I need help with my D&Dish scenario!

[angelfromanotherpin]

Hello all,

This is an open call for assistance on a D&Dish scenario. I say ‘-ish’ because of the amount of system tweak I’m using. Unfortunately, after struggling with the material for some time and reading a lot of commentary, I believe that the published material’s quality actively sabotages my ability to create the scenario I want to. Given a choice between A) putting in some work and having a mediocre game and B) putting in a lot of work and having a really cool game, I’m choosing option C) Begging people who have a better grasp of the material than I do to do some of the work for me.

The scenario in question is a one-shot, based on the old DL8 module, the defense of the High Clerist Tower. For those unfamiliar with the scenario, it begins with a sort of choose-your-own-adventure minigame involving travelling from where the PCs begin to the Tower, on the way acquiring important resources and information. Once they get to the Tower, the game alternates between defending the Tower in mass combat battles and dungeon crawling up the Tower for the resources to win those battles, all while dealing with the hidebound behavioral code and disintegrating morale of the knightly order providing the defending army. I find this concept to be entirely awesome.

I need specific assistance with:
1) The PCs.
2) The encounters.
3) The mass combat.

I’ll go into more detail on each of those in follow-up posts. Also, the setting assumptions.

An ambitious first post, but I’m convinced that if there is any board I can get the caliber of assistance I’m looking for, it will be here.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The Setting

For the sake of context and having everyone on the same page, here is what I have of the setting assumptions.

This is not your typical D&D world. It is most certainly not Krynn. It is a lot closer in flavor to the implied setting in Iron Heroes. Strong arms, stout hearts and swift feet are by far the majority choice of kicking ass, with sharp minds and sweet tongues the second choices. This is not because magic is rare or low-powered. This is because magic is user-unfriendly; enchanted items come with harsh prices, arcane casting is perilous on many levels, and the Deities are both terrible and ineffable.

For setting assumptions, there are very few casters in the world, because while a warrior-type can gain skill through training and battle against easily-understandable things like ‘men with axes,’ that wizard-type had to jump through a lot more hoops, and face weirder risks, and make poorly-defined deals with poorly-defined entities to reach very much the same level of effectiveness as that warrior-type. And he still might be putting his immortal soul in jeopardy each time he casts. So most people aren’t going that route. Similarly, the vast majority of people who go through the years of rituals and purification and climb up the mountain to speak to the Deities never come back, and there’s no apparent rhyme or reason as to who gets to come back with sight, sanity, or saintly powers. Once again, not a lot of takers.

Now, there are still casters in the PC party, and they are (or should be) equivalent to the other party members. But with the cover charge keeping out the riff-raff, the world doesn’t have many casters.

There are plenty of monsters, though. Most of them are solidly conventional Magical Beast types for knights to slay and rogues to sneak past and/or swindle, but in deep wilderness or in Elfhomes you’ll find nature spirits in the form of Elementals and Fey, and in a few places where the scars of the past linger, the Undead also walk.

Speaking of Elfhomes, there are Elves. Dwarves too. In Tolkienesque fashion, these folk are few in number and chiefly keep to themselves, leaving the vast hordes of Humanity to run the world and do most of the exciting stuff. There are, however, no other intelligent humanoid races.

Recently, as in the Dragonlance setting, a large organization employing military force with dragon support has begun a campaign of conquest. I’ll go into more detail regarding the assumptions surrounding Dragons in the Mass Combat section.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The System

Also for context, here is most of the variant system stuff I’m using. Most of it is from Iron Heroes.

• Assumption of no magic items and little available PC magic in general. This manifests as increased internal PC competence: Abilities are based on a generous point buy, Cleric Base Attack is the minimum, Saving Throws are higher, the skill system is a lot more generous, and everyone gets more feats. It also alters many of the status effects (petrification is not permanent, negative levels never become level loss, incorporeality is not weapon immunity – just a miss chance, etc.), and probably other stuff I don’t remember.

• Reserve Points replace the need for magical healing. The Heal skill recovers Reserve Points more quickly.

• Class defense bonus replaces armor as the prime source of AC. Armor provides rolled damage reduction.

• Players make all the rolls: not especially relevant, but in case it comes up, I’m mentioning it. I’m also taking it a little further, with monster damage being fixed, since armor DR is rolled.

• Iron Heroes Stunts and Challenges are being used, which give more skills a combat use, and provide more options in combat.

• Eliminating a few skills and putting their effects into others. (Open Locks into Disable Device for instance)

• Other minor sanities, like non-flat Diplomacy DCs.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The PCs

So, the first thing I did when beginning to design the scenario was create the pregenerated characters. I like pregenerated characters for many reasons: I can integrate them into the setting, there will be no unexpected scenario-ruining builds, and I can make sure when I write the details of the scenario that there will be opportunities for characters to be glad of every feature on their sheet. So I created the Dwarf, the Elf, the Noble, the Musketeer, the Priest, the Rogue, the Sage and the Soldier. But I wasn’t happy with them, and in reading these boards (and others) I discovered why: you know, the general sucking of D&D and its variants.

The full casters (Priest and Sage) were difficult to balance. The Soldier was kind of boring, and didn’t have enough to do outside of combat. The Noble and the Musketeer never sat quite right somehow, although I could never say quite what bothered me.

So here’s my plea for help on the PC end of things. I will here describe the eight characters, and what I want from each of them. I would like advice (or if you are very generous, a full write-up) to help me in getting what I want out of them.

General Guidelines:
• Effectiveness equal to a 7th level PHB Rogue.
• Remember the No Magic Items part. Internal competence replaces them as per The System in the previous post.
• Simplicity please. I don’t like small bonuses to uncommon things, token pools, or stat buffs that require cascading recalculations.
• I don’t care which abilities are which of feats, racials, or class abilities.

