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D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: ToB Campaign Idea
« on: June 22, 2021, 08:06:41 PM »What place does Magic takes in your setting?
Still present, but less than your typical D&D game. I had some notes originally that the ToB gestalting would continue every 3 levels, but full caster classes can't be taken at those levels (aside from level 1), which would implicitly drop spellcasting down to about Bard level. That exact implementation doesn't make that much sense, but the idea of full casters being forced to spend a level in a different class every 3 levels or so has some merit.
Maybe it's me going down the obvious path, but the ending could be forming their own school/reforming the temple of nine swords + founding their own legacy weapons/collecting the nine swords. Basically to restore the honour of the martial adepts, even if it's not exactly the same thing as the original temple.
One concept I was musing about today is that Reshar unintentionally obstructed his own goals when he founded the Temple of the Nine Swords (T9S). Before he came around, the Sublime Way was stagnant because every group studying it guarded their secrets tightly, refusing to share and let the knowledge spread around. There were a million little sects each innovating their own techniques, but those techniques would be known to only those few members and would frequently be lost as the smaller sects died out for whatever reasons. After he learned from as many of them as he could, codified the best of them as the nine disciplines, and founded the T9S, he flipped the script but inadvertently recreated the original problem with a completely different cause. Now everyone could learn and no knowledge would be lost, but at the same time, these codified disciplines became the de facto, orthodox ways of practicing the Sublime Way. There were (almost) no more little innovators growing the Way in their own unique directions.
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Personally I'd also encourage people to look at martial monstrous races (gnolls, hobgoblins, etc.) because of the strong lore role those play in ToB. And it's a little more interesting than the normal array of humans and dwarves you'd get in a martial campaign.
Either way, I'd certainly be interested in this.
Definitely. Hobgoblins had a major influence on Reshar and the T9S, being the founders of the Iron Heart discipline. I suspect he would have been a lot more open-minded about what students to accept, which would have led the T9S to have a tradition of acceptance. What matters would have been a student's passion for the Sublime Way, not their race or background.
On top of that, the Shadow Tiger Horde recruited a large number of traditionally monstrous races for their assault. The survivors would have learned no small amount about the Sublime Way, even if they didn't have any connection to it before, and brought that knowledge back to the communities they returned to after the battle ended and the horde dispersed. That's the general premise for the development of a few of my homebrew disciplines (although not explicitly with monstrous races doing it).
Also, Nimblewrights. If ever there was a printed construct more conceptually suited to an affinity for the Sublime Way, I have yet to see it.
I'm interested primarily because I have not played with ToB very much and would like to try it. Sprinkling in some marshal would be fun for gestalt.
I'm not planning to even think about running this or any other game any time soon. That said, anyone who wants to take this idea and run with it is more than welcome.
I'm actually running a ToB-focused PbP campaign (well, kinda running, it's been on life support during the pandemic) with a fairly similar premise and outline. The out-of-character thread is here if you want to take a look at the setting and houserule information, but the gist of it is thus:
Neat. I will take a look at that for inspiration. Thank you for sharing it.
I don't suppose you kept the references around (which pages/sections the different schools and setting elements are mentioned in)? Most of those little fluff pieces are tiny things that don't go into any real detail, scattered around all over the book, but you've piqued my curiosity about them now.
Tracking down some of the missing nine swords could be another good plot hook. Although, whether the players want to rebuild the T9S, create a new school of their own, leave the whole thing alone and let the Sublime Way evolve on its own without the ingrained teachings from the T9S that they've learned, or do something else entirely at the end is up to them.