Old school Dungeons and Dragons

[kmg3]

Sorry but family called and I was pulled away last night

The other prestige class is a Centre Spear

They are the gaurds of the city of Centre the home of Helix and the place where every God has a temple. The City is obviously in the middle of the map and is the most powerful city in the world. The guard use the centre spear a exotic double weapon damage d8/d8 able to switch to a reach weapon as a free action once per round.
Also need weapon focus centre spear and weapon specialization centre spear and tow weapon and improved two weapon fighting

special abilities
level one glance speech(able to communicate with another by sight with 10 feet with simple glance (super natural ability)
level 3 improved critical centre spear as a bonus feat
level 5 vault special attack use the spear to propel yourself inito the oppenent gain +2 to hit and double damage on hit



the other special rule is Void sickness
The first time someone is within 50 ft of th edge they need to make a will save DC20 or get lost in the void Treat a held per hold person ujntil they make the save. Anyone brought up within 20 miles of the edge is immune and called one of the voidclans.


ANything goes every deity, prewstige class, race etc. there are four Gods so far unique to this world

Helix The multiverse Helix claims to be the embodiment of the multiverse and the center of all things the first child of the Lady and the Lawbringer.
Alignment NN
Domains(All)

Lawbringer- The force of order incarnate One of the two eldest deities
Alignment(LN)
Domains (all except choas)

The Lady- Either lad luck or mother nature the other eldest
Alignment(CN)
Domains(All accept law)

Twilight- Trickster god of good "The Protector in the Night"
Alignment(NG)
Domains(Trickery, Luck,Good,Healing)

[EchoKnight]

There are actually several well designed plot generators out there, that you could snatch a few ideas from even if you didn't use their suggestions directly, you could google D&D plot generator to find em. I've been playin for about 6 years, love the game.

[Sagetim]

Originally Posted by jermoore

Rather than just letting this thread die and starting a new one... does anyone here make or use homebrewed rules? I used to be active on a forum where that was what it was all about: making, sharing, and helping each other balance the mechanics on homebrewed d20 system races, classes, monsters, adventures, etc. We (on the forum) even worked together to build our own homebrewed campaign setting. Shortly before I joined here, that forum had started dying. Participation dropped sharply, with 3 out of 4 members blaming their own inactivity on MMO's (WoW, DnDO, GW, etc).

At any rate, I was just basically wondering which rules system everyone uses (AD&D, D&D 3e, D&D 3.5, or other), and whether you play "by the book", if you have a few house rules, or if you have a siginificantly homebrewed system?

Also, tell us about your favorite character that you've ever played, and why that character is your favorite.

home brews? oh indeed. Most recently I was a player in a game of almost utterly home brewed D20. Our DM made new rules for magic, stuff for mechs, hell, it was like playing FF6 with dice and penciles instead of an SNES controller...of course, it was a different story line, but still. I believe he last claimed there to be 17 or 43 or some such add on rules to make the game work right, but it's always fun to be able to cast spells with names like 'fire' and 'bolt' instead of simple 'fireball' s. As for my Favorite character? The level 1 sorcerer I just made two days ago for a new campaign...spamspamspamspamcause he has a masterwork Banjo, and when he walks into a tavern they all call him by name.

[steve32]

I remember playing one game in college, where I convinced the DM to let my Cavalier character's henchmen and lesser cavalier followers also build up their own followers and men-at-arms. Carved out an Arch-Barony for myself.

I will have to warn, that using D&D rules to play out a large battle (more than 100 per side) is so NOT the way to do anything. That took for fricken ever!

Nowadays I would be cited by some enviro-nut for cruelty to trees for the paperwork!

[LDavis]

Well when my group used to play we did some homebrewing, mostly of the Gods. None of us like the D&D Gods so we tended to make our own. They usually were gods/goddesses of the elements, which element usually having a good/evil counterpart or if not good and evil then neutral playing one of the roles. These gods usually gave our characters special abilities, so things invariably got overpowered. ;P Still the DM would ramp up the encounters accordingly so we'd have low level characters doing insane things, but it was fun and it worked because none of us really wanted to humdrum stuff, and none of us really had a way to make humdrum stuff less humdrum (and we all took a turn DM'ing at one point).

My favorite character from these times was a Wood Elf Loremaster of Fire, Neutral Good aligned, Follower of Ferrianth our homebrewed good aligned Fire Goddess, her domains were Good, Light and Fire.

We did prestige classes a little different too, ditched the prerequisites but toned down the abilities accordingly or created our own to fill the void, so I was a Loremaster from jumpstreet.

The character came about because I always liked playing Wood Elves, and thought it'd be interesting to play a Wood Elf who studied fire, which on the surface seems like an odd concept.

From there it came that his homeland and particular tribe burned to the ground under strange circumstances when he had been forced by his family to venture into the world. He came back to ashes, and from there vowed to study fire and to find out what happened to his family and homeland.

