Welcome! (Huh? What's this "Savagery" thing?)

What the heck is this? We're going to try out a little thing here. Archengeia has graciously offered me the chance to run a campaign alongside his with this group. This is a call to anyone who wishes to participate.

The idea is to use the next D&D Next (5th edition) rules playtest. After looking over the rules a bit, it seems like a fun little system to use and easier to get in to than 3.5 for newer players. On top of everything, we'll be doing WotC a favor by play-testing their stuff.

You can get the play-test packet from here: http://dndplaytest.wizards.com/ I am also willing to go over character creation with you, although it's much easier than making a 3.5 character.

I want to be flexible to what people want to play, so if you've got an idea for something cool you want to do, let me know and I'll try to work it in. In fact, go ahead and let me know what you'd like to do with your character. It could just be "my guy is good at xyz and he likes doing it" or a 10-page paper of his life goals - doesn't matter. If you don't like any aspect of this, just let me know and we can talk about it. I want to know what everyone's wishes are going in to this - even if it's just as simple as "I want to fight a lot".

I'm currently planning on starting this in about a week at least, depending on how fast we can get questions, characters, and interest rounded up.

There are some character creation rules if you're just creating one on your own. If you want to play something that is restricted, please talk to me first and we'll go through it. I'm flexible with what people want to play, but there are certain story elements that depend on certain things. You may also know something that other players don't if you are playing something that is restricted.

Remember, these are rules to follow if you just want to go ahead and create a character without conferring with me.

Character creation rules:
Races
No Dwarves, Dragonborn, Warforged, High Elves (Wood Elves are fine), or Drow. Uncommon races such as Kobolds, Hobgoblins, etc, are allowed, but you will want to let me know if you are playing a Kobold. There are special things that can happen to that race in this setting.

Classes
No paladins. Mages are known as "witches" as use familiars/fetishes instead of spellbooks. The flavor of that is up to you, but mechanically the class is unchanged.

Stats
4d6 and use the sum of the highest three. If you come up with a net total of less than +2 when you add your modifiers, roll all your stats again. Alternatively, if you want to play a specific class but don't roll the stats you need, let me know and we'll work something out.

Hit Points
Max at first level. Every lever afterwards when you gain hit points you may roll them yourself. If you decide you don't like the result, then you can ask me to roll them for you but you must decide to take my result before hearing it. You will have chances to train up your hit points to their max during downtime.

Alignment
No "evil" characters to start out, although you can certainly become truly evil as time goes on - even during the first session if you want. You can put down evil as your alignment for the moment if you are planning on doing that anyway, but please, no characters meant to just kill people in the party or not be part of it at all. There will be greater powers to fight, so although good and evil characters can team up, I ask that you please keep in mind the sanity of us all. There will be many opportunities for power at the expense of others along the way without intentionally trying to backstab others.

Wealth
Standard starting gold and equipment. You've been getting modest living for free, so don't worry about expenses unless you want something higher than that.

Feats
Yes, we will be using them.

Other bookkeeping stuff
Don't worry about weight unless it's ridiculous (no, your Gnome can't juggle 10 anvils). Once you get a bag of holding or something like that then anvil juggling becomes less of a problem.

DO keep track of your ammunition. I'm not going to shortchange you on arrows or anything, but it could become important later on. Unless I say so, fire your bow away. If you just want to ballpark what you fire in a battle that's fine with me.

Don't worry about keeping track of your experience. I will let everyone know what it's "ding" time. This doesn't mean that I won't be keeping track of something experience-like in the background, I just feel it adds unneeded bookkeeping to everyone. Your progression should be the same as if you were tracking experience anyway.

The materials and knowledge of the day means that not everything is created equal. Some equipment may be made using inferior materials or by an inexperienced crafter. If I tell you this about a particular piece of equipment, be it weapon, armor, or something else, that means it is "fragile". If you roll a natural 1 on any check, attack, or anything using it, then it will break. e.g. if you attack using a fragile spear and roll a 1, then the spear will break. Note: this is broken; not destroyed. Spells such as mending or mundane crafting can repair them.

