Fear the Unknown [3.5] recruitment and rules

[Mister_Sinister]

Fear the Unknown

Dear legate,

I hope that you receive this message with an open mind and an open heart, for we desperately need these things at this critical time. What I have to say here may come as a shock to you, and quite rightly so, for you have likely never heard of the Protectorate and could not imagine many of the things that I am about to tell you. Despite these things, I trust you, as a man of the faith, to at least consider the possibility of what I am telling you as being true, and asking for nothing more than a representative of your faith to assist us.

There are worlds beyond your world – beyond even the outer planes on which beings great and wondrous dwell. If the thin skin of reality is pushed enough, a connection can form to other worlds, other places, with their own planes and reality, different from your own. We have our own deities and powers, different from your own, and we also would not know of you, as you do not know of us, were it not for the power of the Reality Gate, that dwells between our central suns. Through this gate, we can connect to your world, and speak to you, as I speak to you now. The connection is also two-way, in that you can speak back, and even send through objects and people.

We kept this from you, as the secret of the Protectorate and the Reality Gate is highly dangerous to allow to become widely known. We cannot run the risk of those who wish to invade our reality of finding out this information, and we pray that it does not leave your chamber and those who you can trust. Were it not for the dire revelations and situations we find ourselves facing, the secret may have remained a secret for a long time – perhaps even forever.

At the same time, we cannot continue to keep this a secret from you, as we are faced with the deadliest and most dangerous threat we have yet encountered. We call these beings the Edge of Sanity, and they come from a place none of our cosmologists even knew existed. They cannot be spoken or reasoned with, and they came at the Protectorate without warning or provocation. They have attacked our outer worlds, bringing their living ships belching madness and flesh. They spare no-one, and the worlds they leave behind are places of insanity given form, having continents of flesh, gigantic insects that belch streams of maggots, and floating monstrosities too horrible to describe. They close ever faster to the heart of the Protectorate, and the Reality Gate. If they are to reach and discover it, I fear that they may attack your worlds also.

We, as the custodians and guardians of this, cannot allow this to come to pass. We owe it to you, and other worlds connected by the Gate, to ensure that this threat is stopped. However, we are growing weaker by the day, and our champions fall faster than they can be replaced. We urge you to send any help you can, in the form of your greatest and most potent servants, to assist us in our struggle against the Edge of Sanity. We swear that we do not lie, and that this letter is completely genuine, and we will assist you in kind one day if you assist us now, in our time of need.

If you wish to send us a champion, send them to the place this letter was found, with this letter, and we will take it from there.

In the name of the Protectorate,

Father Gabriel Valentinius

Overview of the Game

Welcome to the Protectorate! This is designed to be a sandbox game, featuring a crossover of worlds fighting against a deadly, nameless and very unreasonable threat. This game will feature a lot of player-contributed content, and will hopefully be yours as much as mine in the making and playing. It will be set at a reasonably high level, and at a high level of power, as you represent the greatest servants of your deities despatched to assist in the defence of the Protectorate against this threat. As this goes on, you will discover more and more about this deadly threat, including any things that may come as quite a surprise.

The role of the players

As part of creating this world, there will be contributions from each player beyond simply their characters. There are some things that each player must contribute, and there are other things which the players are collectively responsible for providing, before this game can begin.

Each player is individually responsible for...

• Their character (obviously)
• An NPC (they may be of their own invention or ripped from another source)
• An organization (again, either invented by the player or taken from somewhere else)
• A phenomenon (again, either your own or someone else's)

In all of these cases, you must provide a writeup or at least a number of links that give me a good idea of what this person, organization or phenomenon is. It can be big or small, fancy or simple... really, anything goes here. However, each player must contribute these things – it makes the game feel much more like a real world and less like a contrivance.

For the character, they may be of any sort, but cannot be the PC. They may be connected to the PC, or not connected to them, but they must feel like a genuine individual, with genuine concerns and desires for the world.

For the organization, it can be of any size, again, connected or not connected to the PC, but it must have real goals and history of some sort. It can be secret or open, religious or non-religious, good or evil. Your choice.

