Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Hideous Phidias 11-28-05, 11:00 PM	Has anyone done a Lord of the rings or Harry Potter campaign in Eberron? I was thinking of working on a new Campaign for my player and Was think of doing it at a magic school. I mean I was not going to run the same plot but take the idea of young wizard and have then adventure as they are still going through their schooling. I think to make it work I would have to run a Gestalt game. every one would have to have one of their classes be wizard and the other being what ever they want.
DoveArrow 11-29-05, 10:18 AM	Take a look at Arcanix University in Aundair. It has a lot of the qualities of Hogwart's (lightning rail coming up to it, right on the coast, nearby forest, etc.) and it's considered one of the premiere magic schools in Khorvaire.
Zalaz Mavi 11-29-05, 10:31 AM	As close as I've come was to replace D&D's concept of "chromatic" dragon species with the Goblet of Fire's "characteristics" concept. Given the tone and elements of the Harry Potter novels, I think it'd work very well in Eberron. Although "muggles" might be problematic. Perhaps they are the inhabitants of a luddite commune, denouncing all use of magic?...
reese 11-29-05, 12:01 PM	i recently have come under the harry potter influence again myself, and am actually working on NPC's to use as teachers based on the characters. however i'm running into trouble converting harry potter magic to D&D magic. but, here's what i came up with so far: Dumbledore male human transmuter 13 archmage 2 Flitwick male gnome enchanter 8 Lupin male human werewolf wizard 5 rogue 2 Snape male human necromancer 10 Moody male dwarf wizard or artificer 6 ranger 2 arcanamach 2 Sirius male half-elf aristocrat 2 wizard 6 Hagrid male shifter wizard 1 ranger 5 beastmaster 1 McGonagall female changeling(?) transmuter 9 Trelawney female kalashtar diviner 7 Notes: as far as dumbledore goes, he's supposedly at least the second most powerful wizard in the world according to the book, but the fleshweaver is an 18th level transmuter. odds are the two know of each other and dumbledore could give him a real good fight at least. flitwick was really a no brainer he's hardly mentioned lupin is obviuosly a werewolf but i added rogue levels because he spends most his time undercover. snape is a necromancer no way around it. i don't have MoE yet but the cannith alchemist might work on him as well. maybe some rogue levels? moody will probaly be an artificer in my campaign, if he's a wizard he can't make the BAB for the arcanamach (CoA BTW). another reason? he made his own leg and eye. sirius wouldn't have to be teacher exactly, he'd make a good foriegn correspondant/agent/thing. or somebody to break out of dreadhold. if you wanted to allow the half-giants from XPH feel free, but just decided to make hagrid a really big shifter McGonagall being a changeling would be a nice break from the stereo type of her race, and explain why she would be a transmuter, instead of just being a really old lady. and trewalney is a bit spacy so i made her a kalashtar for better or worse, she could also have some psion levels if that suits your fancy.
Isran_Imrador 11-29-05, 01:45 PM	As close as I've come was to replace D&D's concept of "chromatic" dragon species with the Goblet of Fire's "characteristics" concept. You mean the Karrnathii Fireball, The Mror Horntail, & the Aundairian Shortsnout (sorry if i miss-spell here)
ThoughtShifter 11-29-05, 02:33 PM	I've also been playing around with the idea of converting some harry potter elements into eberron! 2 of the main idea's i've had are: Making a DEATH EATER PrC, probably arcane followers of Vol with the Dark Mark being the symbol of the "blood of vol" with the mark of death in it's mouth! & Making Dementors as monsters... I'm not sure of the mechanics behind doing this tho! I really like the idea of the "Dementor's Kiss", I was thinking it would involve a ref save first to avoid, then a will save, to resist then a fort save or die! If anyone has some idea's for mechanic's for either of these ideas I'd love to hear them!
Jancarius 11-29-05, 02:57 PM	Too many saves. A triple save would mean either you'd have to set the DCs ridiculously high, or no one would ever fail. Consider the Grey Jester from Heroes of Horror, they have a Dementor like ability to steal the joy out of people.
