Putting UA to good use [Archive] - Wizards Community

Putting UA to good use [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
ThoughtfulOwl
03-04-04, 08:50 AM A book full of variant rules is an amazing thing, but at some point the drooling must give way to the tough questions: how can I best use these rules? When should I not use them?

In order to address these questions, I propose this thread both as a source of advice and as ground for speculation. My intent is to collect suggestions about what kind of styles, themes, approaches or campaigns any given UA variant can enhance; combinations of variants are fair play, as are personal twists or extensions of variants.

Given the number of variants available for discussion, I also beg to keep debating at a minimum to avoid cluttering the thread, especially if the point is about mechanical deficiencies; please start separate threads if needed.

I'll begin with some suggestions.

Gestalt Characters

The themed party
"Ha! I'm a mighty mage... wait, you too?"
Some campaign concepts are about a tightly themed party; so tightly themed, in fact, that most if not all the characters are supposed to share abilities of a certain kind: an example is a Wuxia campaign, where everybody an their dog is an accomplished martial artist; other examples that come to mind are a campaign where all characters are members of the Order of Arcane Magic, one in which all the party is entirely made up by sneakers (an elite guerrilla unit, a group of burglars, a group of scouts and explorers) or one in which every PC has levels in the same organization based PrC.
While multiclassing, feat choices and skill choices can make these set-ups possible without shoehorning the PCs into being all clones of one another, it still has problems: it can be inefficient and it still reduces variety within the party. With gestalt characters, however, the players can dedicate one side of the progression toward fulfilling the theme, leaving the other half available to define each PC.
Taking the Wuxia example, everybody might take levels in Monk or Fighter and yet there could be the combat fanatic (Ftr/Mnk), the spiritualist (Clr/Mnk), the warlock (Sor/Ftr) and so on.

The small party
"What do you mean 'it's just you and me?'"
This is already suggested in the book itself, but it is worth repeating. While the ideal party is made of at least four Pcs, sometimes you find yourself in a game with only two or three players or even a solo adventure; such a smaller pool of competences requires either to redesign every challenge to fit the party or pump up the numbers with spotlight-stealing cohorts or NPCs. With the gestalt option, however, well planned PCs can put up the competences of an ordinary party twice as big.

Jack of all trades
"I can always split the skull of anybody I can't charm."
DnD classes fall into well defined roles; in fact, too well defined for some games. After all, many heroes of literature have a broad range of skills: the powerful warlock who is also a skilled warrior or the raging berserker who is also the skald of his trible are some examples. While multiclassing and certain PrCs do help, gestalt streamlines the whole process.

The epic campaign
"Stop bothering me; I don't move for less than 100 orcs!"
Here I don't mean epic levels, but rather an epic, over the top style. The gestalt option can be used just to enhance the feeling that the PCs are truly above the norm heroes. Now, if there weren't those above the norm villains...

The low-magic campaign (or other balance screwers)
"A +3 sword? Never seen one in all my life, but I always have my Magic Weapon spell."
Face it: the classes and the challenges are balanced only if a relatively high amount of magical equipment is taken for granted; limiting the availability of magic items topples it, forcing the DM to do a lot of additional work. The gestalt option becomes at this point a possible balancing factor, giving to the characters a broader variety of skills (especially spells or special abilities) to make up for the lack of equipment.

Recharge Magic

Extensive dungeon crawling
“Fifthy rooms? Sigh, where did I put my ‘Map Making 101’ book?
Already mentioned in the book, this option is good for games where the characters face several encounters per day; since spells become self-replenishing (and through healing magic it also happens for HPs), the PCs can clean up a massive dungeon in one shot, instead of taking two weeks of “teleport away, rest and come back”; this also takes away the burden of taking into account how the surviving denizens have reorganized since yesterday.

Sparse encounters
“Ok, it’s five days from here to the city where our enemy escaped. Let’s go.”
Sometimes the characters face only one or two battles per day: maybe they travel a lot; maybe the campaign is full of exploration or social encounters, leaving few occasions that require extensive use of spells. The problem is that when these encounters happen the non-casters stand aside, watching as the spellcasters happily throw all their most powerful spells, since they do not have to save them for another battle.
While the recharge magic variant gives long term autonomy, it limits it in the short term; the wizard who casted one of its highest level spells at the beginning of the encounter has to wait 2~7 rounds before doing it again: by that time, the encounter might be already over. The variant gives back the challenge both to casters (who can’t throw four meteor swarms in a row any longer) and non-casters (who get the chance to contribute).

Shorter term tactics
“To each his own, my friend. ‘The art of war’ to you, ‘the art of magic war’ to me.”
Recharge magic can be used just because the players like more short-term and less long-term thinking. On one side, you don’t have to decide whether it is better to cast a spell now or to save it for later, except a few encounter winning or non combat spells; on the other, you must choose if it is better to cast one of your highest level spells right now and maybe losing that spell level until the end of the combat or to cast a weaker spell and save the big guns an case an emergency arises.

