an Ur-Priest? Thats one way to get cleric casting while still fitting the setting.

Whisper

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2011, 05:42:38 PM »
A big part of this is whether your GM allows arcane versions of healing and debuff-removing spells that are restricted to divine magic in the rules.

One of the annoyances of the game rules as written is that atheists can't have certain things. (Amusingly enough, I was modhammered on another game-related board for mentioning that atheists exist. That's why I'm here.)

Anyway, if you can heal your party with wizards, then you should be able to get by without divine magic just fine. Otherwise, it's druids for everyone.

Littha

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2011, 06:29:48 PM »
(Amusingly enough, I was modhammered on another game-related board for mentioning that atheists exist. That's why I'm here.)

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Solo

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2011, 06:32:48 PM »
Yeah, but the problem is that if we go with having druids in our party, we will all be shunned from society and thereby unable to purchase equipment, gather information, or even get in contact with plot hooks.
Break in, beat people up, steal their stuff, and extract information.

"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

The Legend RPG, which I worked on and encourage you to read.

Littha

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #10 on: January 25, 2011, 06:39:00 PM »
Yeah, but the problem is that if we go with having druids in our party, we will all be shunned from society and thereby unable to purchase equipment, gather information, or even get in contact with plot hooks.
Break in, beat people up, steal their stuff, and extract information.

Alternatively, wildshape or Tree Shape and go spy on someone...

seriously who expects the tree to be listening in?

Solo

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #11 on: January 25, 2011, 06:45:04 PM »
Durkon.

"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

The Legend RPG, which I worked on and encourage you to read.

Ikeren

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #12 on: January 25, 2011, 07:02:14 PM »
Quote
So that guy riding a horse and wearing leather armour is ... a barbarian? Druids don't hold signs saying druid, and in the medieval setting animals were used in a lot of different ways. So it means no fleshraker dinasaurs or bears, until you're able to pick up some spells to disguise them. Or a portable hole.

Hell, get yourself some greatswords. You don't have to use them. Scar up your faces lots. Yell like you're merc warriors. Drink heavily.
If a wizard detects magic and finds you have magic items, be like "whoa guys, I'm a Merc warrior. I stole x item from a dragons hoard after slaughtering it."

Littha

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #13 on: January 25, 2011, 07:10:55 PM »
Quote
So that guy riding a horse and wearing leather armour is ... a barbarian? Druids don't hold signs saying druid, and in the medieval setting animals were used in a lot of different ways. So it means no fleshraker dinasaurs or bears, until you're able to pick up some spells to disguise them. Or a portable hole.

Hell, get yourself some greatswords. You don't have to use them. Scar up your faces lots. Yell like you're merc warriors. Drink heavily.
If a wizard detects magic and finds you have magic items, be like "whoa guys, I'm a Merc warrior. I stole x item from a dragons hoard after slaughtering it."

Alternatively turn into a bear and pull his arms off

oslecamo

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2011, 08:17:12 PM »
Quote
So that guy riding a horse and wearing leather armour is ... a barbarian? Druids don't hold signs saying druid, and in the medieval setting animals were used in a lot of different ways. So it means no fleshraker dinasaurs or bears, until you're able to pick up some spells to disguise them. Or a portable hole.

Hell, get yourself some greatswords. You don't have to use them. Scar up your faces lots. Yell like you're merc warriors. Drink heavily.
If a wizard detects magic and finds you have magic items, be like "whoa guys, I'm a Merc warrior. I stole x item from a dragons hoard after slaughtering it."
Alternatively turn into a bear and pull his arms off

I wouldn't risk it, he may actually be a warlock.

Whisper

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #15 on: January 25, 2011, 08:29:47 PM »
(Amusingly enough, I was modhammered on another game-related board for mentioning that atheists exist. That's why I'm here.)

Giant in the Playground?

It's very sad that you were so easily able to guess, because it seems to indicate a pattern, rather than a single moderator having his crazy time.

oslecamo

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #16 on: January 25, 2011, 08:44:32 PM »
(Amusingly enough, I was modhammered on another game-related board for mentioning that atheists exist. That's why I'm here.)

Giant in the Playground?

It's very sad that you were so easily able to guess, because it seems to indicate a pattern, rather than a single moderator having his crazy time.

It's not just a pattern. It's a well-known fact. A good chunk of the posters here are "modhammered" GITP posters. Their draconian rules are nothing short of legendary on the gaming boards.

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #17 on: January 26, 2011, 01:31:57 AM »
A big part of this is whether your GM allows arcane versions of healing and debuff-removing spells that are restricted to divine magic in the rules.

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weenog

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #18 on: January 26, 2011, 02:06:21 AM »
A big part of this is whether your GM allows arcane versions of healing and debuff-removing spells that are restricted to divine magic in the rules.

You make my priest of the unseen host cry.

That was a damned amazing piece of flavor rewriting, btw.  I saw that in crunch terms it was a bard easily enough, but it doesn't taste like bard at all.
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Gods_Trick

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Re: Help me survive this crazy homebrew setting.
« Reply #19 on: January 26, 2011, 05:38:50 AM »
Yeah, but the problem is that if we go with having druids in our party, we will all be shunned from society and thereby unable to purchase equipment, gather information, or even get in contact with plot hooks.
Break in, beat people up, steal their stuff, and extract information.

So you added extracting info to the adventurers stand CoC? .... I see what you did there - you're trying to civilise us!