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I've decided to try my hand at running a D&D 3.5 game set in Eberron on this board and am making this thread to gauge interest for such a game. I already have one board member who is on board to play and I will run a campaign for between 3 and 6 people assuming I can get enough interest. Should I get more than the number of people I'm willing to run as a single group I might be convinced to start a new game or even set each party up as adversaries.

DM'ing Style: Seat of the pants with a side of kick in the door, I do run social encounters but this will not be a primarily diplomatic or political game
DM'ing Experience: The better part of 6 years.

Campaign Setting: Eberron
Regions: Valenar and Xen'drik
Starting Season: Early Spring

Starting Level: 1
Races Allowed: Any so long as they do have any LA
Classes Allowed: Any
Stat Generation: 32 point buy
General Character Power: Able to, with some effort, deal with encounters 1 or 2 levels above that of the party once or twice per day
Source Books Allowed: Any, though some have material I will restrict
Other: Each player gets an additional 4 skill points to put into a profession, this represents what you did before starting this adventure

With those basic notes down a little about my idea for a campaign.

I am thinking that it will be a sort of adventurers race with the party starting out as a team of underdogs among a stacked field. The prize will be determined when I have an end level in mind for this campaign.

The starting point will be Griffonclaw in Valenar and the end point will be some where on the outer edges of Xen'drik. The campaign will start off as an overland race through the Blade Desert to Shivairn, from there to Keth, with the end point of this leg being Pylas Maradal. I see this first leg as a chance for players and the NPC's they're against to set ambushes, lure monsters to their enemies, and generally race dirty.

From there each team will sign on with one of the dozen waiting vessels meaning that only that many teams will make it to the next leg of the journey. The sea leg will likely have less direct conflict between the teams as none of the ship's owners want to see them too damaged. Challenges in this leg will be weather, food shortages, and attacks by creatures of the deep.

The next leg will be on the shores of Xen'drik itself where a ruin has been marked on your maps. The objective is to grab any item that will prove you made it this far. Dangers here will be any teams that are ashore while you are as well as the creatures and beings native to the continent. Once you have your proof the goal is to get back to Taer Valaestas and be the first team to do so with their proof.

I have a few ideas to continue the game after this point but I figure that this is enough to get people interested. Any questions, comments, or concerns can be posted here, PM'ed to me, or sent via messenger. I hope to hear back from eager player's shortly.

How would you like an experienced RPer who's done very little (read: zero) D&D before? Oh, I've played Neverwinter Nights, but that's about it.

I would have no problem with that, you might have issues due to not having the books though, but I could always build a character for you based on what you'd like to play in the worst case.

I would be interested, I got a few ideas to work with, depending on what other people want to play.
I'll look for the guide to free D&D
Until then here is the srd http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/classes.htm

Found it-http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... pic=1109.0

Norade wrote:I would have no problem with that, you might have issues due to not having the books though, but I could always build a character for you based on what you'd like to play in the worst case.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Open_Game_Content

On the lighter and more humorous side there is this:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/ ... =331878594

the economics of D&D, making necromancers interesting, reworking the outer planes, trying to give an explanation for some of the odder mechanics and, of course, combining paladins and communism to produce a build socialism on one plane before expanding the cause out to the rest of the multiverse

A game sounds interesting, but summer means I have midterms every other week so I can't.

Of course, the SRD's are great. I do worry about a player feeling outclassed by another player who has access to other source books though, but that is more than enough to learn the basics and make a strong character.

If your worried about players being outclassed I recommend using a tier system
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... c=5293.260

Basicly you can cap class selection to a certain tier level

Edit-I only read half what you posted, Core Wizard/Druid/Cleric are game breakers with little power gained from splat books.
If the player wants to play a melee type then the Psychic Warrior or Warblade-Its in the guide to free D&D- would work pretty well.

lance wrote:If your worried about players being outclassed I recommend using a tier system
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... c=5293.260

Basicly you can cap class selection to a certain tier level

Edit-I only read half what you posted, Core Wizard/Druid/Cleric are game breakers with little power gained from splat books.
If the player wants to play a melee type then the Psychic Warrior or Warblade-Its in the guide to free D&D- would work pretty well.

Oh, trust me, I know both sides of the game pretty well. I, just to prove to a buddy that just because I'm not a player I can still build great PC type characters, built a grey elf cleric that at level 10 had 140hp, 43AC and no save worse than 14, counted as an outsider, had 3 attacks per round, and could fly at 50 feet per round. I didn't even get into template cheese in creating the race he used alter self to get more AC out of or that AC would be at least 100. Not to mention the thing me and a buddy built using the anthropomorphic rules and template stacking that at level 10 could cast 19th level spells and had no stat below 50 IIRC. I've also run horror settings where the players feared a pot being moved by a mage hand spell.

