Dungeons & Dragons

Fantasy Roleplaying

Notes for my Campaigns

Sourcebooks Available

All characters built for my campaign will use information gathered from the following 3rd Edition sources:

• Player's Handbook

• Dungeon Master's Guide

• Psionics Handbook

• Forgotten Realms: Campaign Setting

• Forgotten Realms: Faiths and Powers

Character Creation

Characters are built using a very generous home-grown system.  Players roll a grid of 36 sets of stats (4d6, drop lowest, reroll 1's) and then choose a single row, column, or diagonal of six stats for their character.  Grids must be built in successive rows or columns and must be done in my presence (no buliding haphazardly to group good stats, and no pre-builds).  If you want to try again after rolling a grid, you must throw away the whole grid.  

I am running in the Forgotten Realms, so all characters need to choose a patron deity from the pantheons of Toril.  If not, when they die they will not have a deity to claim them from the Fague Plain (Toril's version of purgatory, I believe) and will be collected by Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead as one of the Faithless. The Faithless cannot be raised from the dead short of a wish or miracle spell as they are trapped in the City of the Dead.  Clerics and Paladins must choose a patron deity.  "Generic" Clerics and Paladins of the forces of Good/Evil and Law/Chaos do not exist in the Realms.  Players are free to choose any deity as their patron.

The following bonuses will be granted during character creation:

• Anyone playing a Cleric or Paladin may choose an additional free non-combat feat at their fifth class level**, as I am trying to encourage their play for this campaign.

• Anyone playing a Psion or Psychic Warrior will may choose an additional free non-combat feat at their fifth class level**, as I am trying to encourage their play, in general.

All characters are assumed to already know each other.  I hate spending three or four sessions “introducing” characters to each other.  Take this into consideration when coming up with your character concept.  The characters don't have to be lifelong friends, but they will have spent the last few weeks/months adventuring together.

^{** - Yes, this does mean that a multiclass Psion/Cleric gets two additional feats, one at the 5th cleric level and another at the 5th psion level. I guess a 5/5/5/5 Cleric/Paladin/Psion/Psychic Warrior would get four free feats, but that would just be silly, wouldn't it?} 

Available Feats

Players may select any feat in the Player's Handbook, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (as allowed by character class/race/region), Psionic Handbook, with the following additions/changes (some are going to be included in D&D 3.5 anyway).

Note that because of the types of bonuses, the +3 from Skill Focus (a competence bonus) and the +2 from one of the other skill feats (an aptitude bonus), such as Atheletic, stack. Therefore a 1st level human character putting 4 ranks in Ride, with a +2 DEX bonus, and the starting feats Skill Emphasis: Ride and Animal Affinity will have a total +13 bonus to the Ride skill at 1st level.

Additional feats can (and will) be added to this list on a case-by-case basis. 

Available Races and Classes

Players may freely select any of the following races (taken from the Player's Handbook and theForgotten Realms Campaign Setting):

• Human

• Dwarf (Shield or Gold only)

• Elf (Sun, Wood, Moon, or Wild only)

• Gnome (Rock only)

• Half-Elves (any elven type, including Drow)

• Half-Orc

• Halfling (all types)

Players may freely select any class from the Player's Handbook or the Psionics Handbook.

Skills

The following skills have modified or additional uses in my campaign:

Healing

Fist Aid: Characters may use their Healing skill to give Fist aid to characters who have taken minor wounds.  If successful, a number of hit points of damage are converted into subdual damage equal to the healing character's number of ranks in the Healing skill.  The DC for the skill is the number of total damage the character receiving Fist aid has taken.  This application of Healing may only be used when the following conditions are met:

• The character being healed has at least one hit point remaining and conscious.
• The character being healed has not been given this form of Fist Aid since the last point when he was fully healed.
• The player may Take 10 but cannot Take 20 on this roll.

Up to two other characters with Healing skill may attempt to aid the primary healing character by making a Heal check versus a DC 10 to give the primary healer gets +2 to his Heal check for each aiding character and converts additional damage equal to half the ranks (round down) of the assisting character.

Example 1: Ston (fighter) has taken 10 hit points of damage.  Tarl (cleric) has four ranks in heal and a +3 Wisdom bonus.  His DC for healing Ston is 10 with a total +7 in Heal.  He rolls a 6, for a total of 13, which beats DC 10.  Ston converts 4 of his hit point damage to subdual damage.  The 4 points of subdual damage will heal quickly (one per hour per character level), but he will have to heal the remaining 6 normally, as he can no longer benefit from Fist Aid until after he has fully recovered.

Example 2: Ston has gotten himself into quite a scrape and has taken 30 hit points of damage.  Tarl is gained some levels and now has 10 ranks in heal and a +4 Wisdom bonus.  His DC for healing Ston is 30 with a total +14 in Heal.  He's not sure he can handle it alone, so he enlists the help of two low level acolytes, with Heal skill bonuses of +5 and +7.  Each acolyte attemps to match DC 10 (the DC for assisting an action).  Both make it, so Tarl gets an additional +4 to his roll.  He rolls a 13, giving him a total of 31 (13 + 14 + 4).  Good thing he was at the temple!  Ston has 10 damage converted to subdual, but will have to heal the remaining 20 normally.

Tumble

According to the Player's Handbook, attempting to tumble past through an area an opponent threatents is DC 15 to avoid attacks of opprotunity and DC25 to tumble through their occupied square.  I use the variant rule where the character treatening the space may make a Reflex save at a DC equal to your tumble check to make an attack of opprotunity.  If the tumbler is attempting to move through an opponent's square, the Reflex save is made with a +10 bonus.

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Experience

I calculate and give out experience (XP) at the end of each session.  I am fairly generous with XP in the normal course of play.  I am a firm believer that the lower levels of a character's life will be primarily combat giving way to intrigue and in-depth roleplaying at the later levels.  I am quite fond of focusing on integrating the character's goals into the game so levels 1-4 are more a time to get comfortable with the abilities of your character, his/her personality, and the direction the you want to take the character. It makes it much easier for me to tailor the game to the character's goals if the players have a chance to figure out what those goals are.

Leveling/Training

Upon leveling, all characters must choose which level they wish to gain.  Then I will consult the following determine training:

• If gaining a level in a class the character already has, no training is required and the player received all benefits immediately.

• If gaining a level in a class the character does not have, one of the following applies:

  • If another character in the pary has the class desired, the player must roleplay the training with the other character to learn the new class, then will receive all benefits of the 1st level of that class.

  • If no one in the party has the class desired, then the character must seek out someone to train him in the basics of that class.  The player must roleplay seeking out and training for the new class, then will receive all benefits of the 1st level of that class.

Unless a particular outside trainer requires some form of payment, leveling/training is always free.

Hit die rolls for character hit die types are changed based on the following table:

^{* - Roll 1d6.  Divide by two, rounding up.
** - Roll 1d10.   Divide by two, rounding up.
*** - Roll 1d8.  On a roll of 8, roll again.}