The phenomenon is basically anything that is not a person or organization – an example of a phenomenon would be tiberium from the Command and Conquer universe. Again, this can take any form you wish.

All the players are collectively responsible for...

• A fourth pantheon (the pantheon of the Protectorate, essentially)
• Four historical events in the Protectorate
• The 'basic creature' of the Edge of Sanity (must be an optimal CR 8)

These are responsibilities divided amongst the players as they choose. The pantheon may be based on a real pantheon (Egyptian, Norse, whatever) or an imagined one, but it needs to include deity writeups, domains granted by those deities, etc.

What does this game involve?

This game will feature a lot of fighting and a lot of world-ending threats, so it will require a high degree of optimisation. Additionally, it will require a lot of sandbox contributions by the players, particularly in the form of flavour text and storyline. Hopefully, it will also feature a lot of fun and coolness – something I will definitely be trying towards!

The Rules of the Game

The basics

This game will have four players, plus myself as GM. We will use a modified form of 3.5 DnD, with a bunch of houserules that I will list here. We will be playing as either PbP or over IRC, but I would like to remind everyone that, as I am at GMT+12, IRC might be a bit more challenging – though I'm very willing to give it a go!

The most important rule

Gentlemen's agreement is in effect – this means, if you use it against me, I'll use it against you. Bear this in mind.

Sources

Any and all sources are game.

Houserules

Fundamentals and Background

• Everyone is 10th level.
• You must follow a deity. One PC will follow an Eberron deity, one will follow an FR deity, one will follow a Greyhawk deity, and the last (being a Protectorate local) will follow a deity from the pantheon that we set down for them. Please decide amongst yourselves who gets what.
• You are a champion of your chosen deity, and one of its highest representatives – thus, please have a background that actually supports this!
• Everyone has a stat array of 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, arranged as they like.
• No flaws in this game.
• Numeric XP is dead. XP components are also dead. Good riddance.
• Favoured class penalties are dead. If you have a favoured class, it means you can take racial substitution levels in that class, regardless of what race you are. Yes, humans can take any substitution level – go nuts.
• As a result of the above, all races will have two favoured classes. Feel free to suggest some.

Races

• All races are acceptable.
• If you want to play something with LA or racial HD, let me know, and we'll work out an option that doesn't suck.
• No LA buyoff is in effect – let me know if you want an LA race, and we'll hammer something out.

Classes

• Everyone is a cleric in this game. By this, I mean that cleric casting or the cleric class should form the keystone of your build for this – no one-dips of clerics for feats!
• You may use any ACFs or PrCs that you want to fill out your build.
• PrCs never cost you caster levels. Yes, all PrCs which give any caster levels are now full casting. This may cause me to amend some of them, though, so bear this in mind.
  
• You may be of any alignment you want – yes, lawful evil clerics of Pelor are all good here.
• Turning compares to CR, not HD.
• You may never access a PrC below 6th character level, ever, ever, ever. Ever, ever.
• When qualifying for a PrC, you may ignore one set of reqs (skill ranks, feats, spell requirements, etc).
• Everyone receives 2 additional skill points at each level.

Skills

• Skill points are no longer multiplied by 4 at 1st level. The maximum ranks that you can have in a class skill is now equal to your character level, half that for cross-class skills. You receive a +3 training bonus to any skill you have ranks in.
• As a result of this change, all skill rank reqs are reduced by 3, to a minimum of 1.
• You no longer pay double cost for cross-class ranks.
• Tome of Prowess skills are in effect. Reduce all rank requirements by 3, to a minimum of 1. If stuff's missing (and it well may be...), use this link instead.
  
• Anything which gives bonuses to skills that are not ranks, training or stats is now a competence bonus.

