Min/Max Boards

Creative Corner => Legends of the Heroes => Topic started by: Nytemare3701 on June 05, 2016, 08:37:59 PM

Title: Grittier Xanth as a campaign setting
Post by: Nytemare3701 on June 05, 2016, 08:37:59 PM
I'm attempting to merge "Gritty Realism" setting with "High Magic". A world where Humankind is steeped in magic and are born with gifts, magical monsters are common, and magic is completely uncontrollable from a personal standpoint.

Anything with primary or secondary progression in anything that could be considered spellcasting is gone. No clerics, no wizards, no bards, no psions. Tertiary "casters" exist but are very rare (PsyWar, Soulknife, Truenamer, MAYBE bard, etc)

Magic is everywhere in nature, but completely unindustrialized due to lack of any mechanism to harness it.

Almost anything you would want magic to do, there is somewhere in the world where it's almost trivial. On the other hand, secrets are well kept and are regularly taken to the grave. Everyone knows that one guy in town who hasn't aged a day in 20 years, but there's no chance he'll tell you how, and the chances of you finding the fountain of youth are slim to none. In short, the evidence of high magic is everywhere. The mechanism is lost.
Title: Re: Grittier Xanth as a campaign setting
Post by: bhu on June 06, 2016, 12:49:23 AM
So everyone gets one supernatural power?  Does it scale with level?
Title: Re: Grittier Xanth as a campaign setting
Post by: Nytemare3701 on June 21, 2016, 08:46:28 PM
So everyone gets one supernatural power?  Does it scale with level?

I was considering just giving everyone a permanently active soulmeld, given randomly from lists that are appropriate to their archetype (so you don't get THE soulmeld you want every time, but you get something USEFUL to you every time)
Title: Re: Grittier Xanth as a campaign setting
Post by: Chemus on June 22, 2016, 02:17:51 AM
...I was considering just giving everyone a permanently active soulmeld, given randomly from lists that are appropriate to their archetype (so you don't get THE soulmeld you want every time, but you get something USEFUL to you every time)

That's a pretty good idea; how much essentia would be available to a character, and could they bind to chakras?

Consider adding warlock invocations, and even some bound vestige abilities (ToM) to your list... and perhaps a few at-will spells, such as the summon or image lines, for additional variety. If casters, per se, don't exist, then just placing most spells on your list could work. If keeping power levels from the books, then garden-variety talents could be Cantrips-1st level spells, etc, much like the Least to Dark progression of warlock invocations.

Balance could be difficult. Consider being as egalitarian as the books; most every PC is a Magician-Class Talent. Perhaps use the Generic Classes, or d20 Modern classes as the base.