Last weekend we had our first 3.5 session for our Elemental War game, which is the 43rd session with that group of characters.
Background
The campaign actually started many years ago with completely different players. It started out with an elven prophecy that foretold the end of the 3rd Age. The players were set on the trail of four elemental lords that they had to vanquish in order to prevent the destruction of the world. The party failed, and the lords became more and more powerful. This continued until the current party, which is the 5th group to attempt to save the world.
This 5th group started out as the elemental lords sent their armies to destroy the continent of Espreta. After saving as many people as they could, the party went beyond enemy lines to try and find a weakness. They were punished for their evil actions and sent to Hell, where they spoke with powerful demons that told them that not even Hell wanted the world to end. Thus the demons helped the players by inspiring them to create four magical items that could trap the elemental lords before sending them to Heaven. The players travelled through the planes in search of knowledge, skill, and materials to create the items, and when they were ready, they returned to the world. Back in the world, they continued their quest to craft the items behind enemy lines.
Game
The game we played started as the players joined forces again on the last surviving continent. The players had been apart for 2 years after creating the magical items, and had discovered that they could get more done by working together than working apart. As they started playing, they were called to a secret political meeting where they were informed that the elementals were attacking the continent. The game has been created as an open sandbox game where the continent changes according to the elementals actions and the players actions, and thus the players could go and do whatever they wanted.
The players decided to travel to the nearby monastery that housed the Knights of Aspenta, defenders of the land. They learned from the knights that there was a corruption that had spread out across the lands, and the players were tested to ensure that they had not been corrupted. After the test, the knights pledged their forces to the players. The party had learned that magma elementals were threatening the city of Fle on the eastern border and thus sent the knights there. They travelled there by skyship in advance of the army and on their way they witnessed a murder.
Future
Our next game will be a Roll20 game with the help of Skype. Here the players will investigate the murder and the political intrigue that has befallen the human lands. They will discover that the enemy is not simply fighting with armies, but also with other tools, such as corruption and infighting. Hopefully the party can discover the truth about the murder to stop the human lands from starting a civil war.
torsdag den 30. juni 2016
søndag den 19. juni 2016
D&D Mass Combat Rules
I'm preparing for a live session of a 3.5 game, and in that game there may be a mass battle. I'm therefore going through the various mass battle rules I know for 3.5e and 5e.
If you want a more detailed review of any of the following rule-set, please leave a comment.
Open Mass Combat System
This system is found in the Quintessential Fighter by Mongoose Publishing from 2001. It is very similar to the rules presented in the Miniature's Handbook, except they focus only on d20. Unfortunately the rules are made very simple, lacking many of the options presented in the Miniature's Handbook. I've tried to run a mass battle using these rules, and it was quite unbalanced, making initiative a crucial aspect of it. For the 3.5e game, I've decided to try and use these simple rules as inspiration, so to run the Miniature's Handbook rules in the same manner but with more options.
Miniature's Handbook
This book is an official supplement for D&D 3.5e from October 2003. It is intended to compliment the D&D Miniatures Game. There is therefore a lot of mixed and missing information in this book, but it does focus mainly on mass combat. This book should only be used as a guideline, which I've done for my 3.5e game. As a short example, I created a large battlefield, the edge of a town lying on the southern banks of a river. Elementals will come down the river from the east and attack the city, and the players will have to defend it using whatever forces they have been able to marshal before the attack. I look forward to seeing how the battle goes using this set of rules.
Heroes of Battle
This book is an official supplement for D&D 3.5e from May 2005. It is intended for use by DMs who want to incorporate large scale battles into their games. I once played mass battles as a player using these rules. Though this book does give a sense of mass combat, it doesn't actually play out the battles. It creates a normal D&D adventure that simply takes place during a mass battle. The players are still not set in command of forces or fight throngs of enemies. This book is a great supplement, but not exactly what I was looking for for my 3.5 game.
When Armies Clash
This set of 5e D&D rules was presented as part of Wizards of the Coast's Unearthed Arcana in March 2015. The rules presented here are exactly what I'm aiming to do with my mix of OMCS and Miniature's Handbook. They present it elegantly, simple, and yet with a plethora of options that puts the players in the center and in command of an army, which is exactly what I'm looking for.
