New Class: The Lord

Been thinking a lot about the Lord class, which is the new Charisma-based class I've been tinkering. It's going to have a medium base attack bonus, which relates to a d8 HD. Not a slouch in combat, but not its primary focus.

Instead the primary focus would be on practices. Practices are associated with spheres, and spheres are tied to one of the Charisma-based skills. Diplomacy, Intimidate, Perform, and the others (which for some reason I can't think of right now). I'm thinking the lord will have access to a certain number of practices based on level, and utilizing the practice will require a skill check of the appropriate sphere skill.

I'm thinking most of the practices will be support level, very similar to the bard abilities, but there should be focused attacks in there as well. With a sphere for the Perform skill I'm really thinking the lord will ENTIRELY replace the specific and focused bard base class. The bard would then become a prestige class, which has always felt more appropriate to me.

Just musings at this point, but I'm starting to come up with concrete details in a document. A good start, I think.

Working on New/Tweaked Classes

I'm going to start earnest work on developing the new classes that I see fulfill system niches in Pathfinder RPG. These include the filch, priest, lord, knight, shaper, and warlock. At the same time the following classes will need to be tweaked: cleric, wizard, sorcerer, and bard. The largest piece of this update is the brand new class based on Charisma - lord. I'm thinking its abilities will be based on the Star Wars noble but more useful, and based around spheres. Each sphere would be associated with a Charisma-based skill, giving each lord a focus.

Here are the specific tweaks to the existing classes I'm thinking about right now:

* The paladin goes away and the cleric steps up to replace it more or less. The cleric would have the good base attack bonus progression and higher hit dice, and fewer spells. I'm thinking a progression of every three levels instead of every other level. So 1st level spells from 1st through 3rd level, 2nd level spells from 4th to 6th, etc. This caps out at 7th level spells at 19th level. Also looking at the domains and building special abilities based off of those - Pathfinder RPG already started down this path.

* The wizard will be tweaked to include the overcast ability we played around with in the Age of Worms campaign along with the abilities from Pathfinder RPG. Not too much change, actually.

* The sorcerer is almost a new class. It'll be a wizard/fighter combo class, sort of, but I'll look at the other variants already presented in existing splatbooks - duskblade comes to mind out of the PHB2, but I know there were others (spellsword out of Complete Warrior?). Something along those lines.

* I'm thinking the bard loses arcane spellcasting abilities, and instead gains something similar to the lord's sphere focus. Not sure at this point, I think the details will fall out from the work done on the lord class.

Some of the new classes already exist in one form or another and I'll just be tweaking them to work with the Pathfinder RPG. This includes the knight, which appears in PHB2 - that might be a straight conversion to be honest. I'll need to give the class an overview to check.

Warlock is going to be pretty different from what's presented in Complete Arcane, and will be based more on the 4E warlock. Someone who trafficks in otherwordly powers, and gains their powers from pacts. Emphasis on summoning? Probably, maybe.

The shaper is going to be an interesting class, and will be more or less a flexi-class based on the polymorph spell and the psionic powers contained within the biokinesis discipline. More details to follow.

D&D? Done? I Think Not!

I love D&D, and I've got a lot of books on my shelf to prove it. I don't want to stop playing D&D just because the new edition is crap and the number of players have dwindled to smaller number. I say thee nay!

Although the title of this post is misleading. Instead of D&D 3.5 I'd like to go with Pathfinder RPG, which is also known as D&D 3.75. With the Age of Worms campaign I used a few of the ideas presented in Pathfinder, including the skill system which didn't really work, but for the new "thing" I'm going with Pathfinder completely. And not just with the system - the setting as well.

More details at www.paizo.com, but in essence I'm going to run a home game of the Pathfinder Society mega-campaign. This is similar to the RPGA, but it's organized by Paizo with fewer restrictions. There are still a few things I'd change, including using the Pathfinder RPG rules rather than the D&D 3.5 rules, but the changes aren't that major.

I'm going to pick up the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, which has more details in it on the world of Golarion, and sometime soon I'm going to start up a more or less free-for-all campaign. Probably on Mondays, maybe Sunday evenings ... ? The hook for the campaign will be the Pathfinder Society.

Gotta go. Bacon popcorn calls.

The Great Funk

I'm at somewhat of a loss. With the close of the Age of Worms campaign (and indeed, D&D in general) I'm feeling very much adrift in a sea of gaming apathy. I don't want to stop gaming, and I don't think I will, but I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels this this way.

