Rules Musings

A game Josh is starting
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Joshua
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Rules Musings

Post by Joshua »

So minor bits, and other links.

Alignment
Character Creation
Downtime Actions: Gaining proficiency and levels.
Overland Travel: I am planning on using pointcrawl rules.
What's a Sandbox?
Last edited by Joshua on Sat Nov 18, 2017 9:15 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Joshua
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Re: Rules Musings

Post by Joshua »

Alignment (Yay?!)

IC Alignment:
The divine trio (Civilization, Miracles and Choice) are divided among the Law-Chaos axis. As such, most of their religious teachings speak of their side of that axis as good and the other side as evil. Miracles doesn't even go that far, speaking of creation and destruction as opposite sides. It is believed that the divinities simply see things in terms of themselves, and that each axis is merely a side of the arrowhead symbol.
As such, the real question of good vs evil is debated, but rarely fought over anymore.

OOC Alignment:
I generally find the best way to deal with it in my game is to separate Law vs Chaos and Good vs Evil.
The infamous issue of: He either breaks the community law for the greater good, or hurt people while following his own personal code so I can't tell if he's CG or LE.... is resolved thusly:
1) Is it more important to him that he has a personal code or breaks the law? Is he willing to change the Laws to match his personal code? This should resolve the Law/Chaos.
and 2) Will you have to make Ravenloft powers checks for your actions? If so, you're probably evil.

On a more serious note, there are some aspects of game that will give evil characters some problems. I haven't figured out how heavy handed they are, (likely less than Ravenloft), but just a small warning. There's a reason the neutral gods have mostly Good followers.
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Joshua
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Re: Rules Musings

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Sandbox (Useful description/advice)

So, the goal is to try to give players almost free reign, with some guidance. The idea is that you have a base of operations, and make excursions into the wilderness, and return. Guidance will be the occasional plot development (as the goal is to not have the bases static) and the quest board at the local inn. There's hints of a deeper plot, hopefully, but how to uncover things is up to the group.

The pointcrawl is kind of nice for that, because you can walk toward monuments or along roads or paths. Some paths will be hidden, discovered by clues in said monuments or encounter places, or by having a high skill. We'll see if I can make that work, but if we can pull it off, it'll be a series of unlockable adventure zones. Hopefully, I can keep them distinct enough and with enough plot to make them all different and interesting in their own way.

Combat-wise, this gives two important bits. First, encounters are not scaled to the group. An early dungeon has 2 hidden bosses, one of them is intended as a tough battle for a great reward. The other is a 8th level threat in a 1st level dungeon. This is counterbalanced by the second: difficulty is implied by surroundings. I haven't done the specifics yet, but the thought is the high level boss is in a sealed area with written warnings all over it. Dangerous traps may have corpses or scorch marks...

As I get used to this, I hope to do it well. Initially though, try to bear with me. If you need information, ask. Please, ask. If you don't know what to ask, say that. Some of them might get OOC information, because dire warnings appear everywhere and it can be hard to tell which are serious, and which are not. Anyhow, that's the basic goal.
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Joshua
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Re: Rules Musings

Post by Joshua »

Downtime Actions:

Page 187. It takes 250 days of training to learn a new language or a set of tools. A master generally costs 1gp a day.

There's also some notes for Crafting, Researching, recovering from poison/disease, and earning a living with a profession.

Pg 127 of the DMG adds:

Building a stronghold (kinda cool), carousing (it wouldn't work in twelveday though, except in the festival/caravan days.), some stuff on magic item creation (minor potions can be made at 3rd level), etc...

The one I was thinking of was Training to gain levels... The costs seem a bit much (20gp to rech second level), but requiring 10 days downtime to digest the xp and level up, isn't such a bad idea. Not sure what people might want.
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