The Dwarf
In Combat: Heavily armored, buckets of hit points, draws attacks to himself, uses a two-handed weapon and Power Attack to punch through DR and Great Cleave to clear out low-grade enemies. Low class Defense bonus and no shield makes him an easy, if resilient target.
Out of Combat: Disable Device, Search, Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering). Can find traps of high DC, but not magical ones.

The Elf
In Combat: Competent archer, but with middling Str and Con, little armor and a d8 Hit Die, a very mediocre melee fighter. Blind Fighting effective out to 30 feet.
Out of Combat: Excellent Spot/Listen/Hide/Move Silently for scouting, also has Survival for tracking and Climb for both archer and scout advantage.
Casting: A half-caster, whose spells should have a nature theme, and be less powerful but more versatile than the other casters’. (e.g. Summon Elemental I, because a temporary 2 HD elemental has many uses, but is still only a 2 HD elemental)

The Noble
In Combat: Rogue turned up a little, a tricky fighter with Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Improved Feint, a little Sneak Attack, Elusive Target, that sort of thing. D8 Hit Die, +6 BAB and no heavy armor, but shields allowed.
Out of Combat: Rogue turned down a little, all social skills plus Disguise/Forgery/Sleight of Hand and Heal.

The Musketeer
In Combat: Strong movement-based fighter, like the Harrier from Iron Heroes. Increased speed, with the Jump and Tumble ranks to Stunt like hell.
Out of Combat: Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate/Gather Information.

The Rogue
I’m actually pretty happy with the Rogue I have, who’s essentially a PHB Rogue ported to Iron Heroes. I’ll be posting this one’s write-up as an example of what you’re looking to balance with in the next post. Any suggestions are still welcome.

The Soldier
In Combat: The most versatile combatant. Can strip down to light armor for mobility, or tank up to heavy armor for resilience. Can go sword and shield for high defense, two-handed for damage, or two-weapon for... there should be a reason for that. Need an archer? He’s there too.
Out of Combat: Intimidate. Climb/Jump/Swim. My first impulse is to have him kick more ass in the mass combat part of the scenario, with a Command Rating or unit bonuses, or something. Other suggestions are welcome.

The two full-casters have d6 Hit Dice, and the BAB of a Cleric. I’d like their abilities to be per encounter and not per round. In my original builds I was using the Recharge Magic out of Unearthed Arcana for this effect, but I could see Warlock-like spell-likes doing the job as well. To keep the Priest’s healing effects in line, I had one effect which transferred a whole bunch from the target’s Reserve points (essentially borrowing against further encounters) and one effect which allowed the Priest to trade 1 of his hit points for 2 points of healing for another character.

The Priest
In Combat: Blessings (holy water, bless weapon), Divine Authority (command, a low-level holy word effect – maybe like color spray), Anti-Undead effects, Combat Healing effects(see above), and some other benefits that don’t require his casting action, like providing a +4 flanking bonus or using aid another as a Move action, or whatnot.
Out of Combat: Diplomacy/Sense Motive. Enhanced Heal skill juju for Reserve Point restoration. Magical status effect removal.

The Sage
In Combat: Status infliction and area control, blinding, paralyzing. I love the concept of Web, but I hate the execution. Little direct damage. Illumination and light effects too. Glitterdust is sort of archetypal for him. Also a powerful Intimidate build to take advantage of the Iron Heroes uses of it.
Out of Combat: Knowledge skills, Decipher Script, Divinations. Can detect magic and suppress magical traps (doing the half of the traps the Dwarf doesn’t get). Other basic utility effects.


Phew! Okay, I’m going to let that massive dump percolate for a while. I’ll be back later with more details on the other things I need assistance with.

Thanks in advance, guys.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Okay, here's the Rogue writeup. Keep in mind that in the Special Abilities field, I'm not listing anything which isn't relevant, like how Razor Fiend only allows you to use half of this Str 10 character's Str bonus to damage. Also, some of the language involves Iron Heroes weirdness, like Finesse weapons.

Abilities:
Str 10, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 14

Combat Numbers
Hit Dice: 7d6(or 7d4+14)+14; Hit Points: 47;
BAB: +5; Class Defense Bonus: +7;
Base Fort: +6, Base Reflex: +8, Base Will: +6

Special Abilities:
Danger Sense: You can find and disable magical traps. You have +2 to defense and saves against traps. If you make a Reflex save to reduce an effect, negate the effect instead. You retain your active bonuses to defense while flat-footed. You have +4 to Initiative rolls.
Mobility: You have +4 to defense against attacks provoked by movement.
Proficiencies: Simple Weapons. Light Armors.
Razor Fiend: You can draw daggers as a free action. When making an attack or full attack action while armed only with one or two daggers, you can reduce your attack rolls by 2 to gain an additional dagger attack at your highest base attack bonus.
Sneak Attack: Your attacks against enemies you flank or denied their active defense deal +4d6 precision-based damage.
Spring Attack: As a Full Attack action, you can move up to your normal movement and make a single attack with a melee weapon. You must move both before and after the attack, and this movement does not provoke the being you attack.
Two-Weapon Fighting: When using finesse weapons, your penalties for fighting with two weapons are reduced.
Weapon Finesse: When using a finesse or light weapon, you can use your Dexterity modifier to attack instead of your Strength.

Skills:
10 ranks each in: Appraise, Bluff, Climb, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Disguise, Escape Artist, Forgery, Gather Information, Hide, Jump, Knowledge(Dungeoneering), Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Tumble, Use Magic Device, Use Rope.

So that's pretty much the benchmark. If you think it's a crappy benchmark, let me know. If you have any constructive suggestions as to how I've screwed up horribly with this guy, let me know.