It's quite ironic that at the point where I'm starting to break into the RPG industry that my core gaming group would, more or less, collapse. Perhaps it's just finding the right game to interest people, the right setting that captures peoples' imaginations. I'm just not sure what that setting is just yet.

So in the interest of creating lists, I'm going to create a list of everything that I would want to GM with a "name-system-description" format. In no particular order:

* Deadlands - Deadlands - Finishing up the Deadlands campaign, which is a western horror RPG with its own rule set.

* Ravaged Earth - Savage Worlds - This is where most of my freelance work is being done set within a 1936 pulp hero setting where Martians invaded in 1898.

* Slipstream - Savage Worlds - Space pulp in the vein of early Star Wars

* Star*Drive - GURPS - A more realistic sci-fi setting in the year 2501, kind of a Firefly feel

* Day of the Beast - Call of Cthulhu - We've already started this, so I have no intention of stopping, but I really need to know if the interest is there

* Rise of the Runelords - D&D 3.75 - If there is interest in a new D&D campaign I've got everything I need to get going at the drop of a hat. I'm interested, but only if there is player interest

* Dark Heresy - Dark Heresy - This is a Warhammer 40K game set in the way distant future where you play inquisitors traveling across the vast gulf of space hunting heretics, aliens, and conspiracies. Very gothic, very dark, very violent

* Iron Maiden - Shadowrun - New Shadowrun campaign set in Europe based on Iron Maiden tunes

* Necessary Evil - Savage Worlds - A superhero game where you play supervillains! Most of the heroes of the world were killed by an alien force and now the villains are all that are left to stop the invaders.

* 7th Sea - Savage Worlds - A migration of the excellent 7th Sea setting to the Savage Worlds rules. 7th Sea is a swashbuckling game set in an alternate world - pirates, corsairs, spies, and sorcery all exist, along with a strange new continent beyond the 7th sea itself ...

* RunePunk - Savage Worlds - Dark steampunk fantasy set in a giant city. Very easy to run, could be done with very few people, very Final Fantasy VI (from what I've heard)

There it is. 11 campaigns across 7 game systems. You'll notice that D&D 4th Edition is not up there - this is intentional. Having now played in a full session of 4th Edition my apathy towards it has grown into full disdain - I don't want to play 4E. Brrr.

So there it is. I don't expect anyone but Harris to read this.

Cowboys, Spaceships, or Cthulhu?

The Age of Worms campaign has but one session left and then it will be wrapped up. With it we will be wrapping up the general D&D campaign that has been going for almost 15 years. Quite an achievement, and certainly one worthy of praise.

But looking to the future I don't want to stop gaming on Sundays. It seems to be a pretty reliable day where nothing else goes on, so why not keep going with something? I can find no reason to not. That does leave us with the question of what to do now, however.

In answer to that question I have three possibilities. I'll outline each in brief:

1. Deadlands: I've got a couple of Deadlands scenarios I'd like to do to wrap up that campaign completely. Probably four or five sessions at most, so not terribly long. New characters welcome, as well as the existing posse.

2. Traveler GURPS: I have been itching to play a space game for quite a long time. This would be a GURPS campaign set in the Traveler: Interstellar War setting. It would have a very Firefly-esque feel to it, but would probably take the route of freelancer traders/smugglers in a wide galaxy dominated by an imperialistic regime at odds with the Terran Federation. Unknown campaign length as of now, but I envision it being more open and freestyle than others.

3. Day of the Beast: We started my Call of Cthulhu campaign a few weeks ago on a Friday, and the original idea was to play it on Fridays when we weren't playing Star Wars. Well, we seem to be playing Star Wars most weeks and the weeks we're not there's something going on occupying most of the people's time. So we could move it to Sundays as a regular game. About twelve sessions in total is what I anticipate.

So - cowboys, spaceships, or Cthulhu? What's the vote?

New Shadowrun Campaign

I think I'm going to put to rest the current Shadowrun campaign. We've had 19 sessions (2 with Harris, 17 with me) and it's been a good run. The main crutch of this first campaign was set in North America, specifically Seattle, and focused on runs based on Metallica song titles. This worked exceedingly well in my mind, allowing me to focus a scenario on an aspect of a really cool song for each session.

