I'm updating a level 1 adventure and want to make it feel like fourth edition Forgotten Realms. Just throw some ideas out there, I feel like I might miss good things. I don't want them to actually encounter Spellplague, but spellscarred NPCs and earthmotes are good. What else?
I'm updating a level 1 adventure and want to make it feel like fourth edition Forgotten Realms.
-Depending on what you use, and how in-depth you go and stuff, it can feel exactly like the Forgotten Realms that came before.
From my experience the Realms feel at low levels is pretty generic.
Remember the Realms is a detailed sandbox where everything D&D goes in one way or another.
So what area have you decided to start in?
From my experience the Realms feel at low levels is pretty generic.
Remember the Realms is a detailed sandbox where everything D&D goes in one way or another.
My campaign is set in Luruar (the Silver Marches). I realized I ran it in 3.0 and 3.5, so why not rewrite it and run it in 4.0?
I like the Realms for how easy to understand it is. If fantasy fans have an assumption of what a fantasy world is, the Realms are very close to that. So I don't refer to it as generic, I call it mainstream. Go with settings like Midnight (where the only god is evil) if you like, but with specificity come disadvantages.
In 3.5 I didn't like how some stuff was crammed in with a shoe-horn. Monks were a struggle to fit in. But 4.0 seems better. The rules and the setting are more integrated.
The realms has its share of specificties though, such as peoples strong inner relation to the polytheistic divine, their land and their family. This is mostly roleplay specific but some things have mechanic consequences.
3.5 monks have some very nice organisations to join in the realms. Everything can fit if you make it so as a DM, player or a fan of the setting.
Luruar has a distictive frontier feel to it. Starkly Points of Light.
-Most of the North has always had that sort of "frontier danger" feeling to it.
Yes... now there was a band I didn't need to be reminded of. Could go a long way towards explaining why I can't stand the 4e Realms really...
For example, when the characters in my game use powers that draw on the divine power source I usually say something like, "Now that the Weave is gone, the power of divinities flows freely and is unrestrained. So as you call upon your Lance of Faith, a whorl of untamed magic opens over your foe. Divine energy from the outer planes flows out of the whorl and becomes focused as it closes, shaping the power into an argent lance of divine power that strikes down into the Zombie Rotter, destroying it completely."
Another thing I do is to point out differences between the Realms as my players knew it from Third Edition and the Realms of the current game edition.
If I was describing the Vast Swamp along the old Cormyrian/Sembian border, I would say something like, “Vast wetlands and marshes spread out before you to the limits of your vision. But where once the skies were clear save for the occasional bat or juvenile green dragon, patrolling flights of veserabs and griffons from far off Daerlun can be can be seen on the horizon.”
Basically stuff like that.
Though, for the sake of 4e FR, you can always say that the world as a whole is still trying to master a new art form at this point in time.
Though, for the sake of 4e FR, you can always say that the world as a whole is still trying to master a new art form at this point in time.
That's deffinatley something I like to do.
With the drastic changes to the Weave and magic in general, I think it makes sense to promote an "arms race" sort of feel to the setting. It also is a great excuse to have NPCs sponsor adventurers or other NPCs to go rob this or that mage or travel to places far away to see how "those guys over there" are doing magic.
Throw in Returned Abeir and you've got another layer of magical mystery to add. If you figure that Abeir never had Mystra or the Weave, it makes you wonder how much more advanced they might be in using a magical power sources beyond the Weave to practice their arcane arts.
Even though by all appearances it may look weaker, the fact is that Spellcasters can now perform the same spells over and over and over.
Hmmmm... perhaps magic itself is weaker... which has given 'mere mortals' greater control over it?
That could work by way of explanation for so much - Raw Magic was far too powerful for mortals to wield, and they were forced to manipulate meager amounts of arcane energy via the Weave, but the Spellplague and 'Weave explosion' caused the massive raw Magical field around Toril to disperse, making it both weaker and yet easier to handle.
