Min/Max Boards

I suppose calling myself a first time GM is a bit of a lie since I HAVE been in charge of campaigns before, but that was years ago and i basically amounted to pulling random ideas out of nowhere to facilitate progression (most parties do not face off against flaming badgers that throw logs and advance a size category every round, for example). This is simply my first campaign that I'm planning. I have the idea for the beginning areas thought out. Essentially, they show up in adventure town number 387 to seek their fortunes (they can choose their reasons for being there.) While they are there, they can find a few adventure hooks that are linked to the more overarching campaign.

The first hook is a merchant hasn't received a shipment of supplies from one of the outer towns and sends the group to investigate. Upon arriving, they find the town deserted aside from the cowardly youngest son of the ruler of their starting location and a group of Hobgoblins. The hobs are a group of mercenaries who purchase supplies from the town who are investigating the disappearance themselves, and will likely assume the players are somehow responsible for the disappearance, likely resulting in a fight if they can't persuade the hobgoblins someone else was at fault. In either outcome, the end result is tracking the missing people down to an old ruin. In the old ruin, they will find undead, all of the townsfolk killed in a strange ritual, and a strange undead at the head of it all, along with a masked man who seems to be communicating with it. The man flees and the PCs hunt the undead, making a friend out of the noble and possibly the hobs depending on how that works out.

Second hook involves another noble, either the middle child of the ruling family of the town (disguised as a member of a different family). The noble hires the PCs to investigate a nearby ruin. The eldest of the three noble children is alongside a group of a rival noble family (which the noble is disguised as a member of) clearing it out as a means of repairing the relationship between the two families. Unfortunately, the elder son and his team are trapped in the deepest section of the dungeon being hunted down by either bandits or monsters (not sure which to fill the second dungeon with). If the PCs are fast enough, the can arrive in time to save the eldest son. Upon exiting, the will find the middle child with a gunman at the ready to try and finish off the eldest son as they exit. The mission was a plot to frame some mercenaries and the rival family with the murder of the eldest (and most beloved and heir to) the family that rules the city. The middle child will leave his men to finish of the players, who upon surviving can try and bring the middle child to justice (easier if either the eldest or the youngest child is their friend) or simply leave town on the run from the law (giving me a new BBEG). If they DO pursue the middle child, they will find he is being backed by the same masked man that was involved with the undead (although this might be the first time they meet him, the players can pursue either path first, depending on which they find out about first). The masked man will flee and the middle child will likely be slain by the PCs. By this point the players will likely be suspicious of the masked man and so will the nobles. Whichever nobles are left standing will hire the players to investigate the masked man.

The masked man does have plot to him, but the two hooks listed are already several sessions worth of campaign (depending on dungeon length) so I don't want to plan out a path for someone they might not even wind up confronting. Plus I've rambled on about stuff that is sort of irrelevant to the main topic enough already. But hey, I like getting my ideas criticized.

Back on topic, I obviously need 2 dungeons (one undead and the other either monsters or bandits) some hobgoblins (I'm trying to enforce certain themes among the cultures since the activities of the various courts is intended to come into play a lot, so training their soldiers in certain ways helps make them stand out). Problem is I don't know a good way to do any of that.

I can obviously use a dungeon generator for the maps, but what about traps and encounter balancing inside? I also know that one of the players really wants puzzles in be involved, does anyone have advice on building interesting puzzles? Is it even worth including the hobgoblins in the first arc (originally they were going to have been hired to kidnap the town and then be angry when the masked man killed them all for the ritual, but by that point the players would have no reason to believe the hobs were innocent and I doubt the leader would forgive the death of most of his men either way). What about stating up enemy characters? Do I just use the expert stat array (15 14 13 10 9 8, I think) or do I give them their own point buy? What about mooks vs. important characters?

