Post/Author/DateTime

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Magrus 11-27-07, 03:00 AM

I am thinking of coming up with a campaign that has the start where the players are slotted in as champions in a war to defend a mage tower. The tower happens to be the center of magical power in the world, and finding those who deal with arcane magic outside of it is incredibly rare. The situation would be that they are being invaded, ala torch bearing mob type scenario, by folks who want to see the tower torn down, and its inhabitants killed off. The campaign could shift to somewhere outside of this tower should the party decide to strike out aggressively rather than defend. However, I plan on making this difficult, as the resources the tower will have will be limited, and the players would have to be truly inventive to break through the forces I send at them for the early parts of the game. I am debating on how far to go with the scale of things. Is this a lone tower filled with powerful arcane magic wielders and their allies against the whole world? Are there sympathizers and allies outside of this tower toward the cause of the PC's? Is it a divine magic based purge of those the divine servants see as a threat, or perhaps the psionic folks instead? Lots of weaker enemies, or skilled mercenaries being sent in and the like? For reference, I plan on using Maptools, an interactive web-based program that uses maps, tokens, and dice rolling over the internet for this. It will assist in helping the group to picture things, and to deal with tactics. Hence, I could do rather large scale battles and war should I choose to do so without mad chaos and loss of information through miscommunication when I attempt to describe what is going on. I am considering bumping the starting level up significantly from where I normally start things as well. I expect that it will be roughly 6th-10th level in order to facilitate the feeling of being a true part of the defense. I don't think having a bunch of apprentice type characters would give the players the proper feel for dealing with this kind of thing. Should I restrict this entirely to arcane using classes or characters who at least blend those classes with others, such as Gishes, or blending Arcane/Divine or Arcane/Psionics? Would restricting that too much put folks off too much do you think? Then on the other side, I don't want to put together a campaign with this kind of flavor, and end up with your standard balanced party, with a handful of tanks, one rogue, a wizard and a cleric. It would be out of place and ruin the flavor. If anyone has any thoughts to throw my way here, I'd appreciate it. Just something to help me with brainstorming, input from others tends to help me sort out whats important or not.