Think of it as the difference between handling raw Uranium before, and now it just has a very minute radiocative field. You may not be able to build atom bombs wth it, but at least you can carry around chunks of it in your pockets.
Am I making any sense?
Except... I can point out at least a dozen inconsistencies off the top of my head...
Still, it was cool, even if it was all in pidgin-Latin.
Sure, you can justify it a number of ways, but that still doesn't really come out to the Weave being gone making magic stronger. Matter of taste really I guess, but it seems a bit disingenous. YMMV of course.
It’s called justification/self-denial/whatever. Fact is, it’s an excuse. Use it if you need one of the three aforementioned reasons.
That's deffinatley something I like to do.
With the drastic changes to the Weave and magic in general, I think it makes sense to promote an "arms race" sort of feel to the setting. It also is a great excuse to have NPCs sponsor adventurers or other NPCs to go rob this or that mage or travel to places far away to see how "those guys over there" are doing magic.
Throw in Returned Abeir and you've got another layer of magical mystery to add. If you figure that Abeir never had Mystra or the Weave, it makes you wonder how much more advanced they might be in using a magical power sources beyond the Weave to practice their arcane arts.
Dude, you either ate shrooms right before 4e came out or continually smoke dope. I don’t know of another on these boards that can so easily be happy the way things turned out the way they did, not be able to find a reason why, and make what happened ok.
Can you hook me up, ‘cause I’m almost depressed’ at this point.
Am I making any sense?
No! Now will you shut up?! My tortoise just did a back roll when he read this. Do you know how difficult that is?
He’s 130 years old, you big boob!!
Magic could be seen as a bit weaker but that may be the reason that casters can use most of their spells many times a day. In the past the spells would be "used up" but some were a bit more potent. If I were a novelist I would want to write about caster using the 4E form of magic and not have to worry about the "vancian use it and lose it" method.
I’d say Bingo at 92.5%.
Don't remember that many glaring ones from the books... movies, certainly, books not so much. I'd be curious to know what you're thinking on that.
Thanks. You just opened up a whole new can of worms there, bud.
Never heard of it.
Would you like a cookie, but the way? :D
And no, no cookies for me. Stupid dental work is keeping me down, much like The Man.
So while the common use of magic in combat has certainly been somewhat weakened in relation to other classes abilities, within the framework of the 4th edition rules it certainly holds it's own in combat and noncombat uses. The major difference for noncombat situations is that in some situations a mundane solution is actually better, however there are things only magic can do. Rituals help magic become more special, and those with extreme/permanent durations, make preparation and forethought the hallmarks of a master of the arcane. These are elements in previous editions that seemed to be lacking, mostly because magic was not nearly as interactive. It could be done, but it certainly was not made to be easy, and it certainly was not encouraged.
So in answer to the OP while some clear visual differences between the Old FR and New FR exist, the way magic is spread, and used in the new setting lends itself very easily to descriptive narrative. I would say your best bet is to use magic as the narrative tool it is meant to be, accent this and it will certainly highlight a difference between the settings. A ritual casting can easily be the focus of an evening of gaming involving everyone in the party, where as before it was something noncasters would just ooh and ahh over give you the look of move it along, and gloss over it. This in my mind is one of the biggest differences, and I think it is a fantastic change because it makes the Realms more magical than before, without creating an imbalance in the rule set.
Thanks Kerym. I like ritual casting and minions the most from the new edition. I wondered how the ritual casting works in practice and the insight they are more like a party story effort now is really apealling for me. I am abit bugged by their costs though, making the components a bit too expensive.
Like many things in 4th edition I take the component costs more as a guideline than a hard and fast rule. This is much like treasure parcels. Costs and treasure guidelines are really there to offer a baseline until people are comfortable enough with the system to improvise.