Yeah, I know I'm overthinking this a lot, but I feel like I have no reference point in building this, so I'm trying to figure out everything I can. Does anybody have any advice? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: one thing I forgot to ask about and point out. Because one of the players is a ranger that comes from the tech-y area of the world, we agreed it would be cool if he used a gun instead of a bow. Unfortunately, rangers don't have a gun-based style. Any advice on building one? Also, the most experienced player here (admittedly most are first/second timers, but he has significantly more D&D experience than myself) is playing as a sprite with houseruled racial stats that I okayed. He doesn't feel too overpowered (yet, he hasn't fully built his character sheet yet) but I'm worried about one of the things he gets as a sprite being a flight speed. Granted, his experience of preference of storytelling over mechanics lead me to trust him not to be too cheesy, but I'm still worried about being able to fly simply breaking encounters/traps. Am I worrying too much? I don't want to simply go back and veto his race because I already said yes to him and he's already had to ditch a character concept because we couldn't find a way to build it in the rules, I don't want to make him start all over again.

Sorry, I worded that poorly. I meant using a Factotum dip for anything other than oracle would put me a level behind, not the seeker archetype, which seems really good.

So if I understand correctly, to make use of low level magic, I just take stuff that will become useless later and swap it out for things that might be useful later? Also, is there much of a difference between command and murderous command in terms of effectiveness, or is command better than temporary enemies killing each other? I'm pretty sure it takes them out for 1 round either way, right? Also, is splitting my list between control and gishing feasible, or should I pick one to focus on? (probably gish, since I'm pretty sure clerics have the worst list of the 3 big casters for control, although I'd kinda prefer to try control) Also, I'm currently considering the Heavens mystery because of blowout Amazing display being hilarious for my first two bonus spells, plus Moon Bridge can be in any direction, so I can theoretically use it to build Walls of Force, unless I can't turn it or something. Would I be better off just grabbing the buffing power from battle or something? I mean, technically Ancestors is the most flavourful for my character, but it overlaps too much with Haunted for my liking.

Also, we're rolling stats, but come with one 18 for free, so I start with 20 cha regardless. SO I can probably get a good DC for save or sucks.

Alright, I've figured some stuff out and know what I want to try. I want to roll a Spirit Shaman because I don't actually have much experience with spellcasting and have always meant to try it, and the Spirit Shaman has probably the easiest method to learn how to do it properly, since I can just cherry pick a new list every day to cast spontaneously from. I'd probably lean the spell list somewhere between Gish and Battlefield control, but I'm not sure how to build a proper spell list for these things (especially since the Druid list doesn't seem all that great for it based on what I'm reading) Would I be better off going with psionics or divine magic for this (not going arcane because we already have a sorcerer). Also, how quickly can I break the action economy? Also, would it be too difficult to get decent ranks in being a party face while doing this? Apparently we also need a face. Or if not that, I guess Oracle can also work, since I actually have a (crude) character concept for that. Still need tips on how to make it fit battlefield control with some level of damage though

Alas, Traits are apparently not allowed in this campaign, as I just found out. I'm a little confused as to how Planar Touchstone works, it mentions something about a charge limit and a place I need to revisit to get double charges, which left me kinda confused. Also I'm level 4, unless I can get a bonus feat there, I'd be missing Trapfinding when I walk in, which is probably when I need it most. The Theft Gloves might be somthing to consider, but that's burning two feats. Suppose I could grab it by being an incarnum class, could make for some interesting character concepts by playing a thief powered by the spirits of the multiverse could be interesting, although I'm having trouble thinking of non-evil ways to go about it. Any other methods?

Well, from what I'm seeing, it's less a matter of which spell you take, and more a matter of what list you take from. If I'm reading that right, then a Sorcerer/Oracle in the class can use Esoteric Magic to take a spell from a list you like, effectively saying you can cast a spell from that list you have taken from. Then you cast Paragon Surge. Paragon surge (among other things) lets you take a feat for its duration, choose Expanded Arcana for your free feat and you can choose a new spell from the list you chose from with Esoteric Magic. Normally this is done through the Eldritch Heritage feat line in order to get access to just the Wizard/Sorcerer list as an Oracle, but apparently you can now do the same as a Sorcerer. Of course, the ability says treat the spell as one from your regular list, so I'm pretty sure I'm actually wrong here. Still learning how to min/max myself, unfortunately, so I'm not much help.

I'm back, sorry that I'm sorta necroing this, I've just been occupied by other matters and haven't had the time to post.

