Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 26 Aug 2005 to 27 Aug 2005 (#2005-168) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 28/08/2005, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 7 messages totalling 374 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Mystara Wild Wild West? 2. Mystara d20: Races (3) 3. Mystara d20: Classes (3) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 14:59:23 -0700 From: Joaquin Menchaca Subject: Re: Mystara Wild Wild West? Great information and ideas! Thank you. I had a flash of inspiration. What's that plateau called north-west of Glantri? The area of the 1st Silver Princess region. I was thinking of maybe developing that into a wild west region with more steam-punk-gnomish inventions and stuff, so more modern guns, but have some checks and balances, e.g. harness to get to civilization in the region, to make sure the inventions don't leak out to mainstream. The DM can at some point introduce firearms and steam-powered items to the rest of the world, or keep it isolated. -- joaquin ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 18:57:51 -0700 From: Joaquin Menchaca Subject: Mystara d20: Races Hello. I am going to select some races to documented for the "Known World" campaign. I wanted to get peoples ideas for this. I wanted to do the following: Dwarf Gnome Elf Hin Human I want to detail the racial statistics, and have also "cultural" statistics. Later in the future, I can document specific regional traits for cultures. I dare not mention the half-elf, but there is conflicting material for this. Originally, there was no notion of a half-elf. The magical fey only beget other magical fey. However, other especially AD&D 2nd Edition added the existance of "half-elves". I wanted to avoid inserting the "half-elf" or any other munchkin (half-satyr, half-dryad, half-ogre, half-orc, etc.), at least for now, but I am curious as to what the Mystara's community point of view on this. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 19:07:18 -0700 From: Joaquin Menchaca Subject: Mystara d20: Classes Now I want to discuss what classes to make available for the Known World as staple classes. In the generic DnD 3E, there's several classes, and in oDnD, there's a limited selection with alterantive classes available for later levels: Druid, Knight, Avenger, etc. I could do the following paths: (1) have a very limited selection, later adding the druid and paladin (maybe others) as prestige classes. (2) have the full breath of classes as in DnD 3e (Barbarian, Ranger, Druid, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, Rogue) (3) have main classes: Warrior, Priest, Arcanist, Rogue with specialities: Warrior (Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian), Priest (Druid, Cleric, Shaman), Arcanist (Mage, Sorcerer, Elementalist), Rogue (Thief, Bard). Or maybe have a mixture, some as staple classes, others as specialities. Thoughts on this? The goal is to try to be generic as possible, but allow flexibility for expansion when in the future we regionalize it. Lastly, I want to have some racial classes. I was thinking of just documenting generic staple elf, human, gnome, dwarf, hin. ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 21:05:39 -0700 From: Boonedale Subject: Re: Mystara d20: Races --- Joaquin Menchaca wrote: > Hello. > > I am going to select some races to documented for > the > "Known World" campaign. I wanted to get peoples > ideas > for this. I wanted to do the following: > > Dwarf > Gnome > Elf > Hin > Human In a 3.0/3.5 Mystara I just use the basic races listed in the PH as the "normal" races for Mystara that players can play. > I want to detail the racial statistics, and have > also "cultural" statistics. Not sure what you mean by "cultural statistics". Do you mean what there lifestyles and such are like? If so you should know there are handbooks that describe what the typical elf thinks about the world in a "basic" setting. > Later in the future, I can > document specific regional traits for cultures. Introduced in the FR 3.0 books are regional feats which could fit as regional traits. The problem here is ma ping out all the reagons in Mystara then deciding what feats should be assigned to the diffrent regions of the new map(s). > I dare not mention the half-elf, but there is > conflicting material for this. Originally, there > was no notion of a half-elf. The magical fey only > beget other magical fey. However, other especially > AD&D 2nd Edition added the existance of "half-elves". > I wanted to avoid inserting the "half-elf" or any > other munchkin (half-satyr, half-dryad, half-ogre, > half-orc, etc.), at least for now, but I am curious > as > to what the Mystara's community point of view on > this. I dont see why a half-elf should not be used in a Mystara game. The race is not a new addition to the game, it gos as far back as first edition AD&D. The Half-Orc is also a first edition PC race. As for the other "munchkin" races, in 3.0/3.5 all non-standers PC races have a level adjustment to them. So you could end up with a PC that starts as a lvl 1 fighter but with the race mods added in really be lvl 5 or something and have a lvl 6 character (since class level and monster level stack now in 3erd edition). "Happy Hunting!" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 21:15:52 -0700 From: Boonedale Subject: Re: Mystara d20: Classes --- Joaquin Menchaca wrote: > Now I want to discuss what classes to make available > for the Known World as staple classes. In the > generic DnD 3E, there's several classes, and in oDnD, > there's a limited selection with alterantive classes > available for later levels: Druid, Knight, Avenger, > etc. > I could do the following paths: > > (1) have a very limited selection, later adding the > druid and paladin (maybe others) as prestige > classes. I would never have the basic classes in 3erd edition as a prestige class but thats me :-P > (2) have the full breath of classes as in DnD 3e > (Barbarian, Ranger, Druid, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, > Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, Rogue) I started a 3erd edition Mystara based game that was tweaked some what and the only restrictions on what class a character could take was based on what area of the Known World thay called home. You wont see a barbarian in Karameikos as aposed to a paladin. > (3) have main classes: Warrior, Priest, Arcanist, > Rogue with specialities: Warrior (Paladin, Ranger, > Barbarian), Priest (Druid, Cleric, Shaman), Arcanist > (Mage, Sorcerer, Elementalist), Rogue (Thief, Bard). > Or maybe have a mixture, some as staple classes, > others as specialities. In my twisted Mystara because i *hate* the monk class as its presented in D&D (especialy in 3erd edition) thay all must be from a japanese or other mideastern type area do to the tools the class uses. > > Thoughts on this? > > The goal is to try to be generic as possible, but > allow flexibility for expansion when in the future > we > regionalize it. > > Lastly, I want to have some racial classes. I was > thinking of just documenting generic staple elf, > human, gnome, dwarf, hin. The race books have "racial levels" a character can take insted of a class level. The books have around 4 or 5 racial levels in them. Humans dont have racial levels i belive so its mostly a demihuman thing. "Happy Hunting!" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:23:12 EDT From: Erol Bayburt Subject: Re: Mystara d20: Classes In a message dated 8/27/2005 9:24:32 PM Central Standard Time, darknerd2k@YAHOO.COM writes: > Now I want to discuss what classes to make available > for the Known World as staple classes. In the generic > DnD 3E, there's several classes, and in oDnD, there's > a limited selection with alterantive classes available > for later levels: Druid, Knight, Avenger, etc. > > I could do the following paths: > > (1) have a very limited selection, later adding the > druid and paladin (maybe others) as prestige classes. > (2) have the full breath of classes as in DnD 3e > (Barbarian, Ranger, Druid, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, > Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, Rogue) > (3) have main classes: Warrior, Priest, Arcanist, > Rogue with specialities: Warrior (Paladin, Ranger, > Barbarian), Priest (Druid, Cleric, Shaman), Arcanist > (Mage, Sorcerer, Elementalist), Rogue (Thief, Bard). > Or maybe have a mixture, some as staple classes, > others as specialities. > > Thoughts on this? FWIW, in my "Broken World" campaign (Mystara thousands of years in the future, after an explosen that broke it up into hundreds of "worldlets") I use the standard 3E classes and have disallowed almost all the "prestige" classes on the grounds that they are deliberately created to be more powerful than the core classes. ("Customized" classes I'll allow, as long as I judge them to be no more powerful than a core class.) I thought about limiting the core classes, and making paladin, ranger, druid, etc. into prestige classes, but I decided against this for the sake of flexibility. > > The goal is to try to be generic as possible, but > allow flexibility for expansion when in the future we > regionalize it. > > Lastly, I want to have some racial classes. I was > thinking of just documenting generic staple elf, > human, gnome, dwarf, hin. I thought about this, but didn't like the idea of creating PC-grade elf, dwarf, hin, etc. classes. But I just got an idea: How about racial classes equivalent to the NPC Expert? E.g. humans are human Experts, BTB, while dwarves have the variant "dwarf expert" class, elves have the variant "elf expert" class, and so on? (Speaking of races, I decided, pace the Elves of Alfheim gazetteer, that there were no half-elves or half-orcs. Rather, humans are the mongrel race, with most (perhaps all) humans having some non-human blood. And so a character with one human and one elf parent is a human who looks somewhat like an elf, a character with one human and one orc parent is a human who looks somewhat like an orc, and so on. I also decided to make dwarves and gnomes into the same race for biological purposes (although still two different races for game mechanic and magical purposes). Dwarf parents will sometimes have gnome children, and vice versa, and dwarves and gnomes can intermarry to produce either dwarves or gnomes as offspring. Dwaven and gnomish are also the same language in my campaign: Dwarven is gnomish spoken with a dwarven accent, and gnomish is dwarven spoken with a gnomish accent.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:27:43 EDT From: Erol Bayburt Subject: Re: Mystara d20: Races In a message dated 8/27/2005 9:24:32 PM Central Standard Time, darknerd2k@YAHOO.COM writes: > I dare not mention the half-elf, but there is > conflicting material for this. Originally, there was > no notion of a half-elf. The magical fey only beget > other magical fey. However, other especially AD&D 2nd > Edition added the existance of "half-elves". > > I wanted to avoid inserting the "half-elf" or any > other munchkin (half-satyr, half-dryad, half-ogre, > half-orc, etc.), at least for now, but I am curious as > to what the Mystara's community point of view on this. I gave my answer in my previous post: I don't allow half-elves, -orcs, -etc. Or rather I allow them, but they're always humans who happen to look somewhat like the race of the non-human parent. They *don't* get any kewl special racial abilities from it. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 26 Aug 2005 to 27 Aug 2005 (#2005-168) ****************************************************************