Here's a quick recap of the Metallica songs that turned into runs:

"Trapped Under Ice"
"Where the Wild Things Are"
"Stone Dead Forever"
"Holier Than Thou"
"Hit the Lights"
"Whiplash"
"Ain't My Bitch"
"Leper Messiah"
"Invisible Kid"
"Wherever I May Roam" 3 sessions in Africa!
"The Frayed Ends of Sanity"
"The Thing That Should Not Be"
"The Call of Ktulu"
"The End of the Line"

I know I'm missing a few, but those were the big ones. So now it's time to look to the future. I'd like to start a new Shadowrun campaign, this time set in the unstable patchwork continent known as Europe. In keeping with the theme of musically inspired runs, I've decided to use Iron Maiden tunes for these runs.

The new "Iron Maiden" campaign will be more focused on travel as well, since there are a lot of interesting places in Europe to run the shadows (Europort, Brussels, Paris, London, most of the Allied German States, Prague, etc., etc.) and you can expect to hit the highlights and lowlifes. I'd like everyone to make new runners, though you will be starting with a bit of experience under your belts. Many options are available, including new metatype variants - comb through the Shadowrunner's Companion book for ideas.

More details to come.

The Journal of Theodore Wilson Burns, vol 1.

This is the personal diary of one Theo W. Burns, student at Miskatonic University, a record of the "Day of the Beast" campaign, of which the first session was January 30, 2009.

5/30/1927

Another semester completed. I am beginning to enjoy my choice of Ancient Greek as my new course of study; much more dignified than English. The Greeks always were wise in matters of the spirit. Explains the majesty of their mythology as such a primal force in human culture. Madame Dulagi’s consultation was hopeful today, and it echoes my own reading of the cards.

7/8/1927

A perfect opportunity to further my explorations of the occult has opened to me! In the Arkham paper, I came upon an advertisement that invited those interested to “experience the supernatural.” For the nominal fee of fifty dollars, I could finally put first hand knowledge of these subjects behind all of the books I have studying so avidly. For so long, I have felt certain that mystical ideas are hidden behind the façade of the mundane, that humans have abilities that the stolid businessman and the scientist scoff at. Oh, if the gray citadels of temporal power are correct and the universe remains the sole domain of the “jealous God” and we have only to keep to the path and not question, then the world will remain as dead to me as the November skies of my northern homeland. If even worse, as the skeptics purport, the universe is under the sole custodianship of blind chance and the idiot rule of pure natural law, than all life is meaningless and without reason at all. Such a thing I cannot accept! We humans are gifted with wonderful eyes for the symbolic, and as Jung and Fraser have shown, these themes remain remarkably consistent through the world.
In short, what some would dismiss as a mere “haunted house,” well, in it I see a total confirmation of my beliefs! I could never pass up such an opportunity! It is scheduled to be held in a small Massachusetts village. Next week, I shall travel to New York City to meet Paul Lamont, the acclaimed spiritualist who will be guiding us on this endeavor.

7/12/1927

I have arrived at Carrington House and I am impressed both with the house and with the famed spiritualist Paul Lamont. He appears to be a gentleman of unquestionable honor and if what he says is correct, he has a rare skill with communicating with the afterlife. His agent on the other hand is a most disagreeable sort, the kind of annoying toad of a man that gives critics of the mystical arts call to condemn the lot of them. He is a self absorbed, greedy nitwit of a man interested only in his own fame. I don’t know what Paul is thinking for working with him, but I will try not to let his ill presence interrupt my appreciation of the mysteries.

The Carrington House itself certainly looks like a place where the spirits of the dead can communicate with the living. Several hundred years old, it has long been the host of unexplainable apparitions, our host George Carrington attesting to them himself. His family owns the house, but his is not a man taken to flights of fancy. Ah, tonight’s séance promise to be most interesting. Perhaps only half as interesting, though, as Cecelia, the most beautiful member of the female species that ever I have laid eyes on! Oh, Cecelia, forever more will the acrid odor of harsh European tobacco be associated for me with the pangs of love! A young lady of the most sensitive and sophisticated nature, I feel a kindred spirit with Cecelia. We both share the pain of lost loved ones, and are both deeply interested in the unseen world as well. If all goes well, I shall propose to Cecelia when the opportunity presents itself.
I should mention the other members of our little party as well. There is a strange artist, Junker. German, I think. His work seems very skilled, but of the recognizable style of the New Objectivity, not to my taste. He seems a good sort though, as I definitely feel akin to artists of all types. Then there is a mysterious older woman by the name of Audrey. She is quiet and rarely associates with the rest of us. She is one to watch I think. Finally, there is Graeme, a common and annoying man. He appears to have little knowledge or interest in the occult at all. It is a mystery to me as to why he is here, but he seems to stick his nose into everything. It is very vexing. Definitely should end here for now, I hear dinner is being called. Our host’s housekeeper has been esteemed for her cooking and I haven’t eaten anything all day!