Toying with spell availability
“Scry, teleport in, kill the bad guy and teleport out? Got to make some scrolls of teleport.”
Specific recharge spells go a long way into defining the role of magic within the campaign; for example, create food and water has a recharge time of 24 hours: it means that a cleric can sustain his party, but he can no longer provide food for a whole fortress under siege; it would take either a big, costly and dwindling stock of scrolls/wands/staves, or a significant portion of the defenders should be made up by clerics.
By changing some recharge times across the board, the DM can radically change how a spell is used. If, for example, rampant use of the detect alignment spells is ruining your game, change their recharge time from general to 6 hours (or 24); conversely, an artifact that cuts the recharge time of enchantment spells would be fiercely sought after. You might even make up feats or PrCs that reduce the recharge time of certain spells, or maybe you might allow specialist wizards to learn and cast prohibited spells… with a recharge time of 24 hours!
Nan Lung
04-22-04, 10:10 AM Wow, was just reading over some of the old treads (as I just purchased the book today) and found this little gem.

:bump:
Salla
04-22-04, 04:29 PM I was briefly toying with the of running a Gestalt game where everybody had to be Monk/Something as students of a Ninja school. :)
Pagan priest
04-22-04, 05:05 PM I am planning to do a wuxia game sometime soon. I will be using gestalt characters, armor as damage reduction (with the damage reduced as non-leathal damage, rather than just disappearing) and class based defense bonus. Characters will either be monk/something or martial artist/something (from Beyond Monks.

The characters will choose which monastery they come from, which will determine monk fighting style. They will have reserve hit points and be able to dodge out of turn. The massive damage threshold will be determined by hit dice, failing the save will have the character dying instead of dead, but if the fail the save by more than 5 points, they are near death (-8 hit points).

Oh, and they will have action point to spend.
Votan
04-22-04, 10:46 PM My favorite part is actually the generic classes. They are accused of being too vanilla. But actually they are the ultimate custom characters. With the ability to pick feats, skill lists and any spell you can make almost any character concept work in a very elegant fashion. It is a very nice thing.
Lina_Inverse
04-23-04, 01:27 AM hmmmm well,i plan to use injury saves and a defense rule,though the progression will be diffrent from the one presented(hint its based on hitdice)that and no magic,psi powers and low equipment.

of course on the equipment thing pcs are compensated by better attribute advancement and new feats for the non-manifestors.
radu the wanderer
04-23-04, 02:58 AM the Bloodline Campaign:

Bloodlines as Regional/Class/Cultural Definition
Bloodlines could be used to define the countries of your came world. Similar to the "Gestalt as Party Theme" the specific Bloodlines your players could choose from would make for a very interesting game. For example, Sean Reynolds is currently running a game based on ancient Greece, with many cool customizations. (Check it out at his website (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/cj/argonauts/argonauts_index.html) !) You could, for instance, give everyone a Titan bloodline, or perhaps Minotaur, Hag, the various Elementals, or even Fey and Lycanthrope bloodlines.

Bloodlines can also be used to define noble houses within a kingdom. Perhaps each house is associated with a certain bloodline, and lineage relies not so much on direct ancestry as bloodline strength. Perhaps the House of Dareth, known for their close connection to nature, ignores any but Major Bloodline descendants. Where would those of "impure" blood go? Why, adventuring, of course!

Bloodlines could even be tied to certain character classes in your game. Imagine, for instance, that all Druids had to have either an Elemental or Fey bloodline of some strength. What if Paladins had the Celestial bloodline? What if all the Rangers in your world had a Lycanthrope bloodline, or maybe just some? Why?

What if all dragons had long since died out, but the Dragon Bloodlines were still going strong? All PC's possess a dragon bloodline of one strength or another in this game. Perhaps there are certain forces trying to eliminate even this small trace of dragons, and thus hunt down characters with any dragon blood. Maybe they only want to eliminate certain bloodlines--- perhaps they have a special hatred for Black dragons.

Bloodlines are also a good way to make "epic" type games, not in sense of epic levels but epic challenges. Imagine if you gave players a major bloodline for free, without having to take bloodline levels. Compared to other characters of their level, they are significantly more powerful, capable of taking on truly heroic threats.

This ties in nicely with themed games or games involving a heavy amount or racial/class/national tension. By this I mean social class, not character class, but of course, there's that too!
princeofcincinnati
04-23-04, 09:49 AM Originally posted by Votan
My favorite part is actually the generic classes. They are accused of being too vanilla. But actually they are the ultimate custom characters. With the ability to pick feats, skill lists and any spell you can make almost any character concept work in a very elegant fashion. It is a very nice thing.

