Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Darkwood avatar 01-05-07, 11:19 PM	I have Decided to base an Eberron campaign on the Greatest TV show ever, American Idol... sorry I mean Firefly;). I intend to base the first several adventures on the TV show. Now my palyers are lazy and more than happy to play premade characters if I make them myself so thats not a problem. I also intend to change the names and backgrounds of the characters a little bit. for example the Captain was going to be a female, and the first officer a warforged. so the Wash, Zoe relationship won't exist in this. So heres what I have. Captain (Mal)- Human Ftr/Rog of Cyre First Officer (Zoe-ish)- Warforged Ftr of Cyre Pilot (Wash)- Half-elf Wizard of Stormreach/ House Lyrander Foundling Mercenary (Jayne)- Hobgoblin Bar/Ftr of Darguun "Ambassador" (Inara)- Elf Bard of Aundair/House Phiarlan Mechanic (Kaylee)- Gnome Artificer of Zilargo Sheperd (Book)- Human Ftr/Monk of Karrnath/ Silver Flame Fugitive Doctor (Simon)- Halfling Healer(miniatures handbook) of Sharn/Possibly House Jorasco Fugitive Experiment (River) Halfling Monk/Psychic Warrior of Sharn/Possibly House Jorasco My Question is what should I make River although It's not extremely important right away as this character will be an npc it just has me stumped. Do I make her a Psion of a level far higher than the PC's or do I use a template like Paragon out of the Epic level handbook or do I just give her a few permanent spell effects as a result of the experiments performed on her? Second If the Pc's are of a level able to pull off the sort of things the Serenity crew does, and Eberron is not a high level campaign setting, How do I make someone like Atherton Wing, who is only a minor noble, probaly not of high level, a threat to my Captain?:confused:
Don_Orro 01-06-07, 12:44 AM	Here (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=741788) is another thread where this has been talked about. You can probably find something you like if you look through it.
Moebius 01-06-07, 02:38 PM	How do I make someone like Atherton Wing, who is only a minor noble, probaly not of high level, a threat to my Captain?:confused: Hey, Ath. Do you mind if I call you Ath?
Cloud Divider 01-06-07, 04:11 PM	Sheperd (Book)- Human Ftr/Monk of Breland/ Silver Flame Any reason the Book analogue isn't a Cleric? I mean, if you're intentionally playing up the "He's more than he appears to be..." angle, and don't want him to be a proper Cleric, what you've got is fine. You can certainly be a faithful member of the faith, and perhaps even act in some authority without being a spell-slinging Cleric. Based on my interpretation of the character from the series, I'd seriously consider making him some kind of former intelligence agent (Rogue) or military officer (Fighter, perhaps even Marshal) as his primary class. You could even almost consider Bard, but instead of music, he just makes particularly moving speeches. Maybe multiclass him heavily (perhaps including a token level or two of Cleric) Fugitive Experiment (River) Halfling ??? of Sharn/Possibly House Jorasco I'd really consider making her a monk as the primary (and it's intentionally vague as to what flavor of monastic training she actually received) - unless you want her to be "late season" River, where she's demonstrating a bit more "actual power", Monk would be a pretty solid solution. Maybe start her out as Monk, but later on give her some levels of Psychic Warrior. And of course, the REAL backstory for her, is that she was an experiment by the Inspired. They tried some wacky psion-tech Plot Device to make her a non-human Vessel. You could have some very interesting subplots going on with her, if a Kalashtar was able to observe her in combat - they might be the only ones able to recognize that she's been trained in a Riedran fighting style (and there's not enough Riedrans in Khorvaire to make it particularly common knowledge as to their fighting style). Actually, River's talent/skill at dancing ties in pretty well - as I recall, the Kalashtar martial arts use dance as part of the training. Second If the Pc's are of a level able to pull off the sort of things the Serenity crew does, and Eberron is not a high level campaign setting To be honest, I'm not really sure of anything particularly special the Serenity crew does that suggests that they're spectacularly high level. They're good at beating up thugs (which might commonly be Warrior 2's). Sure, they deal with conspiracies, and Fight The Man. But neither the Conspiracies or The Man need to have armies of 10th level thugs. People like Early (who was a major threat to the entire crew) don't necessarily need to be 15th level or whatever... If the crew is say 6th (which is pretty high compared to the most everyone else in the setting), having Early be 8th to 10th level would be fairly representative. Furthermore, The Man doesn't even need to be particularly high level to be dangerous. It's his influence that's really the major threat, and not his physical potency. Oh, and Mr. Niska is TOTALLY one of the halfling mafia (I don't have my books with me). How do I make someone like Atherton Wing, who is only a minor noble, probaly not of high level, a threat to my Captain?:confused: Easy. He's RICH. He's got armies of thugs. Political clout. The Alliance Government probably likes him (he probably greases the right wheels and can get help if he needs it). He certainly seemed to think he had enough clout that he could essentially get Inara blacklisted, professionally. So he's not a threat to take lightly. In actual level terms, perhaps he's roughly "only" Mal's level - he's just MUCH more capable in a duel than Mal is. But it's not in the straight-up fight that Atherton's a real threat... If he survives the duel, he's the type to hold a grudge. And he's got the pull to try and get his revenge in one form or another. Maybe it's simply nuisance stuff...Perhaps their dock paperwork gets misfiled, and Serenity temporarily impounded. Or contraband is planted and surreptitiously discovered during a standard inspection. He could even be really devious (likely possibility), and set up a bogus job for them through a middleman (say, smuggling some goods stolen from Niska, and the crew is told to sell the goods back to one of Niska's henchmen that was aware of the original theft). This way, the problem is solved as far as Wing's concerned, and he didn't even have to get his own hands dirty, thanks to Mr. Niska. (But then again...perhaps he can turn out to be a decent fellow after all - dramatic turnabouts and all that, and come to the Crew's aid for some reason) If he doesn't survive the duel (the PCs go out of their way to ensure he's dead, or just assassinate him via another means), the repercussions are likely to be serious (nabbing the murderers of a street thug aren't a high priority for Alliance Marshals...but arresting the murderers of a wealthy up-and-coming politician/businessman...). Furthermore, he probably has powerful friends that may try to get some revenge. Anyway, some food for thought.