Hideous Phidias 11-29-05, 10:05 PM	What I thinking about going with is maybe just the magic school aspect of the Harry Potter story line. Having a group of Studets ( the party) learning magic at the school and the Campaign would be the diferent things that happen to them during their school years. The whole dark lord and death eaters thing that is plot book, I don't think I know someone who does not know something about it, and what fun is a campaign if the player know the plot before it happens. I was just going to use some elements of the plot to help my own, as well for plot elements from The Lord of the Rings too.
Hideous Phidias 11-29-05, 10:11 PM	What I was wondering is what what be the place where you would put the magic school. I mean there are so many choses and everyone has their own plot line. like placing it in Karrnath The Order of the Emerald Claw could take the place of the Death eaters as a group who is slowly working there way into the School and student body. Or in Sharn where there are hudred of dangers to put the Students ( party) aat the door step of death. What I would love to hear is where would you as DM place the School and what local plots would be entangling the Student body?
rampant 11-30-05, 03:34 AM	the 13 towers only place to pull so many diverse backgrounds together for young mages
maollelujah 11-30-05, 03:56 AM	A good place for it would be Thronehold. There would be a lot of entrigue there due to its proximity to a number of countries and its place as old capital.
a_psh 11-30-05, 04:22 AM	Making Dementors as monsters... I'm not sure of the mechanics behind doing this tho! I really like the idea of the "Dementor's Kiss", I was thinking it would involve a ref save first to avoid, then a will save, to resist then a fort save or die!I think you're overthinking it a bit. Why not just use the standard rules for energy drain or ability drain? Dementor = wraith. Change touch attack to drain Wis or Cha if so desired. Et voila! Don't even need to make up new stats or change the CR.
Hideous Phidias 11-30-05, 01:05 PM	I was thinking of Placing the school in Arcanix in Aundair and getting the pcs rapped up in the Plotts there dealing with the Druids and Thrame forcs in Thaliost. Maybe in Breland in sharn or new Cyre. There they could help to rebuild new Cyre or wonder around the city getting in to trouble. I Even gave Karrnath some though because the fact during the last war they had open many new arcane schoools to help fight the war.
Hideous Phidias 11-30-05, 03:14 PM	I am going to go with Arcanix, Aundair is right in the middle of every thing. The Eldeen Reaches on the west, Karrnath and Thrane to the east and south Breland. There is even house lyrander in the noth (Stromhome). Plot ideas I thought may work with such a campaign. 1) He party is drawn in to the plot by first warlaord Adal to make a arcane attack on Thaliost. 2) THe king of Breland is dead and breland be comes a Republic and Queen Aurala worries about her own throne. 3) The Emerald Claw steels Adal's research for a weapon and the Party be comes invalved in get it back. 4) The retaking of the Eldeen Reaches begins and the party be come entangled in the war. 5) The Emeral Claw as workd it way into the Student body of the Shool and starting to make trouble for Aundair. 7) The Silver Flame has gotton wizards to plot aganst the Queen and start a civil war, allowing Thrane to take over the Country. What I have been trying to figure out is should I have the pcs as wizard who have finished there training or still students, and if they are still student how do I work that? The other thing is i need a good idea that will allow the party to leave the School for some time but maintain relationship with it and return to learn more.