When you get done with your character sheet I'd like to take a look at it. Not checking for cheating or anything, I just want to take a note of the skills that everyone possesses so I know who might know what. I'm not approving them per-say, but since there's a thread to post stats in already, go ahead and post 'er away. If you have any backstory or related you want worked in to the story that is a good time to let me know.

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The story so far...
This is a very, very, very, rough and quick summary of the current situation and the start of the first session I had in mind. I will post a more detailed outline of the setting later, but this should give you an idea of what you'll be starting with.

Note: the story may change a bit depending on your race, but the outcome is the same.

You were a citizen of the city-state of Zephic, who is a human king that rules over one of the few larger places of settlement in the area. The city is nearby the sea and is very self-sufficient. The king protects you from anything that's out there, since it's VERY dangerous outside his lands. There's a multitude of jobs available as the city has been growing very rapidly as of late. The only other larger settlements nearby, aside from some of the larger tribes and such, are the Hobgoblins. They mostly leave people alone as long as they obey the rules and a small amount of trade goes back-and-forth between each city.

Several months ago, Zephic called a grand celebration and invited every single city, tribe, traveling merchant - everyone - to bring gifts and celebrate at his city. The celebrations went off well, aside from some trouble a band of Goblins and Kobolds caused, and on that same day a new high priest was announced. There was a bit of a dispute over whether or not a kidnapping had occurred, but it was quickly cleared up when the high priest did make his appearance and gave a speech. The future looked very bright. The king's general and his army were routing a troublesome band of Hobgoblin raiders along the border and everyone felt more safe than ever. That was right before they learned from the general that the Hobgoblins had been wiped out in a day.

It was very obvious what had happened as well. Coming from parts unknown, an army of mixed races had marched upon their city. Their march was headed up by a huge, black dragon, who laid waste to the Hobgoblin's city from the skies.

The citizens of Zephic's city did not have long to fear what might happened next before their city was suddenly overcome by a terrible flood from the sea. Behind that flood came a powerful druid and behind her the black dragon's army. After wiping out the city's defenses, the black dragon smashed the king's palace and made its home in the rubble.

Although some escaped the attack on the city, you were not one of the fortunate ones. You were taken prisoner by the black dragon army and shackled using some peculiar bracers. They did not attach chains to you, although you felt strangely compelled to follow your masters every word. You were marched far away from your home city to an previously unknown city still under construction. There you were given a bunk and forced to help build the city. Life was much worse than before, that you know, although they at least kept you fed and watered. At least you are working and building something important, although you don't know quite what it is. It doesn't matter anyway. Any time you think about it, you find that there's really something more important that you could be thinking about.

As you get back to your bunk one night, you bump in to a female Halfling. She doesn't introduce herself, but asks that you come with her to help with completing a building before it gets too late. Although tired, you agree to help finish the dragon's buildings. You reach a half-completed building and walk inside, although before you can do anything, several people leap from the shadows and tackle you. You try to scream out, to warn others, but there is nothing you can do.

The Halfling fiddles with your bracers and they are lifted from your arms. Your mind clears and for the first time in a while you can think clearly again. You realize that you are a slave to the black dragon! Memories come rushing back of your capture at the dragon's army. You've been helping her build her own city and a temple to herself! As you sit there collecting your thoughts, you notice that there are several others on the ground in the building. They look to be in the same state as yourself; recollecting themselves after the rude awakening.

Separate post to draw a bit more attention to this:

If we're going to do this, then I'd really like for everyone playing to have the ability to use a mic. I know some people don't have them or may not wish to use them, but I really want to interact with everyone via live voice chat. Not that I don't like all the discussion that normally happens in chat or anything, but we will likely be limited in time since I'm not planning on running really long sessions like some games can be (4-5 hours at the absolute max). If you're unable to get a mic because of finances I can probably help you out there to get something that'll work.

Whether I participate or not in this campaign depends on when you think of playing. Sunday, and Thursday, I am available from 4:00 pm to 9:30 pm. I am available all day and night Friday and Saturday. Impossible for me to play Wednesday (car lessons -_-)

Should be fine for you then.