Norade wrote:

lance wrote:If your worried about players being outclassed I recommend using a tier system
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards ... c=5293.260

Basicly you can cap class selection to a certain tier level

Edit-I only read half what you posted, Core Wizard/Druid/Cleric are game breakers with little power gained from splat books.
If the player wants to play a melee type then the Psychic Warrior or Warblade-Its in the guide to free D&D- would work pretty well.

Oh, trust me, I know both sides of the game pretty well. I, just to prove to a buddy that just because I'm not a player I can still build great PC type characters, built a grey elf cleric that at level 10 had 140hp, 43AC and no save worse than 14, counted as an outsider, had 3 attacks per round, and could fly at 50 feet per round. I didn't even get into template cheese in creating the race he used alter self to get more AC out of or that AC would be at least 100. Not to mention the thing me and a buddy built using the anthropomorphic rules and template stacking that at level 10 could cast 19th level spells and had no stat below 50 IIRC. I've also run horror settings where the players feared a pot being moved by a mage hand spell.

I was thinking more to keep things in line between the party members, than how much you can ,most likely wrongly on one of those, optimize a character. Unless by anthromorphic you meant Tauric.

No, it's anthropomorphic it starts with a Paragon Voidmind Woodling Magebred Dungeonbred Titanic Warbeast Legendary Tiger as none of that changes the creatures type from animal. That's all that I really care to show of that build, but seeing as you keep most of the animals traits you can see how that would end up broken.

I have no experience with Eberron, but i know 3.5 D&D. I also have no experience with forum RPGS.
But i am interested in it - could you send me a short description of how forum RPGs in general work, hence i can judge my capability at them?

Regards
Fina

Norade wrote:No, it's anthropomorphic it starts with a Paragon Voidmind Woodling Magebred Dungeonbred Titanic Warbeast Legendary Tiger as none of that changes the creatures type from animal. That's all that I really care to show of that build, but seeing as you keep most of the animals traits you can see how that would end up broken.

No its not broken, you just described a character with an effective level in the 40+range, and is likely quite reasonable things considered
Edit-I might not be remembering Anthromorphic correctly so I'm looking it up.

Count me in, I'm just drawing up a Talenta Halfling now. Not sure just yet if I'll go with Monk, Ranger, Druid or Scout as a base class. I'm thinking that he'll be joining the party on some sort of honour quest to find and ride some form of great mythical dinosaur like creature rumoured to have been spotted on Xen'Drik.

I played a Human? Ranger I believe it was in the aforementioned campaign with the mage hand affected cooking wares. It was an awesome game, we just got into character and had way more fun than the times we just built stat blocks that rolled fistfulls of damage dice.

I'd probably be down to play.

I would probably play either a psi-forged or if it swings a grumpy cheesewrought kobold bard who spends insists that he be refered to as a dragon, that dragons could solve all problems better than the party, that the beer would taste better if it was brewed by dragons, etc... (Bard to keep the power level at team player as opposed to Screw the rules I'm a Kobold!).

We had a friend play a Kobold similar to that, he lived in the backpack of my Human Duskblade. It was a fun party, and an amusing (if often irritating) character to have in the party. I believe his was an Artificer with a slightly kleptomaniacal bent.

Consider me interested.

What would you think of having a dragonmarked member of House Cannith in the party? Most likely an artificer. I just recently re-watched the old movie The Great Race which features Professor Fate the original Snidley Whiplash type character... or more accurately inspired Dick Dastardly, the guy who always cheats in races.

I probably won't be doing much in the way of trying to cheat our competition, but I figure having some gadgets to help us out would make sense.


Also, there is a spell called Summon Marked Homunculus from the Dragonmarked book. Its a 1st level spell/infusion that summons a homunculus for one hour per level. Its not really broken in and of itself except that it can summon an Expeditious Messenger homunculus to scout out the area (I was able to use it to do a lot of remote scouting in a zombie campaign by having the Expeditious Messengers maximum range be something like half a mile or more [based on the range of a real Expeditious Messenger]... not sure if thats what the rules allow, but it allowed us to scout out the city from our secure bunker quite well). Just wondering if something like that would be allowed due to it putting a pretty decent scrying ability in the hands of a 1st level character.

I've never played a PPEM or PPB game before, but what the hell, I'd like to give it a try.

I'll give it a go, but I expect with 8 players that it will be in two teams.