Gurv 11-30-05, 05:48 PM	I am already in the process of planning an Arcanix / Harry Potter game, so I'll say what I have in mind. The game is going to be gestalt, with each PC choosing a class to combine with wizard. This way, there will be diversity between the characters, while at the same time they will all be students of wizardry. Furthermore, each of the wizards will be a specialist, with none of them playing the same kind of specialist. And when selecting their barred schools, they'll have to pick from the schools that the others have specialized in. The goal again is to give everyone a role to fill, while preventing them from sharing every spell they have access to. Transmutation is too large and important a school to bar to anyone, so I'm not allowing anyone to specialize in it. Regardless of what they choose to be, they'll all be able to learn divination, transmutation, and universal spells and I can plan accordingly. So far, I've heard pitches from players about an artificer/abjurer, a rogue/illusionist, and even an incarnate/conjurer. Unlike Harry Potter, the characters in this game will be young adults, making it more like "Harry Potter in college". They won't have to worry about detention when they get in trouble, but they will have to worry about things like tuition and paying their own way...and getting in enough trouble could have legal consequences. This will allow them the freedom to pursue adventures without being in bed at lights out. Arcanix will have rules about things like magic items. I am thinking of making the possession of certain types be a privilege that must be earned. For example, use of wands might be restricted to those who have studied for more than a year, while a staff might only be allowed to those who have prove themselves in their area of expertise. There is something to be said against rich apprentice wizards showing up with a powerful magical item and lording it over the teachers. Of course, there will be acceptations to the rules at times. I also fully expect the PCs to hide a stash of otherwise "contraband" items for use when things get hairy. There will still be academic expectations, of course. I'm not sure how I'm going to work that yet. Mostly by tracking how often they manage to get to their various courses and such. I think that granting bonus XP to those who do so will best reflect the better education they receive, as well as reward them for dealing with the adventures inside an additional timetable. Actually becoming better at what one is supposed to be studying will count here. Of course, there will be lots of tests too, and those I think will be most interesting...ideas include using the Maze of Shadowy Terror as well as variants of the wizard competitions in the Complete Arcane. As much as I wish I could incorporate a Quidditch-like game, I can't think of a good mechanic. Running such a sport would be like running an extremely complex combat with dozens of additional rules. But for "extracurricular" activities, I do think I will have ritualized spell dueling (as presented in CA) with variant rules ranging from using pure arcane power to including the tactics being learned by the future Knights Phantom. Instead of having the "houses" of HP, new students will be encouraged to sort themselves into groups. These groups will be officially recognized by the administration and groups will rise or fall as one; the hope being that the group will be able to aid the individual and that individuals will act wisely to avoid bringing down the group. Naturally, this will produce a ready-made reason for the PCs to care about what happens to one another: a problem for one becomes a problem for all. I hate it when PC groups have no in-game reason to be together. ------------ Now, all that is the set-up I've devised for how Arcanix works. Now, what kind of adventures am I going to send them on? What are the adventure hooks? One of the players is going to be paying his way through school with the profits of a business he has been given control over. As long as the shop (I'm thinking a simple blacksmith) stays in business, he stays in school. Using the rules in the DMGII, it should be easy to abstract. The shop also produces connections with the community, and might become a home base of sorts too. Between the table of ideas that comes with the rules in the DMGII and my own ideas, plot hooks will abound. Groups of students might be sent on various missions for the professors. Not "adventures" as such, but just simple tasks that can cause them to run into small encounters and such. Gathering rare spell components. Investigating a rumored magical event/location. Delivering a commissioned magical item to a buyer. While they're doing these things, they can have random-type encounters that can lead into more serious adventures. As the corollary of this, another student-group might be sent to do something similar and have trouble themselves, with the PCs investigating. Other young wizards, up to no good. I'm hoping to develop some decent rivals for the PCs, of different types. If a PC show an interest in spell-dueling, it might be someone skilled in that. Other adversaries might be more diplomatic in nature, just taking a dislike to the PC and trying to show them up elsewhere. The actions of senior wizards and the Arcane Congress. The PCs might stumble on something that the War Wizards are doing and take an interest. They might learn enough to be useful and be asked to help...or they might learn too much and become a threat the a secret project. ------------ In addition, I'm still working on an overall plot. Something similar to the Return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named...but without ripping it off. My current (unfinished) idea involves the discovery of incarnum by one of the professors, and it's introduction to Khorvaire. Although the story is well-known about how he stumbled upon Skarn civilization and was taken in and taught their ways before returning home with that knowledge, it isn't the whole truth. Like HP, the truth will involve an earlier generation learning something dramatic (the possibilities inherent in incarnum, in this case). The professor who "stumbled" upon Skarn society was actually seeking it and its secrets all along, something that his peers knew would be bad if he succeeded (since he wasn't really a good fella). He managed to convince the Skarn otherwise and learn to be an incarnate, while also getting rid of those who know the truth about his nature. But those peers left behind clues, and continue to affect the game in other ways. But that's still the raw idea, minus great detail. The players themselves have ideas about how things should be, and I'm hoping to produce a game that will be fun, with plenty of room for HP-style fun as well as standard D&D adventuring.