Feats

• All characters receive Power Attack and Combat Expertise for free. Additionally, Power Attack always has a 1:2 damage output, regardless of weapon choice, and Combat Expertise has no cap (essentially being Improved Combat Expertise, or whatever the fuck it's called). Anything that has any of these feats, or any derivative or improvement of these feats, as a prerequisite, no longer has them. If you want to replace these with any derivative or replacement of these feats (such as Stone Power), feel free to ask.
• Everyone has Apprentice and Mentor as bonus feats at 1st and 6th levels respectively. Work it into your background.
• All the +2/+2 skill feats are dead, and anything that has them as prerequisites no longer has them.
• Skill Focus now gives a +4 bonus to the skill it's set to, and makes that skill a class skill. Combat Casting is now dead in the water.
• Weapon Focus now folds in Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization at appropriate levels. Anything which required these feats as prereqs no longer does.
• Dodge now gives a +2 dodge bonus to AC at all times, and includes the benefits of Mobility. Any derivative of these feats is dead, and anything that needs Mobility as a prereq no longer does.
• Item Creation feats are no longer in existence, instead becoming uses of Craft (with the right specialization) at a number of ranks equal to their caster level prereq.
• The Toughness feat now gives 2 additional hit points per level. Improved Toughness and any replacement or derivative of Toughness no longer exist.
• All metamagic costs are reduced by 1, to a minimum of 0.
• Using RobbyPants version of Persistent Spell. This does NOT get the reduction (still +2 levels as normal).
  

Spellcasting

• Material components are dead. Focus components are also dead.
• Your caster level is always equal to your character level. Always, forever, and eternally. It can never be higher or lower.
• Clerics do not automatically know every cleric spell. Instead, they automatically know all cleric spells given as part of their list in the SRD, and may replace access to any spell at any level with another cleric spell at the same level. In addition to this, at every level of casting, you may add one spell from any source to your list of cleric spells known.
• Sanctified and corrupted spells must be learned in the same way as all other non-SRD ones – nobody gets them by default.
• All spells are uncapped if they were capped. Any problematic things will be banned if needs be, or nerfed if they don't warrant banning.
• Divine power is removed from the cleric list, and cannot be acquired by any means. Instead, clerics get a free spell to add to their list to replace it from any cleric source.
  
• All domain abilities based on cleric level are now based on cleric caster level instead.
• Greater dispel magic no longer exists, being totally superceded by dispel magic. As with divine power, replace for free and enjoy.
  
• All spells that give skill bonuses have that bonus cut in half (rounding down) and turned into competence.

Items

• Items which give pure bonuses do not exist anymore. Instead, all characters receive the following benefits: +4 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls, +4 enhancement bonus to all ability scores, +4 enhancement bonus to AC, +4 resistance bonus on all saves and +3 deflection bonus to AC.
• Nonstandard bonus-type-granting items (things that give, for instance, insight bonuses to AC) do not exist anymore.
• Instead of WBL, we'll be using a different system. All items are divided into least, lesser and greater. Least items are worth between 1 and 4, 000gp, lesser items are between 4, 001 and 25, 000 gp, and greater items are between 25, 001gp and 200, 000gp. At your level, you may own up to ten least items, and one lesser item. You also have up to three potions of 1st level spells, and three potions of 2nd level spells if you want.
• Weapons and armour with abilities no longer require pluses. To figure out their cost, simply reckon them as if they were items with pluses equal to their 'plus adjustment'. Thus, a flaming weapon costs as much as a +2 weapon would have normally.
  
• You each have 10, 000gp's worth of precious objects that are specifically not magical. Anything is game here – gold bars, gems, castles, stables full of horses... use your imagination.
  
• You're allowed as many mundane objects as is reasonable.
• All wands are eternal wands from MIC. Scrolls no longer exist. Staffs behave like runestaffs.
  
• For the creation of mundane objects, I will assign a sane timeframe. For magic items, they can only be created in very unusual circumstances, which are entirely at the whims of the plot.
• Buying magic items for wealth is practically not possible – you'd have to trade favours or other items for them.
• The body system for magic items is retarded – as long as you are physically capable of wearing the item, you can use it. If you wanna run around with three medallions or five rings, I'm not going to stop you.
• You may not benefit from more than five continuously-active items at any one time. Consumables don't count here. You may still carry more than six items if desired, of course.
• Items that boost caster level no longer exist.