If you want a more detailed review of any of the following rule-set, please leave a comment.
Open Mass Combat System
This system is found in the Quintessential Fighter by Mongoose Publishing from 2001. It is very similar to the rules presented in the Miniature's Handbook, except they focus only on d20. Unfortunately the rules are made very simple, lacking many of the options presented in the Miniature's Handbook. I've tried to run a mass battle using these rules, and it was quite unbalanced, making initiative a crucial aspect of it. For the 3.5e game, I've decided to try and use these simple rules as inspiration, so to run the Miniature's Handbook rules in the same manner but with more options.
Miniature's Handbook
This book is an official supplement for D&D 3.5e from October 2003. It is intended to compliment the D&D Miniatures Game. There is therefore a lot of mixed and missing information in this book, but it does focus mainly on mass combat. This book should only be used as a guideline, which I've done for my 3.5e game. As a short example, I created a large battlefield, the edge of a town lying on the southern banks of a river. Elementals will come down the river from the east and attack the city, and the players will have to defend it using whatever forces they have been able to marshal before the attack. I look forward to seeing how the battle goes using this set of rules.
Heroes of Battle
This book is an official supplement for D&D 3.5e from May 2005. It is intended for use by DMs who want to incorporate large scale battles into their games. I once played mass battles as a player using these rules. Though this book does give a sense of mass combat, it doesn't actually play out the battles. It creates a normal D&D adventure that simply takes place during a mass battle. The players are still not set in command of forces or fight throngs of enemies. This book is a great supplement, but not exactly what I was looking for for my 3.5 game.
When Armies Clash
This set of 5e D&D rules was presented as part of Wizards of the Coast's Unearthed Arcana in March 2015. The rules presented here are exactly what I'm aiming to do with my mix of OMCS and Miniature's Handbook. They present it elegantly, simple, and yet with a plethora of options that puts the players in the center and in command of an army, which is exactly what I'm looking for.
lørdag den 11. juni 2016
D&D Flowchart for Session 43
I'm currently working on preparing my 3.5 game that we'll be playing at the end of June. This will be our 43rd session, but the first session of the new Elemental War campaign. We had a session 0 where I got the players to indicate what their plans were, and from this I have been able to create a flowchart for session 43.
Intro
The players will begin by meeting up with each other after two years of being apart. They will be introduced to the setting and the campaign and have a chance to RP a bit before their meeting with the council.
M1: First Council Meeting
The players will be summoned to a meeting with a few dozen of the councillors that rule over the human lands. The councillors will present the players with the current situation, give them dozens of quests and choices, and implore them for aid.
A11-A12:Knights of Aspenta
The players' first choice will be to travel to the nearby monastery to recruit the Knights of Aspenta so that they have a fighting force to help them against the elementals. They will discover that the knights don't trust anyone, that corruption has spread throughout the lands, and that the PCs will have to prove themselves to the goddess before the knights will pledge their forces. If the players fail, they will have to leave the monastery without an army.
C9: Murder
The players' second choice will be to travel to the city of Fle to assist in its defenses. After they've passed the city of Wothorp, they will come upon a murder that they will have to solve. At this point they will have 5 choices.
The players will have to travel between the cities of Fle, Nyal, and Laburh to discover the truth behind the murder. Succeeding will award the players with a human army that will aid them against the elementals, which they'll need if they failed to recruit the knights. Failing to discover the truth of the murder will result in a civil war breaking out between the councillors, which will give the elementals the opportunity to destroy the Council of Aspenta and thus eventually plunge the human lands into anarchy.
S5-S8: Elemental Skirmish
The players' third choice will be to face an elemental force. Initially they've chosen to fight the magma elementals who are besieging the city of Fle, but they may decide to go help the city of Anta against the smoke elementals coming down from the Mountains of Berun. They can't hope to defeat the elementals without an army, so they will fail if they've failed the rest of the adventure. If they succeed, however, they will gain a skirmish score.