Darkwood avatar 01-06-07, 08:04 PM	Originally posted by Cloud Divider Any reason the Book analogue isn't a Cleric? I mean, if you're intentionally playing up the "He's more than he appears to be..." angle, and don't want him to be a proper Cleric, what you've got is fine. You can certainly be a faithful member of the faith, and perhaps even act in some authority without being a spell-slinging Cleric. the "More than he appears to be" was what I was going for and having him as a monk gives him the ability to fight the bad guys without actually killing them all the time. and the Beauty of religions in Eberron is that you don't have to be a Cleric to be a member of the clergy. I was thinkign that his background would be something like an elite unit from one of the five nations during the last war. I was actually that Karrnath, due to it being the most like the alliance, would fit nicely. Originally Posted By Cloud Divider I'd really consider making her a monk as the primary (and it's intentionally vague as to what flavor of monastic training she actually received) - unless you want her to be "late season" River, where she's demonstrating a bit more "actual power", Monk would be a pretty solid solution. Maybe start her out as Monk, but later on give her some levels of Psychic Warrior. That Is perfect just the inspiration I needed it would explain her knowledge of weapons as well as her unusual fighting. I was also looking at the Dervish prestige class and might add a few levels of that. Originally Posted By Cloud Divider Easy. He's RICH. He's got armies of thugs. Political clout. Actually what I meant was In a duel one on one how do I make him a threat to the Captain, since in a fantasy world like this the Captain would be no stranger to swords, how do I give Ath that edge he needs to be a real threat to the Capt. I considered making him a Wizard and and making the Duel a spell duel but that would make the Captain unable to take part. I also considered giving Ath a magic weapon but since a Duel is considered a fight between two opponents with no advantage except their skill he would have to give the Captain a magical weapon just to prove that he was better.
Wizardman 01-07-07, 03:53 AM	If you want Atherton to be a threat, I'd suggest making him a straight-up Swashbuckler of Mal's level. He'd have a higher BAB, so he'd be more of a threat in a duel. If you don't have Complete Warrior, make him a fighter and have him take feats suitable for light weapons like the rapier.
Cloud Divider 01-07-07, 05:14 PM	Actually what I meant was In a duel one on one how do I make him a threat to the Captain, since in a fantasy world like this the Captain would be no stranger to swords, how do I give Ath that edge he needs to be a real threat to the Capt. Well, one notion, might be to make the Capt a ranged-weapon specialist - ie Weapon Focus/Spec in Repeating Crossbow (or whatever). Thus in the duel, while he'll be able to fall back on his BAB, he's not getting all of his usual bonuses. Whereas Atherton has Weapon Focus/Spec, the Feat that lets you shift BAB to AC, all the goodies that optimize him for a close combat duel. Heck, maybe even consider making him a Duelist (PrC), though that would likely mean you have to sacrifice getting him a different class for his businessman/politician side... So let's say both characters have a +5 BAB. Give Atherton other modifiers for another +2 or +3 (Weapon Focus, Finessed weapon, MW weapon or +1 weapon), that'll net him a total around 3 points better than Capt. Assume the duel is unarmored - AC is now pretty much entirely based on Dex and any AC-boosting Feats. Assume the Capt has something like a +1 Dex - give Ath a +2 or +3 (so 1 or 2 points better AC). Give Ath any other relevant AC-boosting Feats (e.g. Dodge). That'll push Ath's AC to 2-3 points better than Capt's. Once the fighting starts, Ath can use Defensive Fighting (or whatever it's called), boosting his AC over the Capt's, perhaps giving him as much as a 5-6 point lead, and still keep rough parity on his attack bonus. This way, Ath is really hard to land a telling blow on, while he's still reasonably likely to land a hit on the Capt. Alternately, one big difference is that the Capt will be much more of a generalist than Atherton - the Capt can fly, command, fight, plan, run a business, gather information, etc, and his stat distribution should reflect that. Actually, something that might be even better... The duel is UNARMED. It's a kung-fu duel. The catch is that Ath either has Improved Unarmed Combat, or is a class that has that ability. Unfortunately, Capt doesn't. Maybe Ath has just enough Monk levels to add his Wisdom bonus to his AC as well. So anytime the Capt tries to land a blow, he provokes an AoO from Ath. If you want to be even uglier, make sure Ath still has all those relevant feats described above (Weapon Focus:Unarmed, etc). ... Back to River. Another neat idea, if you're happy to go with her as an escaped Inspired experiment - the Eberron analog for the men with blue hands are Inspired goons (perhaps even with Quori spirits)...