Anyway, for the first adventure heres my plan:

The PCs are a group of friends/adventurers, how long they've known each other and why they've chosen this life I'll leave to them. They're doing their usual rounds of the town, maybe they work for the town guard (need an idea for what they're doing initially) when a man from the next town over runs in, haggard, weary and with a message. Hobgoblins have been seen mobilizing towards his town, and he was sent to get reinforcements, as he comes from a rather small hamlet with basically no military presence. When the PCs follow him to investigate: they find the town deserted. The town has obviously been raided, but beyond a bit of blood and maybe a severed limb or something, there's absolutely no sign of the former inhabitants of the village. Here the PCs can be introduced to skill checks, searching around the town to try and find out if there are any people remaining, or for some clue as to where the hobgoblins took them.

Depending on their search results, they might find a wizard hiding in one of the houses in a crawlspace that was overlooked. The wizard is a coward who hid and let the village be taken, and is also the son of a noble family, who's parents would reward the PCs for finding him as a bonus to the main objective. They can also try and force the wizard to help them out with saving the townsfolk, either way making the wizard a recurring friend of the PCs. They will also find a small group of hobgoblins scrounging around for a second looting run to pick up anything they missed. The players will overhear plans to raid a caravan passing through to this town, as news of the hobgoblin raid hasn't been spread yet. The players can decide to either eliminate the hobgoblins present, or possibly track them to the main hobgoblin base. If they fight the hobgoblins, the PCs can choose to either intercept the raid on the caravan or try and find the trail to the hobgoblin lair. If they can't find the trail, an experienced tracker with the caravan will point them in the right direction.

They will then raid the hobgoblin lair, a time in which they can be introduced to dungeons and traps and such. As they clear out the lair, the PCs will likely find the corpses of everyone from the village, all killed in one room for no visible purpose, dropping the first hints of the overarching plot.

How does this sound so far?

Also, I proposed the idea of the Tome of Battle for more interesting melee characters, and the players seem fond of the idea. I have a problem though. At least two of my players now want to play an archer type character, which, to my knowledge, never really got any support for the whole no options beyond "I attack" problem, as have voiced a lack of desire to use magic. Any ideas on how I could spice things up for them? I'm a bit uncomfortable using homebrew for them, since they're just getting started with basic D&D.

Well, that gives me a lot of pacing ideas, but pacing is the part I could piece together somewhat. The main thing I'm worried about is dungeon design itself. I'm not sure how big to make rooms, where to put traps, chests secret passages etc. I have no idea how to balance loot, and I'm not sure how to make sure the monsters are tough but not falling under killer DM jurisdiction. Any ideas on how to learn that beyond screwing it up until I get it right?

Looks more like a Guinea pig to me. I'm suddenly less sure about going Tashlatora though, at least if I pursue Psywar as my Manifester of choice. My Int may be obscene, but my Wisdom...well its also pretty high at +6, but it means moving points around... then again, I COULD use to will save boost from doing that. Going Psion makes me too Caster heavy though... bleh, I'm confusing myself too much :/

How would Lurk work with a Monk kitty? Or would it be best to just say nuts to it and go psywar by taking some points out of Con to get my Wis up to 16 or so? Beyond that...I imagine Fist of the Forest would make a great dip, bonus points for being a surprisingly good fit flavour-wise, although I don't know to many other class levels to take to boost unarmed damage

i don't suppose that anyone's suggested making your cat a ghost (savage progression) and taking master of the unseen hand? as an added bonus, you can use psionics to enter the class as is due to some obscure rules, making for some fun options. claws of the vampire, strength of my enemy, bite of the tiger, psionic lion's charge, just to name a few.

if you want to take it in a silly direction, take the stygian bolt power, one of the jump powers, hustle, and squeeze in one level of the athas soulknife prestige...  glowing mind blade, giant jump, fast move, and black lightning = jedi kitty!

Nobody has, but I'm trying to remain true to housecat flavour here. If I wanted to just build the strongest thing I could, I'd be doing something to exploit my Int score.

Probably not, unfortunately . Technically this isn't even for a campaign, but an exercise to see just how dangerous I can make a housecat to show my friends how hilarious 3.5 can be. So Homebrew's a no go, alas.