I like DMing games over Skype when I have free time. Recently, one of my games died (My fault for allowing too many players, really…) so I have an open slot. The SDMB seems like as good a place as any (and better than most!) to recruit mature gamers, so I decided to come here!
Now, I don’t have any burning ideas for games, so if you want to play, please share!
I know D&D 3.5 and D20(Modern, Past, Future, whatever). I don’t have the time or energy to learn an entirely new system, but if there’s something you think I MUST try, I’d be willing to give it a shot. For the gaming medium, I like Skype best, but we can talk about that, too.
I have a couple of campaign ideas, so I’ll throw them out there for you guys.
First, we could do a loosely historical game. Probably using D20 Past, no magic (Or very low magic, if we want to go with a “what if ancient legends were true?” type game). A couple of ideas: The New World when Europeans first arrive; The Crusades; The Mongol Invasion. Obviously those are all very loose ideas. For example, for the first one, would the players be European or natives? Up to you!
Second, we could do something more high-fantasy like. If you have a favorite campaign setting, share it; Or we could go with one of the more common ones, like Forgotten Realms.
Finally, we could do a modern-day game. I had an idea once for near-future campaign where the UN passes a resolution to dismantle all nuclear weapons. The players are an elite strike force of sorts, employed to ensure that all nuclear weapons are indeed dismantled.
Like I said, I’m fairly open to suggestions. If you have an idea on how to improve any of these campaigns, or if you have your own awesome idea, I’d love to hear it!
Oh, one last thing. I’m on the West Coast, so that’s the timezone I’m available during. I’m sure we’ll be able to work pretty much anyone in; my last game had people from Australia!
I find that games tend to fall apart when they get too big, so let’s see if we can get around 4 players, alright? 3 works, but I’d hesitate to DM for 5 unless they were all from the same time zone/s.
I like D&D a lot, too…but I have three home campaigns, plus a group with which I play on Skype / Maptools, plus RPGA play, plus a campaign over on Mellophant. I guess my dance card’s already full.
I’d be interested but not 100% sure on how to work out time. I teach high school and it’s unfortunately much more than a 9-5, but I’d be up for figuring out how to work things out.
I’d also probably prefer a high magic campaign. I’m trying to figure out (without getting too munchkinny) if I want to play a mage who stays away from direct combat and blasts opponents into tiny little bits, or a necromancer so I can have plenty of pets, or a hack n’ slasher type guy. I need to do more reading.
The beautiful thing about 3.5 is that you can do all of those. The Dread Necromancer is a class that focuses on animating undead, but has more than a few “blasty” spells. They can also wear armor and use some weapons, so a melee type could work.
I’d consider play-by-post, but my work schedule is too erratic to be online at a regular time. My only free night is Monday, and that’s when I play in person!
Yeah, sign me up for a Dread Necromancer. I’ll need to spend the weekend reading up on 3.5 rules and such, and I’ll probably have a bunch of questions.
I’d also suggest that maybe we play as play by post with some Skype sessions thrown in, kind of a hybrid game so that we can have more stuff going on for more people, and maybe some smaller group stuff as time permits via Skype. Of course if you’d only like to run Skype I’ll find a way to fit it into my schedule.
My problem with Play by Post is, it tends to die quickly, mostly because of the ridiculous length of time even the simplest combat takes. I mean, let’s take the average four-man party. Let’s say they’re fighting three enemies. For simplicity, I put the two mooks on one initiative and the boss on another, thus cutting the turns needed for bad guys in half.
With this setup, it takes five posts per turn, assuming no one asks a clarifying question. I’ve tried Play by Post, and on average you get a post an hour. If, by chance, all four players and the DM are logged on at once, this can get cut down a bit.
The slow pace kills games, in my experience. I’ve tried PbP before many times, and I can honestly say it was a painful experience. I’m sorry if you can’t do IM, and I am sorry if you can’t play because of it, but I’m not willing to DM a Play by Post game ever again.