DavidB 11-30-05, 06:10 PM	All this sounds like RedHurst: Academy of Magic published by humanhead studios. Search on either to find it. The book is set up like a student's handbook and contains stats for all the instructors and a map of the campus. There are also rules for gaining XP from the classes and such as well as rules for cost. There is also a game called Spellflag. There are web enhancements at the web site that have adventures and also rules on how to play Spellflag in a game.
bookwurmneo 12-01-05, 01:12 AM	I like the idea of a "Harry Potter" game and I think setting it in Arcanix is an interesting idea. To me it seams a good way to ignore the vast political web that spans Khorvaire. However, instead of making the voldemort-analogue a incarnate, I would make him a cataclysm mage instead with his prophecies based on destruction centered on Aundair and Arcanix in particular. Instead of having the students be forcibly sent into small cliches, I would go with the college model and have different majors and orders(fraternities and sororities). In some colleges, all freshmen have to take a 100-level class which is basically an introduction to college life, at least the academic side of it. In the mage school, all students have to take the "world of magic" class, a primer into the academy and the wide spectrum of studies offered therein. The players would be students of this class, who after the first lesson (adventure) are asked/forced to join a small order. The rest of the campaign would have them focus on doing well in school thru the tests you mentioned, improving the image and power of their order and attempting to defeat the big bad.
Brastan 12-01-05, 02:19 AM	Making Dementors as monsters... I'm not sure of the mechanics behind doing this tho! I really like the idea of the "Dementor's Kiss", I was thinking it would involve a ref save first to avoid, then a will save, to resist then a fort save or die! If anyone has some idea's for mechanic's for either of these ideas I'd love to hear them! Well a_psh is spot on with the wraith as a good stand in with some tweaks. However if you want to develop your own monster I would suggest only one save, probably Fort for partial. Fail and die, save and take Cha damage. Your Ref save can be replaced by a Grapple check as thats what's happening. The Dementor needs to Pin the victim to do the kiss. A will save is needed to overcome the chill and draining effect. This would be an aura that would cause Fatigue and would be Mind Affecting Will prevents. Say they need to make the save every 5 rounds or there abouts. This would build as a Fatigued creature that gets hit again becomes Exhausted by the nature of the two conditions. A -6 to Str and Dex is going to keep most creatures from winning a grapple. I'd make them as Aberrations not Undead as I don't think they were spirits or ghostly creatures in the books. I could be wrong there but they seem to fit the bill of Aberration better. In Eberron this would make Warforged the most resilient to the influence of a Dementor but that makes sense considering what they are. As for challage, I see Dementors as one of those encouters if handled properly will be very easy. However an unprepared group will probably be dead with in a few minutes.
ChronosCrow 12-27-05, 02:18 AM	Yeah, I'm currently in the process of making my own campaign like this. I'm making a magic school that will be inside of Sharn, it will be a specialized department of the Morgrave University. The Estonia Kinship: http://www.losstupid.com/Estonia/index.html I developed a more in depth counterspell system too. Not a ton on it, but I'm going to try and add some more flavor and development to it. In normal D&D you counterspell in one round that that's that. In HP, they can spend a good 12-18 seconds or more on one counterspell attack. So, I'm trying to flavor things up. I also created a few more feats that apply to counterspelling. I haven't got made up the rules to lengthen counterspelling time over rounds, though.