Goddamn, I wasn't expecting to get this kind of response. Anyway, to answer some questions:

First, by the book, that Anthropomorphic creature is rather hard to assign LA to. The example creatures given get it in a way that is totally unrelated to the base creatures CR. For example a CR 4 Polar Bear has an LA of +3 while a CR 6 Baleen Whale has no LA. So the issues with that race become tougher to solve in any by the book way. Any reasonable DM would just say no. It does bring up the issue of starting as an outsider via being a Half-Celestial or something, being a mage, and polymorphing into that race except adding every template that doesn't prevent the base creature from being an outside at the end. Not that a sane DM would allow that either, but it can be done.

Serafina, check the play by post Cyberpunk and Homebrew games for how this will be run. One exception I'll, find a map program to keep confusion about combat to a minimum. I'll also be handling all the dice unless anybody else has a better way to do dice rolls for this forum.

Kheitain, cool just put your character up in this thread so people can get an idea of where the power curve is.

Dark Hellion, I love the Kobold idea. I love running that type of character. They're always boss for inter-party roleplaying.

Rossum, you have the right idea for what I'm looking for. As for your scrying idea, it could be a good idea, even if just as a ride along with the guy who takes the party scout role. That way you know when he needs help.

Solauren, cool welcome aboard.

Sorchus, yeah, looking like a two team race here. Two big teams allow for players to drop out, because honestly I expect to lose a few along the way.

Professor, we've talked, so just make sure you're not breaking the power curve for players that are joining.

Just a note, this is 32 point buy so people can have fun and feel powerful, in my experience people have more fun when playing with high stats rather than a ton of weaknesses. This is a mid level game, so far we have a human ranger and a halfling monk as confirmed characters so try to build along a nice mid level curve. We all know that you can build world crushing penis extensions of doom, but save that for games where everybody wants the same thing.

Norade wrote: First, by the book, that Anthropomorphic creature is rather hard to assign LA to. The example creatures given get it in a way that is totally unrelated to the base creatures CR. For example a CR 4 Polar Bear has an LA of +3 while a CR 6 Baleen Whale has no LA. So the issues with that race become tougher to solve in any by the book way. Any reasonable DM would just say no. It does bring up the issue of starting as an outsider via being a Half-Celestial or something, being a mage, and polymorphing into that race except adding every template that doesn't prevent the base creature from being an outside at the end. Not that a sane DM would allow that either, but it can be done.

I see what you did. It might be right rules wise, but I will have to say that I dislike template stacking in that fashion. Even more than I dislike Gloom Cheetahs.

Just a note, this is 32 point buy so people can have fun and feel powerful, in my experience people have more fun when playing with high stats rather than a ton of weaknesses. This is a mid level game, so far we have a human ranger and a halfling monk as confirmed characters so try to build along a nice mid level curve. We all know that you can build world crushing penis extensions of doom, but save that for games where everybody wants the same thing.

I'm going to try a Truenamer, how do you feel about organization benefits and Item Familiar Feat? And the acquisition of magic items? Truenamer needs its amulet, it can make it if downtime is allowed, I would prefer to buy it though.
If not I'll do a binder.

lance wrote:

Norade wrote: First, by the book, that Anthropomorphic creature is rather hard to assign LA to. The example creatures given get it in a way that is totally unrelated to the base creatures CR. For example a CR 4 Polar Bear has an LA of +3 while a CR 6 Baleen Whale has no LA. So the issues with that race become tougher to solve in any by the book way. Any reasonable DM would just say no. It does bring up the issue of starting as an outsider via being a Half-Celestial or something, being a mage, and polymorphing into that race except adding every template that doesn't prevent the base creature from being an outside at the end. Not that a sane DM would allow that either, but it can be done.

I see what you did. It might be right rules wise, but I will have to say that I dislike template stacking in that fashion. Even more than I dislike Gloom Cheetahs.

As do I, but it was an example of a way to gain power in a legit non-infinite fashion.

Just a note, this is 32 point buy so people can have fun and feel powerful, in my experience people have more fun when playing with high stats rather than a ton of weaknesses. This is a mid level game, so far we have a human ranger and a halfling monk as confirmed characters so try to build along a nice mid level curve. We all know that you can build world crushing penis extensions of doom, but save that for games where everybody wants the same thing.

I'm going to try a Truenamer, how do you feel about organization benefits and Item Familiar Feat? And the acquisition of magic items? Truenamer needs its amulet, it can make it if downtime is allowed, I would prefer to buy it though.
If not I'll do a binder.

I have done anything with true namers, but I hear that they're a bit busted rules wise. Not as in broken, but as in half of their rules aren't finished and literally don't do anything.

Organizations take a fair bit of work, and might be a bit much for my first play by post campaign. As for magic items, you can find them, but this being Eberron you can certainly buy some magic items, though things like cost and the like might be an issue. This being a race, you'd need to wait until you reached the seafaring phase to have the downtime to craft anything and even that would be a limited amount so be ready to buy or find what you need.

