Aplus' Ill-Conceived S&W Options

[Aplus]

I'm putting together some house rules with the intent of resurrecting a dead 4E campaign, but under the S&W system. My group had the most off-the-wall characters in that game, so it will be a challenge, but I'm going to take a stab at it anyways. I've begun the draft, and am anxious to share what I've done so far (2 classes), so here it is:

Aplus' S&W House Rules

I am not expecting this to really be of use to anyone here, but if you would take the time to offer any criticism, I would appreciate it. And don't be afraid to speak the truth, I have thick skin.

To give you an idea of the work I have cut out for me, here are the PC races/classes from the original group:

Deva Avenger (wife)
Tiefling Psion (sister)
Goliath Warden (friend)
Half-Orc Monk (brother-in-law)
Dragonborn Sorcerer (cousin)
Human Warlord (friend)
Human Rogue (friend)
Human Barbarian (friend)

Ironically, the 3 people that played humans (the easy ones) won't be involved in this game.

[Aplus]

I updated the sharing settings, in case anyone was having trouble viewing it...

If you couldn't view it before or it asked you to log in to google, please try again and let me know if any issues.

thanks

[Ronin84]

Read the document and just so you know I have been running 4th ed since it came out and I have been running Essentials since October...

Taking a look at the Angelic Avenger I was struck by the fact that really it is just a militant Cleric, as you've written it. Do you need to the rest of the stuff you tacked on?

I would just use the Cleric, give them a weapon of their god, and if you want house rule it that Clerics use Wisdom instead of Strength for their attack bonus.

I came over from 4th ed for the simplicity and I can see what you were trying to emulate but in my opinion keeping it simple is easiest.

Hope that helps! I'll post later on the half-dragon.

[grimstone]

Hey nice work some of the ideas were very interesting. Here's my take on what to do, they are only suggestions tho and you may have an idea that will work in your campaign better.

For the Angelic Avenger I would suggest that they can cast Banishing Undead 1 lvl higher than there current lvl, also maybe slightly higher XP requirements to lvl.

The Half-Dragon looks good, the only thing I might change is that shape change is illusionary, other-wise you will have to change stats and hp and abilities every time they change.

The document ended on the Half-Fiend midway through so i don't know what you intended there.

I saw in the Table of Contents that you had a Half-Orc Monk. Here's a link to a PDF that has both classes plus some more interesting things included. You could easily combine the two together and and try to average some of the stats and abilities. swcompanion.wikidot.com/local--files/odds-ends/wbh

Overall I would say it looks quite nice, and I would think your players would be happy with the classes.

[grimstone]

LoL, beat me to it ronin84.

[Ronin84]

Jan 11, 2011 13:46:56 GMT -6 grimstone said:

LoL, beat me to it ronin84.

Indeed but more feedback is better than less!

[Aplus]

Thanks for the input. Brevity is certainly not one of my strong points when writing RPG stuff.

One thing is that I am writing these with specific characters in mind, and they have LOTS of crap they can do on their character sheets. The races alone in 4E give more options/powers than a 0E character has, and thats before you even get to choosing a class!

I really had a personal like for some of the flavor that went along with the 4E avenger. The no-armor wearing, two-handed sword wielding, "I kick ass for THE LORD!" type just really appeals to me. You may notice that this version has some elements lifted from the Rules Cyclopedia avenger as well.

There I go again, blathering on and on.

The Half-Fiend is going to be a challenge. I need to model this thing after my sister's tiefling psion. A tiefling on it's own is no big deal, but psionics throws a wrench into the whole thing. As it stands right now, I'm thinking of making the Half-Fiend sort of a roguish Fighting-Man, and then maybe for my sister's character, I can just use DM fiat and say she made the rolls that would grant psionic abilities as per the supplements (I'd probably use Corcosa's psionics as the model, if not outright lifting the whole thing).

But yes, I'll try to go back and trim some of the fat.

This was actually a pretty fun exercise. Are there any others you'd like to see? If so, I could try my hand at them. 4E has a ludicrous number of race/class options.

[tombowings]

I agree, the divine assassin is something that the cleric has a hard time modeling (well, that's what I think of the avenger, anyway).