Later

Tonight’s séance was far more than I ever could have hoped! As soon as John began, he quickly got into contact with a spirit; it proved to be none other than our host’s young sister, who died in the house. He was quite beside himself with unbidden memories at her easily recognized voice. I have never seen such a successful channeling. However, our young guest was frightened herself by the appearance of another apparition, this one in the physical! Graeme was strangely affected and ran upstairs to an empty room, where the air had become unnaturally cold. It was at least 40 degrees in there, and in the middle of July! Here, at John’s suggestion we performed another séance and this time he got into contact with another spirit! This was that of an old Puritan woman who called herself Catherine. She claimed to be protecting the house from some kind of demon spawn and seemed much less pleasant than the little girl. I think that devotion to such a savage and crude religion as the Congregational church could certainly keep an angry spirit here on this plane (in fact, they burnt a witch in this very town!). Catherine claimed to have murdered a child to keep the Devil at bay. How horrific, such a self deluded spirit. It is no wonder she clings to this world.

7/13/1927

What a strange night! While I was having trouble sleeping in the spooky old house, I heard a noise from deep in the house. I summoned the others before we investigated, discovering old Margaret the housekeeper in the basement carrying an axe! I am concerned that she may be being affected by the house. She did do us the favor of bringing our attention to a strange locked door in the basement, behind which we found some profoundly disturbing evidence. A nail was found to ooze spectral blood. Even worse, a human skeleton was unearthed in the corner. Audrey was able to determine it as a child, the cause of death being blunt force trauma to the head (she is quite knowledgeable about anatomy, it seems). These, no doubt, are the sad remains of Catherine’s young victim. I wonder what proper procedure is in this case. Should we notify the authorities? It is nearly breakfast, after which Cecelia and I will take a walk into the village to see if we might be able to find out more about the history of the Carrington house.

Afternoon

Much was discovered in the records of the old church in town, coupled with some documents we have found in the Carrington house itself. I believe I am beginning to peace together the tragic history of the house. Built for Catherine’s husband, the childless colonial woman claimed the son of an executed witch for her own, later going mad and killing him as she believed he had his mother’s “curse.” After her death, she stayed on in the house and later drove others mad, including George Carrington’s sister, whom she forced to commit suicide in the belief she too was a witch. Tonight we shall attempt to contact the spirit of the murdered boy. Oh, and Margaret continues to act strangely; her meals are not up to normal standards. She may be in spiritual danger.

Late

Tonight we were not able to accomplish much; Paul Lamont is physically drained from his encounters with the spirit realm. We cannot ask much more of him, he has earned our money and more. We can only hope now to put some of these poor spirits to rest. The young boy seems to be especially difficult to contact. Tomorrow shall be the last day of our visit, so I hope we are able to succeed.

7/14/1927, very early

Another long night; again Margaret was found wandering the house with an axe, muttering to herself. Audrey put her on some medication, so I hope her episodes are over. I do believe that the spirit of Catherine is having a malign influence on her. In the morning I shall propose we attempt to force the Puritan ghost from the house.

Later in the Day

The day has proved to be the most event and successful we have had; all are satisfied by Paul Lamont’s wonderful gifts (save for his agent, who selfishly wanted to keep the house “haunted”) and we are all linked in our spiritual accomplishments. The morning started when Paul attempted to contact the boy, succeeding! He answered our questions through knocking and he and George’s sister appear to be friends in the world of the dead. They both have an undying fear of Catherine, and imply that she is always near. We determined to rid the house of her malign influence and we all joined our thoughts to forcing her to move onto her final rest, Paul’s mind linking with ours. Without warning Margaret came bursting through the room as we were near to completing our task, attempting to strike Greame with an axe. He attempted to defend himself with a pistol, but fortunately missed as Catherine’s evil ghost was forced from the old housekeeper leaving her in control of her actions once more. It was a miracle no one was injured, but all fear was extinguished when we saw the graceful spirits of the two murdered children dissipate gratefully into their final reward. I feel that we did a very good thing in helping these restless ghosts to move along in their spiritual progression. I have never felt more accomplished in my life, Lamont has helped to show me how right I was in holding that the world held great spiritual power. I can only imagine what wonders he will lead us to next!

Cecilia has agreed to visit me Arkham as well, so I am nearly floating on a cloud right now. I cannot remember when I last was so happy, probably not since mother and father died. Perhaps I can finally improve myself to the place I know I should be.