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Campaign
Overview and "Metagame"
(updated 2/2/02) Overview
As the party's power has increased, so has their knowledge about the events into which they were abruptly thrust at the start of the campaign. About 40 runs or so (about 10 months of game time) were spent in a long-term quest to find the Crosser's Maze, a legendary device that has great (but unknown) powers concerning planar travel. (They succeeded; the Crosser's Maze is in Aravis's possession.) Meanwhile, the Great Enemy(tm) is approximately a year away from breaking through a long-sealed planar gate and invading Charagan. The Run Diaries provide all the specifics, if you're up for some reading! All of the human Gods are creations of either myself of my players. For halfings, dwarves and such, I've used Greyhawk Gods such as Yondalla, Moradin, etc. The game is what most would call "high magic." The party has lots
of magic items (though generally of low power), and the story itself, especially
the background, involves lots of "custom" magic use.
Metagame
All PC's are given 76 points to spend on the 6 stats, with no restrictions or sliding cost scale. The first game took place in November of 1995, and there have been 127 runs since then. Slightly more than 3 years of game time has passed. The PC's who started at the beginning are now 10th or 11th level. All in all, I'd estimate about 600 hours of gaming. Woo hoo! The game started using 2nd Edition AD&D. We started playtesting
3rd Edition in early 1999, and have used the latest version of 3E from
that time on.
House Rules
Half-orcs are allowed to take either the skill bonus usually afforded to humans, or the feat bonus usually afforded to humans. In lieu of the two-weapon fighting "virtual feats," Rangers may take Point Blank Shot and either Precise Shot or Rapid Shot. Morningstar is a cleric whose m.o. revolved around many Thought Sphere spells from the 2E Tome of Magic. Although these spells did not make it into 3E, she still can cast several of them, including Thought Capture and Memory Read. Furthermore, we have invented two new Clerical Spheres: Thought, and Darkness. (One can see the spells of these spheres on Morningstar's character sheet.) Lastly, many of the cleric spells based on fire or bright light are, for her, (and others of her religion), based on cold and darkness, but are otherwise identical. (For instance, Searing Light is Searing Darkness for her, while Flame Strike produces black flames which do cold damage instead of fire damage.) Other spells still allowed from 2nd Edition: Know Age and Fist of Stone. The spell Polymorph Other has been changed to Polymorph Friends, which is in all ways identical except that it can only be used on willing targets. The Disintegrate spell only works as written on non-living matter. Living creatures take 10d6 points of damage, Fortitude save for half. The Harm spell allows a Will Save for Cause Critical Wounds damage, but this cannot bring the target below 1d4 Hit Points. The Discern Location will cost the caster 500 XP per use. The following spells do not exist in my campaign world: Phantasmal Killer, Finger of Death, Circle of Death. I have allowed Kay to take "Orcs" as her favored enemy three times (giving her a total +6 bonus vs. Orcs) Contradicting the official ruling, the Haste spell does not grant an extra partial action on the same turn as it is cast. It's a powerful enough spell as it is! I am not enforcing the standard experience penalty on multiclass characters. In my opinion, this rule is meant primarily to prevent munchkiny abuses of the multiclass system, abuses that my players are not perpetrating. Spells from class book supplments, as well as from Relics and Rituals, are allowed on a trial basis. For each spell taken by clerics from new sources, another spell must be removed from their list of available spells. |