Hello everyone. I am a DM, and I'm here on behalf of my players, most of whom are not particularly knowledgeable about D&D.(They've all played plenty of games before, but still.) And I apologize beforehand that this will be very long, but I feel I couldn't shorten it. Feel free to ignore me if you feel lazy, this isn't actually life or death here.
I am running a Planescape game. The scenario is that there is sort of an "Adventurer's Academy" in Sigil, which accepts any character and teaches them and provides for them...in exchange for sending them on "quests".(Basically; someone somewhere needs a job done, the school sends a bunch of saps to do it and rakes in the dough.) I wanted my PCs to be mechanically powerful(so I can throw stuff at them without worrying about them dying) but politically/thematically insignificant compared to all the uber NPCs around them; so they're all level 5 gestalts.
We have:
A LG Human Paladin 5 / Swordsage 5 with a Vow of Poverty and a Vow of Peace (I suggested that he not take the Peace, but he did.)
A CE Human Ghost / Wizard 5 (Yes, I only make LA take up one side of the gestalt. And I ruled that all planes have their own Ethereal, connected to the Deep Ethereal, so the ghost could exist in Sigil.)
A TN Pixie Druid 5 / Master of Many Forms 1 (They're allowed to use one side to qualify for the other as long as they don't cause loops.)
A LE Half-Dragon(Blue) Ogre / Paladin of Tyranny 1 (He was a Fighter 1 first, because he was going to go for Hulking Hurler, but he changed his mind a few times. I think he's going with PoT now.)
The alignments aren't much of a problem. The school is forcing them to work together, they're all open-minded(they DO live in Sigil), and they aren't very antagonistic. The LG has a Vow of Peace, the LE thinks killing someone is a waste if they could be useful to you and the CE is...well, more C than E.(He spends most of his time flying around and being silly. Think Peeves from Harry Potter.) I waived the "no associating with evil characters" for the Paladin, because they are very explicitly NOT friends; they're just students at the same academy who keep getting sent on the same missions for some reason. They are not technically a party. And I'm being pretty liberal with the alignments anyway.(On the first day they faced a LE NPC and later a bunch of LN NPCs, and the LE was overall a much nicer guy who treated his underlings MUCH better.)
Anyway, I want these guys to be powerful. My motto is "The DM giveth, and the DM taketh away." I actually want them to be MORE powerful than they're supposed to be, just so I can hit them harder. I will give them plenty of magic items that they should not afford at those levels(but they START with 9k like the table says), just so I can destroy the items later.(Then give more again, of course. I'm not pure evil.) Heck, if they become so powerful that I can not challenge them with anything within reason...I'll just have them ambushed by something they cannot possibly defeat, slaughter them all, then have them wake up at the academy without all their stuff and owing the school the cost of three True Resurrections.(The ghost can come back on his own. Stupid overpowered ghosts.) I want them to face hardships not because they are lacking anything, but because they are children with fancy toys walking around the playfield of the gods. Sure, you are overpowered FOR YOUR LEVEL, but you don't want to start any bar fights because that drunk guy could be a polymorphed Ancient Red Dragon. I will also be generous with the xp. We can only play once every two weeks(as a full group at least, I will be having solo sessions or maybe even 2-3 player sessions when available, as the setting easily allows it) and honestly I want them to see epic levels next year.(Frankly I wouldn't mind them leveling faster, I can handle it, I just don't want THEM to get burnt out. The casters aren't used to playing casters. One level per month should be about fine.)
Now, some of my rules:
1) All WotC books are allowed, and if I don't have one I'll try to get my hands on it. Official stuff from the web are also fine, but the Wizards site is horrible, so I really don't want to spend an hour diving through it to find one article. If you don't know the specific place, please don't mention "something you remember seeing". I don't want to look for it. I do not generally like Dragon Magazine, for reasons I won't go into. If I can see the FULL text of an ability from Dragon, I MIGHT allow it, but generally I'd rather not go there. Also, regardless of what UA says, I am allowing two prestige classes at once.(Because why not.)
2) None of my players are new to the game, but I wouldn't call them "experienced players" either, and they're certainly not used to character optimization. Any confusing tricks could overwhelm them. Basically, if it goes "Now, take this, then that, then that, then combine those, and if you add this and that then you can have..." just no. They can't keep track of that, and I don't want to do it myself. I have NPCs to worry about.