Additional Game Rules

• Whenever you have to make a d20 roll for something, or an opponent has to make a d20 roll to resist or stop something you're doing, you may declare it to be a 'stunt'. To declare a stunt, you must describe the action in a cool and interesting way. If you do so, you may roll two d20s and pick the one you like more, or force that opponent to roll two d20s and pick the one you like more. Stunt as much as you like – keeps things more fun!
• This is not a rule as much as a request – please provide a brief description of what your character's main mechanical schtick is with any posts of stats! It helps me immensely to not have to figure this out myself.

Once again, I have a hard limit of four players. Other than that, I look forward to the submissions to come.

[Sohala]

You may never access a PrC below 6th character level, ever, ever, ever. Ever, ever.

Even Stoneblessed?

[PhaedrusXY]

You may never access a PrC below 6th character level, ever, ever, ever. Ever, ever.

Even Stoneblessed?

I think some of the house rules make that PrC totally useless, anyway.

#  You may use any ACFs or PrCs that you want to fill out your build.

# When qualifying for a PrC, you may ignore one set of reqs (skill ranks, feats, spell requirements, etc).

Maybe the first, definitely the second.

Other PrCs that were obviously intended to be taken before 6th level, like Master Specialist, come to mind, though.



While I am quite interested in this, I don't think I'd have time to do it justice. I would be willing to offer NPCs and organizations that I've made up for myself for your use, though.

[Odinson]

Posting to say I'm extremely interested and will be contributing this weekend.

Edit: There's a lot in the OP that I'm not honestly familiar with. Racial substitutions? LA buyoff? I feel like I need a manual just for all the acronyms. I'm so used to vanilla dnd.

[Awkward Map]

Wow, I'm quite impressed.  I like the idea of player-contributed elements of the world a whole lot.  It will take me a couple of days to work through building each piece, but it has me pretty excited.

One thing that concerns me:

Whenever you have to make a d20 roll for something, or an opponent has to make a d20 roll to resist or stop something you're doing, you may declare it to be a 'stunt'. To declare a stunt, you must describe the action in a cool and interesting way. If you do so, you may roll two d20s and pick the one you like more, or force that opponent to roll two d20s and pick the one you like more. Stunt as much as you like – keeps things more fun!

The worst abuse I see is spellcasters forcing everyone who saves against their effects to roll twice and take the worst roll.

[VennDygrem]

Sounds really nifty. I'll try to read everything more in depth and see if I can contribute anything of worth.

One thing that concerns me:

Whenever you have to make a d20 roll for something, or an opponent has to make a d20 roll to resist or stop something you're doing, you may declare it to be a 'stunt'. To declare a stunt, you must describe the action in a cool and interesting way. If you do so, you may roll two d20s and pick the one you like more, or force that opponent to roll two d20s and pick the one you like more. Stunt as much as you like – keeps things more fun!

The worst abuse I see is spellcasters forcing everyone who saves against their effects to roll twice and take the worst roll.

I might suggest limiting stunts to some sort of physical or "active" rolls. A friend of mine implemented a stunt system in his game and spellcasters couldn't stunt. It didn't stop them from still being amazing, though. It just helped physical combat and activities (running, jumping, swinging swords, etc.) be closer to the level of amazingness as spells.

[veekie]

^^^
Given that everyone in the party is by default a cleric though....

Hmmm, looks...interesting.

[Littha]

you should probably rethink several of those houserules... specifically:

• Numeric XP is dead. XP components are also dead. Good riddance.
• Favoured class penalties are dead. If you have a favoured class, it means you can take racial substitution levels in that class, regardless of what race you are. Yes, humans can take any substitution level – go nuts.
• You may use any ACFs or PrCs that you want to fill out your build.
• PrCs never cost you caster levels. Yes, all PrCs which give any caster levels are now full casting. This may cause me to amend some of them, though, so bear this in mind.
• Material components are dead. Focus components are also dead.
• All spells are uncapped if they were capped. Any problematic things will be banned if needs be, or nerfed if they don't warrant banning.
• The body system for magic items is retarded – as long as you are physically capable of wearing the item, you can use it. If you wanna run around with three medallions or five rings, I'm not going to stop you.

you will have to spend an aweful lot of time rebalancing if you go through with any of those.