I like the Generic Classes also and will be using them in my Dark Horizon campaign.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ThoughtfulOwl 03-04-04, 08:50 AM	A book full of variant rules is an amazing thing, but at some point the drooling must give way to the tough questions: how can I best use these rules? When should I not use them? In order to address these questions, I propose this thread both as a source of advice and as ground for speculation. My intent is to collect suggestions about what kind of styles, themes, approaches or campaigns any given UA variant can enhance; combinations of variants are fair play, as are personal twists or extensions of variants. Given the number of variants available for discussion, I also beg to keep debating at a minimum to avoid cluttering the thread, especially if the point is about mechanical deficiencies; please start separate threads if needed. I'll begin with some suggestions. Gestalt Characters The themed party "Ha! I'm a mighty mage... wait, you too?" Some campaign concepts are about a tightly themed party; so tightly themed, in fact, that most if not all the characters are supposed to share abilities of a certain kind: an example is a Wuxia campaign, where everybody an their dog is an accomplished martial artist; other examples that come to mind are a campaign where all characters are members of the Order of Arcane Magic, one in which all the party is entirely made up by sneakers (an elite guerrilla unit, a group of burglars, a group of scouts and explorers) or one in which every PC has levels in the same organization based PrC. While multiclassing, feat choices and skill choices can make these set-ups possible without shoehorning the PCs into being all clones of one another, it still has problems: it can be inefficient and it still reduces variety within the party. With gestalt characters, however, the players can dedicate one side of the progression toward fulfilling the theme, leaving the other half available to define each PC. Taking the Wuxia example, everybody might take levels in Monk or Fighter and yet there could be the combat fanatic (Ftr/Mnk), the spiritualist (Clr/Mnk), the warlock (Sor/Ftr) and so on. The small party "What do you mean 'it's just you and me?'" This is already suggested in the book itself, but it is worth repeating. While the ideal party is made of at least four Pcs, sometimes you find yourself in a game with only two or three players or even a solo adventure; such a smaller pool of competences requires either to redesign every challenge to fit the party or pump up the numbers with spotlight-stealing cohorts or NPCs. With the gestalt option, however, well planned PCs can put up the competences of an ordinary party twice as big. Jack of all trades "I can always split the skull of anybody I can't charm." DnD classes fall into well defined roles; in fact, too well defined for some games. After all, many heroes of literature have a broad range of skills: the powerful warlock who is also a skilled warrior or the raging berserker who is also the skald of his trible are some examples. While multiclassing and certain PrCs do help, gestalt streamlines the whole process. The epic campaign "Stop bothering me; I don't move for less than 100 orcs!" Here I don't mean epic levels, but rather an epic, over the top style. The gestalt option can be used just to enhance the feeling that the PCs are truly above the norm heroes. Now, if there weren't those above the norm villains... The low-magic campaign (or other balance screwers) "A +3 sword? Never seen one in all my life, but I always have my Magic Weapon spell." Face it: the classes and the challenges are balanced only if a relatively high amount of magical equipment is taken for granted; limiting the availability of magic items topples it, forcing the DM to do a lot of additional work. The gestalt option becomes at this point a possible balancing factor, giving to the characters a broader variety of skills (especially spells or special abilities) to make up for the lack of equipment. Recharge Magic Extensive dungeon crawling “Fifthy rooms? Sigh, where did I put my ‘Map Making 101’ book? Already mentioned in the book, this option is good for games where the characters face several encounters per day; since spells become self-replenishing (and through healing magic it also happens for HPs), the PCs can clean up a massive dungeon in one shot, instead of taking two weeks of “teleport away, rest and come back”; this also takes away the burden of taking into account how the surviving denizens have reorganized since yesterday. Sparse encounters “Ok, it’s five days from here to the city where our enemy escaped. Let’s go.” Sometimes the characters face only one or two battles per day: maybe they travel a lot; maybe the campaign is full of exploration or social encounters, leaving few occasions that require extensive use of spells. The problem is that when these encounters happen the non-casters stand aside, watching as the spellcasters happily throw all their most powerful spells, since they do not have to save them for another battle. While the recharge magic variant gives long term autonomy, it limits it in the short term; the wizard who casted one of its highest level spells at the beginning of the encounter has to wait 2~7 rounds before doing it again: by that time, the encounter might be already over. The variant gives back the challenge both to casters (who can’t throw four meteor swarms in a row any longer) and non-casters (who get the chance to contribute). Shorter term tactics “To each his own, my friend. ‘The art of war’ to you, ‘the art of magic war’ to me.” Recharge magic can be used just because the players like more short-term and less long-term thinking. On one side, you don’t have to decide whether it is better to cast a spell now or to save it for later, except a few