Since I'm feeling like playing a minion, my LN monk character is available to any character that may want to have a loyal minion in the party.

As he was trained since childhood to become a 'living weapon', one of his vows is to find someone that can make proper use of his abilities.

That said, another of his vows say that should his current master become too 'mundane' and unable to rise again, the monk may ask amicably to be relieved from their services, as knowing someone's limits is a good thing to this monk order's eyes. The master may refuse of course, and should the situation remain the same for too long, the monk must respond to this with lethal force.

All of this will explained before a character concludes the oath. If nobody in the party find this interesting, well, I'll just play a standard monk I guess. Even if he is a living weapon, he's still a person, so RP-wise, I feel like there's something to this.

Someone who can make proper use of his abilities, eh? HuehuehuehHEUHEUHUUEHUEUH

Sounds PERFECT! The overseer of the dragon's temple might like to speak with you sometime. He likes hitting things with his fists too.

That laugh is just creepy, Third.

Also Sorangath might try to persuade Essoje, Monk of the Awesome Order to work with and for him, given his goals and motives.

lol @ both.

Anyways, consider that Elben (my monk's name) already told the party about it, but nobody approached him yet for whatever reason until the adventure starts.

@Essoje: it could have been because of the mind-affecting features of the slave bracers. No one else felt the need to actually do that until now and you didn't feel the need to ultimately serve anyone else other than the dragon.

Feel free to plot, scheme, and do whatever now that the mind-influencing bracers are off.

yeah, makes more sense, lol.

Oh, and edited the character sheet, since I don't know if edits count as changes for the forum.

Among the spells list, I'm not seeing anything summon or conjuring related. Could I find something on the wiki to make due?

I'm just quickly briefing my ideas, but I guess I could try taking a spell and personifying it, and giving it a combat/out-of-combat duration after which it will dissipate unless I could bind it for a bit longer variably dependent on my charisma mod and a successful charisma check: successful means it remains under my control for the extended duration, and failure means it breaks free from control(in other words, a spirit running rampant doing whatever it wishes left to the GM's discretion under pretenses also left to said discretion). I could also make barrier spells, AOE spells that buff or negatively affect anyone caught in their field of effect. My actual familiar can just be a ferret.


I'll start rolling my stats while we figure this out.

At this point in time I really don't want to go with anything outside of the playtest documents or create new stuff for both balance and playtesting reasons. The summoning stuff probably just isn't in the playtest yet at this point in time. As far as conjuration spells go, I see several in the document. The druid looks like the class to play if you're looking for those. If you want to give a spell different flavor, but otherwise not change the mechanics, that's fine with me as well.

Well that changes everything. I guess I'll just stick to the offensive mage staple.

...Is ANYONE making a rogue?

Zeiss - Yes. I am

Please note that there's not going to be an "ideal makeup" or anything. You could all be fighters and it'll still work out. May be interesting, but you won't face anything you can't do if you don't have a particular class.

aka: play what you want!

I anticipate my character dying in the first session.  Probably killed by Zeiss.

Hm, I suppose a party wipe wouldn't be out of question, considering all the data.

Yet, I feel relieved by knowing that there's a 95% chance of Zeiss getting munched by a black dragon.

So, how much will i need to study in order to be able to play this?

You don't even have to look at any of the stuff for the setting or the game. If you know jack squat about the setting that's perfectly fine and won't really hurt.

I am reminded of Chris Hansen while reading this.

"Why don't you go on and have a seat? Just take a seat, right over there."

"I'm Chri-iis Haa-aansehhnn," the Black Dragon stutters--er, thunders.

"There aren't really any BROWNIES!" The Lawful Evil warrior immediately pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head.

Munched by a dragon? Me?

You don't even know what character I have planned.

I AM GOING TO MUNCH THAT DRAGON!

*FUSRODAH*

...Arch is playing a Lawful Evil warrior.

Actually I was wondering whether you were going to join the Savage campaign.

I'm curious how you're going to play Rory, without a mic.

I'm assuming that everyone participating will be using a mic after making the announcement about it in this thread and over Ventrilo on Tuesday. If not, or if you do not know what I'm talking about, see post #2 in this thread.