[Mister_Sinister]

Wow, I wasn't expecting this much interest this quickly. I'll try and respond to everything in time.

First off, regarding Stoneblessed and Master Specialist and co - admittedly, those slipped my mind. However, I consider them very much exceptions to the rule, and so thus, if you want to take them, I'm not gonna stop you due to the 'no pre-6th level rule'. Once again, though, there aren't that many of those, so we'll see.

Odinson - racial sub levels are introduced in books like Races of Stone. Basically, if you're a certain class/race combination, you can take certain levels that give you different abilities to those that your parent class would normally give you. As for LA buyoff, it's a variant rule (listed in the SRD) which allows you to lose your LA over time by 'buying it off' with XP.

About stunts: Practically-speaking, this hardly changes anything. Anyone who starts off strong remains that way, and anyone who starts off weak also remains this way. Additionally, since the entire party are casters, I really don't think this is going to be a serious problem. The idea with this mechanic is to encourage people to write cool and interesting descriptions without giving benefits that push people off the RNG, which this mechanic does not. However, if it proves to be problematic in-game, I will certainly take the advice of Venn.

Littha, I'll address each of your points in turn.

Numeric XP doesn't add anything to the game. The postulated rate of advancement, particularly as concerning full casters, is insanely fast - you go from 1 to 20 in less time than it takes to carry a child to term! Additionally, it also encourages stupidity like wrestling all the count's hound dogs instead of rescuing the princess without killing every guard in the building. In terms of crafting, this is addressed by my rules. XP-component spells... seriously, at 10th level, I cannot imagine what spell on the cleric list would seriously cause problems, aside from maybe planar ally, and gentlemen's agreement (and my own sanity) covers that.

Sub levels are not that amazing. If you can find some crazy-stupid combo involving them, honestly, I welcome it, because for the most part, they aren't even that useful, and are practically flavour text.

Any PrCs and no cost to caster levels isn't really a problem, given that this is a global thing. If people want to pull stupid shit, again, gentlemen's agreement - if you want Planar Shepherds, I get them too.

Material components and focus components are a joke gone waaaaay out of hand. They're not funny, and given that WBL is stupid anyway (as it favours some classes miles over others), it's not even a significant limitation, either. Basically, with wealth going, I'm not sure how these matter.

Uncapping all spells won't need that much rebalancing. Nobody gives a fuck if fireball is no longer capped - it sucked anyway.

The body slot system is not a form of balance - it just encourages stupid levels of dumpster-diving for off-slot effects. Just calling a spade a spade and limiting total items placed is gonna be far less of an issue, honestly.

All up, this can be summed up with 'it will occasionally cause problems, which I will address as they come up'.

Edit: Phaedrus (and anyone else keen) - I am more than happy to add your content to this world - the more the merrier.

[Littha]

Don't say I didn't warn you.

[Mister_Sinister]

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Wouldn't dream of it.  Will you be taking part, perchance?

[Odinson]

Admittedly, there's still a lot here (it seems) that I'm wildly unfamiliar with, but I am definitely going to work at this over the weekend and put my hat in none the less.

[Littha]

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Wouldn't dream of it.  Will you be taking part, perchance?

I can probably contribute stuff if its needed but I'm currently a bit over extended for another game.

[VennDygrem]

Another note; I've been playing a lot of clerics or cleric-based casting builds lately, though there are ever more varieties that these rules could be fun to play around with, especially certain builds that might otherwise be implausible to play.
I think I'll play around with some more concepts later in the day, after I've gotten some actual sleep.

[Flay Crimsonwind]

Wow, it IS high power stuff.

I'd love to, but it would take me so very long to make. If I got really into it, it would probably take me a few weeks just to get it all done and compiled into a format worth trying to read. If you still need a 4th, gimme a ring.

Questions:
1) When are you hoping to start this by?
2)

"Items which give pure bonuses do not exist anymore. Instead, all characters receive the following benefits: +4 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls, +4 enhancement bonus to all ability scores, +4 enhancement bonus to AC, +4 resistance bonus on all saves and +3 deflection bonus to AC."