Nice! Dread Necromancers are fun as hell. Which is where most of them are headed, by the way.
I really hope someone else wants to play a paladin…
Speaking of which, I need to read up on the mechanics for disguise, bluff, poisons and mother cysts.
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Looking at the DN template levels 9-18 seem… pretty weak. Would it make sense to PrC out for 10 levels or so and, at that point, could I jump back in to get lichdom? I was also wondering if it might not make sense to start with a level in Warlock and then either have a brush with a high fever or something of the sort which convinces me that I am not ready to be dragged off to hell and have my soul played with, so I’ll live forever thankyouverymuch! Swap over to DN, maybe get Necropolitan around lvl 2 in DN while I work my way up to lichdom, and perhaps swap back for some Warlock levels once I hit DN 8, and then back to DN to complete my lich transformation? Or does it not work that way?
Hrm, or would I need to take a PrC that added caster levels so I could keep gaining spell abilities from the DN list? I have to admit, the thought of walking into an inn, casting cloudkill and walking out with a skeleton squad is… temping.
If I swapped back to DN from a PrC or a Warlock, would I get the spells that I’d get based on my total level, or would I have to work my way up to the spells and lichdom based only on my DN level? Or do PrC’s and multiclassing work differently? Sorry, there’s a lot of new stuff to digest and I’ve hardly scratched the surface.
P.S. Will you be starting chars at 1st level or a bit advanced and will we likely be playing up to 20+ level as we go?
Mind if I ask what site you’re doing your research on? I mean, you decided to lay D&D a few days ago and you’re already optimizing like a champ!
I tend to give the middle finger to template rules. I mean, according to basic D&D rules, if the fighter gets bit by a vampire at level 5, he can’t level up again until level 13. That’s crazy! Instead, if you get an acquire template, I do my best to balance it in-world without messing with the way you gain levels. So, you don’t need Dread Necromancer 20 to be a lich; you just need to spend the time (and XP and gold) to do the lich-making ritual.
Not exactly. You only gain the benefits of the class levels you take. And you don’t get to skip ahead. Basically, if you are a level 3 fighter and take a level of wizard, you don’t take the 4th level of wizard; you take the first level of wizard, which makes you a wizard 1/fighter 3. So if you end up, at 20, as a DN 10/Warlock 10, you’d cast as a 10th level Dread Necromancer and have invocations as a 10th level warlock.
Exactly. You’d need a PrC that advances caster levels.
There is a way around this. There are “Theruge” prestige classes, which allow you to advance two forms of spellcasting (Usually Arcane and Divine) at the same time. That’s how you get viable wizard/clerics. You won’t cast as well as either base class, and class features other than casting (Like Turn Undead or familiar progression) get hit pretty hard. I can’t remember off the top of my head if there’s a prestige class that lets you mix up Dread Necromancers and Warlocks, but if you want to play one, I’d be more than happy to homebrew something.
I tend to start campaigns at level 1, just so everything is more organic. You’ll level up very fast early on. In one of the campaigns I’m DMing now, the party started at 1st level, hit 2nd at the end of the first session, hit 3rd at the end of the second session, didn’t level up during the third session, got a level halfway through session 4 (Though I had them hold off on actually taking the level until the end of the session) and hit 5 at the end of session 6. After that, things slow waaaaay down, mostly due to the fairly exponential growth of XP needed to level up.
As to how far the campaign goes, think about it this way. 90% of the world’s population is level 1. A trained soldier or guard is level 2-4. An elite soldier or guard, or a mercenary, is level 5. Someone who is level 6 is already famous. Above that, you enter the realms of legends. Level 10 is the most famous and dashing pirate in the world. The ancient wizard with the power to crush armies? Around level 12. Ancient tales are told about characters in the 15-20 range. Now, every game will have multiple plot lines, but world-shattering villains usually show their faces around level 12-14, and start becoming main antagonists by 15. Once an earth-shattering, campaign-defining plotline starts, the campaign usually ends when that plotline ends. Which is usually the 18-20 range.