encounter winning or non combat spells; on the other, you must choose if it is better to cast one of your highest level spells right now and maybe losing that spell level until the end of the combat or to cast a weaker spell and save the big guns an case an emergency arises. Toying with spell availability “Scry, teleport in, kill the bad guy and teleport out? Got to make some scrolls of teleport.” Specific recharge spells go a long way into defining the role of magic within the campaign; for example, create food and water has a recharge time of 24 hours: it means that a cleric can sustain his party, but he can no longer provide food for a whole fortress under siege; it would take either a big, costly and dwindling stock of scrolls/wands/staves, or a significant portion of the defenders should be made up by clerics. By changing some recharge times across the board, the DM can radically change how a spell is used. If, for example, rampant use of the detect alignment spells is ruining your game, change their recharge time from general to 6 hours (or 24); conversely, an artifact that cuts the recharge time of enchantment spells would be fiercely sought after. You might even make up feats or PrCs that reduce the recharge time of certain spells, or maybe you might allow specialist wizards to learn and cast prohibited spells… with a recharge time of 24 hours!
Nan Lung 04-22-04, 10:10 AM	Wow, was just reading over some of the old treads (as I just purchased the book today) and found this little gem. :bump:
Salla 04-22-04, 04:29 PM	I was briefly toying with the of running a Gestalt game where everybody had to be Monk/Something as students of a Ninja school. :)
Pagan priest 04-22-04, 05:05 PM	I am planning to do a wuxia game sometime soon. I will be using gestalt characters, armor as damage reduction (with the damage reduced as non-leathal damage, rather than just disappearing) and class based defense bonus. Characters will either be monk/something or martial artist/something (from Beyond Monks. The characters will choose which monastery they come from, which will determine monk fighting style. They will have reserve hit points and be able to dodge out of turn. The massive damage threshold will be determined by hit dice, failing the save will have the character dying instead of dead, but if the fail the save by more than 5 points, they are near death (-8 hit points). Oh, and they will have action point to spend.
Votan 04-22-04, 10:46 PM	My favorite part is actually the generic classes. They are accused of being too vanilla. But actually they are the ultimate custom characters. With the ability to pick feats, skill lists and any spell you can make almost any character concept work in a very elegant fashion. It is a very nice thing.
Lina_Inverse 04-23-04, 01:27 AM	hmmmm well,i plan to use injury saves and a defense rule,though the progression will be diffrent from the one presented(hint its based on hitdice)that and no magic,psi powers and low equipment. of course on the equipment thing pcs are compensated by better attribute advancement and new feats for the non-manifestors.
radu the wanderer 04-23-04, 02:58 AM	the Bloodline Campaign: Bloodlines as Regional/Class/Cultural Definition Bloodlines could be used to define the countries of your came world. Similar to the "Gestalt as Party Theme" the specific Bloodlines your players could choose from would make for a very interesting game. For example, Sean Reynolds is currently running a game based on ancient Greece, with many cool customizations. (Check it out at his website (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/cj/argonauts/argonauts_index.html) !) You could, for instance, give everyone a Titan bloodline, or perhaps Minotaur, Hag, the various Elementals, or even Fey and Lycanthrope bloodlines. Bloodlines can also be used to define noble houses within a kingdom. Perhaps each house is associated with a certain bloodline, and lineage relies not so much on direct ancestry as bloodline strength. Perhaps the House of Dareth, known for their close connection to nature, ignores any but Major Bloodline descendants. Where would those of "impure" blood go? Why, adventuring, of course! Bloodlines could even be tied to certain character classes in your game. Imagine, for instance, that all Druids had to have either an Elemental or Fey bloodline of some strength. What if Paladins had the Celestial bloodline? What if all the Rangers in your world had a Lycanthrope bloodline, or maybe just some? Why? What if all dragons had long since died out, but the Dragon Bloodlines were still going strong? All PC's possess a dragon bloodline of one strength or another in this game. Perhaps there are certain forces trying to eliminate even this small trace of dragons, and thus hunt down characters with any dragon blood. Maybe they only want to eliminate certain bloodlines--- perhaps they have a special hatred for Black dragons. Bloodlines are also a good way to make "epic" type games, not in sense of epic levels but epic challenges. Imagine if you gave players a major bloodline for free, without having to take bloodline levels. Compared to other characters of their level, they are significantly more powerful, capable of taking on truly heroic threats. This ties in nicely with themed games or games involving a heavy amount or racial/class/national tension. By this I mean social class, not character class, but of course, there's that too!
princeofcincinnati 04-23-04, 09:49 AM	Originally posted by Votan My favorite part is actually the generic classes. They are accused of being too vanilla. But actually they are the ultimate custom characters. With the ability to pick feats, skill lists and any spell you can make almost any character concept work in a very elegant fashion. It is a very nice thing. I like the Generic Classes also and will be using them in my Dark Horizon campaign.