3) If I can avoid getting new "systems" involved, I'd prefer that. I had enough trouble teaching them about Tome of Battle, and even though none of them decided to use it teaching them psionics wasn't a breeze either. So something like Magic of Incarnum...gah. I'm not even fully clear on that myself. Yeah, I can learn it and I can teach them, but one must ask whether it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. If not, let's stay away from stuff like that and just use the simpler cheese varieties. Even skill tricks is a category I haven't devoted much attention to, but I am willing to go there if they are honestly useful.
4) All of my players, as well as I, care about the roleplay aspect. For example, the druid has a leopard companion because the player is a girl and she likes kitties. I am not giving her some sort of dinosaur even if it's mechanically better. Up to two flaws and two traits at level 1 are allowed, but only if they fit the character. The half-dragon ogre with +9 Natural Armor is NOT allowed to take "Vulnerable" for -1 AC and get a free feat.(He did get Murky-Eyed though.) I also gave them free rein with their ability scores(one of them has all 18s), so in general don't worry about that.
5) I will severely bend "fluff" requirements, but not break them. For example, I am letting the Druid take the Fangshields Druid alternate class features from Champions of Valor. She is non-evil, she is non-humanoid, she protects nature, she is uneasy about humanoids and their civilization. Even though the Fangshields organization does not exist in my game(we are not even in the same world) I figured this was "good enough".(She still had to get the 1 rank in Knowledge(religion) required.) But I wouldn't, say, give the Wizard a Drow substitution level because "he's so evil he's like a drow" or whatever. That's just pushing it. I can be convinced to completely waive the requirements for something if I like it enough and see no reason why it should be that specific, but for this example I say no.
And what we have so far:
First of all, we played ONE group session after the general "gist" of the characters were done, but it had no combat. I also had small solo sessions with the druid and the wizard. Even though the wizard DID have a combat, I still don't mind making small retroactive changes to his character. By next Friday though, these will be finalized.
Character 1: Human Paladin 5 / Swordsage 5 with a Celestial Wolf mount. I started the Wolf at 2 HD, then with the +2 it got from being a mount, advanced it to Large.(Yes, I am aware it really should not work that way. However, in a party like this, it honestly won't matter. I don't want the mount becoming a liability. I'm extra flexible when it comes to the animals. Heck, I made it gestalt and gave it three levels of Fighter.) The character himself has a Vow of Peace and a Vow of Poverty, and is A COMPLETE PACIFIST. He is also extremely full of himself.(He doesn't worship a god as a paladin, apparently he is JUST SO HOLY that his own self-righteousness fuels his powers.) I couldn't even get him to take Subduing Strike, he went and took Nimbus of Light so that he could GLOW instead of fighting at all. Now, yes, there is an important political/RP part to the campaign and while there will be a decent number of fights they won't really be random encounters. Being "just so very holy" is rather more viable in this campaign than in most. Still, I will try to convince him to maybe take a flaw so he can get Subduing Strike, or Improved Unarmed Strike, or SOMETHING. He ain't Gandhi.
What I want: Where can he go from here? Are there any prestige classes that would be good for him to take, either mechanically or thematically? If I can't get him to throw a punch, is there anything else he could do? Any spells, or maneuvers, or feats, or magic items, etc. that would either deter opponents from fighting or simply just impress people? (He pretends to be humble, but he is not, and he IS the face of the group. Guy's got +22 to Diplomacy at level 5.) I am thinking of convincing him to get Leadership next level. He has to go feed the poor and whatnot anyway, might as well get some followers out of that. Don't know if he'd go for that though.
Character 2: Human Ghost Wizard 5. He is an Evoker with the Energy Affinity variant. This is PARTLY because he wants to take Elemental Savant next level...and partly because I warned him that a familiar could easily die and then he'd be screwed. However, I admit that Energy Affinity is somewhat crappy.(Evoker in general is pretty meh, but that's what he wants.) Plus a familiar could actually be useful to carry stuff(like material components) seeing as how he's a GHOST.
What I want: First of all, he wants to be a spellslinger. Basically he wants to focus on spells that use ranged attack rolls. I made him an Evoker based on that, but I(and he) could be convinced to change it if someone has a good offer as long as the base concept remains intact. For example, warlock obviously fits what he wants and sorcerer would benefit from the ghost's charisma bonus, but he went for wizard anyway.(Which gives me no small amount of headache concerning how to deal with a ghost's spellbook.) Could I change his mind about that? Possibly, I will talk to him on Monday, but if he insists what can we do with the Wizard? And if he doesn't take Energy Affinity(or switches to sorcerer), what would you recommend for the familiar? Something that can communicate, carry his items and NOT DIE would be best. Maybe a Quasit? The weekly commune could be nice too. I wonder how it would work to make the familiar gestalt as well? Certainly something could be done there. Also, what can he spend his money on? He wanted a mansion, left from his "living" days, and sort of a robot servant.(It won't actually do anything except keep the mansion clean, can't fight, so I simply allowed it rather than worrying about the mechanics.) How much of his money should I set aside for that? I know there's rules for that stuff SOMEWHERE, I just don't remember where.