[ravenheart87]

Resurrecting 4e campaign in S&W? Interesting, just like your party. I'm surprised that you're going with the race-as-class route, mixing both the original race and the class into an archetype, although it's easier and quicker, than creating both new races and classes.

If I had to do the same, I would do the following:

1, Get S&W Complete or S&W Companion. Lot's of extra useful stuff and options.

2, Create the races! Devas are already done for me, they are a bit like the Thuleans in my campaign. The others would take a few hours spent in a dark pub, drinking beer and talking with my players about it.

3, Create the classes! Same as above: pub, players, beer.
-Avenger is an Assassin with some Cleric or Paladin abilities, and without disguise, poison use, some thief skills.
-Warden is a Ranger with higher HD, and without favored enemies, heavy armour, arcane spells. Maybe he can get Druid spells a bit earlier...
-Sorcerer is a Magic User who learns new spells at level up, but only enough to fill his spell slots. He can't learn any new spells from scrolls or books. Heck, maybe he's an illiterate savage!
-Monk is already included in S&W Complete or the print version of S&W Core.

Still, your classes are well done. You're also lucky, because the classes chosen fit their races like a glove - the only exception is the Half-orc Monk, I can't wait to see how you solve that one. Hmm, maybe he's a martial artist snow ape?

[Aplus]

Jan 18, 2011 17:17:30 GMT -6 ravenheart87 said:

Resurrecting 4e campaign in S&W? Interesting, just like your party. I'm surprised that you're going with the race-as-class route, mixing both the original race and the class into an archetype, although it's easier and quicker, than creating both new races and classes.

If I had to do the same, I would do the following:

1, Get S&W Complete or S&W Companion. Lot's of extra useful stuff and options.

2, Create the races! Devas are already done for me, they are a bit like the Thuleans in my campaign. The others would take a few hours spent in a dark pub, drinking beer and talking with my players about it.

3, Create the classes! Same as above: pub, players, beer.
-Avenger is an Assassin with some Cleric or Paladin abilities, and without disguise, poison use, some thief skills.
-Warden is a Ranger with higher HD, and without favored enemies, heavy armour, arcane spells. Maybe he can get Druid spells a bit earlier...
-Sorcerer is a Magic User who learns new spells at level up, but only enough to fill his spell slots. He can't learn any new spells from scrolls or books. Heck, maybe he's an illiterate savage!
-Monk is already included in S&W Complete or the print version of S&W Core.

Still, your classes are well done. You're also lucky, because the classes chosen fit their races like a glove - the only exception is the Half-orc Monk, I can't wait to see how you solve that one. Hmm, maybe he's a martial artist snow ape?

Thanks for your comments. I have the White Box Heroes doc, which is very nearly the same thing as the S&W companion, so I've been looking to that for inspiration.

As far as the races as classes, I did that for two reasons. First, of course, because it's simpler to develop and maintain some semblance of balance than trying to engineer AD&D-style race/class and trying to get it to mesh with the 6 basic options included in white box. Secondly, is because I do not want to introduce any new options to the players. Each player would be forced to choose between playing their same character they had in the game before, or they could alternatively choose one of the standard White Box options. Not even Thief would be allowed. Thus, the guy who was playing the Goliath Warden would not be able to decide he wanted to switch to playing a Tiefling Sorcerer, or any other weird permutation.

And yes, at a glance, the Half-Orc Monk seemed like it might be the easiest, since White Box Heroes has a Half-Orc, and it has a Monk. But in reading them, the two don't seem to mesh well to me. So I am brainstorming a concept (again, with a specific character in mind), Tentatively called... dammit, I still can't think of a good name. The character in our campaign was the product of unsavory acts, and ended up being shunned by both humans and orcs, and ended up being taken in by an isolated monastery of the Raven Queen. Flavor-wise, he is more assassin than monk, and I believe he even had a multi-class assassin feat, so I think I will focus on that aspect. Once complete, I suspect it will barely be recognized as a half-orc or a monk.

Hopefully I can dedicate some more time to getting this completed soon!

[ravenheart87]

I see, so these classes are to bridge the gap between 4e's extremely overspecialized classes and 0e's more general classes. So, the half-orc is basically some kind of monstrous ninja? Sounds cool.