Norade wrote:

lance wrote:

Norade wrote: First, by the book, that Anthropomorphic creature is rather hard to assign LA to. The example creatures given get it in a way that is totally unrelated to the base creatures CR. For example a CR 4 Polar Bear has an LA of +3 while a CR 6 Baleen Whale has no LA. So the issues with that race become tougher to solve in any by the book way. Any reasonable DM would just say no. It does bring up the issue of starting as an outsider via being a Half-Celestial or something, being a mage, and polymorphing into that race except adding every template that doesn't prevent the base creature from being an outside at the end. Not that a sane DM would allow that either, but it can be done.

I see what you did. It might be right rules wise, but I will have to say that I dislike template stacking in that fashion. Even more than I dislike Gloom Cheetahs.

As do I, but it was an example of a way to gain power in a legit non-infinite fashion.

My problem with it is that your applying templates in wierd manner where you have a paragon yada yada yada cow. Now this cow is a cow it eats grass and is milked by farmer jon, and is happy as a cow. Now do to process X that cow gets turned into a cowboy.
Which goes against both the fluff text and what I envisioned them as.

As opposed to a Tauric Gloom Cheetah, which is just born an ECL 3 creature with 25 hd and and 13d6 sneak attack.

Just a note, this is 32 point buy so people can have fun and feel powerful, in my experience people have more fun when playing with high stats rather than a ton of weaknesses. This is a mid level game, so far we have a human ranger and a halfling monk as confirmed characters so try to build along a nice mid level curve. We all know that you can build world crushing penis extensions of doom, but save that for games where everybody wants the same thing.

I'm going to try a Truenamer, how do you feel about organization benefits and Item Familiar Feat? And the acquisition of magic items? Truenamer needs its amulet, it can make it if downtime is allowed, I would prefer to buy it though.
If not I'll do a binder.

I have done anything with true namers, but I hear that they're a bit busted rules wise. Not as in broken, but as in half of their rules aren't finished and literally don't do anything.

Their rules are finished, they just got added in the errata. The problem is that its kind of impossible for them to hit the truename checks with out some item support. The Calculation for the check is 15+2*CR and with it being a skill check means that as you level up it become harder to use their utterances.

So at level 20 to affect an equal CR monster the truenamer needs to hit a 55 with the check. With out magic items its pretty much impossible, with the truenamers check being about 31 (23ranks+3 focus+3 Intelligence+2 Masterwork Tool), so the hard to reach 24 is needed on the roll.

With the Amulet of the silver tongue adds another 10, which is still a bit hard to reach.

Item Familiar make it works, as it can add a bonus equal to the ranks in it on a skill, but is considered a broken feat, which is why I asked about it.

Organizations take a fair bit of work, and might be a bit much for my first play by post campaign.

The Organization that I'm looking at is the Paragnostic Assembly on page 72 of the Complete Champion.
If that doesn't work I can alter my character concept.

As for magic items, you can find them, but this being Eberron you can certainly buy some magic items, though things like cost and the like might be an issue. This being a race, you'd need to wait until you reached the seafaring phase to have the downtime to craft anything and even that would be a limited amount so be ready to buy or find what you need.

Thats fine, I'm looking to grab the Truespeak Amulet which the class needs to function, and maybe an Item Familiar.
Though that does lead to question on about what level range this adventure is going to be? Can you tell us about what level we'd be at at the start of the seafaring phase?

Okay, Lemmon d'Cannith (first name is a reference to Jack Lemmon the actor who played Professor Fate in The Great Race)

Still looking for my books but I got the stats written up. Figure he'll rely on a crossbow for a weapon.


Also, just for fun, here are some youtube clips. The first has Fates flying machine... which is basically a two man bicycle held aloft by a balloon and operates on cartoon physics. I just think its awesome how he can navigate that thing and use it to drop bombs on people. I would totally invent something like that for use in an eberron game. The clip has "When You're Evil" playing which is only marginally worse than Fates theme (which plays during the scenes he rides this thing).

[Professor Fate on his flying machine] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwbvDPFdfx8#t=2m37s
[Professor Fates Theme] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rvtf1qlKrc

Is it going to be standard starting gold or do you have a DM preference for how to do that?

I'm tempted to give this a shot. Hopefully I won't be too underpowered even though I only have the 3.5 players handbook and the Arms and Equipment guide (3.0). I don't know much at all about Eberron so if I played a cleric would there be any problem with me being affiliated with a saint that has nothing to do with the major religions?

I'm thinking great-sword user built towards melee combat, buffing and healing in that order so probably War and Protection domains. Lawful Neutral and human.