(This is the Reader's Digest version, there was a lot more to it, hell his bio to start was something like three pages, I really got into it.)

Anywho he joined up with some other people, found out what happened to his homeland and family and offed the being responsible for it.

It was a really good campaign, because all involved were really into it that time. A lot of the time it was hard getting actual character bios from the people I played with, which made it hard to develop campaigns, but this time everybody did one, and the DM even said that's what made the campaign so good. Ah, those were the days....

[tmercenary]

Originally Posted by steve32

I remember playing one game in college, where I convinced the DM to let my Cavalier character's henchmen and lesser cavalier followers also build up their own followers and men-at-arms. Carved out an Arch-Barony for myself.

I will have to warn, that using D&D rules to play out a large battle (more than 100 per side) is so NOT the way to do anything. That took for fricken ever!

Nowadays I would be cited by some enviro-nut for cruelty to trees for the paperwork!

They have had mass combat rules in the past. I find if a large scale battle is fought, have it as a pre determined plot device. One that worked well for me wss to have an orc army that became invincible. The PC's had to investigate, and found a magic device was respoonsible. I let the PC's affect the wa through the storyline. Letting dice rolling determine it takes awhile. If you do want to move large scale units on a battle filed, use an average or the unit strength vs the opponets average strength. Example, 100 1st level warriors/fighters wiht chain mail, large shield and longsowrd, avg strength 14 gets a +3 hit, +2 damange. hp 8 AC 17 vs 200 goblins with leather, small sheild and handaxe. +1 hit, no damage bonus, and AC 14
The humans hit on a 11 or better, so in the first round 50 goblins get hit. Only on a damage roll of 1 do they stay up. That means 1 of 8 goblins hit is still alive.

The Goblins hit on a 16 or better. So 40 goblins hit, but only do d4 damange. 6 humans go down, taking up 24 of the goblin hits. 16 humans are wounded but still fight.

I can roughly calculate lalrge scale encounters if needed this way. Or course, I let the PC's affect things, as well as NPC spellcasters and other events as needed.

[kmg3]

I always hate mass battles in any form. I once did an old star fleet battles with the tholians being assaulted by the andromedeans called fortress tholia it took two tables of hex maps too set up and three days to finish

I am proud to say fortress thoila still stood and kick andromeadean butt but it cured me of large battle for for life.

I leave the large battle in the background and let the battle fall the way the players portion fell in the smaller battle they are fighting. In college I had a campaign I ran for two years and most everyone in the gqaming socity had drifted into it more than once the last climatic battle every other game suht down I had 27 PC"s and the other two poppular DM's helping me run the monsters in one of the most fun alnighters we had. Sorry I am bragging on myself but I am proud of that particular game it was fun.

[jermoore]

I am so geeking out here... sorry, I'll try to collect my thoughts into a good post.

Mass combat rules have always sucked. Don't know what to do about them, other than like kmg3 suggested... have the battle rage in the background, and don't worry about "rules" for it. Personally, though, instead of having it go the way the players' personal battles went, I'd have it pre-planned as part of the story which side would win and why... being a hero on the losing side of a war could still be very interesting, and could lead to other things as well.

My favorite PC I ever played was a half-elven bard named Phoenix Soulsinger... although I don't know if it was actually him or the campaign I played him in. It was different. You know how in most games, you'll have one player who just can't be bothered to be a "team player"? Usually, those guys are a pain in the ass, but this one made it interesting... he was the main antagonist throughout the game. Threw the DM off at first, but once he caught on, he played up to it, and it was just awesome. Since I spend more time as DM, I tend to spend more time playing NPCs... like Elissa Ravenheart - Sorceress/Mindbender with an army of goblins in her thrall, and a doppleganger as her personal consort. Or, my players' favorite in a LONG-running campaign, Farmer Joe... a level 1 commoner who agreed to guide a party of level 3 adventurers to a ruins. Once there, they were attacked, and Farmer Joe was killed. The players actually returned him to town, paid to have him rez'd, and begged him to come with them.

As for homebrewed rules, like I said, I used to be on a site where that was the name of the game. I've made templates for para- and quasi- elemental creatures (based on the elemental templates in the Manual of the Planes), and several new classes and races. Currently, I'm in the process of essentially re-writing the rules to fit my own tastes... more just mashing different sets of d20 System rules together, and then tweaking them so they actually fit together, but... yeah. The ideas I'm starting with are eliminating the d20 from the d20 system (d20 is far too random IMO), and eliminating alignments (people are people, very few set out to be good or evil, it's got more to do with personality than such an abstract construct), and just working from there. Most of my ideas are found in the WotC book "Unearthed Arcana", but that book is so poorly supported that, to truly implement it into your game, you almost have to re-write the rest of your game around the options you choose.

[iron_warmonger]

Define "Old School D&D". I have been gaming since 1981, and I did play D&D 1st edtion from 1981 to about 1986, and then took a break from D&D it until about 2002. Got into 3rd edition, but currently got with a group of old guard gaming and am currenlty in a 1st edition campaign. I like 3.5, but non one else in the group does.