Skirmish Score
The whole campaign has a number of elemental skirmishes the players must succeed before they face one of the four Elemental Lords. The lord that they face is dependent on the score. Defeating the magma elementals will give them a score of 0110 and defeating the smoke elementals will give them a score of 1010. In either case, it seems that they are taking a step towards facing off the Elemental Lord of Water.
Intro
The players will begin by meeting up with each other after two years of being apart. They will be introduced to the setting and the campaign and have a chance to RP a bit before their meeting with the council.
M1: First Council Meeting
The players will be summoned to a meeting with a few dozen of the councillors that rule over the human lands. The councillors will present the players with the current situation, give them dozens of quests and choices, and implore them for aid.
A11-A12:Knights of Aspenta
The players' first choice will be to travel to the nearby monastery to recruit the Knights of Aspenta so that they have a fighting force to help them against the elementals. They will discover that the knights don't trust anyone, that corruption has spread throughout the lands, and that the PCs will have to prove themselves to the goddess before the knights will pledge their forces. If the players fail, they will have to leave the monastery without an army.
C9: Murder
The players' second choice will be to travel to the city of Fle to assist in its defenses. After they've passed the city of Wothorp, they will come upon a murder that they will have to solve. At this point they will have 5 choices.
- Travel to Fle where the murdered came from and investigate.
- Travel to Nyal where the alleged murderer came from and investigate.
- Travel to Laburh to investigate claims that they are trying to frame Nyal and investigate
- Travel to Fle and fight the elementals
- Travel to Anta beyond Nyal and fight the elementals
The players will have to travel between the cities of Fle, Nyal, and Laburh to discover the truth behind the murder. Succeeding will award the players with a human army that will aid them against the elementals, which they'll need if they failed to recruit the knights. Failing to discover the truth of the murder will result in a civil war breaking out between the councillors, which will give the elementals the opportunity to destroy the Council of Aspenta and thus eventually plunge the human lands into anarchy.
S5-S8: Elemental Skirmish
The players' third choice will be to face an elemental force. Initially they've chosen to fight the magma elementals who are besieging the city of Fle, but they may decide to go help the city of Anta against the smoke elementals coming down from the Mountains of Berun. They can't hope to defeat the elementals without an army, so they will fail if they've failed the rest of the adventure. If they succeed, however, they will gain a skirmish score.
Skirmish Score
The whole campaign has a number of elemental skirmishes the players must succeed before they face one of the four Elemental Lords. The lord that they face is dependent on the score. Defeating the magma elementals will give them a score of 0110 and defeating the smoke elementals will give them a score of 1010. In either case, it seems that they are taking a step towards facing off the Elemental Lord of Water.
mandag den 6. juni 2016
Elemental War - Session 0
About a month ago I presented the setup for a session 0, and this week I ran a session 0 for the 3.5 game we're starting up at the end of the month. Let me quickly go through it as I did in my last post.
Group Creation
Expectations - The expectation for the game was that combat would be optional and more focused on story. Random encounters wouldn't be appreciated, unless there was a point to them. It's also important that the players have the opportunity to explore and choose their own path through the campaign.
Location - We've decided to play over Roll20 and host live games at one of the players' place. We'll eat lunch before meeting up, everyone will bring snacks and drinks, and we'll go buy or order dinner at each live session.
Time - We have committed to playing live sessions on saturdays once per month. We haven't decided on a specific start time as we'll try 14:00 and 15:00 and possible other times to see what suits best. We'll aim at stopping around 2 AM. Our dropbox will include a calendar with the specific dates, which will also include our Roll20 sessions, which we'll start running on every second thursday from 20:00 - 23:00 up until mid autumn, where two of us will start having plans on thursdays.
Campaign Creation
System - We'll be playing D&D 3.5.
Theme - We'll be playing an elemental war, but the tone of the game will be open to random jokes and fun, even though we'll try to take the game seriously.
Setting - The game will take place at the end of the 3rd Age in the world of Aspenta, my homebrew setting.
