New Campaign Starting

Started by David Roomes, October 17, 2015, 05:02:50 PM

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David Roomes

I'm still in the very early stages, but it looks like there might be a campaign starting later this year (December maybe). Nothing set in stone yet, but it looks like we're a go.

I've been wanting to play for awhile and recently found out that two of the other old players were also wanting to start something up again. We talked and decided to fire up a whole new campaign. I offered the mantle of DM to others, seriously, I just wanted to be a player. However, they all turned it down. No one wanted to take on that much work. So, once again, I'm going to be the game master.

The good news is that this will be a shot of adrenaline for the Khoras website. Every time I've DM'd a campaign, there has been an enormous amount of material that gets pumped into Khoras. Sort of like "spin off technologies". Khoras benefits greatly whenever an actual group goes tromping through it. So, there's that.  :)

I even have a rough idea of a plot outlined. I won't go into too much detail. But I can say that the characters would start in Mercia and then, at some point, journey over to Qeshir. I expect Qeshir would get a lot of work done on it if the campaign veered over there. And this is great, because so far, I've never taken a group through Qeshir. It's virgin territory.

I will, of course, be posting a summary of every session. And anything I detail for the campaign will get uploaded to the website. So that's it. 2016 is going to see a lot of activity on the website.
David M. Roomes
Creator of the World of Khoras

David Roomes

It looks like we're going to be using 5th edition D&D. Although that wasn't my first choice. I've been wanting to try other game systems - Burning Wheel, Pathfinder, Dragon Quest, etc. I've even toyed with the idea of creating my own system. I have pages and pages of notes and ideas written down for a gaming system. But it's a long way yet from being ready to play.

My good friend, Mark Price, whom several of you have probably heard about in previous entries to this forum, works at Wizards of the Coast. He has convinced me to give 5th edition a try. Other players agreed - they want to try it too. So, this campaign will be a test of 5th edition.
David M. Roomes
Creator of the World of Khoras

David Roomes

Haven't heard of Dungeon World, but now I'm going go look it up.  ;)

In preparation for the upcoming campaign, I've read the 5th edition Player's Handbook and am now reading the DMG. Overall, it's not bad. It's a lot like 3rd edition with a few changes. Nothing wildly out of balance, but it does have a few differences. There are a lot of little things that I disagree with, but they are minor and easily fixed. I'm going to implement a few "house rules" here and there to add some realism and fix some of those minor issues.

There are a couple of bigger changes, however. For example, take natural healing. In 5th edition, I noticed that player characters heal VERY FAST. Back in the old days of 1st edition, you'd heal 1 hit point per night of rest. That's it. Hit points were precious! In 2nd edition, it was 1 hit point for 8 hours of sleep, or 3 hit points for a full day of bed rest, plus a CON bonus at the end of the week. Again, hit points were precious and a healing potion was a valuable thing. In 3rd edition, it was 1 hit point per level after 8 hours of rest or 2 hp/lvl for a full day of bed rest. In 4th edition, it was those stupid healing surges plus other stuff. Let's not talk about that.

Notice a trend here? In every edition, healing gets faster. Now, in 5th edition, it's insane. A character heals ALL HIT POINTS with 8 hours of sleep. Seriously. One night of sleep and you are back to full health without a scratch on you. I'm not a fan of this change. This makes "wounds" practically non-existent. In fact, as far as I can tell, 5th edition doesn't address the topic of wounds at all. No broken arms. No limps. No smashed hands. Nothing. So, it doesn't really matter how many hit points of damage you take in a fight, because the next morning, you won't have a scratch on you. I don't like it. For one thing, it makes magical healing much less special. Healing spells and healing potions are no longer the precious commodities that they used to be. And hit points are no longer precious. Sword through the gut? Eye gouged out? No problem. Now, all you have to do is "sleep it off". I'm not really sure how to fix this. Or if I should. After all, we're taking 5th edition for a test drive. I may run it as is for a couple of sessions and see how it goes.

The other big change is advantage and disadvantage. Basically, it's a simplified version of bonuses and penalties. I can see what they're doing there. It's an attempt to lump a lot of bonuses and penalties into a single streamlined good/bad system. It sacrifices some realism, but it does look like it would streamline play. So, I haven't decided on this one. I'll have to see this in play.

The wizard class seems a lot weaker now. The power of spells are no longer directly affected by a wizard's level. In the old days, a fireball from a 20th level arch mage would hit a lot harder than the fireball cast by a 7th level mage. Now they've got a convoluted system of casting spells at higher levels. While this makes some sense (i.e. the wizard is putting more energy into the spell), it only reinforces the idea that a simple spell point system would be much better. (But that's a whole other rant and I won't get into that right now). This idea of casting spells at higher levels is more complicated than a spell point system would be. Also, the way they have it set up now, the power difference is not as great. It's like they are trying to even things out. They want 1st level wizards to be tougher and 20th level wizards to be weaker.

Ok, seems I do have some issues with this edition.  ;)  Still, we haven't gotten to playing yet. The real test will be when the dice come out and the swords are drawn.

More on this later...


David M. Roomes
Creator of the World of Khoras

David Roomes

Unlike most of my other campaigns, I couldn't think of a name of this one. I really struggled. Then, right before the first session, it hit me like a bolt out of the blue. The name of the new campaign is "Pieces of Eight". The meaning behind the name will become clear as the campaign unfolds.

Also, we had our first session. It went very well. I will post an introduction to the players and their characters and the first "session summary" soon for those who like to read along and hear tales of glorious adventure. :)

David M. Roomes
Creator of the World of Khoras

sid6.7

very cool dave I look forward to your summaries. I agree sleeping it off isn't very realistic for regaining hit points. i'd just go back to the old way of regaining hit points...