A campaign I ran a while ago had the players defeat the wizard who was summoning the legions of hell at level 18. That could be a place to end the campaign and start a new one; that particular party decided that they wanted to invade hell, which took the campaign to level 24. Epic levels had the party fighting
demon lords and archdevils, which was fun; but at that point, the campaign can literally go on forever, so eventually we wrapped it up.
Level 24 might not seem very high, but past level 5, you don’t level up every session; with a weekly game schedule, past level 10 you might level up once, maybe twice a month. Which isn’t to say your character won’t change, of course; at those levels, items, spells known, and other non-level-related things can have a huge impact on party dynamics.
That bit I didn’t research, honestly. My original concept, before you showed me the DN rules was a human or elf who was terrified of mortality and was using necromancy as an eventual stepping stone to lichdom. I didn’t even know that the DN culminated in becoming a lich until you showed me the DN. Before I saw the DN, I also figured that, well, most plebs won’t like a master of death and decay traipsing around and animating corpses and such, so I’d want to be able to disguise myself as a jolly old man, or something of the sort. That disguise is based on the DN’s class skill (it is, isn’t it?) is just a benefit. Then I got to thinking about how to deal with nosy party members, especially Paladins. I’d be highly unlikely to take them out in direct combat, but poison in a glass works nicely. Then I read… LM maybe? And it talked about cysts, and those just sound cool. A very delayed-action sort of way to deal with troublesome meddlers, and hey, can my party members really object if I like to hug them every now and again?
Hrm. I will have to mull that over. I’m honestly not trying to Munchkin the hell of it here, but I’d like to be able to include some real reliable ranged damage in the DN build that doesn’t get a strict limit of casts per day, and the Wa has (unless I’m misunderstanding) nice ranged damage that is limitless per day at once per turn. At least, I think that’s what an at will attack means, right?
As for a homebrew Wa/DN PrC, I think that may be ideal. Looking at my character concept, I’m not sure that my char would really be the kind of person to risk himself on the front lines. Sending skeletons in as a (non-)meat shield and sitting back plinking badguys would probably be much more amendable to a longer life. The ability to sit back and blast punks would probably be right up his alley.
Thanks, I’ll read up and see what I can see. The only experience I have with any modern rule set is Temple of Elemental Evil for PC, and I only played that through the first couple towns. I’ll read this and get back to you if there’re any questions.
And I understand a bit more about how levels work thanks to your description and it makes sense. I guess my char will still be aiming at ultimately becoming a lich one of these days, but will also try to find someone to perform the ritual for him to become a Necropolitan asap, since a little insurance doesn’t hurt on the way to undead badassery.
Yes, that’s what At Will means. Not just blasting; you can get quite a few nice abilities, all usable at will. Even animating the dead, but not till late in the game, and Warlocks don’t make good necromancers. They’re more of the “Use my enemy’s dead allies against him” type than the “Skeleton army” type.
But honestly, if the reason you want Warlock is so that you don’t run out of spells, I wouldn’t bother. Dread Necromancers get tons of spells once you get out of the early levels–I honestly wouldn’t worry about running out.
If, on the other hand, you genuinely like the flavor aspect of the Warlock/DN, then we’ll work something out.
You can get that by taking the Archmage prestige class. Arcane Fire is pretty much exactly what you want, although you wouldn’t be able to get that until level 18. The problem with Warlock is that unless you invest pretty heavily in Warlock levels, your blasts won’t do more than a few d6’s worth of damage. The most common way of raising blast damage is Hellfire Warlock, a prestige class that lets you take Con damage and get extra d6’s for your blasts. But, if you’re undead, you have no Con score, so you can’t actually use that feature.
A simpler way to get neverending damage might be wands. Look into the magic item creation feats.
The problem there is that only a living being can become undead. There’s a few ways to go from Necropolitan to Lich, but I’ll leave figuring those out as an in-game challenge for you when the time comes.