Dying - Two characters now have the ability to reincarnate. This means that the chances the party is killed off is minimal. There is a price to dying though, in the form of loss of level and a new race.
Levelling - We will continue levelling at approximately the same pace as we've done before, which is neither slow noro fast. To control this, the DM will ensure that encounters aren't too long or too short, unless there is a balanced mix of both.
Books - We'll be using all available and official 3.5 rules. We may also use houserules. In both cases it's the DM's responsibility to control this.
Grid - We'll run with a large mix. The theater of mind will be used for roleplaying combat encoutners. Wargames will be run warhammer style, while normal combats will be run with square grids.
Length - The campaign ends when the party defeats one of the four Elemental Lords. This should take 67 - 100 hours and we expect that to take ½ - 1 year. This campaign is a step towards the Temporal Campaign, which will mark the end of the 3rd Age.
Character Creation
Starting level - We'll be playing with characters that were created beforehand, and thus their levels will remain the same.
Alignment - We've decided to play without alignments, and it'll be up to the DM to control alignment based rules.
Attributes - We'll be playing with characters that were created beforehand, and thus their attributes will remain the same.
Starting gear - We'll be playing with characters that were created beforehand, and thus their gear will remain the same.
Character Concepts
Party creation - The party will consist of 3 PCs and an NPC. The NPC is a DMs tool, a chronomancer that can explain and control all the temporal aspects of the game, which introduces the party to the final temporal campaign. The half-dragon Rawech is the aggressive character. He is not a leader, but he isn't silent either. He's mostly combat oriented. The half-elf Stag is the reincarnated arcane hierophant who wants to protect nature and the world as a whole. He dislikes civilization but has a chaotic nature, changing his mind quite often. He has a highly intelligent wolf which anchors Stag to the world. Vendar is the old arrogant human healer. Though he takes care of everyone with his cooking and healing, it seems that everyone around him dies or abandons him. He is the character with most charisma, although the entire party has a generallly high charisma. The party is together because they just spent years apart only to discover that they work best together.
Create Connections - Everything we've played before creates the connection between the players.
Background - The only common background the party has is everything we've played before.
Integration - We stopped playing after the players fought a black dragon where two characters died. In the past they had gotten a reward from a demi-god called the Phoenix in the form of extra life. After the battle, the Phoenix resurrected everyone, including the dragon. The party then split up. Rawech went to Sigil to study elementals and magic. Stag got lost in Sigil and ended up in a random forest. Vendar and Presmer travelled to the continent of Sillia to fight the elementals.
Transciption - The DM will go through the characters before the next live sessions as there are some rule and XP discrepancies.
Party Roles - Rawech is the smith and the first one in combat. Vendar is the healer and cook. He is the one that gathers food and water. Presmer is the DMs tool to give the players any missing information about the setting. Stag is the scout and the guard. He is a protector, but not the tank. The party doesn't contain any rogue type characters and everyone will do some talking throughout the campaign.
Player Roles - One of the players will take care of group inventory. The DM will handle maps and stats. Another player will take care of important information such as names.
Confirm Game Time - Our next live session will be on June 25th at 14:00
Gaming - I then showed the players the map of the campaign and asked them to choose 3 quests. They chose 4.
The party will begin in the capital of Aspenta where they will be introduced to the campaign and its adventures. The players will then travel to the Monastery of Aspenta where they will gather an army consisting of the Knights of Aspenta. The party will then travel towards the city of Fle. On the way they will attempt to gather the Councillors of Aspenta to ensure the stability of the human nation against the elemental forces. With the Knights of Aspenta, the party will then push back the magma elementals threatening the city of Fle before they travel to the human mageocracy of Ur'Lah in the south to meet up with Vendar's family and friends in the capital of Ha'Rahla.
I look forward to seeing if they stick to the plan and how the campaign will evolve.
Group Creation
Expectations - The expectation for the game was that combat would be optional and more focused on story. Random encounters wouldn't be appreciated, unless there was a point to them. It's also important that the players have the opportunity to explore and choose their own path through the campaign.