Iron

[Sagetim]

Originally Posted by iron_warmonger

Define "Old School D&D". I have been gaming since 1981, and I did play D&D 1st edtion from 1981 to about 1986, and then took a break from D&D it until about 2002. Got into 3rd edition, but currently got with a group of old guard gaming and am currenlty in a 1st edition campaign. I like 3.5, but non one else in the group does.

Iron

I'm rather sure that old school dnd refers to anything pre- 3.0. and if we're going with that, I only played one poorly planned game of 2nd edition adnd when I was around 8...we had an elf in the group who simply ditched the rest of the group and wandered off. then...since niether the dm nor I fully understood the rules, I managed to kill a manticore with one shot of magic missle...since we both figured 'max of 5 means you get 5 missles at level 1' for some reason....anyway...if I had to do ADnD 2nd edition now? oh the things I would do....the people I would screw with....the banjo I would play...yes...banjo...for banjo's are silly, useless little instruments.

[kmg3]

When I thought of this thread I was just thinking in genehral D& D becuase the rest of it was all about PC or PS or Wii etc. I was talking any pencil and paper based D & D being old school. I start in Ad&D first addition in 1982 playing a half orc fighter named Larn. He ended up creting a small local dessert by settleing into an area with a sword that controlled weather and he hated the rain. 'Me no like rain, it no rain. Shut up and go away Druid!!!"

My favorite character is from that era he was a Half Orc Ranger named Gorak Nangat he had alot of issues with his fathers race and spent time hunting them. He was a fun character in a great campaign.

[jermoore]

I started in the summer of 1988 at the ripe old age of 11 with the D&D Basic Set... went on from there to the Expert, Companion, and Master Sets before switching over to AD&D 2nd Ed. I've also played 1st edition, and MANY other systems. Other favorites include White Wolf's World of Darkness (especially Mage & Changeling, but they're all cool), Ars Magica, HERO, GURPS, and BESM.

[cantswleepclownswillgetme]

See, I could never really get past trying to create the perfect character I guess. When we did play, we never really had a good DM, except for a few times, then it did rock, but never could get off the ground.

Q. Favorite weapon?

[kmg3]

Clown my favorite weapon is the great sword I like just smacking thru the enemies with massive damage

if you expand a little further I prefer lighting bolt to fireball but that is a personal preference.

What is everyones favorite damage spell?

My favorite homebrew spell is the prismatic spear

the spell takes down a prismatic spear in one round then delivers a small pie or tart to the face ot the spheres caster. I like the got you last part.

[jermoore]

Favorite weapon? I'm torn between the spiked chain and the two-bladed sword.

Favorite damage spell? Any ray. If I'm playing a spellcaster who doesn't have a conflicting character concept, I always take Weapon Focus (Ray Spells) as one of my first feats.

More questions:

Favorite race?
Favorite class?

My favorite races are kobolds and humans... kobolds because they are so small and weak, and yet the blood of dragons flows through their veins... they can be a LOT of fun to role-play. Humans, because that bonus feat and the extra skill points are just so much easier to make into exactly the character you want, where other races have pros and cons that you have to weigh and balance for each character. In AD&D 2e, I favored the half-breeds (half-elf & half-orc).

My favorite class is sorcerer... and no, I don't play fireball batteries. Ray of Frost as a cantrip (with my aforementioned Weapon Focus preference) makes for more than enough combat ability for a low-level spellcaster - use the rest of your limited spell slots to develop a character. Here's a tip - unlike most games, D&D isn't about winning or losing.

[theson]

Well it really does depend on what version you are running. Personally I have been enjoying 3.0 & 3.5, thanks in part to newbies picking it up better.

I can't seem to think of the name for an Illithid/Lich right now, but most Illithids avoid those that learn magic, and even more so an undead being of magic.

Being that you have said anything goes, would that mean your big Bad Guy, is a True Necromancer? If so that makes it very likely he would have Liches working for him.

I am so going to make a thread for cheesy broken PCs.

[jermoore]

Originally Posted by theson

I am so going to make a thread for cheesy broken PCs.

Originally Posted by jermoore

Here's a tip - unlike most games, D&D isn't about winning or losing.

LOL Sorry this post is so useless.

[Ehtiar]

Or just to suitably freak out the PC's... make the lich an Alhoon.. (aka, an Illithid Lich) who's magically bound/dominated an Illithid outpost to serve him..

Illithids plus Undead.. What sort of fun experiments are going on there..

[cantswleepclownswillgetme]

Always liked the vorpal sword, just that odd chance of beheading with every shot (if I remember right). Sorta find it hard to believe that mind flayers became so popular in D&D.

[jermoore]

Originally Posted by cantswleepclownswillgetme

Sorta find it hard to believe that mind flayers became so popular in D&D.

Like Boba Fett from Star Wars?
Like Marvin the Martian from Looney Tunes?

What part of that is hard to believe?