I may be reading this oddly, but I take it to mean that no belts of magnificence or such exist, and so all characters have those listed benefits for free at all times automatically...?
3) Would one have to be a good cleric optimizer, or could a player for this game possibly read up on clerics, take time and patience designing, and not have played many before, or would past clerical experience help? (I've honest to god played one cleric for an extended time before).
4) View on homebrew/repairs, such as this? (I know, 6/10 casting is always crappy...)

[Agita]

Seeing as I clearly do not have enough to do So long as more than one hour passes in which I do not need to make a post or something, I'd be tentatively interested. Even if I don't end up playing, like Phaedrus I have tons of stuff you might be able to use. As for IRC, I'm at GMT +2 currently, but I have a pretty flexible sleep cycle. That is, so long as I don't need to be up before noon the next day, I'm prone to become essentially nocturnal. I've never actually used IRC, though, only instant messengers like AIM/Skype/MSN.

Now to dumpster-dive for PrCs with cool abilities but gimped casting. There's some PrCs that give you the option to either advance casting or get a bonus feat. What happens to those if I choose to advance casting at the first possible level and then get the bonus feats instead?

[Mister_Sinister]

Agita, that's... probably not gonna fly. If you pick casting, you stick with casting, and if you pick bonus feats, you get bonus feats. Otherwise, it's just a LITTLE too good.

Flay Crimsonwind: You are indeed reading correctly. Belts of magnificence and such indeed do not exist, and characters all get these benefits automatically. In terms of experience, I would say that just reading AC's Cleric Handbook should be enough of what you need. The fix of Shining Blade seems OK at first glance, but since it's close to 2am, I can't be 100% sure. I'll give it a final look in the morning, but I doubt it has anything too dangerous.

Odinson and Venn - feel free to consult AC's Cleric Handbook for some advice, or your fellow players, and I eagerly await your contributions.

To all others: I welcome any and all things you wanna add to this game. As I said, the more the merrier.

[Agita]

2am, you say? Stay up another hour and you'll be awake again. Trust me, I have experience.

Agita, that's... probably not gonna fly. If you pick casting, you stick with casting, and if you pick bonus feats, you get bonus feats. Otherwise, it's just a LITTLE too good.

Didn't expect it to, just a little loophole that came to mind.

What constitutes 'cleric casting', since you mention it and the class itself separately? Does Favored Soul count? Archivist? Ur-Priest? Or is it only the base class itself plus monsters that get cleric casting innately?Am I overthinking this, and is it just "anything that has cleric casting as the core of the build"?

What happens to all those domain powers that give CL bonuses to various kinds of spells with the static CL rule in effect?

[Mister_Sinister]

'Cleric casting' in my mind means 'casting from the cleric class'. If that wasn't clear enough before, that's the final word on that. A creature which has inherent cleric levels is basically OK, but Archivists, Ur-Priests etc. are not (especially Ur-Priests, given their flavour text...)

These domain powers are actually a good point - I hadn't considered that. What I'm probably gonna have to do is rewrite them, or simply have them give some kind of bonus feat instead. I'm open to suggestions.

[Agita]

'Cleric casting' in my mind means 'casting from the cleric class'. If that wasn't clear enough before, that's the final word on that. A creature which has inherent cleric levels is basically OK, but Archivists, Ur-Priests etc. are not (especially Ur-Priests, given their flavour text...)

For what it's worth, Ur-Priest has an adaptation section that changes it to worshipping an ex-deity or something. Noted, though. That's a few concepts struck from my list, making my work easier.

These domain powers are actually a good point - I hadn't considered that. What I'm probably gonna have to do is rewrite them, or simply have them give some kind of bonus feat instead. I'm open to suggestions.

Perhaps have them automatically grant a related Devotion feat, with you deciding what's thematically appropiate, perhaps without replacing domain spells as well (as you usually do when you replace a domain with the correspondent Devotion feat). So, for example, Air Domain could automatically give Air Devotion. Illusion could be Trickery or something, Summoning any of the element Devotions, Transformation Animal or something... I dunno.