Location - We've decided to play over Roll20 and host live games at one of the players' place. We'll eat lunch before meeting up, everyone will bring snacks and drinks, and we'll go buy or order dinner at each live session.
Time - We have committed to playing live sessions on saturdays once per month. We haven't decided on a specific start time as we'll try 14:00 and 15:00 and possible other times to see what suits best. We'll aim at stopping around 2 AM. Our dropbox will include a calendar with the specific dates, which will also include our Roll20 sessions, which we'll start running on every second thursday from 20:00 - 23:00 up until mid autumn, where two of us will start having plans on thursdays.
Campaign Creation
System - We'll be playing D&D 3.5.
Theme - We'll be playing an elemental war, but the tone of the game will be open to random jokes and fun, even though we'll try to take the game seriously.
Setting - The game will take place at the end of the 3rd Age in the world of Aspenta, my homebrew setting.
Dying - Two characters now have the ability to reincarnate. This means that the chances the party is killed off is minimal. There is a price to dying though, in the form of loss of level and a new race.
Levelling - We will continue levelling at approximately the same pace as we've done before, which is neither slow noro fast. To control this, the DM will ensure that encounters aren't too long or too short, unless there is a balanced mix of both.
Books - We'll be using all available and official 3.5 rules. We may also use houserules. In both cases it's the DM's responsibility to control this.
Grid - We'll run with a large mix. The theater of mind will be used for roleplaying combat encoutners. Wargames will be run warhammer style, while normal combats will be run with square grids.
Length - The campaign ends when the party defeats one of the four Elemental Lords. This should take 67 - 100 hours and we expect that to take ½ - 1 year. This campaign is a step towards the Temporal Campaign, which will mark the end of the 3rd Age.
Character Creation
Starting level - We'll be playing with characters that were created beforehand, and thus their levels will remain the same.
Alignment - We've decided to play without alignments, and it'll be up to the DM to control alignment based rules.
Attributes - We'll be playing with characters that were created beforehand, and thus their attributes will remain the same.
Starting gear - We'll be playing with characters that were created beforehand, and thus their gear will remain the same.
Character Concepts
Party creation - The party will consist of 3 PCs and an NPC. The NPC is a DMs tool, a chronomancer that can explain and control all the temporal aspects of the game, which introduces the party to the final temporal campaign. The half-dragon Rawech is the aggressive character. He is not a leader, but he isn't silent either. He's mostly combat oriented. The half-elf Stag is the reincarnated arcane hierophant who wants to protect nature and the world as a whole. He dislikes civilization but has a chaotic nature, changing his mind quite often. He has a highly intelligent wolf which anchors Stag to the world. Vendar is the old arrogant human healer. Though he takes care of everyone with his cooking and healing, it seems that everyone around him dies or abandons him. He is the character with most charisma, although the entire party has a generallly high charisma. The party is together because they just spent years apart only to discover that they work best together.
Create Connections - Everything we've played before creates the connection between the players.
Background - The only common background the party has is everything we've played before.
Integration - We stopped playing after the players fought a black dragon where two characters died. In the past they had gotten a reward from a demi-god called the Phoenix in the form of extra life. After the battle, the Phoenix resurrected everyone, including the dragon. The party then split up. Rawech went to Sigil to study elementals and magic. Stag got lost in Sigil and ended up in a random forest. Vendar and Presmer travelled to the continent of Sillia to fight the elementals.
Transciption - The DM will go through the characters before the next live sessions as there are some rule and XP discrepancies.
Party Roles - Rawech is the smith and the first one in combat. Vendar is the healer and cook. He is the one that gathers food and water. Presmer is the DMs tool to give the players any missing information about the setting. Stag is the scout and the guard. He is a protector, but not the tank. The party doesn't contain any rogue type characters and everyone will do some talking throughout the campaign.
Player Roles - One of the players will take care of group inventory. The DM will handle maps and stats. Another player will take care of important information such as names.
Confirm Game Time - Our next live session will be on June 25th at 14:00
Gaming - I then showed the players the map of the campaign and asked them to choose 3 quests. They chose 4.
I look forward to seeing if they stick to the plan and how the campaign will evolve.
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