Character 3: Pixie Druid 5 / MoMF 1 with a Leopard companion. Okay, this is probably the character that needs the least amount of cheese, partly because I already SMOTHERED it. I ruled that Natural Bond offsets the penalty from picking from the second list, so the Leopard gets full bonuses. It's not 5 HD, gestalt, with 5 levels of Fighter on the side.(It's still useless when compared to the melee PCs in the party.) MoMF gives her the ability to speak in any form, and Fangshields Druid gives her the ability to have humanlike hands in any form...so frankly I don't know if she actually needs Natural Spell at all next level. All she loses is claw attacks if she picks a form with those, and with a VERY liberal reading of the rules she COULD have one hand(enough for spellcasting) and one claw(so as a bear she could use improved grab). Material components are rarely a problem, and she can just put her divine focus down for a second before wild shaping. And next level...she will be a Planar Shepherd / Master of Many Forms. Yeah, in a few levels, she will hardly need the rest of the party at all.
What I want: Equipment merging into the druid with wild shape has always bothered me. Intuitively, it FEELS like items that can still be worn should not merge, but I wonder if allowing that would be overpowered since wild shape is the only thing that SPECIFICALLY says ALL items merge. One assumes they had a reason. That said, obviously that ship has sailed with this character, it can't not be overpowered. Moreover, I don't plan on ambushing them often, so it's not like she could not put down her things, change and pick them back up.(Geez, is the DM allowed to meta?) If I allow that, will it be extremely overpowered to have them also change size? If I do NOT allow that, then what would be the easiest way to get around the fact that she will be naked when she uses MoMF to turn into a humanoid? Carrying around sets of clothes for all sizes and shapes "just in case" does not seem practical. I guess I could include basic clothes sort of "sewn into" a set of beastskin armor, she will have more than enough daily uses in a couple of levels thanks to MoMF.(And if the game manages to get to epic levels, I will give her Warshaper after MoMF is over so she can change around like crazy.) Is that really the best option? I don't actually need more help making her stronger, I'll give her Assume Supernatural Ability as well, at which point she can probably beat up the entire party by herself.
Character 4: Half-Dragon(Blue) Ogre Paladin of Tyranny 1. As I said, he's not dead set on the PoT, as he's changed his character goals about a dozen times in the last week. He was thinking of going Hulking Hurler(because I suggested it, because I find it hilarious) but he realized that throwing the equivalent of a car barely beyond his melee reach may LOOK impressive, but really isn't compared to the casters in the party.(Especially as Returning is damn expensive, even if I would allow him to enchant a specially made improvised weapon. And yes I would.) Now he wants PoT because it really fits his character's outlook, because it feeds into his idea of being "special" and "chosen" and generally "awesome in every way" and most importantly because it boosts his crappy saves.(They really were horrible in comparison.) In a few levels he wants to get Leadership to get a Rakshasa cohort(7 HD/7 LA, therefore ECL 7 in my gestalt) and give HIM Leadership and so on, sort of a pyramid scheme of followers. I said sure, heck, gives me more options to make him suffer.(Slaughtering his followers is rather more personal than sundering his weapon.)
What I want: Actually, I don't specifically have any questions or requests for this guy. He is the only player who actively goes through books and websites, so he can come up with his stuff himself. More suggestions just makes him more indecisive, I need him to stop changing his mind already. Still, if you think of something that would just be GREAT, feel free to share. Last time we spoke he was thinking of going for melee battlefield control. A reach weapon(20 ft. reach), Combat Reflexes, feats like Large and in Charge or Shock Wave from Draconomicon, etc. But that was when he was going Fighter and had extra feats, so...I don't know WHAT he's doing now.
As a final note, if you have any devilishly wicked situations I can put these guys in or monsters I can throw at them, feel free to mention those too. That's not really my goal here, but hey, won't hurt.
Wow, I think this post got a bit out of hand. A big thank you to anyone who even bothers to read it, much less make suggestions. I repeat, I don't need any insane suggestions for any of them, I as DM will make sure they all do fine. I'm mostly looking for answers to the issues I raised, but any "Hey, this would be pretty good for that character!" lightbulbs are more than welcome as well. As far as I'm concerned, unless they cause some sort of feedback loop or something, they can't really be TOO broken for this campaign.
