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=Background= Many thousands of years ago, two great empires came to dominate the world. Eventually, their expansion brought them into conflict with one another, escalating into an all-out war with a front line stretching across two continents. Both nations, skilled in the arts of artifice and golemcraft, constructed mighty colossi that towered over the tallest castle wall. These creatures did battle with one another, with both empires sinking more and more of their resources into building more powerful golems with stronger armour. After a while, it was clear that this war was at a standstill, and the battles began to be fought by assassins under the cover of darkness, cutting bloody swathes through the artificers and wizards who built and controlled the golems, destroying their research and labs. When their grim work was done, everybody realized that the machines they had built with the wealth of their nations and sent out to fight now couldn't be controlled.<br> Economies crumbled and the empires collapsed. The golems didn't care, and kept fighting with one another because there was nobody left to tell them to stop. Civilization was forced to flee either north or south to avoid the conflict. Entire cities were abandoned, pounded into dust, or both. Weather patterns and landscapes were forever altered by the superweapons the creatures were given. Eventually, society adapted. Combat wizardry was never held in high regard again, and anyone who summoned or built minions was summarily hunted and executed for fear of another colossus being created. Instead, armies became populated with warriors bred for the task, though many standing armies continued to employ supernaturally augmented troops. Because this kind of soldier required careful attention to bloodlines, magic passed along through that means became more and more common, especially as the practices of bookish wizardry were dying out. This new kind of soldier quickly became popular, as lesser kingdoms squabbled for the lands of their former overlords, and slowly reclaimed the frontiers of the golem battlefields, aided by cunning and well-paid scouts. Caravans braved these zones, connecting the north and south once again. Scavengers ventured into what was left of the old empires, and some even returned alive.<br> Then the first of the golems finally fell.<br> Suddenly everything flew into chaos as the logical brains of the golems recalculated new positions. Caravans thinking they were taking safe routes were torn to pieces by stray attacks overnight. Entire cities built too close to the shifting line of battle were obliterated. While governments were still doing damage control, somebody pointed out that there was now a wealth of ancient knowledge and power lying in the desert. While lumbering armies try to mobilize and secure the area, adventurers, scavengers and mercenaries are already on their way to grab what they can before anyone else does. You are among those people - men and women of some renown and considerable skill, and far more worthy to control the secrets of the past than the vultures already pecking at the fallen golem's impenetrable shell.<br> Setting fluff is forthcoming. =Crunch= * System: 3.5 * Starting level: 5th * Special: Racial gestalt (see below) * Starting wealth: 9000gp (but see below) * UA rules: No Gestalt, no flaws, no bloodlines, no LA buyoff (but see below) ==House Rules== * Exotic Weapon Proficiency grants proficiency with all Exotic weapons. * Gauntlets deal unarmed strike damage or their own damage, whichever is higher. * Shadowcasters gain uses of mysteries/encounter rather than per day. Should a mystery be used outside an encounter, its use counts until the next encounter is completed. * Shadowcasters don't have to follow paths to learn new mysteries, but the bonus feats are granted when they complete a path. Their mysteries are per-encounter per-level, instead of per-day per-mystery. * Manifesting an unknown power from another's powers known is no longer restricted by class lists, but power stones still carry the restriction. * A psicrystal counts as a part of you for the purpose of Confusion and similar effects. * [http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040827b Deep Psychic Meditation] recharges all centres with 8 hours of sleep instead of just one. * You may delay gaining stances as an initiator until you gain access to a new stance level. You may only have one stance delayed in this manner at any given time. * All versions of HiPS allow hiding while being observed and without cover. Versions that specify other conditions (such as proximity to shadows) still require them. * (Calling) and (Summoning) spells no longer exist - the knowledge of their workings has been purged from all known records. ** The Shadow Conjuration line of spells remains unchanged, though using them to summon creatures will tend to make people angry with you. * Spells that radically alter the shape of one's body (such as Polymorph or Body of War, but not Enlarge Person or Iron Body) have likewise been forgotten. * Conjuration(Healing) spells are now Necromancy(Healing) and are affected by all effects that modify Necromancy or Conjuration(Healing) spells. * Conjuration spells that have [Element] tags (such as Orb of Acid) are now Evocation. ** The exception is Mage Armor and derivatives, which are Abjuration. * Familiars scale with character, not class, level. * Average HP per hit die, rounded up: ** d4 = 3 ** d6 = 4 ** d8 = 5 ** d10 = 6 ** d12 = 7 ==Racial Gestalt== Marriage for love or political power is a stupid idea - alliances between great houses will fall apart within decades, and emotional attachment doesn't last nearly as long. Instead, the custom in this world (at least for those who have the luxury) is to marry for superior offspring. The result is a class of citizen that far exceeds the races of yesterday. All noblemen and old money gain the ability scores and racial features of any two races, the qualities of both having been bred into them with far more intelligence than sticking an elf and a human in a dark room together for half an hour. Most adventurers (and all the successful ones) are also from this stock - bastard children of these people, or being able to secure "good birth", most likely with an unfavoured younger child of the family head. The most typical race is an elf-human hybrid, but house guards are often orc or dwarf instead. ===The mechanics=== * Pick any two races with LA+0 and no RHD (that could conceivably breed together - if you throw a Magical Beast into the mix, the other half can't be Humanoid, for example). Add their ability score bonuses and penalties together. * You gain all of the racial traits from the base races. If a trait (such as Darkvision) appears twice, it does not stack. If mutually exclusive traits (such as size or age categories) differ between the base races, the player chooses the one to use (once made, this choice cannot be changed). * If the base races share a creature type, you are that creature type. If one parent is an Outsider, you are an Outsider (Native). Otherwise, the non-Humanoid parent determines the creature type. All subtypes are inherited. * You are considered to be both base races for all purposes. * Your base races must be capable of reproduction. Deathless, Warforged, or any other race that does not sexually reproduce cannot be used. * Templates are applied after this process; you cannot be a Dragonborn Human//Dragonborn Orc, for instance. ===Level-adjusted races=== Many powerful races refuse to contaminate their "pure" bloodlines with weaker offspring. Level-adjusted races create standard half-creatures that use the regular templates. If you want to play such a race, one point of LA is free (so a Tiefling is LA+0, but cannot be used in a Gestalted race). Lesser planetouched do not exist. ==Wealth== The maximum cost for any one item is 40% of your starting wealth (3600gp). You are granted an extra 5000sp for the purchase of mundane items such as 10ft poles, masterwork tools and special materials. Consumables are not part of your WBL calculation once they have been used up. Keep your GP and SP separate - only gold buys magic. ==Allowed Sources== * All 1st party WotC books and web materials * The following is available only on a case-by-case basis: ** Setting-specific material (Forgotten Realms, Eberron) ** 3.0 and "3.25" materials that do not have official updates to 3.5 ** Magazine materials unless reprinted in Dragon Compendium or other book ** 3rd party and homebrew material =Organizational Stuff= Please add your name, character sheet link and availability to this list. Currently, scheduling concerns look like this:<br> * Wednesday: 1:00-5:00 EST is Frogame * Saturday evenings is meatspace stuff
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