At my table Ritual cost is really how much the components cost. Now the cost does not need to be in gold, or even necessarily items worth that much. I use it as a guideline for determining the difficulty of obtaining components, or even quests that needed to be accomplished to cast it. It does not really say anywhere that the components need to be physical in nature. In fact having to undergo purification could easily be a component of the Ritual. Also Residuum in spite of not liking the name is much more than just some lump of magic. It can easily be a golden apple that grows next to a pond in the Feywild, the feather of a Boar in the Shadowfell, water from a pure mountain stream, all of these can easily be Residuum, and can easily be components for a Ritual. Can they easily have a GP equivalence, yes all it requires is that the DM is flexible with the apportionment of wealth in his game.
If the players see a Ritual as a story instead of just a means to an end then they are beginning to really understand the magic system in 4th edition. Rituals are not instant gratification, they are not undertaken lightly, they are not an auto win, they are what you do when no other option is available and only the powers of magic can succeed in a task. Some of the lesser Rituals are more common, easier to acquire components for, less mysterious, but the higher in level you go the greater the reach of the Ritual, hence its rising cost. Determining how that cost is fulfilled is an interactive discussion between the DM and the players, and if done right it will only enhance your game, add stories to it, fill in holes in plots, make down times interesting. I hope this helps a bit. It is just one way of doing it, but so far it has worked for me, maybe it will work for you.
Well, you're certainly one of the more, though not the most, surreal people I've ever conversed with...
Eh. Sorry. Watched Billy Madison last night and my Retard-o-Meter went up two points.
Not much, but that’s all it really takes with me.
I have removed content from this thread because masking is a violation of the Code of Conduct. You can review the Code of Conduct here: http://forums.gleemax.com/community_coc.php
Thank you!! My first ORC! I love you ORC!
Though, I’ve read the rules and I don’t understand why I get harassed for Rule 3 when Rule 5 has been completely exploited around here.
But I submit. :surrender
Magic is just different. In the 4th edition ruleset Rituals are where the really powerful effects come in....
You know, I was doing stuff like that in 3e….
My agreement is with Stig. Rituals were already in place with 3e. They were simply never expanded upon as they should have been.
Rituals are nothing more than a form of high magic, as far as I can see.
You know, I was doing stuff like that in 3e, so while I applaud the move and the idea behind it, its not enough to make me say we're better off for it. Of course Mage: the Ascension shaped a lot of my views on the way magic should work, so I've never let myself be limited by the limitations of the old school Vancian system. Thankfully, I'm generally the DM, so that helps a lot too.
Well you see my views were also molded by Mage: the Ascension, and while I strived to get the same things across it took more effort to force it on a system that was less than optimal for it. Instead I stuck with Earthdawn, WoD, and NWoD, where it is built in. When 4th came out I found a D&D edition that naturally supported the kind of play I enjoyed. In other words the kind of stuff I described has become almost the expected baseline, the system is built for it, making my job as a DM easier. I am not bashing 3rd just saying that it did not suit my needs, and I don't think that it encouraged the kind of play I described. This carried into the settings, hence my opinion to this being a major difference.
I'll definitely agree with you that it wasn't well suited to that style of magic, and required a lot of handwaving and ignoring mechanics, or a rather bothersome revision of mechanics. I went with the handwaving and ignoring myself, but I'll admit that only works well if you have a group capable of seeing it for what it is, not as a way to exploit things. I don't see it working well if you have powergamer or rules-lawyer types, among others, in the game looking for any edge they can.
Agreed. At the time of 3e I did have one power gamer in my group who would have had a field day. I would have had to bust out some Sphere Magic to correct him :D
I would have to say make it whatever level you want for your game. In my Realms for instance I don't want it. It leaves "witch hunts" in the mix. In general "Detect Alignment" spells are just bad for the story, and in general hinder roleplaying in my experience. That said based on the existing Detect spells I would say 8th-12th would probably be reasonable depending on how difficult you want to make things. Hope that helps.
Huh? Witch hunts? I said Detect Spellplague, not Detect Spellscarred.
Huh? Witch hunts? I said Detect Spellplague, not Detect Spellscarred.
Oooopppss!
Sorry about that. It would probably fall into the 6-10 range would be my guess.