Tyryt 12-28-05, 01:02 PM	While I don't think that using D&D for Harry Potter adaptations would work too good, mainlybecause the magic systems are so different (Mage would probably work much better), I do think the idea of basing characters in a magic school would be neat. Keep in mind also that likely each nation would/should have it's own 'Magic Acadamy', just as Hogwarts isn't the only one in HP. They also should not gennerally be in close proximity to cities or at least major population centers, since it is a *tad* bit dangerous, and lots of space is needed for other things. The big problem I see, is that most NPCs are not incredibly high level, which means that the school would be a good starting place, but it's likely that adventurers, as opposed to regular people, would quickly outstrip their peers and even teachers in terms of level and skill. IMO, I couldn't imagine the teachers at such a thing to be higher than 3rd level, 5th at most, with the master of the school maybe being 7th. You have to remember, they are mostly teaching the rich young nobles and such, and pretty much just the basics (adepts, magewrights). It would be neat to have things start there though, with 1st level characters in their final year or something, and have these few 'destined', outshine their peers and possibly go on to become teachers/proffesors themselves, though taking frequent trips out (adventures) going after particular goals (old artifacts, relics, special ingrediants, rare creatures, etc). Not to mention the magical duels and games between rival schools that would involve teachers as much as students as each tries to prove it's superiority to gain the most prestegious students.... Tyryt
Missekat 12-29-05, 01:38 PM	This sounds both fu and interesting. I would dearly love to play in such a capaign, but unfortunately I'm the DM of the group and none of the others want to DM any Eberron. Still.. all your ideas look great. Very inspiring :D
Hideous Phidias 12-30-05, 02:00 AM	Ok, it has been a long time sence I look at this thread and suprised to see it again. But I happy to see that people are still intrested in the idea of a Harry Potter type game in Eberron. I started the thread to see if there were any out there ideas I could use for the game. I found that the general feeling was the to forms of magic were hard to work together. I gave this and A few other things thought before running my game. (That is right I am the DM not you Missekat, who ever you are.) My game, is baced out of the Arcane college in Aundair at Arcanix. There the players now working in the last years of their schooling. Working more on their own, they are more free to leave the campus and adventure to find new Arcane knowledge for themselves and the school. The idea of the campaign is not toput the Harry Potter world in Eberron with Dementors, Death Eaters, and The Darklord chasing after one boy who holds the key to destroying them. The idea is to have an adventure based around students at an arcane college. Although, I was thinking of the silver flame acting as a stand in for the death eater type role, makeing the 13 year old Jaela Daran the new darlord. I thought it was a nice twist having the the students be more adult and the darklord the age of the children from the first Harry Potter book. My campaign started off on a feild trip in to the wood around Arcanix to gather nature spell componete for one of the higher level mages thatruns an advance class that the party is trying to get into. On their way back to the camp site for the night meal the party runs into a grooup of their freind acompanied by a wizard carring a large package and bundel of letters. Then they are attacked from the wood by Gnolls,in the melee the wizard and two of the party friends are killed. This is the pointwere one of the party member mad the Dms life hell,he pockets the package and letters and trys to read them later. The package was a old cyran spell book on the way to the Minister of magic, Adal. It has been badly damaged and is only good as a tool for research of higher level spells that it once comtained. The teacher learn of this and have the students finish delvering the "package" to the Minister of Magic, but he has traveled to Stormhome from Arcanix. So they are give tickets to a Lyrandar airship head there. traveling third class the party spends three days meeting people in the airship lounge. on the third day the airship is attacked by a group of mercenaries looking for the book. Short story is the ship goes down in flames the party barely makes it off with only one death amoung them. (The half fey tried to fly off the ship in front of the fire wheel.) Now they find themselves on a beach alone and lost....
Hideous Phidias 01-03-06, 04:13 PM	Ok I have my party on an island in the north sea off the coast of Stormhome after the Lyrandar airship they were on went down after an attack. The island is the home of an Elven wizard (illusionist), who has built a tower there. The island is under a few permanenit effects that hide it from travelers. I was lookng for other ideas of what to have on the island as encounters or things in the tower. Keeping in mind the Pc just hit second level. So if you have an idea, thanks .....
SirPudding 01-04-06, 10:09 PM	I was checkin' out the Korranberg chronicle website. I know breland has orcball but has anyone made rules for quidditch?